Sunday Afternoon

Over the past week and a half I have written about 75 pages of material for a consulting job I'm doing, which constitutes half the job. Tomorrow my colleague and I begin the second half, which should be about the same amount of writing. The second half follows the format of the first half so I hope it'll go more quickly since I now have a template to follow. I have exactly a week to get it done, on top of grading eleven 20-page papers and oh, squeezing in a short trip to Ann Arbor.

I have been so busy, working every spare minute on this thing. When it ends, I'll then have to devote all of my energy to quickly pounding out a grant proposal that is due in mid-July, so I don't anticipate any relief until July 15.  Then I have 4 papers that I need to write and submit before the semester starts up. One of them is really minor and will be quick, one is medium sized and shouldn't take too long, and two of them are major papers and will hopefully constitute my signature pieces for tenure, if I can get them accepted.  They will take a long time. This is the summer when I should be doing my big push and working 24/7, but the kids don't let me do that, so I guess I will just do the best I can.

There are things I am letting slide because I just can't do it all. Like weeding. And diligent levels of cleaning. And re-staining the deck and the fence and the patio table and chairs. When I have free time, I have to spend it with the kids (or cooking for the kids, or grocery shopping). So I think this summer our house and our yard will just have to be a little scruffy, getting by on what Jake can accomplish. He's got his own stuff going on, so he's busy too.

In order to spend nap times working, I'm now taking the kids with me on my shopping errands and things. Milo seems to like it more than Nora. Nobody likes to be the one left at home. We're also going outside a lot, which both kids love to do. It is so nice to have good weather and be able to go out and do stuff now. When I'm with them, I'm trying to focus on being with them instead of developing a panic attack over everything else in my life. I feel like I am trying to push a giant boulder up a never-ending hill. Every year, as I inch towards tenure, the boulder gets bigger and heavier. I need to remember that this is only going to last another couple of years. It won't last forever.