eek

All I have done today is given myself a sore shoulder and wrist from being online too much organising wedding things!

Oh dear! 

Must.  Work.

Don't want to!  want to moon about my wedding!  This new wedding is infinitely better than the other mahousive 20 grand job.  Am actually excited rather than overwhelmed and scared!

oh dearie, dear.

Sore shoulder!  darned laptop/bad desk/rubbish chair combo.

x J

better today

Am not so glum today.  I offered to stop working in the week to DB and he apologised for being a grump and told me in no way was I to stop working so good.

Also, I have booked our new wedding!  We are getting married in a register office somewhere just beautiful and apparently they are used to having people need witnesses so can help us with that.  excellent!  then we shall go for a champagne lunch in said city and then off to the airport to go on our holiday!  We haven't booked the hoiday yet but I hope to before the day is out.  Is online so easy. 

Exciting times!  I can't believe I have an actual wedding date and am giving my notice to marry in two days and everything.  crackers!  i could put it on the calender!  It's three weeks away!  Oh.  Em.  Geeeeee.

Anyway.  have calm.

Workwise, I realised yesterday that my intro is done as much as it needs to be for now - the shape of it is there and can be filled in with a neat bit of copy and pasting when i have completed the, er, thesis.  Now apparently I should et on with the empirical chapter.  I have, in fact, written 10,000 words of this chapter but am aware that this needs to be trimmed when inf act I want to add to it...  so it may be two chapters but I have yet to work work out how, or why.  So today I am reading what I have written already and hope for a eureka moment.

x J

Post holiday blues

Aw.  I haven't worked since thursday and have a lovely bank holiday and am now struggling.

And I have to try and book a wedding ceremony, a time with my local registrar to give notice to marry, and a holiday that all fit together neatly.  Am bit stressed, mostly because I am waiting for DB to transfer some money to me so I can book the above and then move on and do some work.

Also my internet is playing up.  annoying man.

anyway, am going to spend today writing while faffing on the internet and doing jobs. 

It is really weird for me because today is Tuesday, my normal work day, but because yesterday was a bank holiday it feels like a Monday should do.  but I don't work on Mondays, which normally gives me a nice buffer between the weekend doing family stuff and Tuesday when I am alone to work.  Is harder to sit down that even usual!

I wanted to work on the weekend but DB and I had a massive bust up that resulted in him saying that if I get to work then he gets to go out and go to the gym and stuff.  So no work for me as really wanted the bank hols to be about family.  Wasn't fair of him but I am slowly realising that he really doesn't take my work seriously any more.  Which is fine, it is dragging on and I am basically shit at working.  but it does make it hard for me to be motivated or to find time without support.  Oh well, I am big enough and ugly enough to suck it up.

x J

Apres lunch

Ooh I did some work this morning!  I did, I did and am feeling reet proud of myself.  However, I then went and sat out in the garden for my lunch (cheese pitta and spinach soup if you're asking) and read my book and now am back to square one.

Must. Work.

x J

shhhh

I have to concentrate today!

I did not real work yesterday.  What an arse.  I did do copy and pasting but ended up trimming my word count spectacularly which is mightily depressing.  Oh well, quality not quantity...  bah.

Today I am writing, writing.  It is going to be hard sitting and typing without getting up and doing something else.  I itch to move around!  I may well work tonight if I get some flow going.  I am not allowed to work with 'treats' of any kind, it is a serious day.  Boo.

I am excited too because I have a delicious holiday for us to go on at the end of sept in Greece (never been, would love to go) and have incidentally found out that the local town hall has an availability for a wedding ceremony two horus before our flight leaves...  so we could get wed and then go on honeymoon just like that!  It would be the shortest ceremony ever, it being only me, DB and Bean and we will probably get witnesses from the street.  How funny!  I have the dress and we can get a wedding band easily enough while the proper one is being made (hand made but takes 4-6 weeks) or just use my engagement ring (though would like two rings when we are away so I feel properly married!).  If we want to do it though we have to get on it pretty fast as we have to give notice to marry by the end of next week, which DB will need time off work to do.  eek!  But oooh!  Wedding abroad won't work as our documentation isn't in place.  

Anyway, back to the intro.  Must.  Write.  Lots.

x J 

Ummm

So far I have read a lot of mumsnet, eaten crisps and doughnuts, scanned my chapter and looked on the Guardian website about how lots of mums think Mr Bloom off of 'Mr Bloom's Nursery' is fit.  (toddler tele lol).  I agree that he is fit but am not allowed him on my 'list' because he is an old schoolfriend of DB's brother.  Haha!  Anywho...

I will eat some healthy soup, eat a bun and then  really will do an hour's good work.  Think that is all I can achieve today.

What a hungover twonk.

I am watching (ahem, have on in the background) a horizon programme about how the nine months you spend in the womb affects who you are, how long you will live, what diseases you may be susceptible to...  Oh jeez.  Like there isn't enough pressure on us mums as it is.  harrumph!

x J

x J

bacon butties and crisps

Thank goodness for bacon butties and crispies!  All hail BB and C. 

I am a tad hungover today.  I know!  Again!  Am working in front of the tv with comfort food, but at least I am working and haven't sloped off back to bed.  I was up at 5.45 this morning.  Well, I was woken up by a maniac toddler who decided to fill his nappy then squat on my face.  I am not joking.

Anyway, said toddler is now at the childminders and I, happily, have until 3.30 to work until I need to get him.  Yesterday was a great day of work, is so lovely having that extra time.  I worked really well and thanks to my Sup (I did post about this yesterday but don't think it worked so brief re-cap: I emailed him some silly questions about word lengths for an intro and lit review, and checked the subsections i was going to put into the intro with him.  All is so very well, he was most helpful.) I felt back in control for the first time in sooooo long.  Anyway, yesterday I looked through the intro and could see straight away which parts would be better in the lit review and which would be better in the discussion.  Because I know now what to do.  hurrah hurrah!

DB and I were celebrating our respective successful days at work last night (with red wine.  A whole bottle.  UG) outside at our wee table in our lovely garden and these scallies started coming over the back wall into our garden!  I asked them what they were doing (in a polite pass-the-time-of-day kinda way) and they dropped back over the wall and ran off.  It was scary tho - imagine if we hadn't been outside?  If they got into the garden I don't think they would be able to get out as the back gate is locked and the walls are all over 6ft high :0(  So would they come in the house?  Would I have to let them out?  Lock myself in with bean and call the police I guess but how scary is that?  this house was burgled not long ago too (before we moved in).  The estate agents are dragging their heels about coming to fix our front door lock which I am miffed about.  It sticks so we don't dare use it in case we lock ourselves out.  I reminded Basil at the estate agency about this and he acted like I was being a right pain.  And told him about the stinky drain outside the kitchen and again, I am really trying his patience.  And then I tell him about the boys scaling the back wall and he asked me what they said.  What they said?  Nothing and anyway, what difference does it make estate agent basil?  Are you the po-leese?  No.  I would just like to know if it wouold be possible to put some kind of deterrent up on that there wall.  Again, I am a total pain in the butt.  I told him that they would be stuck in the garden and reminded him that it had been burgled before and he still acted like i was ruining his day.  What an curmudgeonly old twonk.  He really looks down on us, I don't like him one jot.  If I was a lawyer though, oooooh he would run around after me like a right sycophantic numpty.  Maybe when I am a doctor eh...  that'll stir him up!  He is such a snob.

Oooh I went to the charity shop earlier as I was just passing and they had a sale on kiddies books so I was in total heaven.  bean can't get enough of books!  and i got him a peppa pig rocket thing that he will completely squeal with joy over.  Then they charged me 19 squids for £11 of stuff!  hehe silly charity shop.  very expensive!  I feel tight about it but am going back for my refund later.  I mean, £8 is quite a mistake and we go to charity shops for bargains don't we?  I do feel bad though.

Work!  Today I am editing the intro still, and aiming to write as much as possible re: chapter outlines and methodology.  I shall be accompanied by jam doughnuts and another packet of crisps.  Ooooh I am bad.  I lost 2lbs over the last couple of weeks too by being sensible.  I want to lose a bit for my up and coming nuptials.  Oh I have found my wedding dress!  It is all scrunched up at the back of my wardrobe ;0)  No, it really is.  It is a dress that I got for £20 about four years ago, and wore to a wedding and everyone was most charming about how lovely it was and it is DB's fave.  So I tried it on and it fits (hurrah!) and looks reet nice so think I shall just wear that.  I told DB and he said he would love me to wear it so there we are (not a very secretive wedding hehe).  He won't wear a suit but will be smart casual.  The dress is ace as is most flattering and would be brilliant for a wedding or just to wear to the beach - which is exactly what I am looking for. 

work!

x J

PS I love endnote.  I love it!  I should have been using it from the start, I really should. 

Nice clear info on what the chuff a PhD thesis is meant to look like...

How to Organize your Thesis

Prof. John W. Chinneck
Dept. of Systems and Computer Engineering
Carleton University
Ottawa, Canada

http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

Is really clear and concise and helping me know what examiners want from my thesis!  It only just occured to me that I am not entirely sure what my audience (hehe) want, so how should I write?! 

x J

Suppetty Sup Sup

Arf I have been in turmoil but my mind is now at some kind of rest...

I emailed the work I did yesterday - the intro/PhD synopsis - to my Sup.  I am quite needy at the moment as I have no confidence in my ideas and just needed to hear that I was on an ok track.  I just got a reply and he has rejigged the structure (god I wish I could write without sounding like a drunk on a rant) for me but likes the ideas and said it is ready to be pinned onto my wall as My Structure.  Hurrah!  That's all he said, no compliments but I don't really mind - he isn't the complimenting type to be honest although of course something would have been nice.  Although to be fair the ideas aren't any different than I have been working on for the last few years, I have simply joined the dots and worked out the thesis that they all eventuially create.  Anyway, if it is a shit PhD at least it is a PhD!  Hehe.

So that is done, I shall print it out and use it to remember what the chuff I am on about.

My baby is napping and I am bored and anxious so I decided to come up and try and write some more of my intro.  Am kind of keen to try and write 350 words a day, then I am contributing to the december deadline even if only in a small way each day.  If I can't then obviously that is ok, but just plodding on is best.  If I don't sit in front of it for a couple of days I start to get the Fear again so it is best just to try and tame it slowly but surely ;0)

Am going to write out why it is original today as that bit is easy, and will try and do where it fits into the literature and start outlining the methodology.  Obviously it depends on when the Bean wakes up!  I can at least scribble down my key authors and theoretical influences.  Just sketching at the moment but words are words :0))))

x J 

Working working working :0)

Ah I feel so GOOD! 

Yesterday I worked for about 3/4 hours, wrote 300 new words on what has turned out to be a, ahem, neat little introduction with a first para that states concisely what the PhD is about.  Hehe!  After deciding to write freely I end up writing the bloody synopsis anyway ;0)  Anyway, it is there and I am just about to check it and see if it gabbles or strays or tries to say too much in any one sentence.  In fact, I think I will make those three things a checklist to look out for all the time!

I have also found a memory stick that I can use solely for the PhD from now on.  I have old sticks with old PhD copies on it (well, up to now) but want to have a cleaner one so I can find my work easily without scrolling through loads of folders.  Then I shall hide this one and start a new one - keep all the work distinct so I have old copies just in case.  I shall get another stick maybe and have that as a backup backup stick...  Cannot be too careful!

I have my endnote shortcuts 'poster' on the wall for easy referencing... 

Today I was allowed to sleep in (DB did yesterday) and I shall work until 12pm, then I am free.  My aim is to write 2500 words a week, which roughly translates as 350 a day, so as long as I meet that today I shall be on my way to being able to have my new baby :0)  That is on my mind every day now so it is a fantastic incentive.  Yesterday I wrote the first 400 odd words of the PhD - an intro para which states clearly what the research is doing, and then it is fleshed out (but still ridiculously reduced and concise) over the remaining 400 words.  I think keeping that initial intro under 500 words is a good idea...  And now I have to flesh it out again, to explain my flow chart of thinking:  where it fits into the current debates and literature, how it is original, the research question (sub title or heading?), the methodology and theoretical influences and then an outline of each chapter and the conclusion.  This is all I know for now that would be good in the intro and can get on with today.  I know that the intro should be written as if that is *all* the examiner is going to read (my sup assured me that in many cases it *will* be all they read along with the conclusion!  They skim reaad the other chapters!).  If they can get a fab understanding of the research from this chapter then reading the rest is just colouring in, and it also gives an amazing first impression. 

I am not fussed about order or neatness at the mo, as long as it is written down then all I have to do is edit and copy and paste to move it all around.  Words are what is important at the mo.  I hope to get about 500 words down today which would be ace.

Tomorrow I am not sure if I will get any work done, but Tuesday I am going to go to Uni and look at a couple of theses in my field and see how they wrote theirs:  formatting, appendices, how long the intros are, how they introduce and write the lit review bla bla bla.  I feel a little bit like I am writing in the dark at the mo.  My baby will be in with the childminder until 4pm.  I don't think he will cope very well with this and feel bloody awful about it, but I don't feel that I have any choice :0(  I have to have more time to work, at least until December, and then when the first draft is done maybe I can work more in the evenings and won't need long chunks of time as much as I do now when I am trying to write and get a flow...  I dunno, I feel awful but it has to be so for a while.  Harrumph.

Anyway, in conclusion in general I feel fabulous and in control and like I am doing it.  I hope I can make it last!

x J

Good news and new goals

Good news on the (cancelled) wedding front!

Our caterers have been charm personified and are even returning our deposit :0)  all sorted then, and the marquee peeps were cool too.  Just the venue being super proud, defensive twonks.  We are pretty sure (although i change my mind on a daily basis) that we are going to get married when we go on holiday somewhere hot in europe, at the end of September.  Just a package tour operator job, nothing fancy but still we will get a wee posy for me, a buttonhole for him and can get married somewhere scenic, which considering we were happy for the local town hall will be a pretty jolly affair for us :0)  Then we can sit back with cocktails and our candelit dinner for two (plus toddler hehe) and congratulate ourselves...

Workwise (ahem, rather a tangent there) I have realised I have to write 10,000 words a month until the end of december to get my first draft written.  This equates to 2,500 a week.  I think this makes the work easier to cope with - as long as I stick to meeting that word count then I am building up the thesis and will have 90,000 words come christmas.  Then I can make plans to have another baby.  I am telling myself (however naively) that this stage from now until christmas is going to be the worst.  Getting the first tidy draft done must be the hardest bit?  Then I am just editing and tweaking and formatting yes?  So I just get my head down now and grit my teeth until xmas then let loose for a couple of weeks before coming back to it and editing hard for three months, for the final hand-in in march.  That's my plan anyway.

Am now NOT going to start wedding hunting and daydreaming about soft, warm sandy beaches and moussaka, but instead am going to start tackling next weeks 2,500 words... 

UG

x J

Ho and Hum

Well...  I learnt about endnote.  As much as I can before actually using it on the job.

I ordered birthday cards for my peeps (big weight off my mind).

I did internet shopping - for the first time and it is pretty cool.  I have been really stressed about having to go and do a big shop with Bean in his pushchair as he hates shopping!  And we have no cupboard food, no detergent etc so cannot keep going and spending all my money at the local coop, so a superstore visit is in order.  DB normally does the shopping but not he has a full time job this is not possible as he doesn't get in till gone 6 and it isn't really fair.  Long day for him.  So I thought hang on!  I can do it online!  And I have, and it wasn't more expensive, and it was quicker and will be delivered tomorrow morning.  Hurrah for that.  Not having any food in is such a pain!  Especially with a wean as obviously he has to be fed - can't just get a takeaway lol.

And I have started revising my 'synopsis' and turning it into a proper piece of work.  I honestly think that a combination of needing to be less wordy anyway and my last piece of 'proper' work being for a conference I did about 18 months ago led me to think that I needed to be ultra concise, and it is hard to write that way.  Much easier just to blurt on.  Just trying to write it out as a proper piece of work has felt more natural and like I am actually back to work again.  I know - for the first time since I had the Bean.  Scary isn't it, that was many moons ago.  Anyway, I would say it has taken 'this long' but also say that doing a PhD is always a process of ups and downs and learning about yourself and facing adversity...  and overcoming these challenges and hopefully, hopefully, I am finally on my way.  I would love to have a few thousand words down.  As a 'synopsis' this intro is already 1000 words so with more detail, explanation and thorough referecncing (ug I have been so lazy so far) it should turn into something I can send to my Sup.  Even if it is not strictly for the intro, but ends up being a mix of intro and lit review it is at least writing.  You can't edit nothing.

So I feel bad I haven't worked more, but pleased I have sorted out my little jobs ad got some headspace.  And am feeling happier so can be a better mama.

Am going to ask the childminder if she can start looking after him until 4pm from, well, tomorrow I hope.  I need the extra time and it would be good for Bean I think as I am *rubbish* with him between 3-6 as I just cannot concentrate on him - my mind is on work and how little I got done, I can't cope with his demands for attention and am just not much fun.  He will get good lovin' with the childminder while I get some blinkin work done.  I was going to have to extend the hours in September anyway.

I feel quietly excited.  I would be so happy to get some writing flow going...  To know what was coming next and feel that I could get on with it, rather than constantly wondering what the heck to do (which is very demoralising).

DB and I are going out together tonight for dinner!  No reason but we haven't been out together just the two of us since March.  If then!

Off to get the little dude.

Quietly excited!

x J

Aha!

Arf I am so tired.  My head feels completely fugged.

Today I have to learn how to use endnote.  This is a real disappointment as it is looking all complicated and like it will take all my lovely time today :0(

Am gutted because I had an epiphany with my work yesterday when I realised that I have been working *really* hard over the past, ahem, few months, to write as concisely and unadulterated as possible, trying to get in as much info per sentence...  and then I realised that this isn't a 2,000 word essay it is a PhD thesis!  I am *meant* to write a lot!  In fact, the more the better!  I am very wordy by nature and so have tried to hone my skillz and not blather on over the past few years.  But this *is* a skill to me, and one that I am certain I have lost.  Instead I am writing nonsense when if I wrote a few thousand words instead of trying to write 500 what I am trying to say would make total sense.  It would be coherent and thorough.  And anyway, at this stage any writing is good even if it is blather.  Infact, my Sup doesn't want 500 words, he *wants* thousands of words!  Obviously best not to write in a gazillion words what could be said in three, but really - this is a complicated and loooong piece of work, thereofre it stands to reason that it should be long!  I am so dumb :0(  I think I just got it into my head that I wanted a neat abstract or synopsis to work with, to show my ideas in a tight and sophisticated manner.  In fact, I need to write it all out, to *explain* where the chuff I am coming from so people can understand me.  Then, from this I can whittle it down to an abstract and then the all-important sentence (I heard that in a VIVA you are often asked to describe your thesis in a sentence...).  So there we go.  I was very excited about this as I know what I want to say and can just wibble on about what my thesis is about and this will start to form my introduction.  But instead I need to add references - start doing this thing properly instead of half-assed, and this means gettign to grips with endnote.  How DULL and unrewarding.

x J

eh?

Lordy I don't know what I am doing!

I am in such a funny mood today.  I feel really blue and can't believe that I have a PhD tod o.  Am not feeling up to it at all :0(

I have sort of fallen out with my family.  This is depressing and about something that someone has done to me so I can't even fix it - it's up to them.  So I sit and wait and feel sad. 

The wedding cancellation is continuing though we still have to cancel the caterers and the marquee.  I shall do the marquee in a minute.

DB said a couple of things to me over the weekend that for some reason I have totally blown up into a severe criticism of all I try and do well as a wifey and mother and worker.  This is depressing and am finding it hard to come back from it.  Instead I just want to read my book, eat chocolate and smoke and hide.  And maybe have a wee cry.

Bean was up all last night so I slept in his bed with him but he just kicked and wriggled all night which is *really* irritating.  Being kicked by someone you are trying to help is just so demoralising.  (he doesn't know he is being annoying which means it can't be helped, he just has to fidget and I am in the way!)

I can't go swimming tonight and let off any steam because DB has a meeting.

So I am stuck and feeling blue today.  All stuff that will hopefully have eased by tomorrow.  The worry is compounded by the fact that I am watching the clock tick my precious working time away while I mope and can't get my head to focus.  I think I am just really tired.  Tired from lack of sleep, tired from being stupid me and tired of work.

I am so whiny.

RIGHT what shall I do to salvage the day and get some kind of control back.  I shall cancel the marquee, that is one big job done.  I shall also tackle the jumbled paragraph that I wrote for the new synopsis.  I don't feel that I will understand a single thing.  After I have done that I might go and have another smoke (I gave up yesterday then DB pissed me off and I had to go outside and er, fume... fnar).    Then I expect I shall have to read something!  And understand it and bla bla.

One thing that was interesting and did make me feel a bit better about the PhD is that my friend who came to stay for the weekend was staying in the room I work in and she said that my desk, with all the notes that I have so far for my lit review on it, looked frightening.  So I must be doing some work, and that works frightens people.  So that it frightens me is quite understandable!

Oh and I have a friend who is a proof reader (for science stuff mainly) has said she takes on more arts PhD theses now and would be happy to do mine for mates rates.  She has 10 years experience and is really very good so I shall definitely use her.  She said that she is doing a thesis at the mo which is 90,000 words long and quoted £1000 for that.  Which is great but shit me, that is so much money!  but at the end of the day, it has to be proof read and it would be lovely to hand in something all smart and completely done you know - rather than my half arsed attempt at writing ;0)

laters y'all

x J

arf

I did work yesterday!  Not much in quantity but good quality...  I think.  I have been way off a few times of late, as we know, so am not counting any chickens!

I did work out a sort of flow chart spider diagram thing where I worked out how all my 'buzzwords' or keywords fit together.  All the words that I most definitely have to have in my PhD and how they link together and therefore, create the thesis.  I realised that doing this turned my previous synopsis on its head, literally, as I worked it from the opposite way my thesis seems stronger and more, ahem, scholarly.  Looking at my old synopsis of only three weeks ago it seems weak and childish.  We shall see... Today I aim to revisit that (I wrote it out very badly and in a great hurry yesterday before rushing to get the wean) and neaten it and see as objectively as possible where it might take me.  Is it intelligent?  Is it new knowledge?  Is it remotely interesting?  I also need to consider whether one of my chapters should be removed...  Am not sure. 

I also need to write a letter of complaint to my wedding venue as we tried to cancel with them yesterday and they got Very Angry and want our points in writing so they can counteract them.  It is horrible.  So far cancelling has made a lot of people cry and the whole thing is just crumbling, cumbling around my and DBs nonplussed ears.  I mean, it is only a wedding.  I would look daft in a wedding dress and the whole affair of being 'given' to my husband to keep and then do dancing to a song we don't actually have and bla bla just is so not me.  And we have a *baby* I mean, surely that is more than a wedding?!

Arf.  I don't get it but do love other people's love of weddings!  Just don't fancy a biggun mesel'.  And if I do, can't we just renew our vows and do the whole shebang then? 

x J

halfway there

I have 44,000 words!

Hurray!

I think.

The limit is preferably 80,000 but you can go up to 100,000.  I reckon I have about 37,000 of second draft work.  And of course none of it is worth anything until it makes the final edit - I might need to re-write everything!  (well,m I won't but that is always the worry isn't it?!)

Is great seeing it in one document and getting a feeling for (gulp) how small it really is!  I mean, in one chunk it becomes reduced to a series of chapters that tell a story - no more, no less.  It loses some of its mystique and becomes far, far less intimidating.  It just *is*.

Now, I must write the rest!  Although actually I am going to procrastinate by having a cup of tea, planning what I will do tomorrow, and then it will be time to go and get my wean.  I hope he is ok after being away from me for the first time in yonks!  We are just going to come home and chill :0)

x J

endnote

£70?  Really? 

jeeeeez.

3 weeks later...

And the childminder has my baby and I am back to work!  well trying to be, bvut it is offputting with DB coughing and sneezing his way round the house.

In truth I want him to go so I can nip outside for a cheeky fag.  no, I haven't stopped smoking though I have cut down.  Well, I only smoke two a day tops anyway ;0)  I am dieting though and that is going really well.  Although I should admit I only started yesterday. 

Workwise I have done NOTHING for three weeks.  I have been moving house and settling in and looking after the little bubs full time.  He is very much a toddler now, running hither and thither and does not appreciate being left to it.  Playing quietly at my feet while I do two hours concentrated work is not something that happens in Real Life - I definitely am ordered to join in!  I can read, but I can't actually read without taking notes or it all falls out of my brain and if I take notes Bean wants to draw on them too.  No, not on his *own* piece of paper, don't be silly, most definitely on *my* paper - it is obviously the best paper!  Anyway, time off has been lovely and am back with vengeance and am full of plans.

Plans... 

Today I am buying endnote.  I give in.  My references are starting to make me wake in the night in a cold sweat.  I need to start ordering them and, well, I need somewhere to keep them and where I can conjure them at will.  So bye-bye £50.  I am also *drum roll* collating together all my up-to-date chapters and scribblings into a semblence of the final thesis.  At the mo everything is in seperate chapters but I want to start to see what they look like all together, get the chiapters aligned so I can scroll from one to another and see the signposting (lack of) and references and read it as if it is one.  This is exciting!  Although quite nervewracking as I am very scared to see how naff my finished chapters are, and how little my total word count adds up to...

Personally, I have come clean to important peeps about our non-wedding and generally er, one person is really pleased for us.  Everyone else is really shocked (more conservative friends) or sad (mum).  I don't get it.  We have a baby, we are a family already, why the fuss and money on a big silly wedding I have no time to organise (hold in check more like while suppliers run away ordering all sorts with our money) and my mum has admitted she can't afford?!  Stupid people, come on.  Not to mention the people that can't make or won't be able to make it because they will have newborn babies.  I am surrounded by fecundity this summer, I tell thee.  I also want a baby!

And so this is my other plan:  I am not allowed to think about having another baby until I have practically finished my first proper draft.  This is about christmas time if I apply myself.  This is a good incentive!  Much better than thinking maybe next year I will hand in a vast maniscript or three that at the moment I cannot believe I will ever achieve...  When my Sup has run off and my department has completely changed and my friends have scarpered/finished and my personal confidence is not just on the floor but buried far, far below the earth and smothered in concrete for good measure.  It means that whenever I sit and write I am plodding my way closer to being able to grow my wee family and in the end, sit with a newborn and my toddler and be happy in being a stay at home mommy with the horror that is these final months of the PhD far behind me.  'Cause, you see, my DB has gone and been offered a fabulous full time job - his dream job in fact - and has taken it!  With a tidy salary that means I can stay at home and breed once I have my PhD for a while.  It also means I can take on jobs I *want* rather than jobs I have to have for the money.  This is a very privileged position and one I am very proud of my Boy for creating. 

I have to say, moving house has been the making of us.  We are like normal people again!  In the old house we argued a *lot* and I was desperate - but then we all slept in the same room and downstairs was like one big room we all ate, worked, played and relaxed in.  Not.  Good!

Anyway, I am off to get endnote (how, where) then will be time for a break and then back to make my whole PhD fit together and so I can see clearly where the gaps are (more gaps than writing methinks!).  At least it will make me feel that bit closer to the end.  For now.

x J