School Calls. Loudly.

It’s amazing how much excessive heat sucks brain power. Out here in East County, there were conflicting reports, but it was at least 104 on Saturday and 102 yesterday, and I don’t have A/C. At some point, we all just lie down and flail…humans and animals alike. I can’t even think about ironing until it cools down, although I did manage some of it on Saturday afternoon. I’m not sure how….big glasses of ice water and a fan blowing directly on my legs. Doses of other peoples’ air conditioning.

I wanted to be a lot further ahead of where I am, but this is reality. Either it’s something to do with my kids or my job, or even the damn weather.

Saturday, I did finally finish the larger of the two figures. Her hair is the ocean and it was kinda fun to do, even in the heat…

I ironed the stuff that was supposed to go in her hair separately (seaweed, jellyfish, even the fish)…

And then I put them together with the face…

The upper torso fit perfectly…

I love seeing it come together. Up until now, it was just colored in my head. I have a huge black and white drawing and something in my head.

So Sunday, I couldn’t have ironed during the day if I’d wanted to. The heat just sapped my energy completely. I tried to drink lots of water. We went to my parents’ for dinner. I came back and tried to function, but was dealing with texts from a coworker and my SIL on the phone and answering an email, all at the same time.

Finally got back to it, starting on the second figure. You’re going to notice some differences between the two figures…

For one thing, this one is down on her knees…symbolism! Yes the other one towers over her. There’s also some different imagery on and around the body, which I started in on last night.

Got both legs done, which was good. That was midnight.

That was 18 1/2 hours of ironing in so far. I didn’t get much done the last two days, mostly due to the weather, and today, I’m looking at the ironing board and I’m so ready to start up again (it’s cooler finally). Like right now.

Sigh. Have to be at school in 45 minutes. So yeah, that’s not happening. And the girlchild needs me this afternoon and I have to deal with one of the boychild’s last-minute things and somehow in my spare time show him how to install shelves (I guess that will be at 10 PM tonight). And write a sub plan for next Monday and prep for kids in my classroom on Thursday and get everything else ready. It’s not a minor amount of work. I love that my brain doesn’t want to do any of that. It just wants to iron.

So I’m at piece 1190 of about 1875. Only 700 pieces? I could finish that today if life weren’t happening! So hopefully I’ll be ironing this together…I’ll say by Wednesday night, it should be ironed to the background. Maybe sooner? And then stitching it down. But I’ll be gone for the weekend, so that will probably wait until mostly next week. And then I need to start worrying about the other piece I think. I can’t even guess how long that will take to do, so that’s a little scary, but it’s due before this one. So once this is stitched down, I’ll switch gears for a bit. That won’t be frustrating or confusing at all! Oh well. There will be no one in the house but me, so I can make something for dinner on one night and then eat it for the next five (blech).

School calls. Loudly. So does art, but I know from whence my paycheck comes.