Day of brain chaos. Trying not to think too hard about school and what I need to do, but that’s what kept me awake when something woke me up before 8 AM this morning. My brain…ruminating about school. Even though yesterday I spent time planning a good chunk of the week with posts and warmups and then grading some stuff, my brain can’t leave it. Even with a walk on Friday and a walk on Saturday, my brain can’t just drop it. On the one hand, that’s useful…it’s always trying to solve a problem on the side, over there, in that corner, while I’m driving or dropping off my sewing machine to be serviced or cooking something, but sometimes…just once in a while…I’d like it to just stop for a bit. Leave it. It’s the same brain that helps me make art…I do so much of the work in my head and work it out while I’m doing other things, it means when I’m actually MAKING, a lot of the thinking is done.
I did find myself some down time yesterday. I stopped for a while. I needed to.
In two weeks, everything I’m doing for school will change again. I’ll think about that in a week and a half. There’s no point in doing it now. Well, except for some planning for the art stuff. I maybe should go find the state standards. Maybe.
Friday was a weird day, because I had tree trimmers here…they trimmed 5 eucalyptus…
cut my palm down to the ground, cut two other branches that were issues, and took out a sucker eucalyptus on the neighbor’s side of my fence, which may or may not be my property. But I had permission. So it’s all good.
They are sad trees now, and so are the hummingbirds who had nests in there, but there were some branches that were an issue for winter storms and even summer winds.
I have lots of trees. I love them all and would prefer they just happily grow, but the house and neighbors and probably my house insurer prefer I trim them occasionally. So I do.
It was a pretty noisy day, so noisy that I moved the classroom setup back into my office with the shitty internet, and I explained why to the students, but still got, “Miss, are you running a blender?” “Yup. All day. Margaritas!” No, not really. I don’t say stuff about margaritas to kids. That’s the chainsaws and the chipper/shredder. It’s a good thing we moved the quiz from Friday to Monday. It will hopefully be quieter. Oh ha! The neighbors had jackhammers and saws going Friday until 6 PM and then Saturday and Sunday as well. No jackhammer today, just saws. I’m done! Turn off the shit. I want my quiet neighborhood back dammit. Well, quiet except for me teaching about rocks. On Mars. The rocks…not me teaching.
We took the dogs on a short walk on Friday…it was finally cool enough and the Air Quality Index had come down…it went back up on Saturday though.
There’s a local mostly flat loop that Calli can do easily enough…
Everything is very dry and prickly…
The boychild won’t let me plant artichokes because they are invasive…
They’re also fascinating.
Ah well. Maybe the next Daughter quilt will be an Artichoke Daughter. Away from all the serious topics (can I do that? Am I allowed? Will I allow myself, is more like it.).
Friday night, I managed some ironing…the weird death arm and a bird and three virions.
One of my quilt guilds actually acknowledges that some people work and have a social Zoom meeting at night. It’s one of the reasons I joined…before COVID…because they had meetings I could actually go to.
Still ironing the background bits together…although the snake overlaps onto the ground in the front.
So here, I finally got the stuff behind on the left and the stuff behind on the right all in the correct spot so I could start ironing the stuff in the front in the middle. Yeah. It’s confusing to me too. No worries. It will all make sense eventually.
I just iron quietly on the Zoom and listen to other people talk, just like it would be in real life. Maybe I would talk a little more in real life but honestly, I talk all day. I get tired of it.
Luna in a box. Nova by the window, waiting for a bug or a lizard to come close.
On Saturday, we went down to Balboa Park and walked around a little bit.
It was too peoply. I’m looking forward to cooler weather so we can go somewhere inland and less peoply…somewhere more hike-like and less walk-like. But it was good to get out. Yes, we still have smoky haze…air quality was 150 yesterday, which is still much better than Northern California, Oregon, and Washington…but not good. Right now, it’s down to 100. Better. But not good.
We were tired after, grabbed dinner, and came home and watched random stuff on TV…some Banksy, some political stuff (video below related to it), and a through-hiker in Utah, who was traveling through some of the stuff we visited last year. I just stitched stuff down, Sue Spargo stuff I can’t even show you, because she hasn’t published it yet. Brainless stuff, but that’s what I needed. Sometimes that’s what I need.
The political stuff included Emma Gonzalez’ speech from the March for Our Lives, which might have been the last political march I was in? I can’t remember. I know I’ve seen this speech before, but it still makes me cry.
Fuck the dumbass who called her ‘just a lesbian skinhead.’ I hope she becomes President. Or cures cancer. Whatever she’s got passion for. Those kids…I love when I hear passion in my own kids, my students (but my own children too) for something. Change something. Fix something. It can be small. Just care about something. Kudos to Emma and the rest of those kids who tried to make change, tried to make the fat old white guys see some sense.
No art last night. No energy, no art.
Sleepy Nova instead.
This morning, the man found a snake outside the front door…
Pretty sure it’s a gopher snake…
I don’t have a lot of gophers, so hopefully that’s his fault. Or hers.
Most of today was getting shit done. Hung a towel rail, did the grocery shopping, dropped my sewing machine off for service, and baked this beauty.
She looks really good. Which is nice, because she’s a good part of my lunches this week.
I also made naan from scratch…
Which isn’t as easy as my daughter makes it look, but I eventually got the hang of it. Mostly. Rugs are for catching the shit I dribble from the counter to the stove, right? Yes. They are. The minor issue is that I just mopped those floors and washed those rugs. Whatever. As soon as I clean, it’s dirty again.
I also did some research for the one project I need to work on this week…read up, watched some videos, printed some pictures and words. I’ll hopefully get a good start on that tomorrow night. And the other project too. We even had a socially distanced dinner with the parental units. First time in a long time. The plus is that I crossed a bunch of things off my list today. The minus is that it’s almost 10 PM and I’m exhausted (didn’t sleep well last night) and I’m not sure what to work on next. I have one thing I need to grade, but I don’t feel like it. Maybe I should just iron things together and accept that I am allowed to have some non-work time at night, even when everything is not done. Everything is not done so often! And work will always be there. Speaking of work always being there, the rumor is that work is checking Facebook pages and schooling staff about what they say. Huh. Well, I’ve been blogging about my job(s) and everything else…since 2004. Maybe even 2003? Can’t remember. If they’re just gonna decide to school me now, I’m gonna ask where they’ve been for the last 17 years. Is my job perfect? Of course not. Is my district perfect? Oh heck no…no one is. Am I perfect? Well we know the answer to that. I wouldn’t stress about everything under the sun on a daily basis if I were perfect. So Hi! See me waving at my work. Howzit goin’! I suggest you start reading way way back. Let me know when you’re done. Then we can talk.
OK, iron for a bit, sleep early (ha!), then get up and conquer the world. Or whatever you can handle.
Kathy Nida 