I've been 50% spaceman for half a year now. Half a year in which I have not taught any classes. Half a year in which we had two major surgeries for little Miss.
Have I written any books? Sort of - I have brought the poetry book to the point of publishing, and am now waiting on my graphic designer to make a good-looking publishing logo. I also cranked out a long-overdue chapter for a science reference book (haven't heard from the editors yet...) and just today sent out a journal article that has haunted me for about 22mos.
Have I finished the house? Ha. No. But I have done many things to the house, like finishing the plumbing in the master. After Mrs. changed her mind on where it should go.
Have we successfully gardened? Sort of. The corn was a hoot. We got about 3 good ears, and half a dozen scrawny ones. The beans never came up. The squash failed in the heat. The watermelons did OK.
Have we accomplished any of our goals? Yes. Though really not by dint of our effort. We are now mortgage-free. A timely inheritance pushed us across the finish line, and now our monthly expenses are much reduced. Let me tell you, there's nothing quite as anticlimactic as taking a large chunk of money and making it disappear against a loan. But it's pretty awesome to just live in our house. Now we will just stay out of debt, Lord willing.
Have we learned anything? I hope so. I've gotten to do a good bit of studying for teaching the college kids, and am working up an adult class for the new year. We have also learned that little Miss does not thermally regulate in the summer. CP messes with the parts of your brain that control sweating, I guess. So she just bakes. She also gets dried out like nobody's business, especially now that it's "cold" here. We just live in a very, very, very dry state, which is hot a lot of the time. We're not sure if we have to move to cooler weather. That would make a pretty funny joke on us.
