Not getting enough done!

I am just not getting enough done fast enough. I am starting a graduate program in the fall that requires me to be at school/internship 40+ hours per week, as well as 500 pages or so of reading a week and papers and projects. So pretty much, no work will happen until the school year is done. Why is this a problem? Well, we can't walk barefoot in the house or take showers. We have newspapers and plastic taped to the windows. I have no table, desk or workspace. I have to be professionally dressed for internship and need to buy clothes for that. Not only is that time consuming, but clean clothes in this house last until you brush up against something (pretty much everything is covered in never-ending drywall dust). We have no handles on any cabinets in the bath or kitchen. You have to pry them open with your fingernails or feet. We are extremely disorganized and chaotic. Most of our stuff is still in the garage. Due to ongoing work and incomplete spaces (e.g. master bedroom closet) we won't be done with moving in any time soon (in spite of the fact that we've lived here a year). This is just a small fraction of the things that will make life really difficult while I'm in school.

It may seem that 3 months is plenty of time to do this, but there are thousands of small and large tasks to be done. Some of this stuff can't be done now due to critical path issues. For example, someone might say "Why don't you just go and buy shades or curtains?" Well first of all, the windows need to be finished (i.e. shellacked) and this is no small task. Each window needs 3 coats with sanding and vacuuming in between followed by buffing. Because of the way the windows are constructed, each window needs to be done in several sections. I had several windows done or almost done, and then lost all that work when the windows didn't pass final inspection. So, I've learned my lesson. All work on the windows has stopped until we pass final inspection. That will be at least a month. Then I can start shellacking the windows again. Once one or more is done, I can put trim on and finish the trim. Then I can start shopping for shades. Some people would probably just go to one store and pick something and buy it. C and I are more thorough than that. One quote we got was for about $200 per windows. Yikes! I just can't see spending that kind of money without shopping around (I'm sure I can do better!). Once we find the shades we have to order them and wait days or weeks for them to come in. Finally, I can install them

So you can see that it is not as simple as just getting shades. The same goes for most other projects in the house. It's quite upsetting to think about how nasty the house looks and that we'll have to live in it like this for a lot longer. I had hoped to have it in good enough shape so that I could invite people here to do projects, etc. but that isn't going to happen. I am getting kind of tired of ducking my neighbors because I am embarrassed about the way the house looks. I feel like telling people "Really, we're normal. We're not slobs or weird. Nor are we running drugs, hiding bodies, growing pot or printing money. Really!"

I did manage to contact my handyman who has to fix a glass-fronted cabinet from Ikea that keeps falling down and he is also going to fix a fascia board that our prior contractor broke when he ran into it with a bobcat while demolishing concrete out back.