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Today was a momentous day.

I submitted two progress reports to our private sector collaborator, looked at my calendar, and realised that I don’t have to lurch immediately into a panic about another deadline!

Yep, for the first time since July, I don’t have any urgent deadlines to meet! Not one solitary even halfway urgent little deadline! In fact, the next one that I know of isn’t until February 1st, although I’m sure others will pop up to fill that gap…

Since July 15th, I have submitted or helped to submit the following:

• 6 grant registrations / letters of intent (4 as Chief Wrangler);
• 8 full grant applications (5 as Chief Wrangler);
• 3 progress reports (I wrote all parts of all three reports).

The grants were submitted to six competitions run by five different funding agencies, and involved six principal applicants (and dozens of co-applicants). The longest gap between any two items was four weeks, at the very beginning of the three-and-a-half-month period; the busiest single day involved one full grant application and four registrations (I was Chief Wrangler for all of them), while the busiest week involved four full grant applications submitted to three competitions (although I was the Chief Wrangler for “only” three of them).

This time of year is always very busy, but it’s never been quite this bad before.

I’d love to take some time off, but my six remaining vacation days are already committed to a nice long Christmas break. And of course I have to catch up on all the other, less urgent tasks that I had to let slide during the deadline panic; my to-do list has been expanding at quite an alarming rate, and I’m looking forward to starting to cut it down to a more reasonable size.

I think I’ve earned all the Hallowe’en candy I’m planning to eat tonight while opening the door to trick or treaters in costume and trying to make them scream like a little girl senior Nature editor!