The routine. Ugh. What did you do today? I got up, ate, went to school and taught all day, dealt with crazy stuff after school, came home, vegged out for a bit, cooked, then ironed and dehaired a bunch of quilts, and then traced some Wonder Under. Attempted interrupted sleep. Did it all over again. But then again…it’s probably that routine that makes all those quilts. Because it’s already in my head…what I’m supposed to do. Get up. Make dinner. Wash dishes so you have time and energy to make art. Do it earlier. Don’t start at 11 (although at some point, I have no problems doing that…not on the week school starts back up). Start early. Make it work. Blow off all that grading. You did enough work at school today. What is your life about? Being a teacher (a little) or being an artist (a lot). Yeah.
A frustrating hour with a parent issue and a bunch of kids who were dragged to detention by admin didn’t help. I’m about to give up on that. I’m about to give up on a lot of it. Usually we wait until April…but Spring Break comes early this year…and the lack of follow-through on the kids and the parents is just wearing me thin. Especially the little stupid things. There’s an answer key on a disk I have at home. I want to put the answer key on my school Google Drive, so I emailed it to myself. The school email rejected it because of the “type of file it is.” You mean a PDF from a school publisher? Because that’s what it is. And I emailed it to myself. Fuck me. So the parent that wanted me to make 14 phone calls yesterday in the very short time I have during the day that isn’t eaten up by everything else…yeah. Same deal.
This is why the art. So much of it.
I had one pile on the left of stuff that was ironed and had slats or dowels, but then it was getting too heavy. It’s supported by a large flattened cardboard box on two chairs and a computer desk. On the right is now the larger quilts, with a couch and a coffee table and a cardboard box full of books. Trying to keep cats off…
And dogs for that matter…
Is not easy. But it’s worked so far. I have about 18 done…and I’m not really sure how many I need, and I’m still culling. I pulled one yesterday, and there’s one in this pile that isn’t going as well. In the first pull, I just grabbed anything that might work.
These are the ones that are still in need of ironing and slats/dowels. I don’t know how many are in there, actually. I just aim to iron about 5 a night. Some have more cat hair on them than others…if there were safely rolled up most of the time (which probably meant they weren’t going to shows due to age or just whatever), then they were pretty clean. It’s the ones that didn’t get put away after they came home that are the biggest hairy mess.
But there’s progress. And that’s good. And I’ll feel a sense of relief when it’s done, that’s for sure.
I did trace for over an hour and a half, and was way more efficient than I have been lately.
Believe it or not, less tired last night. Not sure why. But I’m in the low 600s now with about 5 1/2 hours in. Only about 400 to go, so if I can do 200 each night, I’m on track. I haven’t scheduled out beyond that. That might be an issue. Cutting out Wonder Under doesn’t take much time…ironing will be another 10+ hours. Cutting out those takes a little longer than Wonder Under. Then ironing. Yeah. I can’t see that far out. I have a bunch of stuff going on this weekend, a baby quilt to finish, grades due…all in the next 10 days. Then I can think more clearly. Just keep doing is what I say. I can handle that part. Last night I did well.
Kathy Nida 