More Birds and a Birthday

Hello Friday night. How are you? My son turned 19 today. That makes me ancient, right? Not really.

We did not set any fire alarms off, but it was a close call…

He did not blow them all out in one go…girlchild’s amazing decorating attempt included car-shaped sprinkles (hey, you go with what you have in the house). I made the cake; she frosted and decorated. She always does the fun stuff.

It’s OK. I was baking it in between doing two more birds, commissions.

But first, the piece for the equality exhibit, which opens the 17th, needed a label. Apparently I need to actually deliver it so they can hang it (what a concept).

So that didn’t take long. The birds were all trimmed up and ready for ironing…

HeyBird is easy.

The owl…it’s a little fussier because of the wing tips, but still not too hard. This is the third color version of the owl…

Onto a background…

I need to remember that these take about the same amount of time the cancer donation quilt should take, and they don’t have a ton of pieces…the owl is the most time-consuming with 32 pieces, I think. So I can’t draw something complicated. It has to be simple. I was going to take a sketchbook to the boychild’s birthday dinner tonight, but I couldn’t find the small one…

Oh well. These are so freakin’ fast…

But relaxing nonetheless…

Easy to quilt…

Fast…two done in a day, basically…

By the time we went to dinner for the boychild’s birthday, I was on the background for the owl…Calli loves Grandma…

Girlchild is crankily doing yet another college app tonight…this may kill me. Look at that face…

Three more apps after that, all due the 15th. It Never Ends.

So I quilted the background after cake was eaten…

And then I picked out bindings and trimmed the quilts and got everything ready for when I have time to sew all that crap on.

Here’s some photos that were stuck on the camera while I was trying to set up the new computer…here’s sewing the binding and sleeves on while watching hours of television last Monday…yes, the backing is covered with skulls…

Calli lying right next to me on the couch…

There you can see the binding and the backing…

The pin marks a piece I missed in the sew-down AND the outlining stage…so I had to go back and fix that at the end…

And here’s a detail of some of the inking I did in the body pile.

I’m glad it’s done and out of my head. OK. Hiking tomorrow. Need to take myself to bed and be ready for snow! Seriously. There’s snow. Crazy.

Considering Women in Society

The last few quilts I’ve made…OK, let’s be fucking truthful here…the last 50 quilts I’ve made have been about women in society. OK, maybe two or three of them weren’t, but mostly? Yeah. That’s where I land. I write what I know. I draw what I know. I create what I know. And what I know is that I’m a strong woman and that strong women get by in society, but it isn’t always pretty, especially if you’re the reflective type, the kind who is always analyzing this or that or how or why or wondering what the fuck THAT was all about. Talk about my clothes, mention my boobs, please look at my face, write me off because I’m old and female, oh wait…then there’s the whole medication thing and health thing and assuming you must this or that because you’re a GURL.

Sigh. It rubs me the wrong way; always has. You should go read this article…it’s about nerdy males and entitlement. Now don’t get me wrong…I love me a nerdy guy, even gave birth to one, so you know I don’t have an issue with the nerd, the geek, or even the dork. They are my people. Except, honestly, it doesn’t matter whether you are a buff, white, football player in Texas (can you say stereotype?) or a pale pasty white nerd with glasses in Silicon Valley, you have to admit that you have more privilege than a woman does. And if you can’t? Then you are a problem. I don’t care how fucking smart you are, how many feminist blogs you read, how you’re able to quote Gloria Steinem verbatim (whatever THAT might look like)…you don’t get it. You are part of the problem. If at any time in your life as an adult (I’ll give nerdy teens a break…give them time to read up some more) you have told a woman that her uterus is not under attack by the government, the Republicans, or her health insurance company, while your Viagra prescription is refilled with no hassle, you are part of the problem. If you don’t understand why we walk the streets at night with our keys between our fingers, swinging our eyes side to side, you are part of the problem. If you don’t get that so many comics and video games are just fucking over my daughter and her friends with their giant-ass boobies and killing the hos, you are part of the problem. Don’t whine at me about being friend-zoned, don’t fucking tell me it’s not about the boobs, don’t tell me I’m imagining the shit I’ve heard, seen, felt, and smelled since I was born. You Are Part of the Problem. Listen to me. If I’m saying it, it happens. You’re telling me over and over that I’m imagining it? You are the problem. You are the rapist, you are the harasser, you are a continuation of the problem. Get the fuck out of my world. And my daughter’s world. You don’t belong here. I’m sure there’s an island somewhere that you can live. Just get the fuck away from me.

Yeah. That’s angry. I hate the entitled telling me it’s not a problem when it is.

So when my art group brought up this exhibit idea of Women at War, I didn’t think of women toting guns into war zones, or of women living in war zones trying to protect their children (although that did pop into my head next, because of the population I teach). I went straight to the war I’ve lived my entire life. The one that begrudges me birth control, but won’t support babies that come out once I follow their rules. The one that makes it OK for a boss to talk about my body and my reproductive status (sure, that’s supposed to be illegal, but let’s be real…most women have experienced some level of sexual harassment at work no matter what). The one that makes it OK to attack me if I dress in a certain way, but also gives me shit for NOT dressing that way.

That’s where I drew from…the idea had been in my head for over a year, since I think that’s how long it had been since the show theme first was floated in our group. It had one venue, but that didn’t fly, and then we found another venue and the dates were solidified, and the image burst into my head. It had to be quick…I only had 6 weeks…and that’s how long it took, one day short of six weeks. I started November 18 with the drawing and finished Monday December 29th. As I wrote before, it’s named after the song War by Edwin Starr: “War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!”.

This is Absolutely Nothing, 35.5″ wide x 50″ high…

I haven’t priced it yet. I don’t even know if it got into the show yet. It doesn’t really matter if it did, because it needed to be made. It was yelling at me…

Yes. That’s a pile of naked men. And she’s standing on them. There’s ink on it too.

And it was good. She said.

And maybe the next quilt won’t be so angry. I don’t actually have a problem with some anger showing up in my quilts or extreme sadness or even happiness or annoyance or joy or whatever. This is not just anger though…it’s honest frustration that it’s not any better than it was when I was a kid, except that we talk about it more and then a bunch of entitled white boys whine about how they had it hard in middle school and why do girls want to read comics anyway, and they’re really not good at science. DUDE. We all had it hard at one point or another in middle or high school, or in college, or at some point in time. Write that shit off. Now take a deep breath and walk out into the real world and let me know about the women you know, the ones you really know: your mom, sister, daughter, wife, aunt, cousin, best friend, whomever. Listen to them and let me know if you really get it, if you can have empathy for their existence even if you’ve never given birth, never had a menstrual cycle that kicked your ass, never felt so nauseous during a work event that you wanted to crawl into bed, never had a man touch you when you didn’t ask for it and didn’t want it, never had a man or group of men comment on how you look, how you dress, or what they might do to you. Never felt someone looking at you and felt afraid. Because that’s what it’s like, and it’s not like that every day, and if you’re lucky, it’s rarely like that. But if you’re female, it will be like that. Because you were born with two X chromosomes and that’s it. That’s the shit I want to kick out of the ring.

Anyway. Deep breaths. Time for a meditative moment. Read a book, drink some tea, look at the men around me who aren’t like that (and some of them are, whether they want to be or not). Rejoice in the few.

I had about a three-day period of braindead, holy-fucktitude, can’t possibly make another big quilt EVER AGAIN…and then tonight…this afternoon…I want to make another. Please may I make another? OK. Seriously. I’m fucking nuts. I have so much grading to do. I have so much other stuff to do. I’m down to a little over a week of break left and then THREE LONG MONTHS until the next one (OK, there are three 3-day weekends in there). But…I have two birds to do ASAP, and I’m going to do my damnedest to get them mostly done in the next few days, and then I have the cancer donation quilt, and then I need to look at the upcoming deadlines for April and June and I think next fall and see what needs to happen, but I think I can make another big quilt before Spring Break. Can’t I? Sure I can. Because I am woman. Hear me roar.

It’s the New Year…

Hey. I finished a quilt. Another one. I think my photographer still likes me (I do pay him). I would love to post photos, but my computer is currently backing up files so I can move them onto the new computer. Thank god, because it was about to die. We have a new wifi access point, so I can still watch movies in my office. I have one bird trimmed and ready for ironing, and another ready to trim. I haven’t dealt with the cancer donation yet…maybe tomorrow. And I have another small one I’m shoving in there…because I fucking CAN…that’s why.

I started that yesterday. Computer stuff has been a major issue. I forgot how much time it takes to set up a new computer. I’m still trying to make a backup email file. I haven’t gotten everything installed yet on the new computer. I started this on the iPad and now I’m on a random laptop in the house. It’s seven minutes to the new year and I know I can’t get everything set up in time to post from the new computer. I’m tired. I should go to bed. Naw. Finish the fucking post. The nice Indian guy at Fry’s helped me get everything off the old drive that runs the older Mac in the house onto a new drive. He’s the same guy that helped me with my power supply back in March. He remembered me. And he picked a color-neutral external drive for me, because he was concerned we would have issues with blue or red. WTF? This has not been a cheap tech week in this house. Hopefully upgrading all this crap will last for a while.

I did finish cutting out the other bird. I need to do the cancer piece. I would show you pictures of stuff, but that would mean the other computer was set up. Totally. It’s not. I do have pictures of the new quilt. It’s done! Officially finished on the 29th. Of December. Smart people would have finished it on January 1 of the new year. I’m not smart.

I’m a little burnt out on quilts, to be honest, at the moment. Too much in too short a period of time. I can handle a few small ones, I think. I have a plan for about five small ones in the next few weeks. OK, that’s a little crazy. I also have a ton of grading to do. I haven’t looked at school stuff at all. I can’t even deal with it right now. Maybe tomorrow. I said that this morning, though. I don’t know what happened to today. Do you have lots of days like that? When you’re not sure what the fuck happened? Like why didn’t you get more done? I don’t know where the hours went today, I really don’t.

Anyway. A few small quilts in the next week or so; meanwhile, I’m evaluating what’s coming up in the future…gotta figure out the deadlines. Gotta get my art head straight.

It’s 2015 now. I made a lot of quilts in 2014…like 22 of them. Granted, quite a few of them were small, but that wasn’t so bad. When I get my computer up and running, I will make my composite of the year’s quilts. Calli wants to know why we’re all still up and watching TV. None of us are really watching though. I’m writing this post. Girlchild is writing college app essays. I don’t know what boychild is doing. Leverage is on…amusing show. Seen them all before, but they do well with a second watch. 2015 is going to be a good year, I’m thinking. I’m counting on it. First art opening is in 17 days. That can’t be a bad start.

A Strange Place

I’m tired tonight. My head is in a strange place. Kinda floaty. Probably that’s the tired talking. Or I quilted my butt off today. OK. Not my butt. But I quilted a lot. More importantly, I quilted until I was fucking done. Ayep. That’s part of the floaty head thing I think. This quilt is almost done. It didn’t exist before the middle of November in any form whatsoever, except for a vague image in my head that followed me around to school and the gym, but wouldn’t vomit itself out on paper. And now it’s almost real.

Cool. My head’s still trying to figure that out. It’s been a quick quilt.

I spent a lot of time over the last two quilting days trying to keep Babygirl away from this quilt. She really really wanted to lie on it…

In fact, that photo above is after she tried stepping onto it, sneaking really, about three times in a row. To her credit, when I said no, she stopped. And looked away. Pretending she was really doing something else. You know, like cats do.

So I figured maybe she’d be happy with lying in the sun, and that worked for a while…

Because she is an old cat and it’s been cold here lately.

But then I left the room once, and she decided to sit on my quilting chair…which leaves no room for my butt…

So I pushed her back onto the computer chair. She was not pleased. There was some hissing and batting of claws towards humans.

This is not a human house, apparently, but a cat house.

I quilted yesterday for a few hours…

And in the bright sunshine. I also quilted today, for many hours…less sunshine. And at some point, I pulled the quilt off the machine and went and bought binding fabric…

And other fabrics, because they jumped into my arms and wanted to come home with me.

But the binding, interestingly enough, is the same as the background, except obviously a different color. I tried for a darker blue, but that’s a hard race to win with most shades of already-dark-blue. There’s lots of red in this quilt, so it makes sense…

Tomorrow, after dealing with my car, the dentist (x3), and god knows what else, I will trim this down and put a binding on it. Because photography Tuesday, maybe Wednesday. So that means I must get my butt into gear and just get it done.

Really, that’s relevant for so much in my life right now. But at this very moment in time, my brain is very tired and hovering around the strange place. It made me do math earlier. It took 11 hours and 38 minutes to quilt this…well below the 17 hours it took on the last one, thank god…because if I still had 5 1/2 hours to go, I wouldn’t be done in time. So that’s good. Right? Total, I have about 74 hours into this quilt right now. It’ll end up being about 80 hours, I think. Still a lot of hours in say 6 weeks? Thirteen hours a week? Really? Is that right? Wow. I’m a bit crazy. Just in case you were wondering.

The Day After…

The day after Christmas dawned bright and clear, although a bit cold for us Southerners (high of 60?). It was warm enough for hiking, of course, and after dealing with a variety of crap in the household that never seems to loose its hold on me, I donned my hiking boots, found someone willing to traverse the wilds with me (not hard), and took off on a trail that I’ve gotten lost on twice.

You’d think no one would dare come with me with those odds, and sure enough, I took one wrong trail, but quickly found the right one and actually made it around the whole loop (about 6 miles) without any trouble…

Holey crap. Love being outside. Tired afterwards, not a bad thing.

Looks like Spring! Yes, it’s December still. And now I know how to get back without getting lost. Finally. It’s only been a year. Honestly, I shouldn’t be allowed to lead anything.

When I came back, I had to go to a soccer game, where I stitched more on birds (nothing completed) and froze to death, not so quietly. It’s funny…the temperature seems OK when you get there, and then as time goes on, you get colder and colder, yes partly because the night is slowly creeping towards 38 degrees, but also because you’re sat frozen on a metal bleacher bench, not the warmest place in the world.

After that, warming up, and feeding children, who are picky as hell about their Mexican food (food is fuel, people), I came home and tried to pick out some bird fabrics…actually, I think I did this one before the soccer game.

This is another Hey Bird, number 3 I think…requested. Oooh. A commission. He was easy to do, because I can still find the original fabrics, although I don’t know what I have for the background…I’ll find something.

But this is Owl #3, a whole ‘nother colorway. I actually went for realism…the iPad is there because it had a picture of an owl on it, a barred owl of some sort…

The background will be harder to choose for this, I think, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of fabric here.

I’m glad I got those two to the next step…moving on. I’d like to get them done next week.

Then I quilted for a while…finished all the outlining and started the background quilting…

I didn’t get super far, because I got tired…but I’m about 6 hours in. More today. I already emailed the photographer, so now I have to be done by Tuesday morning. Can you say crazy? I can. I have somewhere I need to be this afternoon, but it won’t take long, then my evening is booked, happily. So there’s this morning, all day Sunday mostly, and all day Monday. If I can get it all quilted by Sunday afternoon, I can go get binding fabric.

Probably not this…

Although I can’t wait to use this somewhere…I love that Julie looks out for crazy fabric for me. Apparently there’s more coming at the next meeting.

Holidaze…

It seems I spent 24 hours straight cooking and cleaning and doing household mom-type things. I’m exhausted. How weird. Some people like doing this shit? Whatever. They crazy.

So this is how Kathy’s brain works: Yes, these are homemade cinnamon rolls…

No, they are artistic shapes. See how they expand to fill the space and the spiral changes to fit that shape?

And when the dish is a different shape, they do even weirder shit? Yup. Who needs hallucinogenic drugs when you have Kathy’s brain. On the positive side, we did just freeze that last dish of cinnamon rolls, because otherwise there is entirely too much sugar in the house (they are now covered with a river of maple-flavored sugar that might kill the diabetics among us). Plus there’s a drawing (or seven) that I need to do BECAUSE of the cinnamon rolls. Totally.

So Christmas morning started late, due to teenagers who sleep in (oh hell, I slept in)…

So did Grandma. Besides, it’s all about the children…I mean, the dogs. Calli got a tummy rub from everyone.

She loves Christmas. She doesn’t seem to notice that Jake is gone, but she’s never been the smartest dog in the world…Babygirl is getting used to boychild again…

Mostly, though, she sleeps a lot in the sun and on the chair in my office. She is directly behind my butt, even as I type.

I had two hours yesterday after gift-opening and cookie delivery to finish all the cooking and get to my ex’s house (turns out, I really had three hours, because girlchild was behind)…so I made green beans, cookies, and deviled eggs all at the same time while watching an amusing Wild West movie on television.

I actually frosted MOST of the cookies this morning. I took some over last night, but the frosting is supposed to dry, and I didn’t have enough time to do that. These are the POST-Xmas cookies…for the POST-Xmas sugar hangover. Which is why I’m going hiking in about 20 minutes. Probably I should go run 10 miles (not happening).

While waiting for dinner to get done, I drew…

I really like the dog. I might mess with this a bit more, try again maybe. I want to be in the habit of drawing.

Then I remembered I only had 10 minutes left on this bird…so I finished it.

There’s another soccer game tonight where I can start the next color way.

Finally, I left the ex’s house at around 9, after listening to girlchild read out all the comments on his old report cards (nothing was a surprise…to anyone at the table)…I fortified myself with caffeine, because yes, I was tired. I don’t want you to think I never get tired. I do. Freakin’ exhausted sometimes…but I bully through, have a cup of tea, and persuade my brain to keep going. Usually if I can get beyond the 8 PM slump, I can go for a while. And I hadn’t quilted during the day…I flat out ran out of time. So I was determined…

I got 2 1/2 hours in. That was good. The whole body is done and I’m up in the tree.

My goal is to finish the outlining tonight (after the soccer game) and start the background quilting. Of course, I also have to fit in some hiking, some hanging out, some eating, some soccer, some cleaning (again? WTF.), and who knows what else. I did just bribe the kids to do one of my errands though, so that is cool. Checks one thing off my list. Because part of finding the right balance in your life means not taking it all on yourself. Saying yes when people need help, but then also saying no. Or putting your foot down and saying, “I’m taking this time. It’s mine.” I’ve been working on all that shit for so many years…I’m almost getting good at it. Sort of. Going to put my boots on now…

Hooves on My Rooftop

OK, so it’s 10 minutes after midnight on Christmas Day. In the old days, I would have just finished putting all the Santa gifts out at whatever house Christmas morning would be. I might be stumbling into bed, actually tired, instead of wide awake like I am right now. I did nap earlier, though, so that’s like cheating. But once again, Christmas Eve was a psychotic race through shopping, cooking, and cleaning. Exhausted? Yeah. A bit. I did quilt though, and that was my goal. I wanted to be pinbasted yesterday, but the world conspired against me…so I got up early this morning and did it then instead…

This one is smaller on purpose…had to get done quicker, plus the gallery is relatively small and my work tends to be bigger than other media. I had to get up early because the plumber was coming at 9 to deal with the toilet that hasn’t worked for a good long time (turns out it was a nasty long living root) and I had to be at school at the same time. Our school staff donated over $1000 to a few needy students, and this morning, we delivered food and presents to 4 families. I was in charge of drawing/sketching supplies for a 7th-grade girl, so that was easy. I can always find a sketchbook and some stuff to color with. So the only time I was guaranteed to get it pinbasted was early. So I did. Because that’s the entryway floor and so you can’t have people coming in and out while you’re pinbasting.

The backing I found when I was moving fabrics around…I had quite a large chunk of it, so there’s still some left…

I seem to have a small piece of every skull fabric ever made.

After all the delivery of stuff and some errands, girlchild had finally sent me the Christmas dinner grocery list, so I headed over to get her and we went grocery shopping. Only two stores and 700 crazy people. It was good. OK. It was. I hate shopping under the best of circumstances, but at least most people are in a good mood on Christmas Eve, whether they want to be or not. We came back and I spent the next 8 hours cleaning and cooking. Girlchild went out to finish her Christmas shopping (we did some of that too), and I did one batch of cookies, then cleaned some more, then prepped something, I don’t know what else, there was a breakfast casserole in there, plus dinner, and also cookie dough to be cooked tomorrow. And cleaning. I hate cleaning. I especially hate it when it’s trying to find homes for things that need homes but you don’t really know where that home should be. I try to throw out as much as possible, but some of this stuff needed to be put away, not thrown. I wasn’t totally successful, but it’s better than it was. Really, why do we have three guitars?

It was a lot of hours. Honestly, I really wanted to be sitting on the couch, reading my book with a nice glass of wine at about 5 PM, but that didn’t happen. The glass of wine has finally shown up after midnight.

One of the things I wanted to do was a family photo. Not sure why. I’ve always done the kids and animals, but I guess I thought I should be in there too this year. Don’t know why. Girlchild and Calli are the only ones who are good at smiling…

But there it is. Now I can do a Christmas card. Yes, I realize it will be late. Whatever. Don’t judge. Let’s call it a 2015 card.

Girlchild wanted one with her and Calli by the tree.

They are both way more photogenic than I am.

Sweet puppy. She was sleeping on me while I napped.

So at some point in time…FINALLY…around 9 PM, I started quilting…

And I just did that until I started to get really tired…for almost 2 hours…

I wanted to do more, but my brain says that sewing while tired is a bad plan. Besides, I will have part of the afternoon tomorrow. I still need to make cookies (the dough is in the freezer) and green bean casserole (not the one everyone else makes…we have a special Nida version with no onions or cream of mushroom soup) and deviled eggs. The breakfast casserole is ready to go in the oven. Our fridge is so freakin’ full it’s crazy. I almost drove the chickens over to my ex’s house, because she’s cooking there tomorrow and his fridge is mostly empty compared to mine…but here…

She made cinnamon rolls from scratch. She crazy.

Anyway. I’m quilting. That’s good. It was a crazy busy day, but mostly it’s done now. And I wish I had gotten more done, but then again, I always wish that. I wish for the sound of hooves on the rooftop too…it’s a sign of magical doings during a magical season. Remembering when the kids were small and there was that crazy excitement…instead of the crankiness I’ve been experiencing lately. Theirs…not mine. And half the house is really clean, which is nice. The other half…I’m working on it. Have I thought about grades? Fuck no. They can wait. How long will the quilting take? I don’t know. The last one took 17 hours to quilt. Holy crap. I hope this one doesn’t. It’s smaller. It has fewer pieces. I don’t think I can finish in time if it’s 17 hours. Maybe I can. Whatever. I’m two hours in. All I can do is log more hours tomorrow, because it’s Christmas Day, and it should always include artmaking…the gift to myself.

Best Present Ever

So in case you haven’t noticed, Christmas is about to bitchslap you across the face, whether you like it or not. I’m so not ready. The tree is finally done, and there’s three presents and a big fat black cat underneath it, waiting to vomit up the three pounds of pine needles she’s eaten.

The house is getting closer to clean, after I threatened all living bipeds in the house and got the floors cleaned (well, part of them…I have to do the rest, and no, there are no undead bipeds here). The shopping…oh god. The shopping is not done, and I’m afraid of going anywhere, plus we’re still down to one car, because the mechanic can’t find the problem in mine, so he’s gonna drive it to LA and back today to do his Christmas shopping and to see if it will reproduce the issue (not really. But I told him he could.).

Girlchild had a soccer final yesterday; they lost in the penalty kicks. It sucks, but life goes on. She was more traumatized by it than I. I was traumatized by the yelling that happened afterward and the 45 minutes I had to spend in the grocery store with other people who could not find the fancy cheeses and the eggnog. Apparently I have to go again, because Meat Armageddon here at home for Christmas dinner. I suggested we just serve side dishes and dessert and fuck the meat. I know three people who will fuss about that though. I also know three who won’t. And the dessert is chocolate, and I still won’t complain.

I stitched at the game (I also finished my book, because it was warm and sunny and people are annoying and I don’t want to talk to them right now).

Another bird done…and there’s the third one in this group that is almost done. Seriously, it would take me like 10 minutes to finish it.

Then I made a concerted effort to clean crap up and get the house in shape for Christmas morning, which is here. At my house. But one of the chores for break was to replace two broken fabric drawers, because the sun was starting to fade some of the fabrics…I had bought a bunch of new containers a while ago, but never got around to doing the deed…and what’s cool is that if I buy three more, I actually have more storage space under there.

These are shorter in height, so I can fit three instead of two in there. They’re also thinner in width, but I think that’s OK. I had four in there before and all the blacks and pinks were in those four, but I had about 6 or 7 shoeboxes worth of pinks on top of that, and I think I can get all of them into two more drawers, and then maybe move some of the brown or gray that’s taking over the world into the third drawer. I’m really working on organizing this shit. The old drawers were from when I was married, and plastic does age, especially plastic in the sun. I couldn’t get opaque drawers cheaply this time, so I have old towels covering the backs of these, because yes, that’s a sliding glass door behind them that never opens. Whatever. You make a studio wherever and however you can.

But there is no way in hell I am going to the mall today to get three more drawers. That’s crazy talk.

I finally started stitching down last night again…

I did a little before I made dinner, and then a bunch after…

I was waiting up for girlchild, who has now finished two college applications…of you don’t want to know how many…and needed a break to ice skate. In Southern California. Whatever. I think Denny’s was involved. Remember high school and Denny’s? Yeah.

That pile is going to be awesome when the quilting happens. So I need to sandwich and pinbaste today (which means I need to clean yet another floor), but first we’re doing the gym and I do have about 400 other things to do. I really wanted to draw yesterday, but I can’t find the mental space (or physical space…there’s competition for couch space now). So maybe…um…shit, I don’t know when.

But back to the title of this post. I realized I would be quilting on Christmas Day. You know that down time between opening presents and serving dinner? I don’t have to cook much, being the support chef only, so mostly, I do art stuff during that down time. Every year. Whatever project I’m working on, I get to spend time working on it, usually in a very peaceful space with no one bugging me. Sometimes I have to take dogs for a walk (we’re down to one dog…that’s sad…and yes, we considered puppies for everyone for Christmas presents). Sometimes I am stuck at a grocery store (hell). But mostly, I give myself the gift of art time. That whole art/work/life/love balance is on my mind today. Making sure you get what you need AND what you want…best present ever. Looking forward to it.

Oh Holey Moley

Car died yesterday morning on Sunrise Highway, about 40 miles away from home. Luckily the hiking group behind me stopped and picked up me and the boychild and took us to the trailhead, where we hiked 11 miles (more on that later). Then we got towed back to town (oh holey moley) for a million dollars, and this morning, when I called the car guy, he said, “I thought that was your car parked out on the street.” So he recognized it. Not good. We are down to one car. Three drivers. Errands galore. Girlchild wants a social life. I want her to finish her college essays.

Christmas dinner has turned into World War III. We are going to prepare an 1890s Christmas dinner with peas in turnip cups (you totally have to check out this website if historical food descriptions amuse you at all). And you’re going to eat it and like it, dammit. Then the girlchild was sick, so I had to cook a complicated dinner, which turned out fine, but the drama around it was no fun, and then I came home to a Hamlet essay. I don’t even remember anything about Hamlet, except that he was an asshole and “Alas poor Yorick…”. So I think I came in here, my office/studio/retreat at about 9 PM, meditated for the first time in a million years, and then put my head in my hands for 10 minutes, processing all the stress into a tiny ball that I could gack up like a cat’s hairball. Except that didn’t work.

So I tried stitching on this for a while…

I really wanted it done this weekend. Ha! Weekend fucked me over on that one. I was so tired, I realized my eyes were closing while I sewed. Um. Bad. Stop. Now. So I did. And I went to bed. Best decision I made all day. And the gack ball is mostly gone this morning. I’ll draw later. Seriously. I NEED to draw.

Boychild nicknamed me the Diplomatic Avenue…the one who has to negotiate between all the conflicting forces. Funny, my SIL has said that before. And I didn’t have the energy for it. I just want us all to GET ALONG. Without my help. And help me make decisions and clean up please.

The boychild is here…

Calli is happy. And he is calm and easy to deal with. He hiked with me yesterday and dealt with the towed car and handled a million questions from the grandparents, and then he ate all my chicken salad. Sigh. So I’ll make more. Better, I’ll buy the ingredients and show HIM how to make it. And make enough for your mom while you’re at it, eh?

A little chaos today…Christmas gifts to be shipped, car to deal with, a final game in a soccer tournament, more grocery shopping, and then maybe some quiet moments tonight with the sewing machine and my quilt.

I did finish this last night…

Getting there. Damn birds. Whatever.

I know it’s vacation, but it’s kicking my ass.

Time off

Time off for teachers: with so many constantly watching us and thinking we have so much free time (ha!), loads of vacation (I work every vacation, no extra pay), too much pay (I have a Masters degree…seriously? Not too much pay), it’s hard to explain to them why I need three weeks off right now. NEED. The fact that I’ve been working 60-70+ hours a week (with no overtime pay, and certainly not a paycheck worthy of professional standards in corporate world for those who don’t get paid for all those extra hours), mostly creating curriculum from scratch, figuring out Google Sites by myself, determining that my in-class wifi wasn’t working, and troubleshooting a hundred different tech problems a day…maybe an hour on some days. AND keeping track of 140 students, letting no one fall through the cracks. Much. Because that’s kind of impossible, actually.

Plus I make art in a pretty serious way on the side (can we really call what I do “on the side”?), and I’m a mom, and sometimes I cook dinner from scratch. House isn’t clean though. Christmas tree is half-decorated, and my Christmas shopping is in some serious trouble. FUCK.

So. Yeah. I need these three weeks, not only to get the shopping done and clean house, or to finish the quilt that’s supposed to be done in a week and a half (I started stitching down on Friday, hoping to get done today…AFTER hiking 12 miles), but to give my brain the necessary downtime to Do It Again. Because that’s what we do, as teachers. We work our butts off and then we take a few weeks off (when we usually spend a significant amount of time planning for the next bout of teaching, plus grading like crazy people), and then we go at it with the same intensity, sometimes even harder, because what we were doing before wasn’t quite working, and we do that until the next break. Repeat. Until retirement or job change or death.

I want to draw tonight. I want to be in my art brain and let it wander about freely, because I have barely been able to do that lately.

That said, I have probably 20 hours of grading to do over break. Seriously. Ouch.

I’m not starting today. This morning, I am going on a hike with my regular hiking group and the boychild, who came home Friday night (no photos…he doesn’t like ’em). I’m looking forward to more hikes and hanging out with kids and girlchild being done with college apps so maybe she’ll be less cranky and all kinds of other good stuff like baking. And vacuuming. And maybe even starting a new quilt. Yeah. I know. Got some stuff to finish first, but then I will be starting something new, and I don’t even know what it is yet. That’s exciting.

Meanwhile, I’m spending a lot of time doing this (two tournaments in a row)…

But they made it to the finals on Monday, so that’s good. And I finished a bird. A miracle.