A couple of hours a day, a few days a week—this is the amount of time my enrollment counselor assured me was all it would take out of my hectic day. Going back to school was never going to get any easier than this.

The first few classes were that; well, ok…not a couple of hours a day—more like a few hours a day, several days a week—but still I managed to get my school work done, my work-work done, and my share of the house work done. Granted, our house is not the tidiest place but it is clean, the laundry is done, the yard is kept (what yard there is), the dog is walked and the kitties are (well, ok, cats don’t really need much, do they?).

I am within 12 days of my half-way milestone. I accomplished this by pushing myself to work on assignments when my head longed for the pillow and my eyelids stayed open only for sheer lack of energy to fall shut. I missed most of the past two seasons of just about anything interesting I wanted to watch on television except for those shows I was able to capture on TiVo which, for the record, I am about 4 weeks behind on. I have been to the movies once in the past two years, and have taken a weekend off from school only twice—both times cramming the assignments into the previous few days and both times due to a medical need to be away from my computer.

I am so proud of myself for getting this far and more so that I intend to keep pushing myself through the next 2 years toward my Bachelor degree.

A couple of hours a day, a few days a week—as Dora (from Finding Nemo) says: “just keep swimming…just keep swimming…just keep swimming….”