Friday, July 31, 2015

20150731.0544

A friend asked me if I would take a survey being conducted by her mother-in-law as part of her doctoral research. Because I believe in collegiality, even across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, I agreed. Because the researcher, via the survey, asked me to do so, and because I believe in collegiality, even across disciplinary and institutional boundaries, I am sharing the survey link: https://cwru.az1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_aYnnjO0RNfutmK1. If you have the time and inclination, please take it; I took less than five minutes to go through it, and it will increase the available data set for the researcher if you do so. That will help the researcher do better work, and better work for her is better work for the rest of us. The Work helps us all.

I have been up for a while, now. Ms. 8 decided that she would be awake at four this morning, and she decided that she wanted company. Somehow, I find it hard to go back to sleep while the baby is crying, so I sat with her for a while. Then her mother woke up, and Ms. 8 clamored for and went to her; the Mrs. took her in hand, and while Ms. 8 is contentedly playing now, I was awake with her long enough that I actually woke up. Hence my writing now, earlier than has ever been common for me. It is an interesting experience, although one I do not know that I want to repeat despite being a morning person by nature and training. Even I need a certain amount of sleep every now and again.

It is helpful in some ways. Today is payday, something I have celebrated more than once (although I'll give no jaunty lines today). Today is therefore also my day to pay my bills, and I have already done so, scheduling a number of payments and cutting a check to ensure that I have such things as a car, insurance for it, and a house in which to live. (Sherwood Cottage does not come for free.) I have also paid down some of my debts, which is always good to do, and there is even a bit of money left over--which is good, because I anticipate that I have other bills coming. (I will need to order more checks, for one thing.) It will be nice, though, to have paid most of the bills and still have a bit of money to my name. It does not happen often anymore, despite my working more jobs than one at any given moment and trying to balance my responsibility to support my family financially with my responsibility to support my family emotionally.

There is something to be said for getting things taken care of and done early. If nothing else, it frees up later time for other work, and I seem always to have such other work, both The Work and other tasks to do. At least I have not got the complaint of not having enough with which to keep busy; I have no reason to claim to be bored, which makes a promise made in 2002 far easier to keep than would otherwise be the case.

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