However, in our particular instance there are some really good things about being in grad school. Clemson is a lovely place to live. There are mountains nearby with great hiking, several lakes if we want to do water sports, a fantastic ward at church. On a regular basis Bill actually works pretty awesome hours, which I know is totally different from some grad programs. He has a ton of flexibility, so if I need his help during the day, he can switch things around to help me out. He works a pretty normal schedule each day, in his case going in pretty early and coming home at about 4PM. I keep reminding myself this is a total oddity so enjoy it to the fullest as it will probably never happen again.
One of the best perks we get for being here is that Bill's lab is a wind tunnel that has just about every tool you could imagine. We have borrowed a number of tools to improve our yard and work on woodworking projects, etc. Most recently Bill told me that they have a burn pile full of perfectly usable wood that they've discarded after various research was done with them. So in the last few weeks Bill and I have gone scavenging and been able to salvage a bunch of it and put it to good use.
We found a rickety old swingset in our backyard when we moved here and put up a couple swings, but it was really not very usable, so I used some of the scrap wood I got to build a new one. For the price of a bunch of hex bolts we have a working swing set that is much sturdier. I'm actually going to build a second one with a longer top beam so I can fit three swings on it and use the one I already built for something else.
After I built the first swing set a friend asked me to build some stuff for her, including a porch swing, which got my gears turning and I was able to find a plan for a porch swing that I could build with more of my scavenged wood, so I've been slowly building that of late. All I have left to get for that is the chain to hang it, and I need to put a few more coats of oil on it. So it is very close to done. I love how it is turning out. The stain is my favorite color. I've tried other colors but always gravitate back towards this one, red mahogany. I will hang it on the first swing set as soon as it is done.
So it had been a while since I had built anything because I didn't have the funds to get enough wood to build any of the projects I have in my queue. It was a huge blessing to find out about that wood at Bill's lab. I figured out what I spent and I had to get $20 worth of bolts for the swingset. I'm $32 into the porch swing hardware and will need probably about $15 more for the chains. I need to purchase one piece of wood for the second swing set I'm building plus another $20 worth of bolts. So for less than $100 I will have a swing set for my kids, a porch swing, and a stand to hang it on. I can't buy even one of those things for that price. If I were interested in building to sell to people, I could make tons of money on these. I do a bit of that here and there, but not as my job because fitting it in around the three kids is a bit complicated.
Folks, this is why I got into building in the first place. It is so stinkin' affordable. I can have some of the things I want on the budget I have. I've taken to picking up a few pieces at a time for these projects so it doesn't feel like $100 dropped on them either. $10 here, $10 there, awesome new usable pieces. Seriously, this brings me so much contentment. I'm doing the same thing for a console table I intend to build out of nicer wood once I accumulate all the parts I need. There's a slowly growing pile of wood next to Bill's side of the bed in our room. I get a strange sort of satisfaction seeing it grow. lol.
And it's things like this that make the grad school slog a little less of a slog. Someday we'll be done and hopefully finances will be a bit better. But for now it's okay. We're happy. We have what we need and some of what we want. It's a good place to be.
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