OK. Monday. There’s no kids at school today. But I will be at school today. It’s not horrible. Well, 3.5 hours of a staff meeting is never a joyous occasion, and I’m cranky as shit, which is lovely. Need to go make art for another three days. But there’s a taco cart at the end of it and apparently I don’t have to hang around all afternoon, but I already left stuff on my to-do list because I thought we had to hang around. So I’ll need to do that shit whether I want to or not. And then I’ll go to clay and I’m not cooking dinner tonight, so hopefully I’ll read for a bit, do some quilting, and then iron away. In preparation for the kids showing up tomorrow. Which I am absolutely not ready for in any way, shape, or form. Just to be clear.
Really, the solution to my teacher funk is more art all the time. Not sure what the solution to that is. More efficiency? Maybe it’s just more years finessing the lessons…when I go back to 7th grade next year, it’ll be way easier? I just don’t know. I do know that the unit after this one is a shit show and somehow my co-teacher and I need to figure that shit out ASAP and not wait until February. My weekends are a clusterfuck from now until March. Not always a BAD clusterfuck? But certainly a lot of moving around. Ah well. I need a secretary. I’ve always said that. And a cleaner. Can’t afford that. Someone to do all the things mentally. Get it done, make the calls, set up the schedules, do the things. I also know that I do better with a routine. I haven’t had one for three weeks and it’s been good because I now am going back to a pretty rigid routine, but when I retire, I need a basic plan for how to do the days or I’ll just forget to do things like take meds.
So what have I been doing? Not finishing things. Although! We dropped the bee-filled owl box. In the end, boychild unscrewed things, Ex covered his body with things (including hat and scarf) and lowered it, let it drop at the end. No swarm came out. Bees were definitely THERE, but not in the cartoon swarm you see in the…well…cartoons. I’ll check it again today and then call a bee guy (I’m on number 7…they’re all on vacation). I might need to buy a new owl box, or maybe be able to use this one. Hard to know.
I took a class on Saturday about quilling with fabric, but didn’t get very far on it. All the fabric for my quilling…well, most of it…is painted. It took forever to dry though…
We had sun, but not enough of it.
I still need to dye the background fabric and something else (I don’t remember what that was; hopefully I wrote it down), then make these into quilling strips, and try to decide how to put the whole thing together…there’s my central Earth Mother in progress.
Honestly, it might be hard to get this done. I need another 6 or so hours. We’ll see.
I finally was able to clean up enough in my office to iron Saturday night…lots of rainbow organs.
Oh, and that cat. Which will show up much better on the dark background fabric. Then last night, I ventured up into the crazy piecing that is the upper torso.
The quilt is heavy at this point, so the upper ironing sheet keeps slipping out of place, which is pretty frustrating. For the heart in the center, I’m just doing it on the side somewhere and then plopping it on top. It’s crazy complicated with flowers all over the place. I’m looking forward to getting this bit done; I think I’ll do the head and all its stuff separately and then attach it when it’s done. Maybe. We’ll see. For continuity’s sake, it’s usually better to iron them all together, but I think the head might work without that. Thoughts for tonight maybe.
OK. Well I have 32 days until I go visit the girlchild, 40 days to QuiltCon, and 81 days until Spring Break. Not that we have a plan for that. There’s a lot of chaos in my head and around here. Things are changing and it makes stress pop up. Not fun. But I have a good book to read…well, wait…I don’t actually know if it’s good yet. It’s supposed to be, and 8 people are already waiting for me to finish it (I have 17 days, y’all. Back the fuck off.). I have a big project in progress. I have like 13 quilts out in shows, and this unit I’m teaching is pretty good. So all that works for me. I can’t get past the feeling there was something major I was supposed to do over Winter Break for school; I’m sure someone will remind me of that this morning. I have a solid breakfast plan for the next two weeks (that’s nice in itself). And today, I can dress how I like. Mostly. So all those things are in my favor. Wish all us teachers luck…especially up in LA, because my teacher friends up there are dealing with all sorts of loss, stress, and trauma. Not fun. May the rain come and then may the insurers not be dickheads. That’s kind of always a mantra.
Kathy Nida 