Full-time: Mom, Business Owner And Student

nrtoday.com:

Kristi Woods’ 9-year-old son sat quietly for a photo Thursday afternoon, but once it was done he was off.

“Can I go play football now, Mom?” Tyler Degraffenreed asked, already halfway out the door to meet friends waiting outside.

Weekdays at Woods’ apartment are a flurry of activity between her fourth-grader and her house-cleaning business.

And in two weeks the level of hectic will move a notch higher.

The 28-year-old will be heading off to class beginning Sept. 29 in the mornings, too, pursuing an associate degree in civil engineering at Umpqua Community College.

“It’s a mad rush to get my son ready for school, get myself ready, get to class, get to work and then finding time to study, too,” Woods said.

Woods took a stab at the paramedics program at UCC about four years ago, but it didn’t work out. Then cleaning houses became her full-time business two years ago.

But the economic slowdown hit her business, too. When her mother, Toni Woods, mentioned civil engineering she looked into it, and it fit.

After high school, Woods said she had “very much intended to go to college.”

But a marriage, a baby, then a divorce and Woods’ determination to not place Tyler in day care made the search for that niche a little more challenging.

Part-time jobs and her parents help make things a bit easier, and cleaning houses offered an easier way for Woods to keep Tyler with her.

“He loved cleaning windows — that was his thing,” she said, but added the tasks that entertained Tyler when he was 3 didn’t capture his attention as much at 9.