I’m sure you all can guess why my words have not darkened the door of this here blog. I’m basically spending every waking moment reading (not yet writing). Every day this week, I’ve gotten up at 6:00, read until 7:30 with kids running around eating cereal and getting dressed. Then I go to work where I have a two-page to-do list. I’ve gotten through half a page. I know this isn’t the recommended way of doing things in GTD, but I’m in a sprint to the finish. So I wrote down every loose end I could think of. When people come into my office and ask for something, I say, “I’ll put it on my list” and they watch me, rather wide-eyed, add it to the end of my list. It will all get done. Some of the things are small things. Some bigger. But it will get done.

When I get home from work, I make dinner with whatever we have available. Last night, we ate pancakes. Mr. Geeky’s been sick and I don’t want to take the time to go to the grocery store. Also, I’ve developed a case of TMD. So I’m trying to eat soft foods. Fun all the way around.

After dinner, I spend a little bit of time watching Harry Potter with the kids. We’ve been going through all four movies over the last few days. Then I start working. Monday, I went to *$. Tuesday and Wednesday, I stayed here. Tonight I’ll head back to *$. My goal is to get the first section of this chapter written, which I estimate will be about 10-12 pages. I have two articles left to read before beginning the writing, so it’s unlikely that will happen tonight but it will certainly happen this weekend. I’m taking Friday off, but will work Saturday and Sunday and continue the routine through next week. My hope is that I can be finished by next Sunday, but I have another week after that as a buffer. It’s so close.

I’m pushing myself both because I’m past my initial deadline I set for myself and because I really want a true vacation over Christmas. I’m looking forward to baking cookies, watching movies, playing games, drinking hot cocoa, and just hanging out. I don’t want to be thinking about the dissertation at all. I can come back to it refreshed, ready to dig into revisions.