I think I've figured it out. . .

I am finally feeling like I'm "caught up" and, amazingly enough, I've almost finished my task list for the week. (It flowed onto a third page, so that's a real accomplishment!) Of course, I haven't had posting to my blog on my list, so you can tell it isn't even a complete list.

My Stats prof gave us a guideline yesterday that our homework shouldn't take more than 6 hours/week. I'm not sure if that includes the reading time or not, but using that guideline, I'm looking at 28 hours of class-related time (9 hours of academic courses + 18 hours of homework + 1 hour of seminar) each week, + 20 hours per week for my TA responsibilities, + essentially 10 hours per week of driving, and somewhere in there I ought to fit in a few hours of reading and working on long-term projects (say 5 hours/week?). I'm on campus from 8-3:30 most days. I stay late (until almost 9:30-long day!) on Wednesdays and leave early (2:15 or so) on Fridays. It looks like that means I'll need to set aside another 10-15 hours per week to work at home. That would be challenging (impossible?) to do without James's support. I'm so fortunate to have him standing beside me (except when he's out running kids around, working to support our family because we sure couldn't make it on what I make as a grad student!, picking beans and tending the garden, cooking dinner, or any of the other gazillion things he's doing to keep us all fed, clothed, housed & happily involved in life!). With James's support, and the realization of what needs to be scheduled, I think I may actually be able to make it without going into "survival mode".

Of course, James may just be throwing those boxes of papers away come November. I made a promise that I'd go through all my old classroom & memorabilia files by November or he could just take them out to the recycling/trash. I'm not sure how I let all my free time get away from me earlier this year, but it's going to be a trick to squeeze that project in on top of the schedule I described above. Oh well. This is part of that "simplifying life" game we play. (Is that possible when I just added grad school, or even more essential???)

James and Samuel picked and snapped and put in the freezer two more gallon-sized bags of beans from our harvest last night. I didn't get a picture of the sink before they started, but when I got home one sink was full to the top with beans, and James wasn't finished picking at that point! We also enjoyed beans in our steamed vegetables for dinner. James picked up several types of squash and fresh corn at the produce stand on his way home, then picked beans and tomatoes fresh from our garden. Simple food, but so very good!!!

Well, it's almost 7, and I've got to get out the door to school. Have a great day!