She’s a Bad Mama Jama*

OK, speedwriting. I thought I’d sleep in (still not falling asleep quickly) and have a leisurely morning, but first a dog woke me early to pee and then my phone reminded me that the car needed to go in…in 5 minutes…oh shit, rush around, where’s my brain, who the hell knows, maybe in my toe…

It’s OK…trying to deal with a persistent cyst thing. Just can’t get it wet for two days, which is kinda gross, because it’s covered in blood and betadine. MMMM. Lovely. Friend is showing up in minutes and I need to find a bra. I hate bras. Seriously not sure the world is ready for my never wearing one though.

While waiting for the water heater installation yesterday, we were cleaning the girlchild’s room and found these. Tossed the wine. It was vinegar. That vodka is mine though.

For making penne alla vodka. Apparently I was supposed to just be cleaning MY shit out of the room…not finding her secret stash. Well then. She’ll be 21 on Thursday. She can come get the alcohol out of the cabinet. (She’ll be here soon.)

I ironed a little bit in the afternoon before the foot procedure…got her heart and lungs in.

And did the tattered American flag. We feel tattered, don’t we? Not because we need America to be great again…but because the person(s) trying to make it great have a seriously idiotic and skewed view of what great is. Racist, misogynist, sexist, zenophobic, and generally ignorant and insane.

This is the house of lizards and geckos, by the way. Lots of them. This is a baby.

It’s been so hot and muggy this summer. The dogs really suffer. We put them in the pool about once a day. Calli likes it. Simba doesn’t.

Calli fetches pine cones.

Back to ironing? Hands in place.

Doing the face separately…just to get the eye right…

That fabric makes it look like there’s an eye right where there’s supposed to be an eye. Then face in place. There is a world in her viewpoint. I ironed it on later. Basically, here I’m done with the bottom section. So I pulled it off the teflon and rolled it up.

Then started on what’s behind that section.

It’s too big to do it all at once. I didn’t get much done yesterday. And I have a friend visiting for three days. I’m hoping to get a little bit done each night, but we’ll see. I’m freaking out on time. As always. I probably said the same thing yesterday. Gotta find that bra.

*Carl Carlton, She’s a Bad Mama Jama

I Needed to Be Further Along…

Not only did I manage to put everything back into place in the studio/office, but I also managed to start ironing the quilt together. Hey now, there’s the fun part. I did almost 5 hours yesterday, all after 5 PM.

First of all, can you find the cat? No, I’m not sure why that post-it is there. There’s another one on the other side. Presumably to remind me how to do things.

Notice that the O is missing…about half my keys are rubbed off. It makes it hard for other people to type on my computer. I guess that’s a good thing. I should probably get a new keyboard. Eh.

So late afternoon sun is kind of a pain in the butt in here. Plus yesterday there was like no air flow in here in the evening. I even manhandled the sliding glass door open. I need a new screen door and honestly? A slider on a remote control. That would be freaking awesome. OK, so I went and Googled that and apparently you can get an automatic sliding door thing that works on a motion sensor at your dog’s height. But the raccoons can open it too. Hmmmm. Rethinking. Anyway, when I have ALL the MONEYZ, I will retrofit this room. Meanwhile, it’s hot in here. But honestly? I’m ironing. In the heat of summer. Just like every year. Damn stupid.

So this drawing is huge…falls over all the sides of the ironing board. (Notice the cat is still there.)

Ironing went fast. Not easy, because it’s big. Plus there were some weird things going on.

But not here. Here was pretty easy. I especially like my tiny plastic gyre.

Then it got a little more complicated. I have three different ironing sheets on the drawing here…two big ones and one smaller one for the one wave that had to be tall. There was one piece that was numbered wrong and another piece that got cut and ironed twice. Good brain.

At this point, all the ocean stuff is done, except for the mermaid. Yes, I’m binge-watching Scandal. It’s appropriately interesting and unbelievable. Yes, I am keeping a glass of water on the ironing board. Did I mention that it’s hot? At this point, it’s dark and I have to turn the lights on. Unfortunately. (There’s still a cat.)

OK, started the mermaid…I actually got farther than that. There should be another picture. Hang on.

Found it. I quit at the fingers and the heart/lungs combo, because I knew they’d be complicated and it was already well after midnight. So finishing the rest of her today, and then I’ll probably pull this off the teflon sheets and start ironing the bits above the water.

I’m getting a new water heater today (yay!) plus having a weird foot procedure done, so I don’t have the whole day to iron, but I probably have more time than I will for the next three days. I have a friend visiting, so ironing time will be limited, unfortunately, because it would be nice to have this done before leaving for Arrowhead. Oh yeah, and I need to clean the girlchild’s room. Aack. And get ready for school. Double Aack. I needed to be further along. As always. What’s new?

Go.

OK so last night, all the fucks were said. Many times over. Because the 3-year-old water heater died. All over the laundry room floor and into my office. While I was home alone. I’d like to thank my parents for answering the phone and walking me through the turn-off/drain instructions. I’d like to thank my ex and son for coming over to move a bookcase and mop up puddles everywhere, and for taking a bunch of sopping wet towels to his house to wash. My poor guy had told me to have fun as he headed out for a show last night…it was not fun. Sigh. I’m just glad I caught it before it had completely emptied. If I ever replace the tile in the laundry room, I’m putting a drain in. This is the third time? Maybe fourth?

Anyway, so I was supposed to start ironing things together last night, but that didn’t happen, because (1) I spent a couple hours dealing with furniture and water and (2) part of the leak was in my studio…which currently looks like this…

And this…

And this…Kitten hiding in the midst of it all.

Luckily, not a lot of water came under the wall this time, so I can move it all back today, once I finish this.

Of course, water heaters always die (1) right before I need to do laundry (that’s why I noticed the water) and (2) on Saturday nights. So I have limited clothing and we probably won’t get a new one until Monday at the earliest. Which you know it’s hot here, so cold showers aren’t that bad (note: they’re not great either). That’s a plus. Last time it went, it was October. A little chilly. Not bad though. So there’s good news. Plus it’s warm, so everything is drying out quickly.

Kitten doesn’t like hot.

So what went on before the water leaked all over my plans? GISH is over as of last night. I had two tasks left to do…one was to make a flower portrait of someone who inspires us (actor, politician, musician), and honestly, I just grabbed flowers that were available because summer in San Diego’s east county does not allow many flowers to survive, so then I looked at what I had and picked someone.

Elizabeth Warren. Fit my flower colors and is a pretty inspirational person. Don’t shut up, y’all. Goes for women, goes for us libtard snowflakes (seriously think those terms are idiotic, but I’m sure there’s some for the other side and I’m just not paying attention to namecalling, because I don’t think that’s an intelligent way to handle this shit).

‘

She’s looking good. I was not the only person who picked her, by the way. Go to Instagram and #GISHspired to see more. Some people had many more flower types from which to pick.

Then I needed to make a hat out of sock(s) that was not a sock monkey hat, but another animal. So I made a socktopussy hat. This is just part of it. I’m not allowed to show it yet.

But it involved 8 socks, some crappy polyester batting, felt, and a pussy hat. Yes, I made a pussy hat just for this. I already have two other pussy hats I could have used, but they were hand-knitted and I could not desecrate them.

I submitted about 140 points worth of stuff for GISH. If I stopped doing everything else, I could have done more. I was somewhat disappointed in my group…of 15 people, only 5 submitted stuff. Lame. I realize it’s challenging…that’s the point. Anyway. I enjoy doing it. I’d do it again. It’s more fun when you know other people in your group, but I wasn’t that organized.

What else did I do yesterday? I finished cutting all of these out…21 hours in about 4 days.

I watched the ex and boychild hack at the out-of-control bougainvillea. The hope is that it will come back and we will do a better job of keeping it out of the trees.

Cleanup will be a bitch…thorny pieces of hell.

Then I sorted all those pieces…Kitten came out and hid in this spot on the desk for a while.

I got about halfway through and went to fetch dinner…when I came back, I discovered the water heater leak, so there were about 2 hours where I wasn’t doing this. Yes, cats want to sit in those boxes. All the time.

Then I went back to it later…at the end, I just have a pile of tiny little pieces, and my feet were tired from standing, so I sat and sorted them into tiny piles of tiny pieces, and then dumped them in the number-appropriate bins.

It took a little over 2 hours to sort all 1900 or so pieces.

In the almost empty bin on top, you can see two tiny pieces that didn’t have paper on them, and there was no paper that was the right size for them. So I don’t know what they are. I also had one piece of paper with no fabric…but I think it fell off before I cut things out. When I start ironing things together, it will figure itself out.

I was going to start ironing last night (original plan), but after losing two hours to sweaty water-moving, it wasn’t going to happen. I’m going to move stuff back in here, reorganize, do all my errands, have a delightfully cold shower, and then maybe be able to iron. Such is life. Not ideal. It’s a good thing I’m not socializing much, because the lack of clean, weather-appropriate clothing will eventually be an issue. Although I think I could run the washer on cold? That might be a plan.

OK. On Task. Go.

Just Hanging by a Moment*

So last night, I tried to finish cutting out all the pieces, but even with 4 hours in (remember…I needed 6), I did not finish. I’m in the 200s, so about 2-3 hours are left. I’ll get those done today. I’m at 18 hours total so far.

I had regular dog company the entire time…he looks cranky because he’s really tired because he ran around all morning and then we took him on a walk.

See? Tired. I sat and cut for a long time…

Here’s where I quit…it was only 12:30, but I wanted to try meditation again before bed, because it seemed to help the other night. I’ve been bagging up the trash bits, so that’s only a third of what I cut last night. I need a bigger box for the pieces that are cut out. It’s full.

Here’s what’s left…oil drums, ocean bits, and the last of the mermaid.

Here’s the walk from earlier…it was still hot out, so we kept it relatively short.

I need more of those.

Anyway, today? Finish cutting pieces. Sort them. Start ironing them together. Also do two GISH things and submit them (it’s the last day), copyedit the last chapter (the rest is done…except I need at least one more run-through of the whole thing and then some fussy stuff). I’d like to go to the gym…we’ll see about that. The man’s band has a show tonight, but it’s a reunion, and those are harder to crash, so I’m on my own tonight…artmaking it is. I’m realizing how little time is left…how much of it is commandeered by other people. I think that’s what I hate most about the school year…how much time I lose to what other people need me to do. Not the actual teaching…but the immense amount of time that grading entails, plus all the professional development and meetings and trainings and crap that others put on me. Especially when I don’t get anything out of them. I need one good tip or piece of info or idea from a meeting or PD for it to be worthwhile. So many of them, I walk away with nothing.

And as for the meditation? I so didn’t sleep well last night. Still not…even with exercise and meditation. Going to keep working at it…

*Lifehouse, Hanging by a Moment

With One Foot in the Past*

No jury duty today. The last day of worrying about it. Glad it’s done. Maybe I’ll be more chill about it the next time the feds tie up most of my summer with not being able to schedule anything. Which is why my foot is going under the knife on Monday! First day I could schedule it. It’s OK…some weirdo cyst that’s been causing issues for two years now will hopefully finally die a horrible death. And truly hopefully, a quick recovery with no restrictions on standing or walking.

School is officially looming. Three emails yesterday from the principal, one about our rooster mascot, which something apparently finally caught and killed. Sad…I think every teacher on campus has a picture of him lurking in the lunch area or in the parking lot. I do, but I can’t be bothered to go find it. I have video of him serenading me as well. Like he did.

So the days to get shit done are counting down. With that in mind, I fully met the goal from yesterday and did 6 1/2 hours of cutting shit out. I’m proud of myself.

First, though, in true GISHness, I painted a portrait that I can’t show you of Jensen Ackles using Skittles as paint.

Note to self: Skittles suck as paint. The other year, I painted Jean-Luc Picard with condiments…still some lack in color choices. Sure, this year, I could have gone out and bought the other colors of Skittles, but no. I went old school. I’m not allowed to show pictures until the thing is over. Today I will be creating a portrait of my favorite actor, politician, or public figure in flower petals. This is problematic because I don’t have anything blooming at the moment. I did steal some from my friend’s house yesterday and will head over to my parents’ sometime today (shhh…don’t tell them…). I haven’t decided who to do, though. And then tomorrow, I’m making a special hat. A very special hat. Yup. And then it’s over…it’s only a week long! Sad but true.

So I had my sewing-during-the-summer meeting yesterday, where I’m mostly the only person who shows up, but that’s OK. I cut there for almost three hours…here’s where I was at when I left…

Then I went to Target to buy a birthday card. Yeah. So you know how that goes if you’re a teacher.

That is not just a birthday card. Pro: I’m almost done with school shopping.

And then I had to drive to Encinitas for an art meeting. I cut stuff out there too, for about an hour and a half, and then came back home and cut stuff out on the couch for another hour or so. The stuff that still needs cutting is in the top box…you can see it’s much emptier. All the cut stuff is on the bottom left and trimmings on the bottom right.

Significant progress…I’m in the 600s, so if I spend another 6 hours today, which is the plan, then I will be done. On time. On plan. What a concept.

Knock on wood, because it’s never that easy, right? It’s a goal. I’m aiming myself at it. The to-do list is long and complicated, but it’s still good to have a goal. OK, on to the copyediting and errands and all that crap.

*Tears for Fears, Head Over Heels

As I Open My Lips, All My Words Slip Away*

I have a guaranteed 4 hours of cutting fabrics ahead of me today, but I’m aiming for 6. I didn’t make 6 yesterday. I made almost 5 hours though. So that’s good. Everything takes so long…I don’t know why. We humans are such inefficient creatures. But then, what did I do? I trimmed some bougainvillea, I wrapped presents, I packed stuff up for shipping, I sent some stuff by email, I entered a GISH thing, I copyedited for a while, I talked to the girlchild about her wasp stings (18 at last count…it’s OK…it takes 150 to kill you), I moved kid and dogs and cars, and I cut things out. So why do I feel like nothing got done? Oh yeah, and I talked my doctor down off the ledge and bought myself 4 weeks to get my diabetes numbers down again. So that’s a doctor’s appointment off my list of things to do. She’ll do the next one by email or phone. Wahoo! All good. No really. See the list and say, wow, you did a lot yesterday. It doesn’t feel like a lot and that’s on you. True that.

I guess knowing that the girlchild comes home in 9 days and her room needs to be clean, and school starts in 14 days and all that shit needs to be done, and I have two quilts that need to go to the photographer in just 25 days, and one just needs a binding sewn on (Arrowhead trip, easy peasy) and the other one is only about halfway done and will probably take another 60 hours to complete? OK, there’s the panic. But it’s totally doable. Back to the goals. If I write them out, say them in my head, every day, I’ll get there. Get everything cut out by Friday night. Sort pieces Saturday, start ironing together on Saturday. Get it ironed together next week (except friend visiting, so that’s a time constraint) and then stitch down…shee-it. See that’s a time issue. But it will get done. The first week and a half of school, there’s no homework coming home. I can come home (exhausted) every night and quilt. It will happen. And I have a week’s leeway in there. I’ll be OK.

Deadlines. I don’t know if they’re shortening my life or not.

I’m still on call for jury duty by the way. Irritating. But I should be incredibly grateful (knock on wood) for only getting called in one day in the whole month and not having to serve on a trial, unless they do it to me again next year, in which case, I won’t be grateful at all. Sigh. You know, I’d be happier about it if they’d allow me to bring in scissors so I could sew. That one thing. That would help.

OK, school goals for this year: balance (OK, I always say that), organization (ha!), tolerance, connections, mindfulness (theirs and mine), parent connections, positive thoughts. Less irritation. I’m not sure any of that list is different from any previous year…but I need to say it in my head.

Outside in the evening is always cooler than inside. This house holds heat like a black rock. I was outside on the phone (getting eaten alive by bugs) while Calli watched. I should sit outside more often. Remember the plan to draw outside? Ah well. That’s always on my list and rarely happens.

If I let her out, she would just want me to throw pinecones for her. Which I would do, but I was on the phone.

Simba kept me company on the couch. So the pieces are in the box in reverse number order, with the highest numbers on top and the lowest on the bottom (except I dumped a smaller box into this larger box at some point, so somewhere in there, the order will reverse, thus confusing the issue). What this means is that I can sort of keep track of how far along I am by what numbers I’m cutting out. So even though the box still looks INCREDIBLY full, because it is, there is progress.

I know that shows 1000-something, but mostly I finished 1880 through the middle of the 1100’s, so I’m guessing about 700 pieces are cut out. (Simba is still there…he left and came back without your noticing.)

Which means I have less than 1200 to go. I have about 7 hours and 45 minutes into the cutting, so it’s about an hour per 100 pieces. Twelve more hours, so 6 today and 6 tomorrow. To-be cut on top, trash pile (I dumped the first batch into the ziplock bag already) on the left, already-cut pieces in the middle, dog on the right. In case you couldn’t tell.

I do keep all the trash bits until the quilt is fully stitched down, in case I need a tiny piece of something to shove in there. I lose small pieces quite easily…in fact, the super-small pieces don’t get cut out until I’m about to iron them down because of that. Traveling with these boxes makes it more likely that I’ll lose stuff, but I do it anyway.

Still doing GISH things. I need to paint with Skittles water and make a portrait with flower petals (I have no living flowers at the moment…it’s the heat of summer…will have to go steal some…er…liberate some from somewhere else. Not sure where.). Probably see if something else can be drawn, since those are easy for me. I love to draw. I can say that about most of my life…I draw, I love to draw. I really should do more of it.

*Yazoo, Nobody’s Diary

Managing All the Things*

OK. So meditation helps (duh). I managed to stop working last night around 12:15 AM and then meditated (it was hard…my brain was all over the map and trying to fly into space) for 20 minutes. I didn’t fall asleep immediately, but I did much better than I have been. So there’s hope. Still working on it.

Girlchild is worried that her room is not going to get clean by the time she gets home. And she should be! Because I have a ton of stuff shoved in there. But it will get done. Sometime. Mostly it’s sewing stuff that I don’t know how to store or process. I started back in June and then it was HARD. So I quit. Really mature of me. So that’s on the list. So is mailing stuff that needs to get out of here, trimming that damn bougainvillea, finishing this quilt, copyediting, and regular exercise. I had my blood tested yesterday (double poke, thanks to a phlebotomist who was scared of my tiny veins) and my A1C is not better with the new meds, so my doc freaked out, but I read that it takes 6-7 weeks for the meds to kick in…and I’ve only been taking them for 3 weeks because it took me so long to get to the damn educator to show me how to use them. So I think her freak-out is unwarranted, but it means more appointments and panicking, which honestly doesn’t help ME sleep. So there’s that. I’ll talk her down off the ceiling on Monday.

The to-do list grows overnight.

But where am I on the quilt? Yay! Progress to the next step! Hallelujah! This is what a cat looks like when I iron it, by the way…in fact, it’s THAT cat…the one in the very back of the picture.

She’s in so many of my quilts. We thought we lost her yesterday…it took 30 minutes to find her new hiding place. She made a cave in my office. In fabric. With a Rubbermaid box as her roof. She got out a few years ago and disappeared for about 24 hours…completely freaked me out and depressed me. So even the boychild was walking around with a flashlight to find her. This morning? She brought me a wool sock. Usually she comes when she’s called and yesterday she didn’t. So I’m glad that turned out OK.

So then, after 27 hours of ironing things down (oh yeah), I had to organize them. I always have to organize them.

There are 192 fabrics (that’s a lot for me) in this quilt. There they all are. The flesh tones run through the pinks and peaches into the browns. The hair runs through the browns into the blacks and then the reds.

It’s a huge pile of stuff to be cut out. But I want it done this week. So if I look back at other quilts to try to estimate time, it’s hard to find a comparable piece, because it took A LOT of hours to iron to fabric because of all the different runs I had to do of flesh colors, but I don’t think it’s any different for cutting…so I’m guessing 15 hours. And I did 3 last night…

The last big quilt took only 19 hours to iron but 17 hours to cut out. I just looked back though and it only had 1350 pieces…so maybe I need to up my hours. Damn. OK. So let’s say 20 hours…17 to go.

Yikes! Things to be cut out on the left, trash on the top right, cut-out pieces on the bottom right. I have two meetings tomorrow, so plenty of cutting out can be done at those. I am starting the copyediting today, but I need to eat and take meds and I was gonna go to the gym, damn. Life just ups in your face sometimes. It’s August and officially I can think about school now. Like I haven’t been thinking about school all summer. I fucking sucked at removing school from my brain this summer. Oh well…on to managing all the things. Oh yeah, supposed to think positively…I AM THOUGH. I finished a task. A BIG TASK. Done. Awesome. On to the next.