A shed of one's own

About six months ago, David bought a house. And behind that house was a garden, and in that garden was a shed. And I said, "dibs!"

Also pictured: the swing-set abandoned by the previous owner. And the pond. And a bottle of slug killer. And a million spiders.

This past weekend the spiders were energetically evicted, a school desk was acquired from the British Heart Foundation, and Dave breathed a relieved sigh for his unvarnished teak dining room table, which I had previously colonized and may have scratched just a little bit.

The chocolate is vital to the process. Trust me.

My upgrade panel has been slated for the 26th of June, which means I need to hand in all of the material on the 5th of June if I want my examiners to not hate me, which means that I should have started panicking yesterday. The fiction is nearly finished, but my critical supervisor thinks that the two paragraphs at the end of the thesis sample, where I sketchily describe the research I haven't been able to finish, are the best part and that I need to develop them into the bulk of the submission. Which seems to be a standard supervisor response. So I'm under house arrest and wishing books had a Ctrl+F option until I turn out a draft she likes or I lose my mind and run away from home, whichever comes first.