Ah blessed extra day off. I am actually in a union; nay, I am a union representative. So I gladly take this day and thank those who had the brains before us to make good laws about labor. Will I be laboring today? Unfortunately yes; despite putting in about 4-5 hours yesterday, I am nowhere near done. I did spend a chunk of Saturday doing art things (while doing school stuff in between, when I was waiting for things to heat up). I had some art plans for this weekend that may or may not happen, and the next three weekends, maybe more, are a shitshow. So yeah. I’m thrilled about being back at the day job. It wants to steal so much time…it will take every moment you allow. And even those you don’t. Because you can’t be in front of kids unless you do some work. So on Friday, when I realized our TA didn’t show up and do the thing we needed done for tomorrow, I stayed and did it. Because I knew Tuesday morning’s self would appreciate it. I don’t have everything copied for next week, unfortunately, but planned? I think so. I finished one rewrite of a doc I’ve hated for probably 10 years…on Saturday…while waiting for water to boil. I also submitted for a residency for next summer…I need a backup in case I don’t get in (very good chance I won’t).
Why boiling water? I washed out four more dye paintings from the residency. They had some washing in the sink in Oregon, but not at the right temperature. So they are good now. Two of them are for a show I need to enter in January. Need to figure out how to finish them. When this big one is done.
There’s a haphazard pile of them. I have two more big ones to wash out and some glue resist pieces that will need even more hot water. I’m paranoid about using our hard water, although the final washout is in the washing machine. It seems to be holding up pretty well. Definitely washout, but not horrible. I still have the dyes I mixed in July. I did a test piece and they are still OK. I have one piece, maybe two, that I want to dye paint. I don’t know where to do it though. I had this great setup in Oregon and I don’t have that here. I was hoping to do that this weekend…not sure I can pull that off.
Because I’d like to go into ceramics today too…I’m almost done with the underglazing…
Just need to do the flower petals. And some red around the hole and on the fabric. I keep forgetting about that. I have meetings all this week, so if I don’t go today, it’ll wait until Friday. It’s not the end of the world…I’d just rather get it done and start working on the head. No breakages (knock on wood) on this one. It’s been solid the whole time.
I trimmed Wonder Under Friday…
Side view…
And Saturday I finished…
Last night, I sorted them all out by 100s…
Scribble observed.
And then I came in here and started cleaning up and putting stuff away so I could actually start ironing to fabrics tonight. It was a mess in here. It still kind of is. Too much stuff. I still need to put all the fabrics away from the last quilt I made; they are piled up by color on the ironing board. Next on my list. After breakfast.
Saturday night, we went out to North Park…but here was the eastern sky from the house…
The western sky driving through town…
And the western sky from the parking garage…
The hurricane remnants that are making it hot and muggy as hell here (supposed to be 101 degrees today, 102 tomorrow) are making pretty skies at least.
We went out for a drink and listened to really bad karaoke and then had a burger and fries at Crazee Burger…always a good choice.
We came back to drama.
Oh no!
Go mantis!
Freedom!
That is one weirdass bug there. But pretty.
Katie is still holding it together. Sometimes she’ll eat where the food is and sometimes we provide personal delivery service.
She’s having a hard time getting up, doing lots of sleeping. We’d like her to hang around until my parents get back. Meanwhile, I do a lot of cajoling and lifting. She’s still enjoying dinner; breakfast is not as exciting (no green beans…seriously).
Yup. That’s September for you. If you’re a teacher, you know what I’m talking about. If not, buy a teacher a drink. Probably caffeinated.
OK. Today. Yes, it’s a day off work. I have a test to grade and some homework as well. I got all the posts done for the week on Saturday (water boil watch!). I need to put fabric away. I’d like to go to ceramics. I’m supposed to do two blogposts for art groups. I’m going to do one of them. I haven’t even dealt with the photos on the other one. They just got sent to me with no info. Sigh. Whatever. Then ironing to fabric tonight. More color, more fun. Looking forward to spending time on that, although this might be the hottest room in the house at night. And my fan is failing. It’ll be fine. It’s just sweat. Drink more water. It works. Oh yeah, finally got the blood sugar to stop crashing at night. Not really sure why it took such a drastic change in insulin (down, not up) after a year of being on that dose. Weird shit.
Kathy Nida 