Month: March 2021

Not in the Mood.

It’s supposed to start raining here in the next 3 hours and I see no evidence of it. Strange. Normally the clouds would start to pile up and all that, but the house faces mostly north and east, and apparently this storm is coming from the west, over the hill and you can’t see it from here. It’s got wind advisories and a goodly amount of rain in a fairly short time, and it’s lurking over there somewhere; you can only see it on radar from here. But it’s coming.

I’m exhausted this morning. Some sort of weird body thing last night kept me up too late. Sometimes my body is not my friend. So I’m fuzzy-brained and nauseated this morning. A good start. Tomorrow I go to the doctor with a list of weird body things with the hope that she can figure it out. Diabetes gone whack? Something else? I don’t know, but I’m hoping there’s a solution. Most days, I feel fine, but when I don’t, ugh.

The sewing machine is still at the shop and I am still flailing here, also still buried in schoolwork. Grades are due a week from yesterday for report cards. I’ve made it through a little more than 2/3s of the major science assignment, haven’t touched the two major art assignments, and I still have 50 late-work emails to deal with. Plus planning for next week and grading this week’s stuff, but right now, I’ll just continue to panic about the stuff that has to be graded and input by next Tuesday.

I’ve been doing little bits and pieces of sewing things in the evenings, reading my book. Not motivated by anything really. I did draw last night, while half asleep.

Her arm just started rooting itself. I don’t know how that happened.

I did walk yesterday…

There’s a large hawk in that tree. Bottom right V, on the left side. Staring at me.

Fascinating seed pods.

Standing at the top of the hill I’m about to go down…

It’s Spring here. Things are starting to bloom.

The slope that collapsed last year is finally fixed? Maybe?

We’ll see what it looks like after today’s rain.

Puppy love. Not last night but Monday night.

He is a sweetheart, when he’s not barking his ass off during class. Sigh.

Teaching. Exhausted. Grading. Hopefully tonight will be better sleep. Maybe I’ll keep working on that drawing. Maybe I’ll do something more…whatever? I have other stuff to work on. I’m just not in the mood.

Maybe We All Need Repotting…

Somehow, the month of February whizzed by my head without fully whacking me unconscious, so here we are. In March. Four weeks closer to Spring Break. Another paycheck closer to Summer Break. And no paychecks. Love summer for that. Such a challenge. Every year. That said, it’s getting Spring-like, and that’s nice…new growth on plants, flowers popping up, weeds taking over the yard. All the things!

Well the biggest news, besides my sewing machine being in the shop because it wasn’t dropping the free-motion foot (it dropped feet when straight stitching, but not zigzag; talk about fussy), is that I got my first vaccine. I am a teacher, in case you didn’t know that, and the school I teach for (not AT at the moment, because I can’t go back without these shots) is in a high-infection area (which means that, yes, I live in a high-infection area), so we were first on the list. Got my email on Friday while my science kids were finishing their work; got an appointment for Saturday morning…with a few hundred other people. Seriously, this was the most people I’ve been around since before COVID. And in an enclosed space. Freaked me out.

Plus a shot. Finally getting closer to being safe. Hopefully. I forgot to take a picture when the doc injected me, and he forgot to give me a sticker. Ah well, my co-teacher came to the rescue and met me outside after they monitored me for 30 minutes due to my weirdo reactions to shots.

I’ve been fine, just a sore arm and maybe a headache and fatigue. Hard to say if those aren’t things that I would have felt anyway. Probably! On to the next shot in a few weeks. Exciting stuff.

Our weekly gaming with friends seems to have moved to Sunday night, but that leaves open a night to game in person at home with the two men…we had a new Settlers of Catan expansion, so we read all the instructions 17 times and played a couple rounds.

I almost won one without even noticing. I’m not that good at games. I like to play; I don’t need to win.

Saturday, we did a little hike after taking the sewing machine in.

It’s definitely Springlike.

But the weather is still cool and breezy, so hikes are nice.

We tried a new trail in a place we hike all the time. It had a little up in it.

But it was good. Only 3.5 miles though. No time for a longer hike…left too late.

Then because the sewing machine was being cranky, I did some hand-sewing for a while on Saturday night.

Just sewing things down.

There might be a time when I come back to these and add more stitching.

I enjoy it, but don’t usually make time for it.

I also started this drawing at dinner on Saturday night.

And then finished it last night. It’s small. This is actually a printout of it larger than it is in real life. I joke that now I have the nanites in me, so everything will be fine. Honestly, I’d be OK with the nanites. Fix me, you little machines. Fix me.

Otherwise, I’ve been buried in schoolwork. Posting things, redoing things, making videos of things, grading things, answering too many panicked emails and ignoring others. School is frustrating in the best of times. These are not the best of times. These guys don’t care. They just want pets.

So we pet them. Although Nova, the sweetheart on the right, caught my finger and ripped it open Saturday? Friday? when I was petting her and tried to stop. So it’s a little painful. Otherwise, they’re all good.

This plant finally flowered. I’ve never seen it flower.

I repotted it and it is obviously much happier. Interesting take on the world there. Maybe we all need repotting.

School all day, hopefully some exercise, hopefully some art. A lot of grading. Every day until I’m done.