Watching Squirrels Sleep…

Hey I usually do more of a countdown to Spring Break, but I haven’t even had the mental space for that…it starts today! At 3:30 PM…but it’s also Eid today, so I’m guessing I’ll have at least 40 students missing, just based on what got turned in yesterday. We normally miss a bunch the Friday before a break, but with a massive religious holiday…it’ll be a lot more. We all planned for it…easier to plan for it at the end of a unit, right before a break, than for the beginning of a unit, right after a break (that was last year). So I’m not expecting a lot of stupid shit today, luckily…hopefully quiet, watch Bill Nye while I grade, be quiet, turn your stuff in. Meanwhile, I made a grading list and it sucks. My fault of course, but whatever. I only have four days at home before I leave for Virginia, and about a million things to do, so that should be interesting.

Survived field trip…

Had to explain what the metal string things were for and that the seagull was not making a nest there and dropping its eggs into the water.

Meanwhile, embroidery takes forever. Wednesday night…I got the speech bubble etc on…

I may have embroidered more around the heart…and then last night, I did embroidery in the speech bubble and more around the heart.

Better. The heart itself needs more. Then the hair. Probably outline the speech bubble. Doesn’t sound like much but I probably won’t be done until next year. Ha! No…it won’t take THAT long.

My brain fuzzed out last night for a bit so I have a lot of memes expressing my frustration with the world. Well, this is not a meme…just a direction to the drones that are not really over California, looking for places to drop bombs.

I love California most of the time. Not all of it. But in general.

Keeping up with the political theme of Why TF are we at war and everything costs so much.

Plus deportations still happening, people dying in custody, little kids separated from their parents. People trying to be legal about immigration and that doesn’t matter. DACA recipients ffs. They pay taxes, you idiots.

The damn SAFE Act is just fucked up. I did check my passport last night, just for giggles (is it giggles when it’s necessary?). I never changed my name though…I also checked that I had my birth certificate, and I do. Thanks mom for smuggling those out of Alaska. I really do think we’re in an alien dystopian movie at the moment.

There’s also this though. I do this all the time.

That’s an anxiety thing. Fun. And this…

I know I’m going to have to be up early on Sunday to drive to an art meeting in freakin’ Long Beach. Ugh. I wouldn’t be going if it weren’t Spring Break, but even then, I don’t have much time before I leave and I WANT to: finish grading, have my taxes done, get a bunch of yard work done…and I NEED to: pack everything, set up demos to take with me, make sure I have food (we have a kitchen…I just found that out). So I’m doing all of that. OH. And get to ceramics on Tuesday or Monday so I’m not leaving my piece for too long. Plus get the damn toilet fixed. It’s been months.

This amuses me…because it is also true. But today is Hawaiian shirt day (for Spring Break), so I’m wearing a bulky men’s shirt that buttons on the wrong side and isn’t my thing at all.

Just like a middle-school teacher. I brought a shirt and flip flops to change into later for ceramics.

I need to grade all of Per 5 and 6’s Unit 5 packets, because I’m bringing home Unit 6 today. Sad but true. I also need to copy all the stuff for the first week back; I have the first day copied and that’s it. So that’s my goal for the school day. Plus be chill (my A/C sort of works?) and not go off on anyone (I already did last night, but it was semi-justified…maybe could have worded it as a suggestion instead of a rant, but I don’t have that in me right now). Do my afterschool duty in 97-degree heat (seriously?) and then go to clay and then go home and eat leftovers and maybe grade some shit because downtime is rare and I’m on a mission to clear the second week of break from school shit (ha!). SLEEP. Maybe. Because hot and the Man yelled out “Text him” the other night in his sleep. Plus a cat hit my head and I was bleeding…luckily under the hair and not on the face. I’m currently watching a squirrel run along the fence between my yard and my neighbors…thinking of getting a squirrel box and putting a camera inside so I can watch them sleep. Seriously. Google it. It’s funny.

Supposed to Do…

Hello all. It’s Wednesday, although my brain is convinced it has survived more than two work days this week. It’s wrong…well, unless you count the weekend, when I also worked. As always. I finally finished all the bindings on the dye paintings…with everyone’s help. Here’s Nova…

Who headbutts things and then drools on you.

I started embroidery (finally!) on this one last night…

Probably take forever. I was going to do more applique on it, but that would have meant getting off the couch and I was well past that. I will still DO the applique, but I need to prep for it earlier in the evening. Probably not tonight. Today is a mess. We’re going on a field trip to the Midway (big military boat; my favorite thing really…ha), then we’re back in our rooms for two periods and I still don’t have air conditioning (it was 97 degrees outside yesterday). Then pilates and cooking dinner. Ugh. I’ll be half dead by the end of it. And I’m grading like crazy to hopefully limit what I have to get done over break.

I went to the ceramics studio last night and took this half-assed photo of the bowl ready for glaze fire.

It took me almost an hour to do the glazing. I’m hoping it turns out well.

The Forbidden Words Project quilt is done…I have three words/phrases in it.

Let’s see if I can find them…

The girlchild might make it to the opening where this will debut up in San Francisco. It’ll travel…hopefully I’ll see it at some point.

Yesterday was crazy hat day AND tattoo a teacher (fundraiser)…

What’s funny is that I went to the ceramics studio after and forgot I had the tattoos and got some weird looks until I remembered.

Good times. Getting them off was a bit more challenging, but I think we’re good.

This is where we’re headed. Again.

I’d like to bring up the guy who said my comments about the Repugs/MAGA need to throw women back to the 1900s were a conspiracy theory. After I bring him up, I’d like him to explain what’s happening now and how I was wrong. (not happening; it’s fine. It’s not like I wanted to be right.)

And this. Sigh.

Keep voting y’all. And caring about all the people. It’s what we’re supposed to do.

Hopefully Well

Racing into Monday. A full weekend. But I got nothing done. Fun times.

Quilt stuff…OK, I got bindings done, but not quilts and not sleeves, because I’m leaving the sleeves unstitched until I finish the embroidery on these. Finished this one Friday night…

Got embroidery ideas for it. Then I started another one, with Scribble’s help.

Although she is definitely tracking a bug. A flying bug. In case that isn’t clear.

Saturday night, I kept working on that binding, with Scribble’s help.

Looks the same. Scribble likes it when I sit still.

I finished that one Saturday night…

Then Sunday night, I finished the small one…

One more to go and then I start embroidery. Or applique on that last one…got the fabric I needed for the speech bubble. Apparently profanity is out for this show as well as nudity. Ugh.

And then my local SAQA group had an opening of their new exhibit, Beyond the Canvas, at the Poway Performing Arts Center. I have two pieces in the show…

Lost in the Trees…

I was apparently done with smiling…Nowhere Else to Go. The show is up for a while…

OK, not a super long while…through April 5. Check it out. I have more pictures, but don’t have time to resize or post anything this morning. Morning meetings for 3 out of the 5 days this week, plus some demanding school issues.

I did make time to hike on Saturday…and I took Simba this time.

I can’t hike as far with him because he is an old man now…

He may argue against that.

But he can’t do 4+ miles anymore. It was warm but not horrible, unlike the rest of the week.

Here’s where I’m at politically…

And on the daily…

OK. Today is a test. Fun times for the kids who were absent last week. They won’t have a clue what to do. Oh well. I will have to figure that out for them. Meeting this morning, meeting this afternoon, then ceramics hopefully. Then grading (always) and the last binding. Then I have to start thinking about embroidery. OK, realistically, I’ve been thinking about it for at least a month, but now it will be real and I’ll have to make decisions. Possibly a bad choice right before Spring Break. Limited brain power. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully well.

Extra Hour…

If you’re a teacher, this is my day: it is Friday the 13th, a week before Spring Break, we have an assembly, and it’s supposed to be 94 degrees. And my air conditioning in the classroom is still not working. It worked for one day and then turned off again. Managed to keep it under 74 degrees yesterday with the use of a fan and opening and closing doors to other people’s A/C. But really not sustainable. So fix that shit! At least there’s no full moon though. Pro: short classes. Con: trying to get a thing done with short classes. All the kids who were absent yesterday when I explained how to do the project are on their own; I made a video of the explanation. I have to check every kid’s paper today before they can go to the next stage (this is the fun part). I’ve have no chance to grade the packets all week. I think I have half of one class done. HALF. Fuck me. I need that done before break.

In other news, I’m still working on four quilts at one time. I got the bindings pinned on Wednesday night…

Except for one, because I forgot to zigzag the edges of the seam. Yes, I do that. Crazy sewing training. Then last night, I started the handsewing of the binding.

Simba did not help. I did not finish even one quilt. I got about 3/4s of the way around. On most of them, maybe all of them, I’ll wait to sew the bindings down until the embroidery is done. I don’t want to embroider through the sleeves…that would make them nonfunctional and be very silly. Some people are probably wondering why I did the binding before the embroidery. Because I don’t have the creative brainpower at the moment to decide what and how to embroider. Hopeful that shows up soon, but currently in exhaustion mode. Wish me luck with that.

Last night was my monthly stitching-in-person meeting and I managed more of the raccoon.

Cute; not hard, but fun.

I had Nova next to me and Scribble decided to be on my lap and then bite Nova’s neck.

I swear, Nova is the most submissive cat sometimes. She just sat there, like “this is my fate”. So weird.

This is true.

And I know what I’m gonna do with it.

OK. Seriously, today is not a trivial day. Plus two meetings and trying to wrangle the sex-ed packets between grade levels. Last night’s parent info meeting was also not trivial. More parents than we’ve had in years, maybe ever. Long. Thanks to the translators. After school, I have to book out of there to get to the dentist to get my stitches out…finally. They’re driving me bonkers. Then hopefully I’ll feel OK enough to go to ceramics. More bindings tonight (handsewing…sitting on the couch, staring at the TV in between stitches), and sleep, beautiful sleep. Although the dog hasn’t been letting us sleep in past 7:20 AM. Ugh. Hopeful. I am ever hopeful for that extra hour.

What Happened to Your Face?!

Hey yo. I’m not sure I can feel this tired in the morning forever. I feel like my body should be adjusting. I’m going to bed at the appropriate time for the time shift, so I’m getting the ‘right’ amount of sleep (or the amount of sleep I normally get anyway, which is probably nowhere near enough)…but I feel like a truck hit me every time I get up. I’m sure this happens every year and I feel like shit like this every year, and every year, I mentally block it out and think it will never happen again. And then it does. Good times.

Quilt progress…I finally got binding and sleeves on all four quilts…OK, this isn’t a picture of that. I think I finished quilting this one? I don’t even know.

I just pick up the next one on the pile and figure out what to do with it next.

I used the same purple binding on two of them because the fabric store I was at is apparently phasing out the fabric parts and there were very few fabrics that would work and I didn’t have time to drive to the next fabric store, the better one, before it closed. So I got what worked.

They have different sleeve fabrics, which doesn’t matter at all. To me anyway. Don’t look at my backs. They’re not meant to be pretty. Some people do that; I don’t.

So tonight, I’ll start all the handsewing of the bindings…I think I’ll leave at least some of the sleeves loose so they don’t get in the way of any embroidery I might be doing.

Monday, I cut a hole in her chest.

I needed it to be sturdy enough for that. And then I started adding things…

That took a long time…and it’s not done. Fun though.

My bowl made it through the bisque fire.

It has one tiny crack on the edge that will either fade away or turn into something horrible in the glaze fire. That’s how it goes. I have no room on my shelf for it and I didn’t bring my glazes on Monday, so I’ll have to remember on Friday to do that. Clear glaze on the outside, something on the inside. I don’t have a lot of choices for the inside.

I have two pieces in this show that opens this weekend. I should be at the opening in the first hour.

It’s usually a pretty cool venue/gathering of quilts.

I finished a book yesterday. This is a quote…I used to know how to screenshot stuff with my iPad, but apparently I forgot and resorted to taking a blurry picture with my phone.

I agree.

And this too.

OK. My mouth is still sore. My face is still bruised but better. I’ve had a billion students yell, “What happened to your face?!” at me in the last two days, even though I explained it. Shows you how much they listen. I’m exhausted. I still have six stitches in my gum, which will come out Friday. I’m running out of pain meds, but will be fine…really…I think some of the pain is the weather seesawing between chilly and rain to Santa Ana winds and hot weather. They fixed my air conditioning at school before it hits 93 degrees tomorrow. I’m behind on EVERYTHING. In case you were wondering. Today, I am continuing to teach Punnett squares and then going to a union meeting. Then coming home and grading and handstitching. And OMG sleep. Ugh. So I can be up even earlier tomorrow morning. There’s 8 days of school before Spring Break. And one assembly. And a field trip. And and and. Ugh.

It Feels Early.

Hello. It feels early. No one has abolished Daylight Savings Time yet. It’s kind of a cruel joke to make me get up early on a Monday and then go teach middle-school kids today. Should be a day off or something. No one gets up early on Sunday…Monday is when we feel it. Ugh.

I graded a lot this weekend. Grades are due today or tomorrow; I’m not sure which because they keep changing shit on us. Either way, I want it done. I’m almost done. Everything is input. I just need to post and add citizenship and comments for 5 classes; I did it for one. Every time I thought I was done, I would remember something else I hadn’t done. Annoying as hell. I’ll be done today. Only one trimester left…the most annoying one, surely, but only one. And then next year, there will be more. But for right now, I can focus on the one. I hate spending so many hours of my time grading though. I wasn’t very efficient, sure, because I didn’t feel well (dental surgery), but ugh. No hike, no fun. Dinner with the parents. Ran errands Saturday (ooh exciting…one of the those errands was going back to school to get the packet of stuff I was supposed to be grading). Two weeks until Spring Break.

Dye painting progress is slow. Maybe it’s because I’m working on four at a time? I finished quilting this one…except the face…on Friday night.

Saturday, I got some thread that worked for the face and finished that, plus I had gotten binding fabrics for the three that weren’t bound, so I cut all the strips for binding and sleeves.

Straight up, it doesn’t look like I did much, but it was an hour plus to get all that done. And then last night, I had very little time and put the binding and sleeves on the smaller piece.

She’s still getting a speech bubble. Just don’t know what it will have in it yet. I figure I can sew bindings and sleeves until my brainpower pops back. Whenever that might be.

I have a piece at Louisiana State University in the AI: Artistic Interpretations show that just opened there…

Appreciate Sue Polansky for taking photos…

I don’t always get to see my work in shows when it’s traveling.

I didn’t hike on Saturday; I wasn’t feeling well. I thought I was fighting off a cold, but I think it was all stuff from the dental surgery, because it’s mostly gone today (sinus stuff). I did water…we had some really strong winds that started blowing plant pots over, so I watered to make them heavier and accidentally watered a hummingbird moth.

Sorry.

I’m doing this…

But the rest of the messages are more bleak…

This is true. I’ve had two extra jobs the entire time I’ve been teaching.

It’s only been a year, y’all…we’ve got three to go.

That’s the crazy shit. God forbid we jail the rapists.

I feel like we could do this…and maybe the male rage too…especially that rage that is focused on women as being the cause of their issues. Instead of themselves.

I need more caffeine to get through this day.

Sigh. So yeah. Today I turn 59. I have a huge bruise on my face from dental surgery, but I teach middle school, so they’ll assume I was in a fight. It’s a Monday after we Sprang Forward on Daylight Savings Time, so everyone will be exhausted and cranky. I’m teaching mutations. Which is actually usually interesting at least. Then finishing grades and hopefully going to ceramics. I had to request a menu change for dinner tonight so I wouldn’t have to cook, but also so I wouldn’t have to eat a meal I’m not really a fan of…I’ll be sewing things at the end of the day and crashing into bed, feeling like a truck hit me. Normal Monday. We’ll all be more awake by next week…this week though. This week always sucks.

Pain Meds…

Fridays. Fridays mean the weekend. This weekend? Time to catch up on grading; Trimester 2 ends today and there’s lot to get done. I’m almost there. I graded for a while yesterday (after dental surgery). Then I need to grade the stuff they turned in this week, which was an entire packet full of stuff. I’m kind of done with all of it…mentally…because you’re not done until that last week of school.

I’m still fussing along on the dye paintings. The background thread was being cranky on this one…

It’s thicker, so fussier. I didn’t finish it last night either, because I was in a stitching Zoom and trying to pay attention, and dealing with fussy thread wasn’t in my mindset at the time. I’ll hopefully be there tonight. I was trying to find some earth fabric for one of them, after getting profanity shot down for that upcoming show (sigh). I found something that might work online. So I trimmed that quilt and then another one. Couldn’t find enough of anything appropriate for a binding for the smaller one, but I did for the larger one, so I put a binding and sleeves on it.

No handwork yet. Might leave the sleeves loose for now. Not sure if the bouncing around between four projects is a pro or a con for me. It’s not how I usually work. But I have limited brainpower right now for anything. This would be a perfect time to trace Wonder Under or cut things out. Low-key, meditative, not hard but takes up brain space. The deadline on these moved back to early June, so I have some time. A chance to build mental space maybe. 11 school days to Spring Break. Not that my break is really chill…I’ll be gone for 7 days. Catching up on grading, yardwork, and housework will have to happen around all that. Spring Break is always a little like that…we usually do a camping trip in spring, but have moved it to summer to coincide with my residency starting. Different. Different can be good.

I had this picture that was supposedly of the Iranian girls’ school funeral, but it was AI. I still say our country needs to answer to that. 165 girls killed to our…6? Are we still at 6? I didn’t check yesterday. Meanwhile, Melania Trump was at some meeting about the safety of children in war zones. Yo, babe, it’s your man. Make him stop. Sigh. This is not making the world a better, safer place. Using your brain more than your penis probably would.

I had dental surgery yesterday. We were hoping to fix/save the tooth, but it was not salvageable. Unfortunately. More money, more stitches. Yes, I’m at school today. It’s not horrible. I have pain meds and I’m generally OK. I needed to do a hands-on activity today and that’s not something you leave for a sub. When I got home, I sat on the couch and finished the second book of the day (I had two nearing the end)…with these guys.

Nice. I graded a bunch there until the stitching Zoom. Then I graded some more after and stitched some more after that. Not a bad end to a day with 6 stitches in your mouth.

Today. Early meeting. Need to give test corrections at lunch. Work on grading stuff, preparing for next week. Duty after school. I had to panic-put together two independent study contracts for kids who are gone until Spring Break, or one, the week after break as well (like I have that shit planned out WTF). With 24 hours’ notice. Thanks parents. Appreciate that. So I lost yesterday’s prep to that. I have yet another long email from the parent who started last Friday. I’ve spent over an hour already on emails to him; luckily he included my team this time, so I have backup. Hopefully I will feel up to ceramics after school. My bowl was off the bisque shelf, so I assumed it was in a kiln, but I haven’t see it come out yet. I’m also hoping there’s room on the drying shelves for my current piece, because it is swiftly outgrowing my shelf. That said, I can add some stuff to the torso now. Then home to grade grade grade and hopefully do some art stuff and some yard stuff and not feel like I’m just a worker bunny.

Also, if I can not go to school and look around the room and think what it would be like if someone bombed our school and there were bodies everywhere. It’s hard not to think about that when you consider what our country is doing right now. It’s hard to drive to work in the sunshine and not think about what people are doing where it’s not so removed from the violence.

So that’s the Friday mood I guess. I’ll work on it. Go take some more pain meds maybe.

It’s All Rainbows?

I’m working on some new pieces that are supposed to be for a show in a conservative part of Southern California. I figured these dye paintings would be quicker than trying to draw and make a whole new quilt that fits their ‘no nudity’ rules, plus it gets me to finally start thinking about these pieces and what I can do with them. I’m in the brainless, just-quilt-it phase, which is probably a good thing, because my brain keeps trying to figure out how to make these more political…I mean, we’re in a stupid war, spending crazy stupid money, probably illegally, and I’m trying to make art that won’t offend anyone…I don’t really set out to offend people, but I don’t usually regulate what I do either, so it’s a challenge. I’ve made a few pieces for places that didn’t allow nudity before…it just seems harder to control the need to put the word ‘fuck’ all over everything at the moment.

So yes, I’m quilting rainbow batiks at the moment…

I had to pack a quilt Monday night, so I had limited quilting time. I have another I have to pack sometime soon…same deal. But I finished quilting. I think. I might do more in the background? Or maybe just hand stitch. I don’t know yet.

Definitely doing something all up in her hair, and maybe her skin. Not sure.

I didn’t have actual rainbow thread. I have limited thread sources locally. Well, I was going to go to one place and they aren’t apparently open on Sundays, so I didn’t. But I had a thread from quilting a friend’s baby quilt that was light green through blue and purple and that was close enough.

Although maybe rainbow thread is something I will keep an eye out for, in my vast thread-shopping trips (ha. not happening).

So then I moved on to the next one…

I mostly only did the black outline around the head…need to figure out what I’m doing in the face area. Odds of my having pink thread anywhere is pretty low. I’m heavy on the dark blues. But more of that tonight. At some point, I’ll have to make real decisions on these pieces, but low-key is where I’m at right now. I’m panicking about grades being due Monday or Tuesday and not wanting to grade all weekend and also shipping stuff out and getting taxes done and school is overwhelming and adults are annoying and sometimes kids are too, but at least they have an excuse of still growing and developing.

I did some clay on Monday…adding the second arm and tried to make it fit where I wanted it.

Learning from my mistakes on the last one hopefully. I’m going to cut a big hole in the chest soon. But I want to add a bunch of stuff too. So that’s my brain for you. My brain that last night got totally sidetracked by a long email chain that a parent kept going and I kept having to answer and all I’m really thinking about is how much work I have to do and burying my brain in this…

It’s like they’re doing everything they can to distract from how crazy all the rest of their decisions are. Wars are good for the economy, right? Isn’t that what they say? I feel like this one is gonna tank the economy. Gas prices sky high? Children dying? And this…

That’s why my brain keeps leaning toward making stuff political. Because it is.

This was the weekend.

That thing is still continuing though.

Gemma’s got my anxiety mapped out. Oh yeah, and dental surgery tomorrow. Fun times. Sub plans PLUS possibly yanking a tooth (hopefully not).

I do like this concept though.

The whole caterpillar to butterfly thing is so weird and fascinating.

I actually get frustrated even with kids’ books these days, but I do agree.

That’s why I read fantasy and science fiction probably. And murder mysteries to satisfy my need to stab people.

This is absolutely true. That and Dr. Suess. The world is a disappointment against those two exemplars.

Monday, I drove the ex’s dog to doggy daycare.

She was really confused. So was I, because I had to drive past work to do it. And then drive back. She was a good girl.

OK. Whoa. Today. Meeting this morning (ugh). Then fire drill, and we’re not sure where we’re evacuating to, because last time, they moved our room numbers and then left my coteacher’s room number off and we’re not sure why they moved the numbers and why they didn’t even TELL us, so we’re wandering around the quad with our kids trying to find the numbers and I’m thinking, this is what this school year is like…wandering aimlessly because no one in charge thought it through or told us anything. My coteacher is gonna go find our numbers before school because I’m in a meeting, and then I’m teaching genetic traits, which is kinda fun…the kids get into it. Then pilates and book club (haven’t finished the book) and grading and quilting. SLEEP. Maybe. That’s an issue some days. GRADING. And setting up Friday’s activity, which required 250 pages of laminating and then cutting them all apart. So Much Work and I’m still not done. The two boys who helped yesterday were way more efficient than our TA, who is getting fired…second one this year we’ve gotten rid of. Never done that before. So weird. But art at the end. Be thankful for that.

Don’t Really Know What I’m Doing…

Well. Here we are. It’s Monday again. I’m not sure how I feel about the last weekend. I did some things. I didn’t do all the things (I never do). I don’t feel like I did enough of the things (I rarely do). Sometimes though, it really feels like a dearth of productivity or enjoyment. So I sit here on Monday morning and remember that I did plan my summer trip finally; I actually have stuff booked. I should have done it two months ago, but I didn’t…but it’s good that I didn’t wait any longer. I had the mental space for that because the dog was up at some ungodly hour on Saturday morning and I just started and then I was done. I also started my taxes (see, this is why it doesn’t feel like a good time). My country started a war. You know, standard Saturday morning. What did you do today? Bombed a girls’ school. How about you? I accidentally shot my coworkers out of the sky. No biggie, right?

So let’s start with the art…I didn’t get much done. No ceramics on Friday because the dog needed to be let out. Adjustment in schedules for all of us when the boychild goes back to work. Honestly, we dissected eyeballs on Friday and I was pretty exhausted anyway.

Couldn’t go on Saturday because they were doing a class there. So it’ll be today. I quilted Friday night…

I’m adding a speech bubble. Gotta keep it clean for this venue. Then embroidery and binding.

Saturday night, I quilted the next one…

Definitely something needs to happen with the hair. Not sure what else.

Then last night, I started quilting this one…

It’s more complicated; requires more color changes. One of the colors was not happy about being sewn, so there was that. This one needs a lot of embroidery in the hair, I think. There’s one more after this to quilt, and then I can start the other stuff. I might put bindings and sleeves on first? Can’t decide…depends on if the sleeves will get in the way of embroidery. So maybe wait, since I don’t really know what I’m doing with that yet.

Four at a time? Unlike me. But it’s what I’m doing right now.

I hiked Saturday. By myself still. Which is fine. My brain wanders (not always good). So do my feet.

It was warm…over 90 degrees during midday, down to 80 or so when I hiked at 4:30 PM.

Lots of flowers out. Weird cloud formations.

Flowers were out at home too. I took a break from grading and planning and taxes at some point and watered things and moved a few plants.

Noticed some weird flowers.

Interacted with Simba.

Stressed about war.

And children.

And that’s kind of where I’m at today…not happy with my government…still…again. But I’m still going to work and doing the things. Although one of those stressed me out all weekend. Sigh. Parents using Chatgpt to make excuses for their kids. Fun times.

I’m glad I’m not a history teacher right now. Although we still get asked questions, stupid ones: “what do you think about the Epstein files miss?” WHAT THE FUCK do you think I think? Seriously. And I can’t really answer except to say, the man was in jail for a reason. In my head? More people should be in jail. Lots more. One big dumb one in particular.

So that was the weekend. Taxes are never a good way to spend time off, but it needed to get started. It’s fine. These things have to happen. Today, I give a test on the eyeball and kids turn packets in. Grades are due in a week. I’m behind in grading…still…again. Hopefully I get to go to ceramics after work and work on that piece that will soon need to go on a drying shelf, which means there needs to be ROOM on a drying shelf (there hasn’t been). Then home to read my book for book club (Wednesday, not done yet) and then more quilting. More fabric decisions, thread thoughts. Those are things I can look forward to today. I will have to grade before I get to that, but OK, I can do that. Keep it short, but get it done. Right now? I need to go take my meds and then drive the ex’s dog to doggy daycare so I can go to work. Deep breaths. Holding onto anxiety with this parent…didn’t read the last email. Didn’t want to lose more sleep over the enabling. Not worth it.

Friday Eyeballs…

It’s Friday. Pro. Con? We’re dissecting eyeballs today, which is cool, but I’ll have no voice by the end of the day and I’ll feel like I need a shower after touching all the gooey things. With gloves, sure, but it still gets old after all day. Also, the weekend sounds great, but I’m still buried in school stuff. It’s not fun. Trying to manage all the assignments for kids who were absent, make sure they have everything they need, make sure the kids who are in the classroom are caught up? The end of the trimester AND the end of a unit…make me want to scream, honestly. Sigh. Ah well. I will survive it, as I always do. It’s a frustrating job and becomes more frustrating when you have very little support. And as much as I appreciate days off (I worked during both though), it’s hard coming back. It’s like the work doubled while you were gone. Today will be nuts. I’m hoping to get to ceramics in the afternoon, but it’s entirely dependent on my exhaustion level.

Wednesday, I got borders on the littlest of the dye paintings I’m working on now…

Then pinbasted it…

And stared at it…and decided it needed some body parts in there to make it make sense. So I drew them out on paper…although, on the right, you can see my edit with my fingernail in the fabric below.

Then last night, I cut those out (edited) in freezer paper and appliqued by hand…

Better. Tonight, I’ll start quilting all of them. Mostly outlines and then the backgrounds and borders. Then hand embroidery after that. I might bind before the hand embroidery. Kinda backwards from what I normally do.

I also remembered that Stitchpunk (the SAQA exhibit) will be in Grants Pass, Oregon, this summer, and I originally had a plan to go see it. This is the closest it gets to me, at least so far. Fierce Planets goes to New Mexico in 2027. Also a plan (Winter Break road trip?). I’m planning my drive up to my artist residency, which is in Eastern Oregon this summer. We had planned on Lassen National Park and Crater Lake; and I think we can pull off Grants Pass too (just don’t tell my partner yet? He’s gonna be stressed about the driving I think). Bend is where I put him on a plane home before I drive southeast to the residency.

Busy trip. Gotta get up to Lassen too, which is no small feat. Gonna work on that trip this weekend, plus hopefully start my taxes…fun times. Plus grade shit and work on the burgeoning greenery of my yard in spring.

Today though…today is eyeballs and chaos and clay and fabric and maybe reading my book a little bit. I need to finish one by Wednesday, so I should get on that, but it’s an old actual physical book and the font is tiny and crowded and annoys me. Ah well. I’ll get through it, all of it, enjoy the sunshine, playing with fabric, petting a cat or two and maybe a few dogs and then realize there’s only three weeks until Spring Break and I might actually survive that. Maybe.