I’ve done that thing again where I’ve blogging infrequently and sporadically. There are a few reasons for that, and I wanted to take the time to write a post about what’s been happening in my life recently, and what the knock-on effects are likely to be in terms of blog content over the next few months.

Starting with the most recent hectic/exciting thing..

Some of you will know that I have a small business called Science On A Postcard. I started the business because I was looking for a creative outlet, and a place where I could chip away at some of the stereotypes that surround scientists.

Earlier this month I took Science On A Postcard to Aberdeen’s Etsy Summer Showcase (above). For me that meant lots of evenings and weekends getting stock ready, and 2 days off work for the actual event. Don’t get me wrong, I love this little business that I’ve built, I’m incredibly proud of it, but I need to start setting some boundaries before it takes over.

Before I realised that I needed to start setting boundaries with the business, I applied for a creative accelerator program, and at the end of May I was told that I have got a place. One of the things that annoys me most about myself is that when I do something I tend to jump right in, go the whole hog, and then realise that there’s only 24 hours in the day. Anyway, this is a temporarily busy, but brilliant, thing. The Look Again Festival have worked with Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University to offer 12 individuals a place on a start-up programme for creative businesses – and I am one of the lucky 12! That means 13 days off work over between June and September this year.

So far that’s 15 days away from my full time job in just 4 months. That’s not great for my ever-growing to do list, but it’s doable.

Now throw in:

• My first MSc student with a July thesis submission
• Fairly urgent work for the ORINOCO project that I’m leading (June/July) (hopefully I’ll get chance to do a blog post on ORINOCO soon)

• A 3 day trip to Oxford for EBMLive (July)
• A 2 day trip to Edinburgh for the BIG Event (July)

and things are getting to an almost unmanageable level.

That’s all work stuff, small-business work, full-time-job work – but all good, all exciting, and all doable.

Then we get to the rest of life.

A few weeks ago, my partner and I were driving into Aberdeen and we saw some houses that we thought looked really nice. We booked an appointment to go and look at them, and the prospect of moving house towards the end of this year (the house we had our eye on had not been built yet) became a very real thing, very quickly. The night before we needed to make a decision on that house, I found another house – closer to Aberdeen and a better layout for us. We went to look at it, and it was perfect. Absolutely perfect, within our price range and all fitting into place with just one minor issue.. we’d need to settle on July 5^th and we’d have 4 weeks to move house. The house was ready and if we wanted it then we needed to be ready too. For context, the first and second weekends in July I won’t be in Aberdeen as I already have things booked elsewhere.

In a matter of weeks I’ve gone from a busy summer with work, to a busy summer with work and Science On A Postcard, and now a brain-tingly busy summer with work, Science On A Postcard, and moving house.

I’m currently at a writing retreat (during the writing sessions I’m writing a paper from my PhD thesis – this is being written from the comfort of my hotel bed with a tummy full of dinner), and I feel like I’m about to be greeted by the busiest summer of my entire life. Something needs to give, or more realistically, multiple things need to give. The first of those things is this blog.

I’d like to post blog updates on the conferences I attend, but at the moment I’m not sure whether that’s feasible. I’m taking the summer to Get Shit Done, and then once I’ve moved, and ticked off the majority of my urgent to do list, I’ll be working on setting some boundaries so that my brain doesn’t explode before 2019 is out.