Bright Blue Skies

OK. Monday. I see you. You have bright blue skies, you’re not totally freezing (I know, it’s Southern California; we’re never that cold, right?). Today is a day of direct instruction (all on, all day), a 2-hour staff meeting mostly about stuff I already do in my classroom (woo), then hopefully some clay and some sewing. Oh yeah, probably have to grade shit. I spent about 4 or 5 hours yesterday doing that. I should do more. Ha. Always.

Well, in awesome news, SAQA pulled the entire exhibit out of the AQS shows. AND both pieces sold, one to a private collector and one to the International Quilt Museum. I’m glad SAQA finally stood up to the bullies. I wish they’d done it sooner. Hey, IQM, I’ve got work you can acquire! Ha. Hopefully this is a sign for the next four years, of groups and people standing up to the power hungry, the critical, the categorizers, those who can’t let everyone exist without pigeonholing and censoring them. Because there’s a lot of that going on. Sigh. I’m glad the artists got the support they should have.

I went up to Palos Verdes on Saturday with Polly Jacobs Giacchina to a show we’re both in, 9×9 Contemporary Quilts and Containers, curated by Carrie Burckle and Jo Lauria, at the Palos Verdes Art Center. We were blessed by the traffic goddess, so very little of that either direction. We were able to see the show before all the people got there, so we took photos. Both of us got onto the banners, which is awesome.

Apparently just because our art was the right size for them, which made me laugh.

I have 4 pieces in the show…

All right outside the bathroom and at the top of the stairwell. Good viewpoints all.

There were a lot of people at the opening, which was cool. I talked to most of the quilt artists (I only knew some of them), and a bunch of other people who liked my work, which is always a cool thing.

Polly with some of her art…

She sold one…before the show even officially opened! Cool that. It was a long drive, but ultimately good to see the show and get all the kudos. It’s up through the middle of April, if you find yourself in the area. I grew up in LA, and I don’t think I’d ever been to Palos Verdes before. So there’s that.

Quiltwise, I didn’t get much done this weekend. On Friday night, I packed up a quilt and drawing for delivery on Saturday for a show in LA opening in March. I delivered that and bought binding fabric for this quilt, because the store with more choices is only open on Saturdays during non-working hours (they close at 3, y’all). I’ve given up on getting it done and photographed by Friday, so there’s that deadline gone. Oh well. I took a picture of where I was in the outlining when I pulled it off the machine to match binding…

And then I finally got back to the quilting last night. I bought thread too, because I was going to run out. Luckily they had it locally, but I had also bought it online and it arrived Saturday. All good. Plenty of thread now.

Guess I need to check the thread stash at the reopened store near me. I never go there…they never had much I needed before. Maybe they do now?

Sleepy Bowie…

Better than rampaging Bowie.

Oh yeah, ceramics. All but one tiny animal is out of the glaze fire…

My daughter’s trinket dish did not fare well…it is stuck to that cookie. I might be able to get it off. The other tiny animal got clear glaze put on and put back on the glazed shelf for the next firing. The other bowl thing got glazed, but it’s really thick, so I wanted to let it sit a bit and make sure it’s dry. Hopefully I’m going in today to do some actually hands-on clay, so I’ll put it on the glazed shelf too. Then back to the big sculpture! That I started in November and am still working on. Forever.

OK. To school. My coteacher was out Friday and will be out this morning. I have to find the rest of the flashlights during prep and put her lab stations together. Assuming I can find enough flashlights for that. I’m teaching the EM spectrum, mostly how the different wavelengths affect materials, eventually DNA. Which the stupid curriculum does not CALL DNA…it calls it ‘genetic material.’ Sigh. Like make it even harder for kids to figure out. So annoying. Then vocab literacy stuff after school. Then hands-on clay. Then quilting. Oh yeah, I’ll grade. I said that in the first paragraph. I never stop doing that until like June 17. It’s annoying. Oh well. Someday I won’t have to grade anything at all and the world might stop because of it.

Around Which I Cannot Get My Head

It’s a Friday. January, the 3rd longest month of the year, is finally ending. I feel like I’m coming down with something (chugging vitamin C here). I cannot be sick any more. Forever. This year has been heinous for healthiness. My morning just started with some convoluted text of possibilities that I can’t get my head around (around which I cannot get my head). Although that’s been going around for a few weeks now. I am guessing that art censorship is going to be rampant for the next four years (and maybe some after). It already was an issue in some places, but AQS is at it again, censoring two quilts from the SAQA show Color in Context: Red. I really wish SAQA would disconnect from AQS, but I get that for most of the work, AQS is a good place for SAQA to get art quilts out there into different audiences. But seriously, can we get a better contract so they don’t randomly pull art? It’s so disheartening to be one of those artists. Here’s one of the pieces…by Laura Shaw, titled Your Mother. Your Daughter. Your Sister. Your Grandmother. You.

It’s a response to Roe v. Wade’s fall. You can see her statement and the shows it was pulled from here. The other artist is Yvonne Iten Scott. This is her work Origin.

You can see her statement on the SAQA link. My guess is AQS thought this was too much like a vulva. My goodness. SIGH. I personally joined SAQA years ago because my work didn’t fit in quilt shows (I’ve been told this so many times) and it’s hard to get gallery and museum shows on your own. I also joined some art groups, but some of the ‘fine’ arts think fiber art is a craft. So it’s difficult to find a place for yourself. I’m glad to see the SAQA board actually acknowledging the problem publicly this time, and I feel for these artists. It feels like shit to have your work pulled, often stupidly. I’m looking forward to seeing how SAQA handles this going forward. I have two quilts (both with nudity!) traveling with SAQA shows right now. Hopefully not to AQS shows because we know they have my name on a bullseye somewhere in their offices, just so they can throw darts at it. Double sigh.

In other news, my next censorable quilt is getting quilted. I’m going to run out of thread though…and there’s no way I’m hitting the deadline I think. I’m just going to throw up my hands and say oh well. It’s all I can do at the moment. I regret not working more on it over Winter Break, but that’s how it went. I got it sandwiched on Wednesday night (after pilates and 90 minutes of owl box installation…in the dark)…

Luckily the kitten was asleep, so I didn’t have to deal with him skidding into this.

Knee pads for the win…

Worked pretty well…she was pretty flat. I started quilting the same night…

And last night, fought the machine and thread loops.

So frustrating until I got it to behave. More of that tonight. I’m going to need binding fabric too. Hmmm.

That was it. I yelled too. Well, spoke firmly. One class was being stupid. Not surprising. There’s always one.

OK. Teach today…it’s a test plus finish all your shit. PLEASE finish it so I can stop bugging you about it. Then ceramics. I haven’t been able to get there all week, and there’s stuff out of the kiln. Then home and IDK what. I had date night dinner up, but IDK how much energy I have for that. Tomorrow the Man has a show and I’m driving to Palos Verdes for an art event…a venue that is NOT censoring things. My quilt is on one of the banners even. Awesome sauce. Hopefully not a horrendous drive for that. Long day though. Lots of art though. May it all be good.

Hidden Away…

How is it not Thursday yet? I don’t get it. It feels like Friday and a half. I even looked up the date of the next full moon, trying to find an explanation for the crazy we saw yesterday, and nope, it’s not for another two weeks. Ugh. Today feels long and difficult already. Meeting this morning; I was at the school board meeting yesterday (with 6 people, not counting the actual school board) until after 6 PM. I had to speak briefly about the sex ed committee, and then I listened to the rest, grading the whole time. Then came home and managed to cook dinner and eat it.

The quilt progress is slow. This thing is big and complicated. I finished the stitchdown on Monday night; it took just under 6 hours to do. I love seeing the back of the quilt top at this stage…

And then it gets hidden away inside the quilt sandwich forever. I do actually check for things I’ve missed at this stage too. Although I don’t catch them all sometimes until I’m quilting.

Then last night, exhausted, I found and pieced fabric for the background, cut the batting, washed it, and tossed it into the dryer before I went to bed. Tonight, I’ll sandwich it all.

I’ll have to clean the entryway floor first. So clean floor, iron top, sandwich it, pin it all together. It’s moving, but slowly. Somewhat like me. At least mentally. I managed to cobble together something I worked on in 2023 for the filler day we need at school tomorrow, but we lose our prep periods today for the walk-to-the-high-school thing. Take the kids over there (it’s not super far), have them do the rah rah thing, see all the sports and clubs, talk to people, then try to corral them all back to walk back before 3rd period. My biggest concerns? Well, a couple of kids, but whatever. Also I usually eat and pee during 2nd period. This is important! We’ll figure it out. I had a packet of nuts at school for such emergencies, but I needed it last night at the board meeting. I maybe need to stop at a grocery store on the way to school…if I have time before the meeting.

In other school news, this was deposited on my notebook yesterday. So I recycled it. Ah no, it was the behavior contract of a student who was having a day…and continued having a day. As you can imagine.

It was rough for the rest of us as well.

So bee/owl box update. I noticed the bees were ‘gone’ the other day/night, so I pulled the box off, and then had the boychild help me move it about 15 feet away, with the plan to install the new one the next evening. I figured they’d left to find a better place to hang out. Went to install the new one and saw this.

Um. Guys. It’s over there. So yeah. Not sure what this was about. Where were they the night before? Anyway. So. When bees swarm on an unprotected spot, they usually leave within 48 hours, so we waited. We also cleaned out the old owl box and found what looked like possibly 1 or 2 baby skeletons (matches up to the two separate babies I heard last year), and what looked like part of an adult. Bigger feet, adult feathers still attached to part of a wing.

Baby on the left? Maybe? Barn owls aren’t actually that big. I know it just looks like a pile of feathers and stuff, and now that carcass on the left has been dragged off by something last night. I knew that would probably happen. There were still some bees in the owl box, but not much honeycomb…not enough for them to have killed the barn owl (they can do that apparently) back in spring, when I last heard the second baby, and then built a hive. It’s all very strange. ANYWAY. Last night, the bees were gone off the pole, so we’re gonna try again. I have a bee repellant spray that is supposed to be arriving today that I’m going to spray on the pole and around the owl box. It’s natural, not poisonous. I was trying to get a natural bee repellant I could put inside the box, but it’s not an easy thing to find in California. It’s late for mama to be building a nest, but I can hope.

This is the 2nd tree in the Sue Spargo Rooted quilt. I started the embroidery during book club on Monday.

Actually, no, I started the embroidery in my Allied Craftsmen meeting on Saturday. Embroidery is not fast, y’all. But it’s relaxing.

Speaking of relaxing…

Bowie at 8 months (9?) is almost as big as his aunties. He is still being a teenager, harassing everyone in the house. My old lady cat does not like him and lets him know that…and she has a new scratch on her nose that is probably from him. He’s very curious and wants to know about her, but she’s not having it. I’m carrying her out of her cubby in my room to the food and the litter tray, but she does come out without me sometimes.

OK, besides the walking tour of the local high school, the rest of the day, we’re reading about light rays and writing about them. Fun times. Then pilates and hopefully installing the owl box. Then sandwich and pinbaste the damn quilt. After washing the floor. It’s a lot.

Not Muddied by Exhaustion…

Oof. Well we got rain. Good thing, because that fire is still out there south of us. Definitely more in control with the rain and humidity coming up a bit. And we needed rain. Hoping it wasn’t so much that there were mudslides in fire zones. Just enough to give the plants some water and help put fires out. That would be good.

I wanted to be done with stitchdown last night, but I spent a bunch of time on school stuff yesterday instead of art. It needed to be done. This week is a little chaotic and it’s easier for me to do some of the grading with a clear mind, not muddied by exhaustion or kids talking. So I started it Friday night after finishing the ironing down to the background…here’s the whole thing…

Then the stitchdown start…

I did about three hours on Saturday and another hour last night…

I just have the head, that visual disturbance stuff, and the space cat. Not much…not even an hour’s worth, I think. Tonight though. Then sandwich and pinbaste and quilt.

In other quilt news, there’s my piece on the far left at Form, Not Function, where it won Honorable Mention.

And here’s one of mine on the banner of a show that opens next Saturday…

Now that’s cool. A boob out in public.

I’ve been glazing some little animals I’m going to try to make into pincushions…

This is going into the glaze fire with a clear satin coat.

I still have one that’s going into the bisque fire; its tail may not last. We’ll see.

The reddish one is the girlchild’s trinket dish. Hopefully the glaze doesn’t run too badly.

It’s actually supposed to turn out a blue green with a hint of brown. Glaze colors are weird that way.

And I’m just stitching wool down for another Sue Spargo quilt. Neverending.

My fault. I enjoy making them so I keep getting more. This tree one looks fun though.

This was Friday’s sun through the fire’s smoke cloud as it floated over us.

I drove a little bit west and I was out of it. But it smelled like smoke, like fire too. Like I said, that one is under control and I’m sure they’ll get it out in the next few days. More rain is headed in today, although not a lot.

OK. Today the kids will need to take notes on their own (ha! That’s funny) while I grade stuff. We’ll see how that goes. I’m tired still. Ugh. Not sleeping well again. Meetings after school, although I’m supposed to have a team meeting and all of my team except me are in another meeting. So yeah, IDK how that’s supposed to work. I will meet by myself? Probably. Then home to finish stitchdown. Oh yeah! The bees have mostly left the owl box; we moved it away from the post yesterday. Hopefully sometime this week we can put the new owl box up and invite owls to stay there (owl airbnb?). I’ve heard barn owls recently. I hope they didn’t already pick somewhere else. I hope they’re lurking around and waiting for this one.

Also, I’m back on FB and Insta…not ready to let the fascist tech overlords take over everything. I’m still on Bluesky though…I’ve got people on there too, so I’ll stay there unless it seems like a no go. We’ve had a bunch of different apps pop up and disappear over the years. You never know what will stick.

Most of the Time…

Bless the Fridays for they come once a week and release us from 12-hour days. Mostly. This weekend is overly busy, although it was supposed to be 3 meetings, and it went down to 2, and one is on Zoom, so I can do school stuff at the same time. Good thing. I have a run of busy weekends coming up, mostly because of art and/or quilting, so hopefully good times, but also increases stress because lots of driving etc. Hard to keep up on school stuff when I lose chunks of the weekend, because some chunks of the weekend, I just have to sit and read with a cat. Last night, after a 12-hour day (well, 15 minutes short of that), I sat and read with a cat. Finished one book and started another…

Nice sleepy Bowie. I finally ate dinner at 9 and did some ironing. The night before, I worked on my friend’s mom’s quilt, finishing up all the white background quilting so I could take it off the machine at a good stopping point…

There’s a border around the edges that needs quilting still, and the kokopeli in the middle needs background quilting, but otherwise, I’m getting there. I just need to get my quilt done.

I pieced the backing on Wednesday night…

Dark and impossible to photograph. Fun times. Last night, I got everything tacked down in the right place with the iron…

And tonight, I’ll make sure it’ll all stay stuck until I stitch it down.

Some steamy ironing action. Exciting Friday night. It is exciting, actually, to see her ironed onto fabric. When I’m ironing it together, the teflon sheet is light colored, so I can’t really get the effect of it all until this stage. Hopefully tonight I’ll start stitchdown too, although the ironing will probably be another hour. We’ll see how much energy I have.

I saw this on the way to work yesterday…had to think about it, analyze it…

Do they shoot people in wheelchairs? Ah no…they are a disabled person with a gun. Splendid. Big red truck, driving like an asshole, but it’s OK…they’ve got guns. (Kathy changes lanes)

Today in school, Nida will be teaching vocab in a high-energy manner (will she though? She will. She doesn’t know where it will come from, but she’ll find it). Then making kids write, using those vocab words (it’s like she’s insane, doesn’t even know it’s a Friday), and then make them take notes about light and how it works. Sounds fun. My headache started before I got up, by the way. Our weather has been warm during the day and super dry (hence the fire south of us), but tomorrow, we’re supposed to get much-needed rain (fuck you, fire). That rain is coming just when I’m supposed to be walking across Balboa Park to a meeting, but that’s fine. I’ll take it. Put the damn fires out and water the fucking plants. Plus make it so my hair stops being so staticky. Fucking hate that. OK, wait, I hate other things more, but in the moment, my hair in its flyaway annoying state makes me want to scream, and it doesn’t help that my government leaders are a joke. So there’s that. But hopefully I’ll have the energy to go to ceramics after school, then cook dinner, then finish the ironing. Will there be some reading with a cat at some point? I can pretty much guarantee that will happen. I’m not insane, y’all…most of the time.

On the Next Step…

January is flying by. It always does. So does February with its built-in shortness and double holiday whammy (for us anyway). Then March lasts for 3 months. It’s weird that way. Having a Monday off is nice; it gives me some extra rest/relaxation time, although I mostly suck at that, unless you count reading, which I do. And making art, which I totally do. I’m progressing on all art fronts, although slowly…which is fine. If I don’t hit deadlines, and I probably won’t…let’s be realistic…it’s not the end of the world. So…I’m still working on my friend’s mom’s quilt…I’m more than halfway, but there’s still a good chunk to do. I’m going to have to pull it off the machine tonight though so I can piece the backing for the final iron down, and then stitchdown after. I’ll do another 30 minutes on the background before I do that though.

The art quilt I’m working on is getting there…I ironed half the tree parts Monday night…

The tree goes from winter to spring to summer to fall (right to left)…so last night, I ironed summer and fall…

And then the last two little bits…the spaceship…

And a catronaut.

Castronaut? sounds painful. Anyway, on the dark background, she’ll show up just fine. Although she has kind of some disco tendencies too. I think. Tonight, I’ll piece the background and iron the whole thing down. Hopefully.

I have a piece in a show at Road to California in Ontario, CA, this weekend. It’s part of the SAQA SoCA/NV chapter’s New Pieces.

It is apparently at waist height. Hmmm. I apologize now for you having to bend over to see the details. I don’t enter Road any more because the lighting and hanging aren’t great, but this was my group and I wanted to be supportive. I feel like they need to accept fewer pieces and hang them with space between and not double hang. But I didn’t hang the show…so there we are. Also, there’s boobs and a uterus, so that will make some people clutch their pearls. I’m OK with that. I’m not going to make it up there…I have two art meetings already this weekend. It’s messy.

I went to clay on Monday and got more details put on the upper torso and started arms.

Still not entirely sure how I will dry/fire arms, but it’s in progress.

I do like the heart and lungs though. So far.

Side view, she’s leaning a little further forward than I’d like. I have to store the two pieces separately due to the size of shelves. The bottom is mostly drying and the top is mostly mushy still, so it’s a challenge. I haven’t even figured out the head yet. I need more clay and the boss has been away at a conference. I don’t actually have anywhere to store the clay, although someone in my shelves is storing it all on the ground. Which they told me was not OK, fire marshally stuff, also I can’t reach my shelf due to all the crap on the ground. Minor issue. I’ll be back there on Friday and hopefully get more clay. Or? Not sure. I was expecting her to be there Monday unfortunately. That does mean I’ve used almost 20 pounds of clay in this so far, minus a few things the girlchild and I made. Fun times.

I’m reading Swordheart by T. Kingfisher…I find it amusing.

Sometimes I chortle out loud even…

Lizards sounds painful.

I grew two bell peppers this summer. I waited too long to harvest them, of course.

I don’t mind feeding the animals…

This is the new government by the way…

So first of all, I’ve never heard of large and small cells to define egg and sperm. I’m not sure why they didn’t use those words (because they are scary???). Second of all, they are idiots. If only it were that simple. But it’s not. I have a 3-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting tomorrow at the district and a prep-time meeting tomorrow. Sigh. I’m tired of being in charge of things, but I honestly can’t trust the world to be smart about this stuff. I’m still off the regular social media. Still trying not to watch the crazy-making shit. Except I saw a conversation between teachers about what to do when ICE shows up on school campuses. Sigh. And our Newcomer population is growing crazily, mostly I think because they’re desperately trying to get here before they’re not allowed to. Such a hateful government. Really disappointing.

With that, I’m low-fi teaching today…just means I’m not directly teaching. It’s review. And finish the things. Tomorrow is an academic assignment. I’m really trying to be mostly hands off this week. Last week was all on, and it was tiring. OK, not gonna lie, but yesterday was also tiring. Ah well. Last night, I had a hard time falling asleep and then once I was finally there, kaboom! Cat fight under the bed. Fun times. Loud. Someone was pissed off. And then the little cat (who is not so little anymore) was up and about before my alarm went off. Squirrely bastard. Pilates after school (already tired)…then quilting, ironing the whole thing down, and hopefully starting stitchdown. We’ll see how that goes. Good to be onto the next step.

Somewhere Better…

This day. Man. I was sort of hoping for news that the swearing in didn’t happen. I don’t even care why…like I’m voting for aliens from a distant solar system at the moment. I’m off the Meta socials this week. I considered not doing it, because my dad always told me if you want to change something, you need to do it from the inside out. And why are we letting them control where we are and why? But then someone said that there’s ad revenue and that gets them where it hurts…so I changed my mind. I’ll be here on the blog, and I’m over on Bluesky (@knida.bsky.social), posting there instead. I’m a picture/visual person, and Bluesky is more like Twitter, where I never really hung out. So yeah. We’ll see if it changes anything. I don’t trust a rich white man farther than I can throw them, and I don’t throw well at all.

Some guy is out looking at my shed right now with my dad, and I’m sort of listening. I’m not sure I care about the details of how to fix the damn roof right now. I’ve got too many things on my to-do list. I did finish grades yesterday, and then, like a crazy woman, I sent 72 emails to kids/parents about specific missing academic assignments, so when they see their grades, the kids won’t be able to lie about the teacher not letting them turn late work in. Today? I plan to not to school…except I never graded the warmups yesterday and I need to do that. Or I could just do it in class tomorrow. Maybe. We’ll see. I’m aiming for day job sanity and having a hard time getting there.

Quiltwise though, things are going better…I got the visual disturbance part done…

Those are the things I see…not all at once, but one at a time. Swirling around in my visual field.

Saturday night, it took almost 2 hours to do the words…which do fade into the background and they’re supposed to…

Like I’m yelling about these things and no one is listening. I’m a little concerned that the arm is not quite reaching where it should, but I can futz with that when I iron it down to the background.

Last night, I got a good chunk of the tree done.

Plus all three owls…

The three has all four seasons on the branches, so I have a few hundred pieces left, hopefully today.

I lost Kitten on Friday…couldn’t find her anywhere. Usually when I call for her, she comes out. She has some very specific hiding places, but the actual kitten, Bowie, has been harassing her. He doesn’t understand that she’s old and sick, so he tries to chase her. He’s really curious about her. So she’s been peeing up in her safe spaces. I finally pulled all the batting out and replaced it with pee pads…which she hasn’t used. I also carry her out to the litter tray twice a day. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Anyway, I was searching all over for her and finally had a guess and went outside…there’s a glass sliding door on one wall that is essentially not accessible because of the sewing machine table…and there she was, hunkered down behind it…

Snuggled under the quilt I’ve been working on (which she did NOT pee on, thank goodness…it now has a towel covering it). I’ve found her there twice now. I think her hearing is going. Poor baby. She’s old but not in pain. She still purrs when I pet her, snarls at Bowie for invading her space, eats a little food, and goes back to sleeping. Sigh. It’s hard to deal with elderly animals.

We’re trying to use up our stash of restaurant gift cards, so Saturday night had us in Little Italy at the Princess Pub & Grille, which had pretty decent British food…

I drew…it was really loud (football!)…

Need to remember to stay away from sports bars for a few weeks I guess. I don’t actually know if we’ll be going out at all for a while. Long story. Been here before.

Hey, there’s my quilt in the background! At Form, Not Function, where it won Honorable Mention.

It’s the only photo I could find of it in the show.

OK, I need to leave to get my hair cut, rescheduled from when I had stomach flu. I was going to go to ceramics afterwards. Not sure how I feel about that right now. I’m tired. Nothing new there. Got some art to do, some cleaning to do. Need to make lunches for the week. Hoping to still be able to retire in 2029, but who knows what the fuck that idiot is gonna do. If I can’t afford to retire, then it’s gonna be rough to stay in teaching. We’ll see where we’re at in four years…hopefully somewhere better.

Brains…

Hello Friday, who snuck up on me. Probably a good thing. At the end of Tuesday and Wednesday, I was questioning my ability to get here. And now I’m here. Had to think about it this morning. What day is it? What am I doing? Should I be getting up and showering (usually yes)? Grades are due Tuesday and I’m mostly done. I have about 8 packets that were turned in late that I’m trying to get done, and last night, I graded the redo-from-hell (seriously that assignment needs a rewrite for sanity). I had like 10 to grade and it took over an hour. I needed brainpower and quiet for it, and no one was around last night, but two sleepy cats, so it worked. Finally. Then just pop grades in and be done! Like that’s a fast thing. Maybe tonight. We’ll see.

I just realized there’s a quilt deadline coming up and I have absolutely nothing for it. Everything is out, sold, or it’s shown in Southern California at some point. Yikes. I need to be making faster. I do WANT more time to make. And that’s been really hard over the last 4+ years. This year is a little better, because I have help, but we are often upending the apple cart and starting over, which takes time and effort. I’m a little over it. Unfortunately. The next unit we’re doing, on space, I’ve never gotten a consistent story of how to learn the things…so maybe this is the year? And then I go back to 7th grade.

Artwise, I’m still forcing at least an hour a night…plus most nights, I’m doing 30 minutes on the other quilt. The goal is to finish things. Wednesday night’s ironing included the brain and face…

And that other hand…and the teacup.

Then last night, I missed the quilting time because I was grading and didn’t eat dinner until 9 PM (it’s nice to have everyone gone, but when they’re not here, I sometimes forget to eat…whoops.).

Your bog-standard brain on fire and surrounded by barbed wire. I laid out all the 1000s next. My goal is to finish ironing this together by the end of the 3-day weekend. It’s 600 pieces and a bit. I’ll need to put some more time in for the next four days, but I should be able to do that, right? Yes. Yes I should. Day job, fuck off. Still don’t think I can make that deadline, but at least I’m considering it.

I’m pro wolves.

OK, I’m tired, not a shocker. I have ceramics after school. Gotta figure the arms out. I’m teaching the electromagnetic spectrum today…actually, a huge portion of today’s lesson is how to cut and glue correctly. Fun times. Then dinner will happen and quilting and ironing and maybe grades; depends on the time. A long weekend will be appreciated. February is full of them. Then the long stretch of March happens. A random 3-day weekend would be nice, but my school board puts those in the fall. Dunno why. OK. More tea, more action.

Made It to Halfway…

It’s amazing how quickly I get tired…I’ve been trying to train myself to go to sleep earlier again. I just suck at it. The boychild says I can easily train myself to be a morning person, but I’m not so sure. Maybe when you’re younger. I know Monday night, I’m trying to fall asleep, and my brain is just tossing stuff out that needs to be done. I finally gave up and pulled up the calendar app on my phone, and scheduled a bunch of stuff. Then I could sleep. As the week goes on, with every morning an early wakeup (tomorrow is even earlier ffs), I get tired enough to fall asleep before the meditation app turns off. Pros and cons of that. I’m trying to carve out art time, though, and that’s usually after dinner. I should’ve graded last night, but I didn’t. Monday I came home and took a nap…and we didn’t even have kids on Monday! Just an all-morning staff meeting. I’ll get used to it; I always do. Maybe. Right now, it feels like I need a tea injection. My fault for taking the head meds late…they make me tired, so I have a reminder on my phone to take them at 8 PM, but then I keep forgetting and not taking them until bedtime. Ugh. I don’t think they’re going to work anyway. They’re another migraine medication the doc wanted me to try so she could finally rule out migraine for the visual disturbance I have…she calls it a ‘scotopia’ or a visual disturbance. I call it the swirling universe and am convinced it has alien origins. She laughed at that. At least she has a sense of humor. The scotopia is not quite correct, because I am seeing colors…anyway, I think she really doesn’t know what it is and it will either go away, stay forever, or eventually turn into something the docs recognize. But for now, I’m taking a medication for migraines that I don’t seem to actually have. So there’s that.

Art! I am ironing, and finally hit halfway last night. I’m mostly in the fussy little bits, so there looks to be very little progress from day to day. Monday night, I ironed the heart with all its flowers.

There were quite a few pieces in there. I also added some bits and pieces to fill in blanks. Last night, I did the arm and the neck.

I’m in the mid 800s, so halfway. Still fussy shit going on, trying to make everything fit. The bottom was getting too heavy; it kept pulling everything off kilter, so I removed the teflon sheets from the bottom and rolled it up.

You can see it all rolled up there. You can also see the ginormous quilt I’m quilting for (this is my plan) 30 minutes a night. It’s for a friend of mine. Her mom made the quilt before she died and was able to quilt it. It’s large. I’ve managed to quilt all the way around the center medallion, although I will add some quilting in the middle once I figure out the rest of it. The next step is to quilt around some of the outside icons and then do an allover stipple in between all of that. The hardest part is that I got a bag of thread with the quilt, but I don’t know what mom wanted. How I would quilt it vs how someone else would quilt it? I try to channel mom thoughts while I’m quilting…it’s weird…I’ve done finish-up quilting on projects before for people who needed help finishing something up for someone else, and there is a moment while you’re working when you picture the person and try to think what they would want or need. Definitely communing with intent. Or for intent? I’m not sure. It’s a strange headspace. Anyway, I feel much better about it now. It was an overwhelming project when I first took it, and now it’s just ‘do this one thing’ and then ‘do this other thing’. One piece at a time. Much more manageable.

I did more clay on Monday…honestly I thought I’d be doing clay stuff all the time during break and that definitely didn’t happen. I barely made it in. Which sucks. But whatever.

Shoulders. Still not sure how I am going to handle arms. There’s a roll of plastic-covered paper towels holding the boobs up. Some sagging is allowed. But also, the weight is all pitched forward at the moment because of the construction I’m using to fit the two parts together.

Lots left to do. I haven’t even started decorating this part. The other part is over on the drying shelves. AND…I’m almost out of this clay. I’ve used almost 20 pounds. Crazy. Hopefully I’ll be back there on Friday (possibly exhausted by then).

So we dropped the owl box…definitely bees in there…

You can just see a bunch of bees and the honeycomb on the right.

I talked to a very helpful, very nice bee woman who lives too far away to help us, but she gave me some ideas. I ordered another owl box. This one needs to move with its bees, we think. Someone local will need to help with that. The bees probably won’t survive being moved out right now. Not enough resources. So I’m still trying to figure out how to handle the next part, which might just mean moving it over 10 feet so we can put a new owl box on. We’ll see. My brain is overwhelmed with school right now, so I’m taking small steps each day toward my to-do list. Yesterday was an art thing and a retirement thing. Today will be bee things.

Yesterday, we started Unit 4 and I actually finished a cover page the same day I started it.

Sort of miraculous that.

OK. Teaching light vs sound waves today. Kids are reading out loud as characters in a story. We have new seats, new folders, a new unit. Kids are still tired. They got a lecture about trying harder and redoing work when it wasn’t up to standards. About how they’ve already done hard things and they can still do hard things, that hardly anything goes right the first time. Meanwhile our grade file opens tomorrow and I have some more stuff to grade. I do love their confidence sometimes though. Actual conversation: I filled out the regrade form and you didn’t grade it. I did look at it, but didn’t see a change. I got a better score. Did you get my email? No you didn’t email me. I did, on December 27. Oh. If you can screenshot your score, I’ll change it. Otherwise, I can’t grade something I can’t see. OK, Ms. Nida; I’ll do that. Luckily, I keep pretty specific notes or I wouldn’t remember anything.

After teaching, I have pilates. I’m not cooking tonight, so hopefully I can read my book a little and then grade the silly things I have left to grade. And then quilt and iron after dinner. I’m better with routines. I get more done. I need the breaks from school, but the break in routine doesn’t always help. Still tired, by the way.

Just to Be Clear…

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.