Stuff...you know, things...like my guitars and recording stuff, my pool table, her humongous 62" TV, and her weight machine (to which we added a spin bike, an elliptical, and a treadmill).
Of course we had to have at least one guest bedroom and an office.
So...you know...room.
I was a bit cautious...perhaps the better word is "trepidation"...I had a good amount of trepidation when buying this house. First, I had only owned one house prior to this and that was with my ex-husband and that was...quite a few years ago. (We'll just leave it at that.) So I don't remember anything about that loan process. But I don't remember every little detail about this loan process either. The price of the house had me scared. I was afraid that we were getting in over our heads. We didn't but there were times I felt I was waste deep in a flooded river. But it was selling Tea Table that will have scarred me forever. Okay, not really but it was an emotional roller coaster. It was quite overwhelming.
I learned to read e v e r y t h i n g on the contracts and ask questions, state the mistakes, etc. because if that contract is signed and you don't know what it is or says, then it's on you. I also learned that housing market prices be damned. If you want to get the price you want for the house, DON'T, DO NOT let your realtor sway you into putting it on at market value. Also don't let your ex sway you out of a sale because she thinks we could get more - because that is not going to happen. It didn't. Hence the sentence prior.
It ended up costing not only emotions and time, but a lot of money. I had to pull money out of my investments and my IRA. You know the IRS loved that one. But at least I had it. I had to pull from my reserves that were there for a rainy day. And as my Dad said, "This is your rainy day."
So just like all the relationships prior to the one that is the one that you know is right taught you the lessons to make this one work, very house bought and sold teaches you lessons to do things right with the next one. It's the life lessons learned that help us along the way.
So it is with my dissertation. I wrote a proposal that could not be defended because I found that in the group I was to interview, there was only one person available. A dataset of one is not doable. So after some tears and feeling sorry for myself, back to the drawing board. Re-read all the articles to completely refocus the topic of the dissertation. It took me a year to be back to having a proposal to hand in.
So now I have the feedback on what I thought would be the proposal to go forward. But I missed the mark. I have a substantial rewrite on Chapter 2, the literature review; which causes editing of Chapters 1 and 3. Really? Okay. Darn. I still have some drive left in the reserve tank. They say the best dissertation is a done dissertation. So let's get this thing done. Third times a charm, right? I think this is why school is so costly.
But learning from my first two attempts, I redid the outline to match the revised argument (thank you Dr Dixon for your help). It will take effort but I know that I've learned about my topic because my Committee Chair summized my argument from what I wrote. Now I just have to get better at writing it in a proposal.
...and a PhD means...that the PhD process...and life...can be overwhelming but it's not letting yourself get flooded out that matters...rainy days don't last but the learning should...
