300 Days Later

Here's the 300 day update to my 500 day goals. (Um, more than halfway there already? Really? Yikes! I guess the good news is that I made progress on a lot of these in the last 100 days. The bad news is that I still don't have a job.)

1. Have two happy kids. (Done!)

2. Finish my PhD. (Done!)

3. Own a new (bigger) house. (Gotta get a job first.)

4. Work in a job that I enjoy. (Not yet. But I have gone on several interviews, so that's a start. The sucky part is that unemployment is still up, so employers are being super picky and taking their sweet time with interviewing. Uggghhhh. One example: I applied for one particular job, for which I am a perfect fit, in late April. They contacted me in mid-June and had me come in for a first-round interview. For the next month, they repeatedly called me with more questions and asked me to send them detailed information by email. In mid-July, they finally asked for references and set up a second-round interview for early August. That interview went well, and now they want me to come in for a third (and I hope final) full-day of interviews for the end of August. I should have an answer by mid-September, a full five months after applying for the job.)

5. Bring both kids to visit my parents at least once. (Done!)

6. Bring both kids to visit my in-laws at least once. (Done!)

7. Pay off all debt except the mortgage. (Working on it. One of my remaining undergrad loans is still in deferment from grad school, so I'm not working on it too hard, though.)

8. Lose all pregnancy and fertility treatment weight from both pregnancies. (That would be 22 pounds below pre-pregnancy weight with Kermit. Right now, this means that I still need to lose 15 pounds. I've been making some effort on this one lately, and I've lost 6 pounds in the last 100 days. At this rate, I won't quite make it, so I need to step this up a bit more. In theory, 15 pounds in 6 months should be easily doable if I just focus a bit more.)

9. Breast feed Kermit for one year. (Only made it 5 months, two less than with LL. Depressing.)

10. Cook dinner at home 5 days each week. (I'm totally rocking this one! I'm not positive that I'll be able to keep it up if/when I go back to work, but I've been hitting this goal regularly for several weeks now.)

11. Read 10 fiction books. (I read a book! I read a book! It was one that I'd already read several years ago, and I only picked it up because S left it sitting on an end table by accident, but still, it's better than nothing.)

12. Learn javascript. (I decided to change this one. I'm learning Objective-C instead. Why? Because if I know Objective-C, I can write iPhone apps. Fun, right? I've been spending a little time during each of Kermit's naps working my way through a tutorial, and I've written a few (extremely silly and easy) iPhone apps, just to play around. I have a few ideas for apps that I totally want that don't seem to exist, so as soon as I build up a little more confidence with the language, I'm going to start working on those. I might even earn a few bucks. S seems to think that my app ideas are really cool and if I work on them maybe they'll sell really well and then I won't have to find a job. Which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh.) (Seriously, that is never going to happen.)

13. Learn perl. (I can really only focus on learning one language at a time.)

14. Have permanent assigned "homes" for most objects in the house. (I've actually made some progress on this one, too! Mostly through selling some stuff on craigslist and donating some stuff to Goodwill. But this one really isn't going to be done until we've moved into a bigger house.)

15. Update work wardrobe. (I'll start working on this once I've lost a little more weight, and am any closer to actually having the "work" part of "work wardrobe.")

16. Shower every day. (Sadly, no progress on this one. Ugh.)

17. Wear makeup every work day. (Definitely not happening right now. Though I have managed to put on makeup for interviews, so I've met that extremely low bar.)

Having a job should help me to make progress on more of these, so hopefully the next 100 days will see a bit more accomplished. Though, I think I've said that at every single one of my updates....