I have a former colleague who sometimes posts about how busy her life is – she is a professor as well as being a wife & mother, and her days are pretty full.

That got me to thinking about my own schedule. Like her, I too often get people asking me how I manage to get all the things done that I need to do, so I thought I’d step back and take a look at what my typical day is like and how it has changed going from full-time, to part-time, to at home. I too have been faculty at a university trying to juggle the responsibilities that go along with that as well as my home life. My home life is not typical – not even for a female academic. True, I have children and a husband, but (as you already know if you’ve read some of my other posts) I also run a farm with lots of animals. In the spring time I run a duck hatching program with local schools as well.

My schedules have changed quite considerably in the last few years – you see, I have gone from being full-time faculty to being part-time faculty, to working almost entirely from home. Oddly, I haven’t noticed much difference in the amount of free time I have and if I had to rank them, I’d have to say that the year I spent working as part-time faculty was probably the busiest of all, especially in the spring.

Part-time faculty at universities often end up working harder than most full-timers (for a fraction of the pay). I experienced that first-hand during the 15 years I was a part-time instructor at the university while raising my children. I could have been career-building during that time, but instead we (it was very much a joint decision) decided it was important for us to raise our own children rather than have a day-care do it. My children are almost grown now and we made the right decision. I’ve talked with dozens of elementary teachers – they all say they can tell if a child grew up at home or in a day-care. You don’t hear much about this because it’s not PC to admit – but kids raised by their family are more polite, more stable, and more confident than those raised in day-cares.

I used to get jealous of those women who continued on with their careers instead of being with their children – but now that I can see what my kids have turned into, I know it was worth the cost. Interestingly, my brother and his wife made the same decision – I’m pretty sure they have no regrets either.

I like my life. It is full and varied. I often wonder what people do with their time who DON’T run a farm, and do research, and do outreach, and have a family,….

This ‘typical’ schedule, of course assumes that everything goes smoothly. There are days when chores take MUCH longer – animals often have their own ideas about how they should spend their day, like escaping, or breaking things, or getting hurt,…

And just in case you are wondering, I do a lot more farm work on weekends – there are cages to clean, fences to fix, animals to sort, etc.

In the spring-time when I’m running my hatching program, I have to find a way to fit the time that takes into my schedule. Normally that means part of Saturday, all day Sunday (well, 9-5 anyway), and Wednesday evenings (from after chores till after 11 – to wash, sort, candle and set eggs), plus extra time throughout the week (and weekend) to handle the additional correspondence and phone calls to manage the orders and make sure the teachers have success, and of course the added time it takes to look after sometimes dozens of baby ducks, chicks, and turkeys of various ages. For 21 years I’ve been doing this for 12 weeks every spring. This year, I’m cutting back. I might even get to celebrate Mother’s Day this year. First time in 22 years. Cool.

Well, back to work. I’m still adjusting to being home all the time. Don’t get me wrong – I can go weeks without ever leaving my property (if you don’t count excursions on horseback or walking with the dogs) and be completely content. Working on a book though is much like working on a thesis – no matter what you are doing there is a little voice in the back of your mind telling you you should be writing.

So, back to writing. Then chores (we just had 4 new litters of rabbits – bringing my current total bunny-count to 80. Yikes.).

Then back to writing…..

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