Sigh. I did OK last night, considering the level of exhaustion after Back-to-School Night. You can’t imagine how hard it is to remember all the kids’ names and periods and parents are demanding grades and reports and validation and holy crap. Two things I loved: My student from last year with two older brothers I also had, he brought his mom to see me again, whereupon I told her how awesome she and her boys were and thanked her for raising them. And he hugged me! Happy. Then the kid who was such a sweetheart in 7th grade who is now a junior who came with his sister and I swear, I barely recognized him and he was still a sweetheart. Going to college. Checking up on his sister. And then there’s all the kids who totally annoyed you and you never want to see them again, and they come back too, but they’re all grown up (ish) and sentimental about my class (I probably yelled at them constantly; that’s why I still remember their name. It came out of my mouth 7,000 times.).
But it’s a really long and exhausting day. I came home and parked myself on the couch and watched Elementary and graded papers and ordered a fucking pizza because are you fucking kidding me? I’m not cooking. And both kids were texting me at some point.
I did manage to revive eventually, though, and came in here and started copyediting this job that’s due Tuesday. It’s not as crazy as I thought it would be. I never copyedited on the computer…I worked in the old days, when everything was paper, but old habits die hard. I got into it quickly and worked fast. It’s actually an interesting topic, so that helps. She would be mad at me for the donut I just ate (the author), but hey, she didn’t live my last 24 hours.
Then I worked on Christmas shopping (the UK stuff has to go earlier) and getting flights for the kids to come home…managed one, but not the other, because I don’t know when to send her back (minor issue). Her flights are easier to get, though. She’s not flying into the boonies like her brother. After that, I printed stuff for school for the next unit, a lot of it. Still couldn’t find a couple of things, but I got most of them.
At that point, it was 11 PM. I know. Seriously. Not a lot of brain power or energy. But really, what I needed to do was grunt work anyway. I can’t start these little quilts until I clean up. It’s been since mid-July? Maybe? I can’t remember. I know the big piles of fabric came after I picked the fabrics for the Concrete quilt, so that was July 22-August 3. And then the piles grew.
A few days ago, we had this…
You can see all those drawers are popped open from when I was searching for the right colors. And then if I don’t use them, I just stack them on top of the drawer, so it can’t close (and so cats are attracted to it). I had 10 drawers on this side that were chaos.
Now?
Yeah, there’s still some stuff on the floor that needs handling, but it’s better. Much better.
I don’t have a before picture, but imagine a similar chaos in the shelves…
And seriously, there’s getting to be too much fabric for me to store in here.
I still have all of these to put away…
The blues are what’s killing me. I really have nowhere else to put them. I used how many blues in that 17-foot woman? And I still have an issue. I think I’m as efficient as I can be with the storage in here. The problem really is a matter of the size of the room, I think. Oh well. And I don’t know what to do with the upholstery fabrics from the recycling show we did. I don’t really ever want to use them again, except I’m a hoarder on the fabric level, and realize that shit comes in useful sometimes. So I’m debating those.
I did make progress, though, and that’s a good thing. Tonight I will have to grade and copyedit again, for more hours. And I’ll be copyediting and grading all weekend, because they’re both due on Tuesday and I have an art meeting on Monday and who knows if I’ll be allowed out of the house the rest of the weekend. It’s probably a good thing that I’m essentially antisocial, because I wouldn’t have time to be super-social with all this other crap anyway.
I do want to iron some stuff down tonight though. That means finishing the cleaning up part first, at least mostly. I mean, let’s not get crazy here. I have all these school files that I attempt to clean out on a regular basis (totally blew it off this summer), and they live in here…mostly on the floor because I don’t have time to refile them. As I go more and more electronic, it really is easier to toss this stuff. I keep samples of kids’ work. I keep a few things that I don’t have electronically. But I recycled a huge pile of Crap from Stupid Professional Development I Was Forced to Go to. You know? It deserved to die.
I also allowed myself to look at the requirements for the two shows I want to create pieces for in the upcoming months (there’s also a baby quilt in there…aack!). I put the sizes in my phone so I could keep them in my head (yes, I did just admit that my phone is an extension of my brain…in fact, sometimes I wish it really was). I’m letting the ideas slosh around in there until I can make a decision. I think it would be OK to be tracing Wonder Under for the next largish quilt while I was working on the smaller ones in here. I think it would be OK to be making art every day…it doesn’t really matter what it is.
In fact, I’m currently having a hard time persuading my art brain that (1) I need to go to work for the whole day because I’m a teacher and that pays the bills, (2) when I get home, I will have to grade a lot of papers because I’m behind (when am I not?) and progress reports are due), and (3) I have another paying job (or two) that need my attention before you’re allowed to fondle the fabrics. Art brain crawls into a corner, pulls a blanket over its head, and starts to sob.
It’s OK, little art brain. I’ll let you out later, in about 15 hours…just for a little bit. But once I get past the middle of next week, you can come out for REAL.
Kathy Nida 