a saga of imperfect timing
I captured a shot of this guy while on a recent trip to our local butterfly gardens - I love its eye.
In April my PhD funding was scheduled to officially end. My awesome supervisor had scrounged extra money for a few more months, to the end of the summer at most. But, I was suffering from financial angst, i.e. a fear of being unpaid which would quickly become a problem. I'm progressing on my dissertation, its mostly just writing now. Most of my first draft is done, but I expect to be revising for quite some time. I knew I was very unlikely to finish before my funding ran out. The best case scenario I could come up with would have me finish early fall. Timing that just didn’t match my funding.
To abate my financial angst, I started dabbling in freelance writing, actually found a few paying gigs (I discovered a secret talent for creating logic puzzles). It was an interesting experience, but there was no way I could earn 'enough' doing it in the short term.
I planned a massive garden as groceries cost. We turned most of what was left of the front lawn into food garden - effectively doubling the annual veggie beds at the house. Plus, there was my parent's garden to plant and I signed up for an allotment with some friends. Because I wasn't busy enough, when I came up with an idea for a novel last summer I decided to start writing. It's a science fiction who-done-it with lots of plants (and butterflies), and writing it has been a fun diversion from dull academic writing. And, my busy three-and-a-half year old deserves plenty of my time.
In the midst of everything, a job in my field came up. I got it and with rather short notice started in April. It's a perfect fit for my skill set and has removed my financial angst and much of my free time. It's all good - however, adding full time work onto my already full plate left me overwhelmed. I had to let some things go (unfortunately this blog was an early casualty). I dialed back my garden plans, backed out of sharing an allotment, and gave my chickens to a friend with a farm (a literal farm, not a figurative one). I stopped freelance writing and cleaned up many of the 'experiments' I was running around the house.
I've managed to keep puttering on my dissertation. I no longer have to be in a rush, hopefully I'll be done in a year. Surprisingly, I've finished a first draft of my novel and am puttering away on the second. It turns out, for me writing fiction is a nice late evening task. I like my story and am planning on self-publishing it, maybe late fall.
The garden is looking organized, beds are dug over, sprinklers on timers are set up and plenty of things are planted. I lost a few pepper plants due to not re-potting them in time, so I just bought replacements. With my husband's help we are in good shape to finish planting in the garden. Plus, we've created a small plot for my daughter which she has chosen to fill with strawberries and flowers. I’ll try to keep posting updates here, but I don’t promise to be regular for a while.