Careful what you wish for

As a freelancer, you learn never to turn down a job. That’s because you can go months without a project, and longer without a paycheck. So you’re constantly looking for work. The trick is not to overload yourself. Schedule your time so you’ve got enough space to do each project.
Of course, it helps if you don’t put things off. And if you don’t have things like a wife, a kid, a house, and a day job.
A month or so ago I was winding down the latest slate of projects, which meant I was looking for new ones. I had things lined up for the back end of the year already—it was the middle months that seemed sparse. “Gee,” I thought, “it’d be nice to find a few things to drop in there to keep me busy.”
Well, I got ’em. One I’d been lining up has finally come through (more on that later) and two others got offered to me. The latter pair are shorter pieces with shorter deadlines to match, but I figured “sure, I’m not doing anything else.”
Except for the wife/kid/house/day job mentioned above.
Which is why I now have a week to finish one project, a week after that to finish another one, and then a month to do the first half of something else. Gah.
So much for a lazy summer. But who am I kidding? I don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t have at least two projects hanging over my head.