I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who finds that "life" interferes horribly with the things we would rather be doing. I'm a school teacher and I find that I rarely have the time I want to devote to my hobbies (blacksmithing, woodworking, etc.) In my case, my classroom is also my primary forge shop, so I have limited access anyway.
That means that one of my main long-term projects will be setting up my drive-shed into a smithy.
I find that the time I get to do most of my projects is over the summer - I'm lucky enough to have an administration that allows me access to my classroom over the summer. This year my projects included forging 24 tent stakes, a tent-stake puller, 4 lantern-hooks, 2 ridge-pole sleeves for a 20x30 sunshade, a coal shoven, a coal rake, a lid-lifter (for a dutch oven), a long handle camp/roasting fork, and fabricating a candle-box to put behind a stained-glass sign out of sheet steel and aluminum.
What I need to be doing (real soon) is to start making more "camp/fire tools" to sell (a local Black Powder re-enactor supplier carries my "iron-ware" on consignment) and I have an order for a set of forks and an order for a bunch of S-hooks that I need to get done before next summer ... along with a list of household projects (the "honey-do" list) as tall as I am and all my school-related work throughout the year.
I need to be independantly wealthy. Add one more job to the list.
Life is interesting - if you're doing it right
Keep plugging away at it, life ain't a specttor sport.
Aeneas