Made out of Awesome

I'm borrowing Tamara's expression again - I am, today, made out of awesome!

Not only have I lost 62lbs since April of this year - today I rode my bike all the way from my home to our lawyer's office in Midland ON - that is a distance of 10km (or 6.2 miles) - and is WAY beyond the distance I've gone before.

The house is Peterborough is almost ready for occupation - we've cleaned everything, painted the downstairs and most of the attic - there are a couple of bedrooms on the second floor that will be done this week, and other than that, pretty much everything that needs doing is up in my attic, which will be getting all new flooring, and needs a desk and some other furniture.

We have 2 confirmed tenants, 1 unconfirmed, and several more lined up to come and have a look tomorrow and Saturday.

I'm really happy with how it is all going. And still lots of time before school starts back (8 Sept. for me)

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A New Start

Today was a long weekend here in Canada - no good reason for it, really, other than people wanting an extra long weekend - but whatever... it was a pain in my butt because I only have until Wednesday to come up with a mortgage for the house and everything was closed.

But since I couldn't do that, I worked on my major research paper instead, and managed to get that sent off for review.

And now that that's done, will be able to devote tomorrow to figuring out the mortgage stuff without the pit of anxiety in my gut about the paper.

It feels good to get something accomplished - and I am hopeful that tomorrow the whole darn mortgage thing is going to get sorted out too. I am meant to have MY house....and that's all there is to it.

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Deadlines

I work better when I have deadlines - but right now, I think I have a few too many of the darn things!

The biggest one that's looming is that I have to have my major research paper done by the end of the month (sooner would be better). It needs to get to my advisor so that she can read/edit it before August 14, by which date I need a letter saying that I have completed all requirements for my MA degree so that I can be admitted into my Phd program.

More immediately, though, I have committed to read at the Leacock Festival reading on Tuesday night and I really wanted to come up with something new to read! Doesn't seem right to go away for a year to do a master's degree and not have anything new to read - although I do have stories I have never done publicly, so if worse comes to worse .... I might end up taking Stephanie's suggestion and reading "Leaving" - but honestly, I don't know if I could DO that one without choking up. If I don't come up with something new, I'll have to though, won't I? The one thing I will NOT do is a total cop out - I won't read anything that I have done at readings before. Anyway ...we'll see.

I also have several more chapters - and appendices (which no one mentioned) to proofread - and those are all due back to the copy-editor by the 27th. That one is not too onerous though - it's a job that I can do while we're driving to Peterborough and back to look for houses.

The buying a house thing is huge, of course .... especially given that the city we're supposed to be buying a house in is 2.5 hours from home - it does get complicated! We're doing our second round of showings this afternoon, and there is one house that Ross is really, really enthusiastic about - so hopefully it will be perfect and we can just go ahead and make an offer on it while we're there today. Wouldn't that be nice! Won't likely happen that way, but I can dream.

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Working Outside

I've pretty much made my deck my new office this week.... got everything set up just right - my laptop is on its stand on a chair in front of my chair; a table to the right for the mouse and my ashtray and drink (I'm drinking a lot of flavoured water these days) and another chair to the left has my stack of books and so on...

Scrooge spends most of the day out here with me, either lying on the deck, or wandering out to the other deck to sunbathe. There are hummingbirds too, that come to the feeder on and off all day, often sitting on the clothesline between dips into the feeder.

It would be nice to have the summer off and not have so many papers to write and so much work to do - but since THAT isn't happening, this is about the next best thing.

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Making Progress

.... somewhat, anyway.

Today I managed to get all of the details stuff that's been hanging over my head done - taxes, travel forms & receipts, all that ~fun~ stuff that I suck so bad at.

Still haven't made much when it comes to my essays ... we ended up going to Toronto twice this week, which ate up a lot of time.

Hubby has a job for tomorrow though, so hopefully while he's gone, I'll manage to get some work done on the major research paper. No, I WILL get some work done on the MRP. And on the short story. And THEN I can spend some time on the other 2 papers I need to do ...although the Mavis Gallant piece is actually pretty far along already, considering that I don't yet have the copies I ordered.

I was able to order in some of Gallant's short story collections from the local public library; also picked up one of the PK Page books I don't have... so at least I have those to work from. Really need a copy of Page's Brazilian Journals, though - I have copies of her handwritten manuscripts, which I have been working on transcribing, but I am hoping the book will help me out with some of the bits I'm not sure of. One of the joys of archival work - trying to make out people's handwriting!

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