Late nights. Art brain on a roll. Can’t make it stop. Followed by teacher brain and mom brain. Won’t let me sleep. I’m kind of a mess today. That said, I think most teachers start the year on almost no sleep, so how is this different? It’s not. I got a super-late ironing start last night. Had work to do for school…Kitten was a big help.

As long as I didn’t need any of those keys she was lying on (you will not backspace bitch), she was happy.

When I was done with all the computer stuff, I started ironing. It was probably 11. I started on the arm and the upper torso.

Because I really want to be further along than I am. ALWAYS. So I kept going…did both breasts…

And that was where I was going to stop…but Kitten was lying where my iron belongs (because I was now ironing instead of computing, so she had to be involved. Realize this means she moved about 6 feet from her previous position…it’s a small room), so obviously I couldn’t put it down. I would have to continue to work.

Really, if you sew at all, you know that cats will lie on ALL the things, especially what you need at the moment, what you don’t want to be covered with hair, and whatever might be completely in the way of what you’re doing. I’ve had cats that spent hours trying to lie on what I was actually ironing (Limbo, that would have been you), so really, she’s pretty benign. She never aims for the spread of tiny pieces on the table or the ironing board itself. We’re good.

I started ironing the heart (yes, that’s Voyager in the background…think I’m almost done with the series)…

Then I realized it has about 30 rivets in it and I stopped. Plus it was almost 1 AM. But you can see above how big the SMALLER figure is…There’s still an arm and a large head on this thing. The larger figure isn’t even ironed fully together yet. It will be large.

I’m in the 1500s…

In pieces, not on the timeline. There’s not much left, but school starts tomorrow. Hard to say when I will get all this where I need it to be. I think I’m at 21 hours of ironing. But I spent over 8 hours at school yesterday and today will be similar. Usually I have more help from my daughter, but she is saying goodbye to all her friends, so I’m not a priority…which is fine. Mostly it’s a matter of focus. I wander the room and a project calls and then the next one interrupts. I think I could teach tomorrow RIGHT NOW (OK, no, someone needs to hole-punch and staple stuff) if I had to.

My plan to finish ironing this tonight is not going to happen, but hopefully I can get all the pieces ironed together at least, and maybe piece the background. Maybe even deal with the issue of the dark pieces being too dark. I know it’ll take a couple of hours to get it ironed to the background though, so maybe that’s Thursday night. We’ll see. I know Friday night is driving boychild to the airport and forcing girlchild to pack (but I might need to wear ALL the things!). Then Saturday early is driving to the airport again and flying to Boston. That means my books need to be assigned, my sub plans need to be set up, and my room has to be ready to roll for that poor guest teacher. Before I leave. I can sleep on the flight maybe (I am so tired right now).

Tonight? Arm and head. Keep it simple.

There are so many things in my classroom that I need to get done, that I stand there frozen, looking around until one task catches my eye, and then I start it, and while I’m doing it, another one speaks to me, and I start it, and then I never finish the first one, because I’ve completely forgotten it. This is also why my house isn’t clean, by the way. It just never coalesces into a one single project that can be completed. With school, you kind of have no choice but to be mostly on top of it by the first day of school (at least with the major stuff, like, um, the schedule), so there’s a deadline that’s looming over you. I guess if I knew 180 people were showing up at my house on Thursday…nope. Even then, it wouldn’t get clean. There’s just not enough time.

So I flailed a lot at school yesterday, but I wasn’t the only one. I conquered some tasks and made lists and came home to finish my syllabus (finally). I think I’m doing science stuff today. I have a bunch of stuff that needs copying, but the last batch never made it back to me (of course). Whatever (new mantra, remember?).

Girlchild had started some stuff at the local ceramics painting place a few weeks ago and needed to finish, but didn’t want to go alone, so I had agreed to go over with her, because all my mugs broke, and I’ve been drinking tea out of beer mugs (no really…it seems OK to me). I like a big mug. What can I say? Anyway, we did that. I find it really calming and meditative, so it was actually probably a good thing to do.

I knew I didn’t have much time, so I was going for big, graphic, and basic.

Strangely, girlchild was painting a mug for me, which I wasn’t allowed to see, so she sat over THERE and painted it so I couldn’t see it.

Mine, back side, ready to be fired…plus her two…yes, they’re blurry.

I can’t pick them up until after I’ve taken her to college.

Then we came home and there were three of us on the couch briefly until I got up to make dinner. After I had cleaned up the kitchen. And then cleaned it up again. Looking forward to cleaning up only my own messes. Really.

Then I started ironing around 10 PM. I stopped last night because I knew the next bit was a honking pain in the ass…the power lines and electrical transmission lines…

I didn’t do much else but them last night…they had about 100 pieces in them, with the houses and the trees…

Fussy little beasts…and now, this morning, I’m second-guessing my background fabric…might be too dark for this. So I’m debating solutions in my head. I have a few…one that I think is quite good, but will require some brain power…

There is no shortage of pieces left to iron…these are the 1400s.

So I’m at 20 hours of ironing and I still have about 450 pieces to go, and then I have to iron it to the background. Methinks my time estimate was too low. Fussy little pieces…they’re all over the place in this beast. I know the heart and the piping in the arm have about 40 tiny pieces.

But lo, though the quilt calls to me still and makes my heart all aflutter with want and need (to get it done, people), I must hither to school. We have an early program and then I will work on my classroom until the variety of meetings occurs. Or I will get stuff copied. Or whatever. I really would rather stay home and iron all this together (I could finish it today), but that’s not happening. The disappointment of the art brain is palpable. Wish I had a brain that felt the same way about yardwork and housecleaning. Well. OK. Maybe I don’t.

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.

So if you don’t know about summer in Southern California, you’re probably not aware that temperatures don’t usually start to get really bad until the end of August, and then they kick our asses in September and October. We hit over 100 degrees pretty regularly once school starts, and then usually, it mellows out by the end of October and you stop sweating while you sleep (if you are as unlucky as I am to have no A/C). It’s hot right now. I think it hit 100 yesterday; at least, the 90-year-old woman I helped at the gas station (no, really, I am a Girl Scout at heart) told me so. It’s supposed to be hotter on Sunday. Just shoot me now. My Scandinavian blood starts boiling at around 95 degrees and I get all fatigued and cranky and headachy. Then I realize I need to drink about 100 gallons of cold water just to make up for what I’m losing in sweat, and I get a little bit better. But still cranky. It’s a great way to start the school year.

I went to school yesterday, notionally to drop some stuff off, but also to check if they had fixed my A/C there (oh no. you can’t make me teach in heat.), and it was apparently (and yet not) fixed. Sigh. So I bitched and moaned (I need to bring food to my custodian and flowers to my office manager). And then I went to check my mailbox. They realphabetize us every year, but there’s always some short person who gets a box in the top row, and that is now me. I’m the average height for a woman in the US, but it doesn’t mean I can reach that top row without tiptoes, and I certainly can’t see into it. Whatever. Remember? I’m all about the whatever. I just won’t SEE what’s in there. It’s probably better that way.

Then when I finally got home (and I should preface that with I made a trip to Home Depot with the boychild, who then LEFT one of the shelf brackets in the cart there, and we will never ever see it again, I might have to kill him. Wait. And to get another one, I either have to drive out to Ikea on a Saturday or ship it here, with a $10 shipping charge for a $4 item. Methinks he needs to drive to Ikea today.), I went to cook dinner and realized that in training myself out of Costco chicken bags (I won’t need that much chicken once the kids are gone IN A WEEK), I didn’t actually buy chicken for dinner. Bloody hell. And it’s HOT. Aargh.

I’m not stupid. We went out to dinner to this little divey burger place that actually makes some pretty awesome burgers. Seriously awesome. It was good. First we got in a good down-home argument about politics and feminism, and then we devolved into goofiness about song lyrics and all that shit. That’s what I’ll miss. Sigh. I sat on the couch with the girlchild for about an hour while she was going through her photos…pictures of now-dead pets and the kids when they were littler. Sad. That’s the sad I’m allowed to feel.

Ironing started mega-late. The heat. Shit. It makes it hard to iron. I can’t put a real fan on…it has to be one that blows under the ironing board, so it doesn’t blow pieces away. And this room is one of the hottest in the house for some reason. Especially with the lights on.

I only ironed about 2 1/2 hours total. I have 15 hours in so far.

I wanted the whole figure done, but didn’t get there. Too tired. I did the face…

In pieces…

I stopped there. But I had already done the 150-piece bird…

I’m officially halfway through the ironing! Whoo!

Kitten was helping by playing with the drawing again. I have video of her attacking it.

The fan blows it around and she gets all excited and pounces, until you’re actually watching her, and then she pretends she was not interested at all. Typical cat. I could post the video here, but that means finding a cord and all that crap. Not happening.

Here’s all the bits I’ve ironed together that are waiting in the bin until I get it all done. I will probably iron the bird and the head to the top part of the torso before I move on to the other figure…

I didn’t do the hair last night. I have a limited amount of ironing time today…I should really just get on with it, but it’s so damn hot. And I haven’t eaten. But it’s hot, so I don’t want to eat. Aargh. Ice cream for breakfast (I don’t actually LIKE ice cream).

I did do a bunch of school stuff yesterday too, trying to figure out how to schedule stuff when I’m going to be gone. And I wasn’t sure we’d have computers the first three weeks. I’m still not sure about that. Sigh. Whatever. Class sizes will definitely be bigger this year; we already know that. And that’s more work in grading too. Oh well. Whatever. Remember? I’m supposed to say whatever.

So. Crazy ironing goal for today? Dammit. I need to finish her fucking HAIR. That’s really not a lot…like 80 pieces. And I guess I’ll be starting the other figure. Maybe I’ll get her legs done. Because after her legs come the electrical transmission towers, which are like a million tiny stupid pieces. Because I’m only a little crazy and obsessive.

It’s too damn hot to iron.

I kicked some ironing butt yesterday: over 6 hours. Paying for it this morning, of course, but hoping I can do another 6 hours today. What’s funny is that I didn’t get very far. I set a goal of the torso being done, maybe one arm. Maybe both. Maybe even the bird. Ha! Well, that’s still about 300 pieces away (so at least another 3 hours, probably more). There’s a lot of tiny and fussy details (I keep saying that, like it will make it easier or make it go away, and it does neither). They take a long time to iron, so hence…everything is taking a long time. I have 600 pieces ironed together and over 9 hours of ironing in.

The thing about having a goal, of setting yourself something a bit out of reach, is that you will keep ironing and continue standing beyond when most (normal) people will give up, get tired, go watch TV, or go to bed. Of course, it helps that I don’t really have someone to hang out with at night. The boychild was in his room with his computer and the girlchild was saying goodbye to a high-school friend who is leaving for college today. So I don’t have someone I COULD hang out with on the couch and talk to and watch TV with, so I just don’t. I do this crazy art shit instead. There are pros and cons to how this works, trust me. I’d prefer the person on the couch at least some of the nights. Last night, it was enough just to have the kids home again after three days of their being gone (3 days. I’m about to do a 4-month stretch. Let’s not think about that negatively. Let’s consider all the art I might get done.).

I did actually start ironing in the afternoon, right after they got home, with the second leg.

It had a wolf on the thigh. Like you do.

The empty stripes on the legs are for a snake that wraps around, but it was in the 300s and I was still in the 200s, so I kept up into the pelvic area, ironing it in a few separate sections…the bones first, then the uterus, and then the tree that comes out of it…

If there’s a lot of tiny details in a section, I often iron it separately and then pop it on top of where it’s supposed to be…

Then I added the bird in its nest and all the leaves. I was missing one leaf, so I cut another one out.

Then I did the snake. I did the snake for HOURS. It has more little tiny fussy pieces in it…seriously, it’s the 150-piece snake. But I love how it looks…it’s modeled after a real snake, the Coast Garter Snake.

There’s actually shading in there, where the snake goes under the legs. So more than a little bit crazy.

I cooked dinner in there somewhere…I think in between snake parts. And then I ironed the pelvis to the legs, pulled the whole thing off the teflon sheet, and re-ironed it on so I could add the lion. This is not the first time I’ve put a lion in my quilts…I love their faces. So serene and motherly and yet dangerous. Protective. She was perfect for this.

I decided to pull that whole section off the teflon and put it in the bin for later. It’s kind of in the way and the next section can be done on its own. This is the torso above the arm…

And then I started ironing the lower arm and hand. A lot of the details will pop when I do the outline stitching.

That’s where I stopped. I almost didn’t. I really wanted to keep going up the arm, but there’s a semi-complicated butterfly next and then a detail whore of a spider’s web. I couldn’t face that after midnight. My legs were killing me. I need one of those bouncy floors in here that they put in at the zoo or at kids’ playgrounds. Except that rubbery stuff would be a pain to sweep and I do iron things together on my floor. This one is so big, though, that I will have to do it in the entryway. Which means cleaning it out! There’s two suitcases waiting to go to Boston, filled with the girlchild’s clothes (maybe she will let me bring a change of underwear…if not, commando it is! There is nothing I will not do for the college cause! OK, that’s not true.), there’s a bunch of boxes to be recycled, a ton of stuff for the thrift shop, and two random guitars. Sigh. I’ll need the whole floor. And the black cat keeps puking on the rug in there, and it’s been washed so many times, it’s finally falling apart. Seriously, it’s been here since soon after we moved in…the girlchild was 10 months old. My mom made it. She doesn’t weave any more, so I will have to glue it all back together and hope it lasts.

So now I have to set today’s crazy goal. Except I can look at what I got done yesterday and realize this section is a little less crazy. Well. Except for the spider and the butterfly and there’s that bee over there. Ha! But let’s put it out there. I gots nothing tonight after my trip to the counselor (gotta keep the mind in a good place) and Costco. I almost gave up on Costco, but toilet paper does get used and I like their cat litter. Plus sometimes there are deals on meat. So the best time to go is after counseling because no one else is there. Then I can come home and iron my ass off. Really, I could be doing that now if I weren’t sitting here writing. And didn’t still need a shower. And didn’t have to run an errand with the boychild (today? tomorrow? can’t put it off after that dammit.). I find after parenting for 19+ years that you should always do the errand when you think you have time the first time around, because the time you think you will have tomorrow will get eaten up by some OTHER stupid errand or event or emergency. I need to get the car smogged too. Boring! Can’t iron there.

I need another week. I always need another week. But no, this time I really do.

The goal, Kathryn. Focus. Make a goal. OK, so I know there’s about 300 pieces to get to the bird, and I want the bird done. Fuck it. Let’s go all out and aim to have the larger figure completely done today (that’s nuts, woman. It really is.). No really. It’s only another 500 pieces. Or 600. You can do that. You can at least aim to do that.

OK. I have my goal. (crazy woman)

All day in class. I’m a little braindead. Ironic, since we planned a unit on zombies. It’s a different way to use your brain though. I have to turn that part on and try to get it to go. Like an engine that hasn’t been started in a while. And then it dies at 2 PM. OK, that happens during the school year too. I do really badly with the short days when we end at 2:30 and then go into meetings. I am not an afternoon brainiac. I’ll come back to life in about an hour or so. But even right now…ugh. I is tired.

I did manage to finally start ironing the big quilt last night though. A miracle. I kept putting off the start, because I knew it would be hard and time-consuming, and I wasn’t sure if I should do both quilt items at the same time, the big one I’ve been working on for the last month or the 17-foot human. Or if I should get ironed as fast as possible and then start sewing? I just don’t know. I have my eye on the calendar and the amount of time left, though, and I decided to iron.

I didn’t get very far. I laid out the first 100 pieces…

of almost 1900. And then I ironed the first 50 together, I think…not even.

And then I realized how early I had to be up in the morning, and I went to bed. Which did no freakin’ good, because I couldn’t fall asleep. So frustrating. I don’t know if it’s stress or trying to go to sleep earlier than my body wants to…but at the moment, I don’t have any brain power and I want a nap. That is not a good sign. I’m hoping to iron some more tonight, but really, I also need to plan at least the first week or so of the school year, especially since I will be gone on the 3rd day of school. Don’t know what to do about that. Ugh. Bad timing.

I’m figuring this will take at least 20 hours to iron together. In fact, I can look at last year’s big quilt, which was almost as big bad and ugly as this one…and it took almost 23 hours. OK. Revise. Let’s say 25 hours of ironing. I could do that by Monday if I worked my butt off and didn’t deal with school at all. So. Yeah. I’ll try, but realistically? Nah. Soonish though. I finished washing all the fabric I got from the SIL last night, so all those are ready for the string piecing. But this space can’t handle my doing both at the same time. It’s just not big enough. I can sew and iron at the same time, but not if I have fabric pieces all over the place.

Do you remember that I was going to clean this room over the summer? Yeah. It’s funny to me too.

The drawing is so big, it hits the floor, and the fan was making it waft all over the place. Kitten watched carefully…

And occasionally attacked it. With vigor.

Of course, she’s been sleeping all day and not working hard on the undead, like me.

Tomorrow, more interviews. Then I can haz 2.5 days off until the real crap begins. I should probably figure some stuff out, like the things I need for the first week or so. Eh. I don’t know what it means that I’m not engaged and ready to work. Some teachers have been at school, in their classrooms, for days. Redoing boards and decorating and I really don’t know what else. I found everything in about 3 hours. I probably need another 2 or 3 hours and I’m good. The girlchild will help next week with labels and stuff like that. I really need time to finish the new website and figure my brain out.

But I’d rather be ironing. Or apparently sleeping.