I was so ready to be in bed by midnight last night, and then the girlchild texted that she heard someone in her house. She’s subletting and she’s been the only person there for the last week or so. There are supposed to be other people in there this summer, but she wasn’t expecting them this early or at 3 AM. So she’s freaking out, and now I’m freaking out. I almost called the cops for her, but some frantic texting later finds that it really is the kid who is supposed to show up 4 days from now. Oh good. Sigh. So that made my brain hit overdrive. The plus is that I got my laundry folded in the meantime, during said texting. She was worried that she would call the cops and it would sound crazy. I tried to tell her there’s nothing crazy about a woman by herself in a house hearing a noise at 3 in the morning. Hell, I called the sheriff on a raccoon. To my credit, it was a freakishly huge raccoon and it was making people sounds. Long story. Plus I had three dogs going bazonkers at the time. I’ve spent a large part of my adult life living alone, and I get what she’s saying. It’s why I like dogs. Anyway, I’m glad she now has a housemate, although an incommunicative one apparently.
I took on a copyediting job for “August sometime”. It’s an author I’ve worked with before, so I’m pretty clear on what the tasks will be, but the timing is not ideal. Early August? OK. Late August? Yikes. But I need the money to pay off the kids’ college portion for which I am responsible. And I’d rather have that done sooner than later. As it is, I’m supposed to be paying some of the boychild’s off, and I haven’t had the money. Maybe once I get into the summer and see how much cash I have, I can pay off part of it. Most of it will come from the sale of an art quilt the end of the summer. Unless some other disaster happens that I don’t know about. I need to sell my car this summer too, which is going to mean a loan for a newer one. Fun stuff.
So where am I at on the quilt? Not as far as I’d liked. It is what it is…yesterday was inordinately busy.
I’m about halfway through the outlining. It’s not taking long, but I haven’t had long either. I needed to finish grading an assignment last night so I could calculate awards and input grades and get stuff out of my hair. So I did that. I went to a bonfire in the middle of all that where we burned the question box cards from the sex ed unit…it was a little early for this year’s cards, but my co-teacher had all her cards from last year. We read them out loud and it’s amusing.
I did quilt eventually…it was just almost 11 PM.
Even though I’m not done, I pulled it off the machine because I need binding fabric and this week is a clusterfuck for getting out of work at a reasonable time. The store closes at 5 and that isn’t going to happen on Tuesday-Thursday. There is supposed to be a 2-hour staff meeting today, but I’m hoping he releases us early, so I can kamikaze over to the quilt shop. I’m pretty sure I can finish the quilting well before Friday, and that’s the next available time to go to the quilt store. If not, there’s a store closer to me that is open until 5:30, but they don’t have as many fabrics…it’ll do if it has to, but I prefer the other place.
In other news, I have a random water leak under the sink that I can’t locate. It might be the tea kettle leaking, so I replaced that. It might be the garbage disposal or a pipe, but I haven’t been able to locate the actual leak. I can’t really call a plumber if it’s just water dripping past the sink because the tile is all gone. I don’t really know what to do about that. I replaced it all once, but couldn’t get it to stay permanently…it’s a very wet part of the kitchen and eventually everything decayed away again. I can’t really afford to replace it all…but maybe I will just have to do that, even though my whole kitchen is a 1977-era disaster and needs major work. I’ve been piecemeal replacing things for years…the oven is on its last legs. The microwave is at ankle height. It’s just a shit storm. I figure once I get college paid off, I can start on the house. Anyway. Maybe I need to just learn how to make a concrete counter from some DIY YouTube video and that’ll be the solution. Who knows. My summer is already a mess.
Here’s a cat though…
She was watching me quilt. This is why there are two chairs in my office. One for me and one for a cat. Sometimes. Sometimes she wants to be in the same chair I’m in.
And here’s a sleepy puppy. Who is not a puppy at all. He’ll be 3? in September. I think he’s 3.
His adorable face is what keeps us from killing him when he barks at 3 AM. Which he’s been better at lately.
Anyway, today I start videos about pregnancy (fun stuff), then we have testing for two days, and then I teach about birth control. In my personal world, I need to put together my first Patreon video for June (it’s in parts right now), plus do some drawing, and finish this quilt. I’m sure there are other things on my calendar that I’ve forgotten about right now (post office, sharps disposal, library book, exercise, dog walking, grading)…but hopefully I’ll remember them before too late. If you asked me to do something and I didn’t, feel free to remind me. Because I’ve forgotten.
Kathy Nida 