School deadlines

So I'm trying to finish up my PhD, right? Well, if I wanted to defend this term (and avoid paying for next term), I have exactly 7 weeks to turn my dissertation in to my committee. It is doable, but at a cost that I'm not sure I can handle. Though I desperately want to be DONE DONE DONE, I've been thinking more and more about slipping it into next term. This would allow me to breath a little bit more right now. But it does put as at a continued financial disadvantage, because as long as I'm a student, I'm not making money for our family.

Knowing that I might have no choice but to continue school into winter term, I had lined up a TA position that could pay my tuition and give me a little tiny itty bitty stipend (about the same as daycare would cost for both kids 2 days/week). Well today my advisor surprised me with an offer to pay me for an RA for winter term if I wanted/needed. It would be roughly the same pay, maybe a tiny bit more, than the TA position. But it would be paying me to work ON MY PROJECT. AND FINISH. AND GET MORE PUBS IN THE WORKS (instead of grading a bunch of undergrad term papers). I think I'd be a dunce not to take it. I'm very thankful my advisor has dug deep and found the money to pay me for this. The grant I wrote at the start of my PhD has long run dry, so I've been piecing together TA positions and paying my own way for the past year. It will be nice to be back on the payroll again. And it gives me one more term to figure out what the heck I'm doing next.