Hope for the Best

OK. I can do 5 days. You can do 5 days. The kids can’t do 5 days. Even if they know they have 9 days off after 5 days, they still can’t. Well, some of them can. Next year, the school board is giving us the Friday of the week before Thanksgiving Break off, which I think is idiotic. We already have a week. It’s already hard on both sides of that week. But whatever. Just because you’re voted in to a school board position doesn’t mean you know shit about how to teach kids. In fact, these days, it kinda guarantees that you know nothing. Am I looking forward to the 9 days off? Yes. But my to-do list is a little nuts. It always is. There’s family and food and doctor appointments you couldn’t fit anywhere else. And fixing cars and cleaning and yardwork and whatever else you haven’t had time for since August 9, when we started back to school. Kinda nuts. But you still have to plan and grade so December isn’t hell on wheels. So I spent a large part of my Saturday banging through one academic assignment. I have another one for this week, but odds are, I won’t get far. This week is already a little nuts. Plus I’d like to have all of December planned before going on break, and I’m not sure we’ll get that. I’m gonna try anyway. I’ve taught this stuff before…no need to reinvent the wheel completely.

Artwise, I did a bunch of tracing and a little bit of ceramics.

I’m still aiming for an hour a night and mostly falling short.

Grading until 9:30 PM and then starting…I don’t always start on time. I did get some extra time in on Saturday afternoon, once I’d finished grading. My brother was in town and I went out to dinner with him and then took him to see the Man’s band play. No photos. I’m lame. So I traced before all that. Good plan, because I was too tired after. And last night, I graded during a Zoom meeting, so then I started tracing around 8:45…so I got further, up into the 1000s (only barely).

Definitely more than halfway. I’m tracing all the weird shit I see when I close my eyes. That weird thing they still haven’t identified. Fun times. I’m on the 5th yard of Wonder Under. Why does that matter? They used to sell 20-yard bolts…now they are 10 yards, so I can see one big quilt basically taking almost all of a bolt. Annoying. Because they’re about the same price that the 20-yard bolts were. And harder to get…mine came from Florida and took a week. Nothing available locally. I just need to plan ahead. Ha! I try so hard to do that. And I suck at it.

I meant to go to clay on Friday, but had to stay for a bunch of stuff after school, and then we were going to dinner at the parents (again, forgot to take photos), so I wasn’t going to have time. Then I thought, Saturday? But grading it all was a priority. So I went Sunday at 4 PM, after finishing stuff. It was easier because I didn’t need to cook last night. So there’s no pressure to come home and do that.

I had a partner this time…

Bartholomew is a semi-feral cat they’ve been feeding. He came in with me and I fed him. He was loud for a while, hung out with me for a while, and then wanted back outside.

I added the other foot and shaped some things…added more to make the top mostly level. I have ideas for what to do next, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s big. Takes up most of my shelf. I can’t go much higher, so I’m back to needing to figure out how to stack parts. It needs carving and details added. And a decision about the inside. Which I think will be fabric. Making in clay and making in fabric are two very different things.

I also underglazed a small pot I made, and I forgot to take a picture of this bisqued before I put the clear glaze on…

It looked good. Hopefully will also look good in the end after the glaze fire.

I think I’m going back today after school. The rest of the week might be messy.

My piece Heart-Shaped Box was at a special SAQA exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show this weekend.

It looks like it had a pretty good location in their booth.

Nice to see it in video anyway. I have two pieces in another show right now, and probably three videos have been published and my two pieces are not in any of them. It’s always a little frustrating to not be able to see your stuff when you can’t travel to the show.

Nova love…she was drooling at some point.

And Bowie being a dork.

Some political leanings…

One of the reasons I made that Supreme Court quilt last year. Although they left out Alito.

From the book I just finished reading, The Dictionary of Lost Words…

Which I really enjoyed.

OK. Today. Is a lab day. Demos and stations. I’ll be demonstrating ripples all day. I haven’t really thought through how that’s gonna work? Because we made three stations and IDK how they’re going to move through them. Because it was a little chaotic last week. Hoping for less chaos this week. Today’s staff meeting is now shorter than it was supposed to be (hallelujah) and then hopefully clay afterwards. Although I have to cook tonight. And grade. Because class will be 100% on all day. Yikes! Tomorrow is a little easier, although we need to make some things during prep today. Double yikes! OK. Deep breaths. Go to school. Do the things. Make some art (and some dinner). Hope for the best.

Buggy…

I finally updated my website to include all the bugs I made. You can see them here. At least for now. They might move. One has sold (that I know of)…it’s OK, it was the mutant first one I did before I figured out how to more easily (and quickly) finish them. Four of them are at VMOTA for now. The rest are here with me. They don’t have to be.

There’s one of them.

It’s the time of year when I’m scrambling and ducking and weaving and running. I could do with some down time, y’all. I did have a meeting canceled last night, and though I was looking forward to some stitching time with friends, I also enjoyed sitting on the couch with a variety of animals and reading my book for once. Well, I did a bunch of that last weekend too. Still sick, so balancing that with doing way too much. There is no balance. WTF am I talking about.

I’ve been doing about an hour of tracing a night, if I’m lucky…just short of an hour really. So I’m not getting far.

And it looks pretty much the same from one day to the next. I did start another yard of Wonder Under…

I’m in the mid to high 600s. Not even halfway. Ah well. Progress is slow. I did want to be ironing next week. Hopefully I will be at some point.

Must be cold. Dog in couch.

This is feeling real.

And I always appreciate this quote.

Creation is my sanity.

From the book I’m reading…The Dictionary of Lost Words…

Good book. I’d like to read it more.

OK. Ugh. I’m tired. Have not been sleeping well. Mostly in the AM. Still teaching waves…today is transverse and longitudinal. Only sort of know what I’m doing ahead of time, which is a bit nerve-wracking, but whatever. Nothing new there. Hopefully no stressful student crap today. Or adult crap for that matter. Hopefully some ceramics time. Then to the parents for dinner with the bro. Home to trace. Busy. Trying not to think about the idiocy that is my government in process. Dismantling the education department just hurts people. So many people are going to have their lives uprooted by all this…including those who voted for the idiot. Or who didn’t vote at all. You get what you deserve, but you dragged us all down with you. Stressed about all that. Ah well. Carry on. Draw some more. Contain the anger in a pile of fabric pieces…well, it’s not really contained, is it. Off to the mines it is…

I’ve Run Out of Limbs

Oh hey. Do you know what it’s like to work in a profession that is nonstop? I’m a little tired of mine right now. The nonstoppedness of it for sure. The ‘here do this because you have plenty of time’ part of it. The ‘I don’t understand why you can’t do all the things we’re asking you to do’ part of it. The ‘we need to know when the kids go to the bathroom and return and that is more important than what you’re teaching’ part of it. And I don’t know if the nutkook who will be in charge has announced his education crony yet, but if any of his other uneducated, inexperienced choices are a sign, we’re gonna get worse than Betsy WTF ‘just give them a pencil’ Voss this time. It will not be four years of sanity. Not in my district anyway. I wish y’all luck wherever you are. I’m currently juggling too many things and need to juggle more but I’ve run out of limbs.

So art is even MORE important. I kamikazed from school to ceramics yesterday and built (most of) two legs and feet. Well, one foot.

It needs work. This looks a bit like my Thanksgiving turkey at the moment.

Hopefully it’ll look better soon. The right foot (on the left) does not exist. All of it needs work. I ran out of time because I also had pilates last night (but late), so I did that too. And graded stuff. And then traced…

The lead I’m using does not write as darkly on the new Wonder Under. It also doesn’t rub off as much. I’m not sure why. Strange. It’s the same pencil I always use. There’s more resistance and yet less. Not sure how to explain that. There’s less resistance from the fusible underneath, which sometimes was bumpy enough to move my pencil lead to one side; now there’s more resistance from the paper I’m tracing on. Yes, I am thinking way too hard about this. I made it into the 500s last night, which means I’m close to a third done. My goal is to be ironing to fabric over Thanksgiving break. So I probably have another 11 days of tracing if I continue at about 100 pieces in an hour, and an hour a night…so that’s a week from Saturday. And then I have to cut them all out, which is probably 6 hours or so and then family arrives so I’m on crack. I might be ironing by Thursday, actual turkey day. Uh huh. Well. Oh well then. Maybe I’ll do some this weekend? And grade and lesson plan. Ha! Fuck me.

So yeah. Today is a lot of direct teaching, I think. Tomorrow will be less so, then Friday back on it. We’re teaching lessons we’ve never taught before, which is always stressful. I haven’t finished Friday’s worksheet yet and I don’t have any for next week. Although we found the academic thing for next week, so that’s good. I really should make a video to explain the current assignment that kids aren’t finishing. Not sure when I will do that. 2 AM? Possibly. Just after I train kids to use the new signout system that didn’t work yesterday. Yaass.

OK, also so many union meetings today. Gonna go do the first one, teach, then do the second one. Maybe go see my brother, who is visiting my parents. Then cook dinner and grade and trace. In that order. I think. I might grade WHILE cooking dinner. Not necessarily the best choice, but…

Freedoms…

‘Tis Veterans Day. Thanks to those who protected our freedoms. Hopefully you’ll keep doing that, even against homegrown incursions. It’s ironic. But not funny. It’s a day off for teachers, also appreciated. I needed an extra day to decompress…aka read another book, do some gardening, get to the ceramics studio. Hopefully get healthy. I think the cough is wandering (very slowly) off and the sinus crap might not be far behind. Although still not well well, better.

Friday night, all I had in me was reading. So I did that. With Nova…

And then Simba…

I was cold, I felt like crap, I was tired. It worked. The Man was still on soft food, so I ate leftovers. And then I sewed a handheld tornado together.

Like you do. I spent a lot of time looking at memes and cat videos. Also like you do when you are trying to get over all the things. Friday…was a lot of things…I had to sub my prep (Math! Anathema) and then stay after school with my co-teacher because we hadn’t figured next week out, and I needed to get my head around it.

I copied stuff for Tuesday and then was too tired to go to ceramics…in the dark.

So I did that Saturday afternoon instead. In the morning, I lounged, I entered two art shows, I did some accounting-type shit.

It’s good I didn’t go earlier, because they had a class in the morning and it would have been crowded. I’m loving this new clay, B-mix…it holds up much better than half and half. I built up…

And it held! This was fun.

We’ll see how much it held up when I go in today, yeah? It seemed pretty stable. I only have an inch or two before it’s taller than my shelf space though. Again. There is going to be a top half. But now I need to decide how I’m handling the rest of it. She needs legs. And for me to decide if the inside is going to be fabric. I think it is.

Saturday also included a dinner drawing (the Man ate solid food!)…

Plus I sewed some clouds…

My machine kept pausing to tell me there was too much fabric under the needle and I just kept telling it to forget about it, keep sewing, it’ll all be OK.

I also built a tiny house out of balsa wood. I need at least two more of these.

They are a rancid pain. I sewed cars on a cloud too…trying to decide if they need painting. I think they do. But they are already sewn on. Ah well.

That Fuentes idiot and everyone who follows him…

I’m loving hearing about the 4B movement in South Korea by the way. Reminds me of the play Lysistrata and the movie Chiraq, both inspiration for the We Got the Power exhibit I’m in that’s currently showing in Florida. The timing of all this.

I’m honestly confused by the majority of married white women. Is it really easier to give up your power? I don’t get it.

I get that too.

Sunday…went by too fast. All of a sudden, it was late in the afternoon. In an attempt to save (remove from house) a large gecko, I had moved a bunch of stuff off a bookcase…two days later, I actually found the gecko and rehomed him outside. But I had to clean off all these books and tins and find homes for them, and I found this.

There was no disk inside. I kept the tin because, remember when you could cover them and then put a magnetic thing inside and it would be a needleholder? Yeah that. That was what I’d saved it for. It’s OK…I’m sure my mom has 10 of them. I tossed it. I also got rid of some books. And threw out a file folder filled with recipes I’d cut from magazines that I will never ever look at again. It was good.

I’m actually fairly reality-bound, unfortunately.

The other good thing was that the Wonder Under I’d ordered a week ago showed up. It’s still not the same as the old stuff, but it’s not as heavy as the stuff I had in my stash. I was still worried about the heaviness of the paper and the plasticky feel of the fusible, so I decided to test it out on something small before I committed to using it on the quilt I’d already started tracing with the old stuff. I was so freaked out about the change…they’ve changed the formulation before, but not so drastically.

Good news…it actually seems easier to use. The fusible is less bumpy, so it’s easier to trace over. The heavier paper probably helps with that too.

And it peeled right off…usually I have to wait at least 24 hours to peel, but this was immediate and worked well.

Done. Only issue is that the bolts are half the size they used to be and I can’t find them locally, so I have to ship. I also have two full bolts of the thicker stuff…don’t know what I’ll do with those. I bought them quite a while ago. Not sure why they’re so different, but they have a slightly different code on them.

But it means I can start tracing again. Ahhhh. Such a relief. Video of Annie greeting me when I went to pick up Simba…

This dog is a freak. A loving freak, but a freak nonetheless.

OK. Today. More yardwork (watering mostly…it’s been very dry, warm too)…maybe some digging and removing plant matter if I have the energy. Totally going back to ceramics today. Also grading more stuff. I’m almost done with the Unit 2 packets and I need to input some grades at some point. I’m trying to get caught up so Thanksgiving Break is not all grades. I did some lesson planning last night and got stuff made for every day but Friday. Friday is started at least. I need to copy stuff tomorrow. I need to build a couple more balsawood houses and paint them and the cars. I need to figure out what I’m doing with the wings and test drill some ceramics so I can get some stuff attached. I need to read my book. I need to write a blogpost for one of my art groups. I sat down to do this one and it’s taken forever. Not sure why. And then I’m going to trace Wonder Under. Happily. Short week of school, brother will be in town, hopefully continuing to get over this sinus infection and bronchitis. Trying to come to terms with half the country. I’m not sure why voting for someone who only has rich people in his sights ever makes sense if you want things to be cheaper. But it’s what we have. No shortage of artmaking ideas for the next four years…I guess that’s the plus. Retirement plans? Aaugh. Try not to think too hard about that. I’d like to hike, but I’m not sure I have it in me. We’ll see.

Hurdles and Crunches

Hey Friday. I’m glad you’re here. This week has been cool in terms of kids learning and doing stuff (except for the 5 who aren’t). It’s been a physical hurdle due to the crap in my lungs and sinuses. It’s been a time crunch that is continuing…I was woken up at 4:45 AM by either a cat or the dulcet snoring tones of my partner, and then my brain wouldn’t let go of the fact that only one day next week is planned and 48 things need to happen before Tuesday and I don’t know when they will be happening. Minor issue. Plus many people want things from me and I just want to finish my book (I did that last night…it was well worth it).

Also an earthquake/fire drill on a lab day, when they moved where we stand (I’ve stood with my class in the same place for 16 years…I understand half the move, but the other half was idiotic…and yes, I told them so. I am so unapologetic in my ancient years…oh hell, I haven’t even come close to ancient yet. Hold on to your hats.). It’s OK. It’s done. Today will be OK. I hope. Still need to get most of that period done with building because they couldn’t do it yesterday because we spent half the period doing other stuff.

What are we building? Roller coasters…a quicker, faster, easier version than what I’ve been doing for the last two years…which is awesome.

Insulation tubing. Way easier than the paper stuff.

So much better. I may hate grading the paper part of it, but I’m OK with trying it. So that was cool.

I’m still waiting on Wonder Under. I’ve been working on parts for the ceramic sculpture…

I made tubing for the tornado rope. It’s long and is taking For. Ev. Er. to pull through.

Here’s day 2, when I found the big tweezery things…

Still not done, but closer. And I need more fiberfill or stuffing or whatever. Maybe I’ll remember that after school today. We’ll see. I also want to do clay but can do that tomorrow as well.

First not-very-fair response to the election…

Not fair because where I live is actually in California and red. So there’s that. Certainly a lot of people are going to better understand tariffs in the next 4 years. I guess it will play out and we will yell a lot and hopefully the world will not end. Will it affect my retirement? Almost certainly. Unfortunately. Ah well. This might be more relevant.

And then there’s this…

I wish that were totally true, but I guess art and books are my forest.

OK. Survive today. Take all the meds. Hopefully get some planning in and some clay in. Still fending for myself on food because the Man had a tooth pulled and is still on a liquid diet. And cranky about it. I guess it would be rude of me to go get a burger tonight. Hmmm. I’m personally tired of leftovers. Looking forward to getting my Wonder Under tomorrow. Looking forward to a 3-day weekend. Another one. Yup. It’s all good. More sleep would be lovely, if that’s an option. It may not be. Snorers and cats and dogs…

The Monsters…

America. I had hope, you had hate. It’s not all of you. My social media shows me that. But too many of you do. Hate for my students, hate for my friends, hate for me. I dodge a lot of it by being a white woman, but an artist? A teacher in a Title I school full of immigrants and refugees and kids of color? Sigh. I’m…there’s got to be a better word than disappointed. I’m wearing all black today…ninja teacher, ninja artist, ninja liberal. My plan to retire in 2029 may be thrown by this. When the orange monster was in before, my med costs went up, my taxes went up, my expenses went up. They all relaxed during Biden. I’m not rich enough to get the benefits of a GOP ruler. Ah well. We fight the monsters, y’all. And the monsters are half of us.

My art is sort of stalled…or waylaid? Or on a different track. I started a new clay piece…loosely based on my The Way Out quilt. Same shape to start anyway…

Gotta figure out how to piece it together so it fits on my shelf again.

I also brought stuff home that looked cool that I forgot to photograph. Oops. And one thing is drying, getting ready to bisque. And I had a tiny bit of the old clay left and I made a pot shape. I always need more pots for plants. Anyway, it will start to look more like something eventually.

Then I started with the ceramic winged woman (who still doesn’t have wings). She’s all about climate change, which is going to get worse because of who y’all voted in, in case you were unclear about that. I made some shapes on paper and picked some fabrics and decided to try to build a tornado…like you do.

I bought that rope during the beginning of COVID to do something with. Last night, I cut the pieces out and cut an appropriate piece of rope…

I have tiny people, and there are tiny cars coming, plus balsa wood, because apparently I’m going to build a house? Or am I? Hard to say. Wonder Under isn’t arriving until Friday. Need to entertain my art brain.

I’m also grading things…

It’s slow. Nova thought this one smelled nice. It’s a nice kid. I’m slowly getting through these packets. I spent two hours at Urgent Care again yesterday for the cough that was getting worse. Acute bronchitis and a sinus infection. Fun times. More meds. Hopefully will kick it though, because I’m tired of coughing violently for no apparent reason. It’s kind of exhausting. Much like my country.

Those cloud things are going in those smokestacks on the top of her head. Then I’ll work on the wings. Slow and weird process for me, but I like it. It’s different. Different allows our brains to grow and develop. Some of you should try it.

OK. Teaching roller coaster parts and design still today. Fun to watch the kids work together (or not). One pro is the super-psycho didn’t win school board. The semi-psycho incumbent did. He at least understands laws and tries to follow them. Although there’s another psycho coming in. Sigh. I guess watch this space. My art will continue in the political realm…how can it not? My job will continue as long as I’m allowed…or until I can’t stand it and can actually afford to retire…all up in the air now. Things will still need fixing around here (two hosebibs today, finally), trimming, watering, painting, digging, etc. Cats will need petting and feeding, dogs will need the knots combed out of their fur and their bellies rubbed. Kids will need to learn how to be humans and productive members of society, even if they don’t figure it out in 8th grade. Some kids are awesome and will continue to be so, and I will rejoice in their existence and that of my friends who support all kinds. The monsters can fuck off.

Camping in the Rain…

We spent the weekend camping. The district gave us another random 3-day weekend. Pro: we missed the day after Halloween. Con: Grades were due, so if I hadn’t been super over-prepared and graded everything the weekend before this one, I would have needed to grade over a 3-day weekend. Sigh. Anyway. Random days. Always fun. It was nice to not have to try to leave right after school and get up there in the dark. We did a lot of sitting around (and then moving around because it was cold. We had a great campsite…

A little isolated, especially since about half the people that had reserved spaces didn’t show up.

Why? No running water. We got the email a week or so ago and figured we’d been there before…there are pit toilets…just no showers or faucets. So not ideal, but cheap.

Canyon live oak…huge acorns. Like walking on marbles.

We had a bet that someone would get hit by one this weekend…they were constantly falling and just missing us. Definitely hit the car and the tent, but missed us. At some point, scarab beetles were also falling from the sky…Saturday night when it started to rain (water most of the time, with an occasional beetle).

It was definitely chilly…around 34 degrees the first night. Put all the clothes on and start a fire…and then draw.

The next day, we hiked. We had (well, I had) grand plans, but the Man’s back was acting up. We did 4 1/2 miles (the longest…probably a combo of elevation, his back, and my continuing viral crap). We started in Doane Valley but didn’t hike there most of the time.

We saw a weir and were supposed to see waterfalls, but access was iffy. These clouds were coming in…we knew we were getting cloud cover, but all the rain had left the forecast.

Ah well…forecasts are iffy.

Cool tree dropped in the middle of the trail.

It started raining around 5:30 PM, so I cooked under an umbrella…there’s a photo of that somewhere.

This guy hung out most of the time…

We did actually manage a fire…it wasn’t raining super heavily in the early evening, so I used the umbrella and drew…

Some election anxiety. Here’s the drawing without the blurry smoke/fire stuff…

And the other one…

I love the time to draw. It was too cold to embroider. I read a lot. It rained all night. At one point, water was dripping onto my head in the sleeping bag, so we moved everything down. It was really wet in the morning, so we just packed up and came home. It wasn’t bad…it just made the last night a little uncomfortable. We went to bed early because of it. It’s fine.

I’m still feeling off…the virus has not left. The cough is there and bad when it’s there and often not bad. Wait it out? Not sure I want to be back on antibiotics so quickly. So I’m tired…after three days off work. No surprise. Next weekend is also 3 days off (Veteran’s Day)…maybe it will help me recover.

Meanwhile, I haven’t been tracing because I finished off a bolt of Wonder Under and went to open the new one I’ve had in my stash for a while, and it’s different. The paper is much much thicker and the fusible web is very thick too, very plasticky. I didn’t have time until yesterday to go to Joann’s and they didn’t have any, so I ordered some online, but there’s a lot of reviews that say this thicker one is the new version? I’m not sure, because when I look at the label, it has “W1” on it and it came from Walmart, which has some weird versions of things. The one I ordered is a smaller bolt…apparently that’s how we make money now. Make everything smaller and charge more for it. We’ll see when it comes…whenever it comes. Trying not to add Wonder Under anxiety to election anxiety. Or to-do list anxiety.

I did fix my pants. The pockets had holes where they were attached to the pants (typical stress point), so I patched on the back, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t holding well, so I stitched them as well. It’s my brain that wants to make them eyeholes on my ass.

OK. School. I know what I’m teaching today…not sure about the next THREE days, but today is set. Not sure if I’ll have to head back to Urgent Care…holding off until I see more evidence that this thing is not on its way out. Hopefully clay this afternoon…starting something new. And if I can’t trace tonight, maybe it’ll force me to make the wings for that ceramic piece, right? One can hope.

Hoping the Meds Kick In

Graded all day Saturday. Drove all day Sunday. Did some art. Still recovering from virus and infection. Body not thrilled with any of it.

I finished the drawing Friday night…

And started numbering…

Did not finish.

Kept going on Saturday night.

Managed to finish. Notionally 1606 pieces.

Odds are I missed some.

Started tracing last night…

Didn’t get far. Big ground pieces are a pain to trace. This will be the view for a while.

This was the grading view at some point…

Followed by some of this…

The Man had a show on Saturday night…Barbie-themed.

Nice outfit.

This is Bowie trying to get comfortable.

He’s not very good at it.

This is where I’m at right now.

Can’t go back to bed though. Hoping all the meds kick in and I survive the day.

No Art

Fun few days. Got sick, some virus. Fucked with my blood sugar. This is the fun part of being a teacher. I woke up, realized blood sugar was crashing bad, laid back on the bed and ate 10 skittles and contemplated my life choices. I can call in sick (because I feel like crap), but I need sub plans for that, and I don’t have the mental capacity for that, let alone the ability to even get down the hallway to the computer. And we’re supposed to be doing stations and one is a lab. AND I’m giving a makeup test at lunch and if I don’t do it Thursday, it won’t get done before I have time to finish my grades. So. I waited 15 minutes and stood up. It wasn’t great, but I could shower. I tried eating breakfast, not so successfully. Let’s add the third thing…Kitten bit me HARD on Wednesday morning. She gets cranky. I was trying to type on the keyboard and pet her and she didn’t like it. I washed it out, but by the end of Wednesday, it was swollen and red, so I soaked it and doused it in Neosporin and hoped. By Thursday morning, it was worse. The red was spreading. My blood sugar was crap. I needed to have a fasting test at 4:45, so I had to stop eating at 10:45 but I was not into eating things (virus? infection? both?), so I drank the juice they gave me for the diabetic kid in my classroom and then went and got more (it’s amazing how fast three nurses will respond when you mention the diabetic teacher is in need of something). Strangely, by the end of the day, I was feeling better. My blood sugar had evened out. The hand still hurt…

Before you freak out, I put my name in at urgent care, went and ran my test, and came back to urgent care. Three hours later (no joke), I had two shots, one on each hip, and a pill container of antibiotics. It’s much better this morning. I’m better, although the weird ticklish cough from the virus is still here. Blood sugar was normal this morning. Redness has receded, although it’s not gone. And yes, I’m still teaching today. Yesterday, I sat all day. I barely got up. I’m not sure I’ll have much more in me today. Pro? I got through most of the regrades I needed to do tomorrow, so there’s just two assignments I need to grade…wait, no, three. They’re all easy. It’ll be fine.

The point of all this is that I have done nothing artistic for two whole days and I hate that. But I went to bed early both nights. Which is obviously what I needed. I might need it tonight too.

This cat was in my yard.

I’ve seen it before. Few people let cats out because of the coyotes. Strangely, my little dog (who I was taking out to pee) did not see the cat. His eyesight is definitely declining.

This is true.

I also have three tiny scars from the kitten last night…so it’s not just my cranky old lady doing the damage.

OK, today is the last day of stations. I’m going to hopefully grade the one digital assignment that’s left and start grading homework, while staying seated as much as possible. I’m not going to ceramics today. Tomorrow, I’ll finish grades, pack a quilt to ship…wait, I need to sew some things for the Man’s show as well. I was going to do one last night, but my body was insistent that sleep was more important. Sunday, I’m driving two women to an art meeting in Huntington Beach. Ugh. That’s gonna suck. But whatever. I am hoping to draw tonight…hoping to have the physical energy to stand and the mental energy to think of what needs to fill the space. Because days with no art kinda suck.

All Art

IDK why I thought I’d have more time today to post about Visions…ah well, maybe Friday? I have 12 minutes now before I need to leave. Let’s keep it short and sweet…all art.

I have two things that came out of the kiln…this, where I was trying out a different way to glaze/carve…

And this, where I was trying to make a usable mug…

Where if I tried to make it to sell it, it would cost about $300 because of the amount of time I put into it.

I don’t do fast art, I guess.

Both of these need a glaze on top and the mug needs some inside so I can actually use it.

It’s smaller than I like, I think. Not sure.

I have a really hard time visualizing mug sizes. As shown here…

Way too big to be a mug.

I think this is almost ready to dry.

I bought more clay. So I can make more things.

The drawing is progressing.

I worked on the tree…

The ground is really all that’s left, unless I want to put more things in the sky.

I’m always staring at the blank spaces.

Close, but not there yet.

Maybe tonight? Probably not.

I’m fighting a cold; don’t feel well. Luckily get to spend all day today in a training. (lucky?)

Working on this.

and this…

And this is way too true…

OK. Me and cold meds going to school. Feeling yuck. Canceled stuff after school today preemptively. Have a lab I’m doing the next two days, so I can’t be out. Fun times.