what are you impressed with?

I posted this on my mommies' forum so it's a little detached in the sense that you guys already know some of this but I wanted to get my words out and once they are out, they are out so I just copied it:

For those of you that don't know me as well (and that's a lot of you I'm sure), I just started going to school. Originally, I figured I'd go and take one or two classes at a time and get my MA certificate as time allowed, not really with any kind of end goal in mind. But when I went for my orientation last month, I found out I was actually going to have to take a significant amount of classes as the program does not allow "part time" students. So here I am, a full time mom, a full time wife, and a full time student (not to mention a part time worker when the occasional job finds its way) and even though three weeks into classes I am having a little trouble balancing it all, I'm pretty impressed with myself. And I don't even mind saying so. I'm toughing it out on all fronts and though I've faltered a little (probably on all fronts there, too) I can honestly say I'm doing better than I expected myself to do. And that means a lot. I'm sure it means a lot to my husband. Eventually it will mean a lot to my son, when he's old enough to appreciate what I went through to give him a better life. But it means a lot to me. Because when we become moms, we have to give up so much of who we are. We give up our interests to elmo, lightning mcqueen, and dora. We give up our identity--I can honestly say at this point in my life, more people I know, know my son's name than know mine. We give up our hobbies as finger painting, play doh and potty training replace sewing, scrapbooking and reading. And we often don't even look back other than the occasional "before I had kids, I used to..." We replace our identities as women with our identities as moms. And we're more than happy to accept such a rewarding change.

Even though, in the end, I went back to school for my family--to earn a better life and to be able to give my son the education I'd like him to receive--I really went back for me. And it feels so good to know that I did something that I really wanted to do, that nobody else told me I should do or had to do or needed to do--but I wanted this for myself. And now I'm doing it, and I'm doing it well. And even though I miss my naps, and the laundry isn't all the way caught up, and the kitchen floor could have used a mopping a good 5 days ago, I'm balancing it all pretty well. I'm beyond proud of my current 4.0 and I can't even describe to you how impressed I am that I even went through with it. That I knew it would be tough, and I knew it would take the life out of me, and I knew it meant giving up a few precious moments of freedom in my day, and I did it anyway. Because I could. Because I wanted to.



So all that to say, what have you done lately for YOU, that you've impressed yourself?? What did you do that you thought you couldn't or thought you couldn't handle, and you stuck your neck out there, and you achieved it anyway? What have you done to feel like super mom/wife/you today?