I don’t remember weeks feeling so long in the first two days before. I don’t remember feeling so tired after Tuesday. Tuesdays are the big planning days for science, so maybe that’s it? I don’t know. Or it was the feeling as I drove away from school yesterday that the slog that is 7th grade at the moment will just continue until I die. Which it won’t. Really. I’m sure of that. Even 8th grade had a moment yesterday…actually, just one table of 8th graders had a moment, where they realized they had no idea what to do and I wasn’t going to help them (we were building a roller coaster element and they talked during the instructions, so I pointed them to the relevant videos). They kept begging people around them to help them and I told them no (multiple people)…they need to listen. Hopefully today is better, or I will separate their group and stick each of them into another group for being idiots. Everyone else was pretty much awesome (although there were some tables I had to direct to involve themselves). 7th grade though. Ugh. Cried when driving away from school again. Just frustrating as fuck. Behaviors and lack of work completion. We’re on the third day of trying to finish something that should have taken a day and a half. Not listening. Not getting it because not listening. And a few behaviors that honestly just drive me bonkers. So yeah. I guess I’m at a point where about 2 days a week, those 2 classes aren’t half bad. And 3 days a week, they fucking suck. Which makes ME feel like I suck. Which maybe I do. Or maybe it’s just a bad combination of kids, time of day, and COVID crap. UGH.
I come home and grade roller coaster drawings, though, and although it’s kind of a pain in the ass, it’s also mostly enjoyable seeing what kids created. That’s the art part of my brain. Although I don’t like teaching art…well, to people who don’t like to do art. Teaching art to the already artsy isn’t that bad.
I’ve made it to the cutting-out stage. I started Monday night and got (I thought) more than halfway through a yard. In fact, I thought I was pretty close to done with it…
Stupidly, I covered up what I had actually cut with what was left to be cut. Which doesn’t look like much. Except I think it was all the tiny pieces and the bigger pieces got cut first? I don’t know. Because it took me another hour last night to finish it up…
So that is 2 hours of cutting? Yup. 2 hours and 2 minutes. Doesn’t look like much. 4 1/2 yards to go. Fussy little shit pieces. Realistically…let’s see…I have another Zoom meeting tonight (2 book clubs in one week seems a mistake)…I actually have 3 Zoom meetings today AND school and physical therapy. Long. So I might get another hour done on this. Thursday is delightfully open (Zoom meeting but I could cut things out if I wanted to), so is Friday…so maybe I’ll be done cutting by Monday? That’s my guess. I was wrong by two days on the tracing, so I’ll be delightfully wrong again if that’s how it rolls. It’s not a very exciting process to watch. Then sort Monday night? Start ironing to fabric Tuesday. Wait. Do I have a background big enough? Probably not. Must think that through, because the damn quilt store is not open late enough during the week for me to go. Still. OK. So that needs to happen Saturday. Put it on the calendar. Saturday is already chunky. Good to know. I do sometimes plan ahead.
I’ve been working on this (not my design!) after dinner, while we watch our daily whatever-the-fuck-we’re-watching (Kindred…which ended quite precipitously).
I reduced it in size 50% because I didn’t want a huge quilt, and the letters are fucking tiny.
But not undoable. I appreciate the wonkiness of hand applique. I know the foundation-paper-piecing people are having heart attacks with the lack of straight lines, but I’m good. I like to hand applique and I found two things I was working on (there are 17 million things I’m working on, just to be clear) and decided I wanted to really work on them and not just put them in a box and pretend I was working on them.
There, that’s the closest to a resolution you’ll get out of me in 2023, until August, when teachers do their resolutions.
The boychild has been crafting wood…these are spoons 3 and 4. Or spoon 3 and scoop 1.
They’re quite pretty. He has no desire to make a business out of it. CalFire has downtime, and this is how he uses it. Seems appropriate to me. He’s got about three or four more weeks, and then he’s off for three months. That will be weird. Or very spoony.
OK. Today. Yeah. Building more roller coaster stuff…straight track and loops today. Then notes in 7th grade. Woo hoo. That will go down well. Who am I kidding? Very little goes down well. Kid meeting in the morning, sex-ed meeting in the afternoon (chaos of a district that would probably prefer NOT to teach it), then PT and book club. Oh yeah, and I popped my temporary crown off, so drinking cold things hurts like a bitch and IDK when I can get into the dentist before it’s time to put the permanent crown on anyway, so that’s a possible week and a half of some disturbing occasional pain. And the rash on the knee from the adhesive crap is not getting better. I’ve tried cortisone and benadryl and neither is helping. Emailing the doc on that one.
In positive news, I’ve been reading a lot. It’s a nice place to be, in a fantasy world somewhere (even one filled with murders) where there isn’t a pile of grading papers and lesson planning threatening to take you under. I’ll stay there for a while.
Kathy Nida 