Just listening to @underthedesknews about university admissions and the Supreme Court…legacy admissions could be out! I’m good with that. And that is how I am spending my Winter Break? Listening to social media news? Nah. It’s been a little chaotic so far. Let’s start with quilt progress, which has not been as much as I’d like, but whatever. I’ve been ironing…here’s Friday night’s progress…
Then Saturday night…
And Sunday night, when I stayed up way too late…
Because I was ALMOST done and then I felt like I was too tired for the last half hour so I didn’t actually finish. So yeah. I thought I’d be done ironing yesterday, but I forgot how much time having both kids around takes, and you wanna hang out with them, so there isn’t as much time for other stuff. So I suspect I’ll be done tonight. Hopefully. Stitchdown tomorrow. Quilting by Thursday? Maybe. IDK.
I’m still not done with shopping and shipping, and that will be an issue, so I need to get my act together on that front. Ah well. I did do some today…and passed by these weird things…
On the walk to the used bookstore.
Poor Santa in a cage…
So Saturday, we went on a friend’s birthday hike…
It was warm for December…high 70s. Warmer than you would like. But a winery solved that issue afterwards…
Sunday was family stuff…
I finished one book on Saturday…
Light fiction…I finished a harder one, nonfiction, on Sunday. Well on my way to finishing one a day? OK, probably not…
Sleepy cold kitties. We are also babysitting the puppy so that she doesn’t chew her foot off. She’s been pretty chill. Apparently she is depressed because of the cone and the wrap on her foot. She tore part of her claw off. Whoops. Silly girl.
Yeah, that’s been going on for a while. Needs to stop.
OK, I need to do some schoolwork and set up the tree so I can get the cats out of the needles and maybe clean some stuff. And figure out the rest of Christmas. Ugh. At least there’s no school in that. I can appreciate that.
Big deep sigh. You know what I WANT to do today? Stay home and iron this quilt together…in between reading my book while curled up on the couch with a dog or cat or two. I am mentally exhausted. And today is LOOONG. Hate those days. Things before and after school. Ugh. 8 AM to 6 PM without stopping…the plus is that we are in literacy group this afternoon, so not full-on teaching, but also I know my kids in the last class of the day won’t do their work and may destroy the classroom. So that sucks. I warned them yesterday, but you know how that goes. Well, if you’re a teacher, you know how it goes. If you’re not, you probably think if you’ve built a relationship with them and gotten down at their level and shared some respect, that they will be perfect angels. Well, try a title I middle school three days before Winter Break and tell me how that goes. Yeah. I thought so. Stupid time for these meetings. They really didn’t think it through. I think one meeting is the day before Spring Break. A Friday. There will definitely be an assembly. Are they on crack? Possibly.
That said, I’m pretty proud of myself for getting mostly caught up on grading. I finished last week’s academic assignment last night. I have one batch of homework I’m hoping to do today and tomorrow. There’s a few easy things that need to go into the gradebook. Then on Friday, they hand in their packets, which I will need to take home, and one homework assignment. Plus warmups. I’m still debating an easy question on Friday. I should do it, but IDK if I’ll have time. Playing it all by ear. I hate that. I want to know exactly what I’m teaching when, at least 3 weeks in advance. But no. Not for the last four years. Not without a significant amount of replanning and juggling and rewriting and shit. This is why I set a retirement date. I’m just tired of that part of it. The actual teaching? I can handle that. The rest? Ugh.
So the current quilt…I finished cutting things out on Monday night.
It took a little over 7 hours to do that. Longer than usual, I think. Not sure why.
Then I sorted them last night…
Such an easy sort…
Just under 500 pieces. I do think I need to wash all my bins over break though. The pencil lead is transferring onto them. I never noticed that with older bins, but these seem to show it, and it’s probably transferring to fabric. Weird things on my to-do list.
Then I started ironing…
I didn’t get very far. These are tiny people. I should have put something in there for scale, but just trust me, they’re little. I had to set up the room a little, move stuff around, then sort out the first 100 pieces by 10s. I’ll get more done tonight. I’m hoping to be done ironing Sunday night, then stitchdown, quilt, bind next week. We’ll see. I have some other shit to do. That whole Xmas thing. And the next quilt is waiting…it’s been enlarged and numbered for a few years, so it’s my last quilt of the year, assuming I can finish it in time. Not huge, not complicated. Then I can get my head around the next one. I have a deadline where I need to work with a collaborator and I’m not sure what that will look like, since we don’t use the same media and we don’t live in the same city. Minor issue. We’ll figure it out in January. I’ll probably start something else at the same time.
I spent some time cleaning up the girlchild’s bedroom last night; she arrives late Thursday night. I still need to put some quilts away and figure out where to store all the ones I know need to ship out in the next few weeks. Then maybe persuade her brother to store his packs elsewhere. He has a lot of them. Then make her bed with everything I washed last night, which is probably where I got the weird ring of spider bites around my elbow/arm.
I finished a book yesterday that made me cry. And then went to school, still crying (not good), but since I often drive to school with the urge to sob and/or scream, it was nothing new. Just discombobulating. And it had an essentially sort of happy ending; it was just all the shit before it that threw me. Then I started right away to read another book, and that one is also seriously speaking to me about quitting and becoming a full-time reader (is that a thing? Please let it be a thing.)…
But no, I have a parent meeting this morning and a union meeting after school, so no books until 6 PM. WHICH SUCKS. Oh wait, I can read at lunch, but I’m also supposed to be reading this book for school and I haven’t gotten very far. Ugh. Yeah. It’s a pain. My responsible teacher self is NOT going to let me bring the other book I’d rather read. Although it’s on my phone. So there’s that.
OK. Do the 10-hour day. Come home and READ. Then do some work and hopefully the Man will let us finish the movie we’ve been trying to watch for days. I wanna know what happens! Dammit. And then ironing, which is fun and relaxing and I love seeing the image come to life in color. So that’s cool. Three more days of school and then more reading! Woo hoo! Don’t look at the to-do list. READ!
Five days. I can do that. Right? Sure. The fact that I was rewriting (only in my head, not in real life yet) the entire week’s lesson plans while trying to fall asleep last night is not a problem, right? Why do that? Because the lesson progression doesn’t make sense. I sort of saw that last week, but thought I could get away with it, because I wanted something that would keep them engaged through Friday, but the reality is that they can’t do that thing WELL without doing the other thing first, so I’m just going to have to figure out how to make it work. I haven’t entirely figured TODAY’s lesson out either. I need another brain. I start planning and then I lose sight of the big picture, and then my brain worries out all the details, but I need to go back to the big picture and not let the short-sightedness of some people stop me. Man, this year is just…it’s just like last year…but worse. I can’t get my head around this stuff. It’s better than last year (the planning/organization), but it’s not great yet. I remember it took my co-teacher and I a good 6 years to make the lessons good. I don’t have 6 years. I go back to 7th grade not next year but the year after. And while I appreciate all the lessons the new teacher has provided, I need the logical backstory. And I don’t quite have it yet. I keep asking and not getting a story. So then I have to try to make one by myself, and myself is not doing great. I’m not even halfway through the year and I feel done. Like dried-out Thanksgiving turkey done. So much as I am looking forward to Winter Break (and getting a break), I know I will need to hash out the next unit. By myself. And it doesn’t make sense to me yet.
All that aside, I survived the weekend. I even thought I was getting sick, but overdosing on Vitamin C and getting two decent nights of sleep helped. Still overdosing though.
I met with some of the SAQA So Cal/NV members at Visions on Saturday.
I’m looking thrilled. Really. We did get a tour through the exhibit, which was nice. I talked a little bit about my quilt…
Which is still there, if you haven’t seen it. They had some pop-up artists’ shops, which was cool. A friend I hadn’t seen for years was running one of them, so it was nice to catch up. We had lunch after…
It’s almost normal! Like going to see art and hanging out afterward. I was going to go to another fiber art thing afterward, but I had too much schoolwork to do…so I came home and worked for about 3 hours. Then the Man and I went to see the Dresden Dolls with Amanda Palmer…
I’d never seen the band before…
I enjoy me some Amanda though…
It was a good show. That said, we are old and standing for 3+ hours on concrete is not ideal. And yet, we keep doing it. We must like it, even if our feet and backs don’t.
We got home too late to make art! I was hoping to get some done before we went, but the assignments were more insistent.
Sunday, I graded a lot more. And that’s when the lesson plan issue came up. I’m hoping to have a prep period today and time after school to figure it out. I had 1 prep period last week that wasn’t meetings or subbing my prep, so it would be nice to have another this week. We’ll see.
Last night, I did stop grading/planning at about 9:15 and cut stuff out for a little over an hour…
It’s hard not to just stay up and finish, but that would have been at least another hour, I think. We’ll see, because I’ll be finishing tonight hopefully. That’s the plan anyway. Then sorting and ironing by midweek.
Meanwhile, I’m nursing a nasty scrape on my arm that wants to be infected, but I’m trying to persuade it not to be with lots of neosporin and care. I don’t have time for a trip to urgent care to get meds. It just needs to behave. It’s better today than it was Saturday, when it was swollen and hot and yuck. Swelling has gone down. It’s still itchy, but I think that’s healing itchies. It’s not hot anymore. Good times. Can’t have a holiday season without some bizarre reason why you SHOULD go to urgent care. Even if you don’t.
In other news…
Gonna add reading books to this list, but that probably wasn’t as much of a thing in the dark ages.
Here’s Kitten about to whack me for being in her space. You know, the space in front of the computer where I’m trying to type.
And Simba trying to cuddle…
It’s been cold at night.
I love random measurements.
OK. Today. Teaching some stuff, but I’m not exactly sure how, and I didn’t put all the materials out on Friday like I normally do, because I had to be at the sex-ed curriculum meeting right after school and duty at the light. So I really should get my ass to school to figure all that out. I’ll figure part of it out on the 12-minute drive over there. Then redo the lesson plan for the whole week, copy some stuff, rewrite the lesson plan for Wednesday’s half-day sub so I can do literacy planning with my team on the book I was supposed to start reading this weekend and DID NOT. Whoops. I have read it before. But I remember very little. Teach all day, whatever that looks like (wish I knew). Finish planning/copying/whatevering after school, come home, do things, very specific things I haven’t figured out yet (probably involving reading a book I’ve already read). I’m cooking dinner. I’m also going to finish cutting stuff out. Hopefully. It’s a very mentally chaotic day I think. Ugh. Hate those. May tomorrow be less so.
Hello December. I am not ready for you. I mean, that’s not entirely true. Some part of me is “THANK GOD IT’S ALMOST WINTER BREAK” while the rest is, “You dingbat, you realize that means you need to get the holiday season under control.” It’s already a mess, both this week with all the meetings, oh wait, more next week. I said no to one thing yesterday, and all my childhood training as a girl was straining against it. YOU SAY YES unless you have a damn good excuse. And then you worry about the excuse being good enough. The excuse was my sanity. No, I do not want 8 more adults tramping through my class with behaviors and distraction issues on a Monday morning. I have enough going on.
I need to deal with shopping for the holidays, plus all the party things and meeting things. Plus school and grading and kids cheating off each other and parent meetings because kid behavior is still stuck in 5th grade. Too much.
Anyway. I have been ironing every night, although that has turned into staying up too late. There’s a fine balance with my sanity at the moment. More sleep MIGHT help? But not making art will NOT help. So I lean. Wednesday night, after 2 hours of sex-ed curriculum meetings that I found fairly frustrating.
I ironed a climate-devastated island down. And some other stuff.
Last night…
In the middle of the night on Thursday, after not being able to fall asleep for HOURS (not joking), my brain decided to make the main figure purple. I tried a variety of color combinations out in my head (when I gave up on sleeping and figured I might as well try to get something done) and purple won out. I’m actually not sure if I have enough of that last lightest fabric to iron those pieces, but I’ll try. Honestly there isn’t much left of the color before it…I didn’t think I’d have enough, and I did, but I have devastated that stash. I went to bed 45 minutes late last night, so I’ll have to do the lighter color tonight. I stopped because I knew if there wasn’t enough, Art Brain would want to figure that out NOW dammit and then I wouldn’t have gone to sleep ever. As it was, I slept well, unlike the previous night.
More ironing tonight and tomorrow night. Although there’s some stuff I have to do tonight for tomorrow’s quilt guild party. Plus a trip to Home Depot for science materials. Fun times.
A brief Nova moment.
The cats are appreciating Annie’s departure apparently…except Luna has no one to mad dog except her sister now.
My reward after the first 2-hour sex-ed committee meeting was this bag of melted circus animal cookies.
A cookie orgy. Still only 140 calories! One giant blob of cookieness.
Every time I see a list of banned books or books DeSantis doesn’t like, I’m like “Add to list”. You should do the same.
OK, parent meeting this morning…not looking forward to parent denial on this one. Then a lab all day (WTF was I thinking?). Then duty after school and that trip to Home Depot. Read my book, prepare dinner (I was smart and made and froze lasagne during Thanksgiving break), probably grade some stuff or prep some stuff, then iron. Probably gonna fall asleep hard. Oh wait, do the things for the meeting tomorrow. Can’t forget that. Should put it on the calendar. Then I MIGHT remember to do it. Ha! OK December, do your thing.
Hey. It’s later than usual. It’s Friday and I’m not at work! And I’m not sick! And a veteran is coming over later to help me do some work around the house! That’s how you celebrate THIS veteran. Make him help you do work. Plus he has way better tools than I do. What other exciting things am I doing today? I’m getting three vaccines (like a nutball) and two MRIs. Yeah! Do not try this at home, y’all. I’m fully expecting them to tell me I can only have two of the vaccines. Three might be too many. Kitten has already drawn blood on my right hand (IDK what I did, but she didn’t like it). I braved nasty traffic last night to hang out with my stitching friends…got very little done on this…
I think some window sashing and 1 1/2 shutters, plus some running stitch. I’m impressed by the people who can stitch one of these in a year. I guess I have a lot of other stuff going on.
The literacy meeting on Wednesday allowed me to get some small things done, so that was good. It also netted me stickers.
I finished a good book last night, Shoot the Moon…it did not go the way I thought it would, which was delightful.
I finished that last night…came home after stitching group and just sat there for an hour and devoured the last half. I need more of that.
Then I quilted for an hour…because I knew I could sleep in this morning. So Wednesday’s quilting…I refused to work that night, so I did over an hour…
Got the torso done, and then started on the justices to the left (when upside down…when right side up, they are to the right, which makes more sense…not sure I planned that? But maybe I did).
In the longer time frame, I got through three justices that night…
Then did the other two last night…
My camera recognizes the faces as faces, which is weird. So now all I have left is the arms and head of the goddess and everything above her, PLUS all the background quilting. I’m at about 10 hours in…and I was figuring 15 or so? I think. And I still think that’s valid. There’s a lot of little fussy spaces to be filled. I’ve done some of it as I was outlining, but not all of it. So hopefully this weekend? I’m going to have to go buy binding tomorrow anyway, or I won’t get to until next weekend, which would suck. And it looks like I might be starting a new quilt over Thanksgiving, which is good, because I have two deadlines coming up, and one is coming very quickly. Yikes.
I’m so proud that I have finally been able to color in a unit packet cover page…so many of last year’s didn’t get done because two grade levels, and I never finished Unit 2 this year either.
My students say he looks lit. AKA stoned. I said it’s daylight savings week…he’s tired. Also asked them if they’d looked in mirrors lately. So yeah. Great.
Nova in the air biscuit competition. Still winning.
Will I have to work this weekend on school stuff? Of course I will. I’m also quilting and trying to install these lattice things to replace the old broken ones so I can plant a viney thing to grow up it and also clean some stuff and quilt…did I say quilt? Yeah. That. But today is kind of busy. My fault of course. It’s nice to have a day off though. Really nice. Feels so different than a regular weekend. Fully appreciating that.
It was a busy weekend. I managed tiny bits of artmaking, through stubbornness and refusal to sleep, really. I did a few things I wanted to do, not as many as I would have preferred, but I also worked a heinous number of hours for the day job. And that will continue all this week, because the next unit is not planned and it starts in a week and a half. Plus grades are due. So yeah. I’m hating it right now, really overwhelmed and not happy with any of it. If you see me, I probably need a hug and a donut…well, no one ever really NEEDS a donut…I probably need a hike more, but a donut takes less time. And time is something I don’t have enough of at the moment, nowhere close.
So…art first! Always. Even if that’s not what happens in real life. Friday night, after a book signing and dinner out, I managed an hour before bed…it was late, but I did it anyway.
Up in the heads and robes.
Saturday night, it was really late, after the Man’s show. Stayed up too late again…but got another 50 minutes in.
More heads. And last night, after working a million hours and cooking dinner and watering all the plants, I managed another 50 minutes.
Heads are done…I’m doing the goddess’ arms and the things above her.
This is the only time you get to see the back…
It’s kinda creepy.
Anyway, there’s not much left. I’m at 7 hours and 24 minutes. I think I might have more than 36 minutes to go? But I’m not positive. Maybe tonight? I’d like to be pinbasted and quilting this week. That’s my goal. Harder to find the time to get pinbasted though. Need to wash the batting, piece a backing, lay it all out, and then finally pin. Sounds like a lot for a work night when I’m buried.
Friday was a field trip with school to Old Town.
It’s not my favorite field trip…that would be the zoo…but it’s nice to be outside. My group was OK…some infighting occurred, which I knew would happen, because I had the kid who causes those things. Could’ve done without that. That said, we came back and mostly the kids either slept, gamed, watched the movie, or built their roller coasters while I graded. Useful. I’ll be doing lots of that this week…and planning.
Old Town was decorated for Day of the Dead, which was cool.
We do a scavenger hunt, which is nice, because we have a purpose, unlike most of the time.
That night, we ventured out to a book signing (not sure I’ve ever done one of those)…Stephan Pastis, author of Pearls Before Swine (and other things) was here in San Diego and I went to high school with him.
Here’s the actual moment when I told him we went to high school together…
It’s OK, Steph…I don’t recognize the kid you were in high school in your adult face either, except sometimes when you talk. We were on cross country together, with my brother and others, but he was the grade between us. So yeah. Fun stuff though. We ate dinner in a total dive bar, but the food is always good, isn’t it? Not sure why.
Saturday was a clusterfuck of work work work, in between an art meeting at the Lakeside Library, which had art by Bhavna Mehta…her paper work translated into metal.
Pretty cool stuff.
And then at night, the Man’s band had a show at a tiny place that blew out my eardrums and gave me a sore throat from the smoke machine (ugh). It was a good thing to dance and be sweaty for a few hours’ break though. I needed that.
Up late.
So all in all a busy weekend. I’m looking forward to a nice quiet weekend at some point. Not sure when that can be slotted in. Probably never.
So the kids are building roller coasters all week. I need to plan one thing for this week, hopefully today so I have time to copy it. But otherwise, after I demo one thing a day to build, maybe two, I’m hoping I can just finish grading and then start planning the next unit. If it works. Don’t take my prep period, don’t add any more shit to the pile of things to do (insert snotty comments about people who don’t understand email accounts), just let me get the things done. That’s what I need. And then maybe I can get this quilt pinbasted and back under the machine. Hoping.
So I feel like I blinked an eye and October slid past. Weird. It’s usually one of the longer months of the year for school, but no, our field trip and Halloween are looming on the horizon, with the end of Trimester 1 (and grades due. Grades are always due.). November is easier; December has its ups and downs. Well, November is only through Thanksgiving. That last week is really part of December (ask a teacher; they’ll agree). I have not adjusted this year to anything, even the overwork. I cried on the way home yesterday, not for anything in particular, just feeling like lots of little tiny things that needed doing would eventually bury me. Managing other people’s shit. I could do without that. That is this year though. Lots of that. I came home and put together roller coaster groups for today…there are some definite issues that I can’t fix with those. Ah well. ‘Tis always the case. There’s always one kid that every group wants and one that no one wants. Then I went to the gym. So I could read a book and not think about school. Not so successful with school texting me, but whatever.
Giant ass sigh. The pro is that it’s very easy to get up off the couch (after working some more after dinner on school stuff) and come in here and do stitchdown. It’s meditative. I’m listening to a book, which is not always a successful endeavor for me…I tend to space out and then wonder what the fuck the reader is talking about. I wonder if I would like this book better if I were reading it myself. It has some good things, but some things are just not as good. It’s John Scalzi, Starter Villain, read by Wil Wheaton. You’d think those would all be good things. I’m not sure. I got a year’s subscription to Audible just for this purpose, quilting and stitchdown entertainment. But I do have a hard time listening to words. I have to rewind. Rewind? I am old. Anyway, I’ve managed about an hour a night…here’s Monday…
And Tuesday…
Everything under the umbrella is done, plus the goddess’ legs up to the knees, plus the swamp and cloud going into the swamp fires. So I suspect I’m doing pedestals next on the right. Three hours in. I suspect it will be 8 total. Ish. I only have 4 hours left of the book I’m listening to. There will be another, I suspect.
Got this (and a check) for the anti-anti-abortionist quilt…
Nice. Appreciate the vote of confidence. That piece deserves it.
I just washed all those, Kitten. After you threw up on them.
Sigh. This cat. She keeps eating bits of leaves and pine needles and then vomiting them all over the house. I cleaned one set of floors; I need the Man to do the other. Double sigh. He has a show this weekend, so that won’t happen. And the boychild has reneged on any household duties except his own room and bathroom. Ugh.
I woke up to a really weird unsettling dream this morning. I didn’t like it. It’s still hanging around my shoulders and I still don’t like it. Thanks brain. Appreciate those moments. Perhaps you could be more supportive? Oh yeah, this is you being supportive. Eh.
Then last night, while I’m trying to grade using all those papers, Nova just plopped in the middle of all of them.
It’s unlike her…but she kept trying for my lap and that wasn’t an option, so I guess everything else I needed was. That irritated look is because I just pulled half of them out from under her.
That project grades really slow. Not a fan. Trying to decide how to modify for next year.
OK. Today. Some parts of today will just be hard…it’s a lot. We’re starting roller coasters (built out of paper). Tomorrow will be more chill, but today is a little chaotic. I have way too many adults coming in and out of my classes for observations. The field trip is not fully planned, although I think I am fucking done with my part (and next time, y’all can do it, even if you don’t have all the kids. OK. I’ll probably change my mind about that. Maybe). I have pilates today and potentially four errands after that. Which is a lot. I might move one to tomorrow. It would be easier. Pro? I get to stitch later. While listening to a book. That I will partially ignore. Yeah!
Well I’m feeling better about grades right now. I managed to get some serious work done in the last two days, at the expense of making art and reading books, but yeah, that’s how it goes. I’m down to two assignments (both academic and reading) and whatever late work I’ve missed so far. I’m not totally ready for next week; I need a pretty substantial sub plan for Monday afternoon. It’ll probably take me at least an hour to put that together this weekend, plus the grading, plus the pre-eval worksheet, which I can’t even get my head around. My bandwidth is low, much like my computer at the moment, which keeps cycling and cycling. I’ve got two websites up and keep bouncing from one to the other to see if they’ve finished loading yet. I don’t have time to restart the router. Ah well.
So I will be spending a huge chunk of the weekend dealing with school. It sucks. That said, I finally finishing sorting pieces into boxes…
Two hours and 16 minutes total. Not too bad considering the number of pieces.
And last night, after my stitching meeting, I barely started ironing…
But I started! That’s about 30 minutes worth of ironing. These are the big pieces down at the bottom. It just gets tinier and more detailed as we move up. I’m looking forward to ironing for the next two weeks…maybe more. I have some stuff coming up that will take up weekends…the Interpretations opening at Visions will be in two weeks. Plus it’s not like school will go away. I’m just hoping it gets a little easier. It’s unlikely to at the moment, but after this weekend, I’ve got a bit of a break I think. Maybe. Knock on wood. I do need to revise a project and an assessment, which I’ve kind of been ignoring, plus set up at least one lab. Plus start doing this literacy stuff in science, which is fine…I used chatgpt to write a paragraph for my part of the literacy. Use the resources y’all! Use them.
Meanwhile, I’ve been reading The Humanity Archive and have images of African fighting queens and slave ships and plantations and revolts in my head. Not sure where to go with that, but it’s percolating. I have a deadline in January for another show, but it may just get whatever’s available. I feel like this Supreme Court piece is going to take another 6 weeks before I’m done. I drew a small original of this in Seattle in July. I came home and enlarged it, then taped it together on July 13, then started the full-size drawing on the 14th. I’m 3 1/2 months into this. That’s crazy. I might need a smaller quilt as a palate cleanser before jumping into slavery. I don’t know. We’ll see.
I did make it out of the house for NOT work last night…stitching meeting with the friends. I finished this June Homegrown block (Sue Spargo).
It’s been sitting around for a long time, maybe since Seattle. I haven’t had much time for stitching. I save the free time for the quilt in progress. So I have four more houses to do and then the centerpiece. Should be done in 2026. Or 2027. I’m still sitting on the half-quilted Bird Crazy (not its real name). That was supposed to be over the summer. Didn’t happen. The day job is nuts, has been for too long, so I don’t get enough art quilts done and they all get pulled to shows right away, which is awesome, or sold, which is also awesome, but then I feel like I have nothing to enter anywhere. Which is silly…I know. But as I’m staring at this pre-evaluation for school, I’m just struck that what I really want is more time for art, and what they really want is for me to spend more time on school. MORE time. I don’t have that. Not unless I give up the hour a night for art, and I’m not going to do that. As it is, I’m supposed to be doing this decoding/encoding training online, and I’ve made it through the first 15 minutes of 5 hours, so I need to start doing that while I iron. Which I can do. Plus the shooter training for school is at least an hour…need to do that video too. Maybe. Maybe my brain needs a break from school so it doesn’t make me want to give up on it.
Thinking that through.
Meanwhile, my co-teacher, who I miss every day, is cleaning out her parents’ house (something I dread that will inevitably be in my future) and she’s been driving around with some recycling in her car for two or three days. She challenged me to get my thrift shop bags (which have been in the girlchild’s room since August and the entryway since she came to visit) into the car. Which I did…
There’s more in the garage, but I can’t deal with that right now. So now, whoever gets them to the center first is the winner? It’s certainly more likely to happen if they are in the car. She’ll probably beat me.
OK. Today we are doing a lab. It is a pretty fun lab, so I’m hoping it goes OK. I’m hoping I’m totally efficient today and get more grading and organizing done. Same with the weekend. It would be nice to have grading done a bit early so I could get ahead on the planning, but also maybe read my book and relax a bit. Ha! I’m pretty sure that’s not happening, but I will try. It’s almost October, usually one of my favorite months, despite the lack of days off. The weather mellows out, although it’s been OK this month (knock on wood), the chaos of the beginning of school chills out a bit (two weeks from now looks like hell on wheels; let’s not think about that). Not thinking about doing another two months (or more) without my co-teacher/planning person, but it’s good for her and that’s what counts. I’ve seen progress in one of the newbie teachers, and that is a good thing. Plus today is Friday, and that is always a splendid thing.
Dog kept me up a goodly chunk of the night. The boychild is gone at fire camp (work, really), and the dog has forgotten about this overnight stuff, so he lost his mind. Lots of fussing, growling, and barking at like 2 AM, which is when you really don’t need barking unless there really is a zombie apocalypse. Spoiler alert: there wasn’t. I’m sure being completely exhausted on an assembly day will be fine. Totally fine. We started sex ed yesterday and it wasn’t bad. I think I might survive until the end of the year. Maybe. I certainly didn’t think I would back in January, but somehow, I seem to have done it. 15 days left. That’s survivable.
I also finally finished quilting. It felt really long, but it was only 13 hours and 41 minutes. ONLY. Here’s Wednesday night…
I made it around the bottom and about halfway up the side. And then last night, I stayed up too late to finish…
At the end, I ran out of bobbin thread…
But that didn’t stop me. I just sacrificed sleep. As always. Tonight I can finally trim the thing and hopefully have the energy to get bindings on. Tomorrow, we’re hiking, which might be nuts, but whatever.
There’s this, after watching someone freak out over Target’s Pride merch.
You don’t like it? Don’t buy it. Simple. Same with books…
Frustrating world we live in. Some dumb person commented on my post about a particular banned book that any parent can buy anything. Wow. Tone deaf much? Some parents can’t afford books, or don’t care about books, or are illiterate themselves. Some people are elitist and don’t realize that many kids only see books at school, in school libraries, in school classrooms. So get the hell out of our classrooms and schools. If you don’t want your kid to read something, tell them not to read it. And when they do? Well, there we are. Guess your parenting didn’t work.
Ugh. So ending with some owl videos…we definitely have two babies and I think parents were working on number 3 the other night…although I think there was an earlier baby that died, so maybe this is number 4?
They’ve been very active lately.
Which is cool. Maybe they’ll deal with the rat that has been nibbling on the tangerines…
Enjoy the owls.
And Quilt National opens today. Wish I could be there but couldn’t swing the time or the money. My Desert Mother is there.
OK. School. Tired. Short classes. Assembly. Super Mario Assembly. Intriguing. Loud and fast is what I’m thinking. And then I’m thinking a nap. Will have to decide after that.
Well we are back to everyone in the house trying to leave in the morning. I’m not sure Simba realizes he’ll be alone all day today. The boychild is back to work this week, so schedules will be weird. Mine won’t. Mine is reliable through the middle of June, and then I’ll be home for a bit and then gone for a bit. Hopefully there won’t be any fires while I’m in Seattle or it will get complicated. It’s always complicated. I remember driving Calli to my ex’s every day so she wouldn’t try to run away, and forgetting she was in the back of the car until I got to work. She’d sigh and I’d go, DAMMIT Calli, why didn’t you tell me you were back there. Silly old dog. I miss her.
This week is the last week of state testing…math and science. Stressful. I’ve never proctored the science test…and I’m going to feel bad if they don’t feel like we taught them what they need. That said, I also know the state tests put stuff on there that is not in the standards, which is just irritating as hell. Ah well, hopefully the next principal does not obsess over data. The test covers 6-8th grade science, and 6th grade for my kids was the COVID hybrid year…or the Zoom year, for me. So they don’t remember much, unfortunately. That said, they didn’t remember much from last year either. I gave them some review questions on states of matter and chemistry…sigh. Ah well. What can you do? I would rather have them be able to think and figure stuff out than to know the differences between the molecules of a solid and those of a liquid. Although it’s cool info, I’m not sure it’s survival-level info.
There was a bunch of art stuff I was supposed to do this weekend, but for one, I never saw the invite info, and for the other, I ran out of time. I’ll make it to the other show next weekend hopefully (have an extra day!). Not sure what happened with the other one.
Instead, we did our usual late-afternoon hike, showers, and then dinner. But Friday, the Man had a show. I quilted a little bit before I left, but was out most of the night. It was hard to get a decent picture of him: he was in the dark corner.
Their lead singer was easier to get…
This was after dissecting frogs at the end of the school day…
I only saw one obvious female in my two classes…
The table that got her was very excited. Maybe a little TOO excited (they cut all the organs up in a really destructive way to get at all the eggs). Glad to be done with that lab. It’s cool, but exhausting. Luckily, I now know that my 7th graders will respond to CLASS CLASS (if you don’t know what that means, consider yourself lucky).
So I dissected with those kids, did my afterschool duty at the corner light, got my classroom ready for this week, came home, and napped. Seriously zonked out for 30 minutes. Then ate dinner, changed out of frog/teacher clothes, and drove out to Ocean Beach to watch the Man play. I was in bed around midnight, exhausted. He came home around 1, and then I felt the larger of these two earthquakes…
Late night partying in the tectonic-plate world.
Saturday I managed to get organized enough to run errands, including buying binding for this quilt, so I can finish it this week, hopefully. We hiked…
After I sent 42 emails to parents/kids about failing grades and the trimester cut-off date in less than 2 weeks. Down from 60 emails in April. Getting there. It’s been a rough year for my 7th graders. Or me. Not sure which was worse.
Tiny pink flowers that are a pain to photograph. We’ve been trying to do at least 3 miles a weekend; next weekend, we’re going to do a longer hike. My physical therapy is probably coming to an end, so we’re testing the knee out. I suspect my knees will always hurt, but at least I can get up the stairs at the moment. The Man is supposed to be hiking the trans-Catalina trail in October with a pack; he’ll need to start training for that soon.
He’s still recovering from a pinched nerve in his shoulder/back area…and talking about lightening the pack. Probably a good plan.
I did manage a good chunk of quilting on Saturday night…
I got the pigoon done and the rest of the wing/arm, then up into the fourth arm (three is NOT enough)…
And got the bird done as well. Went to bed a little late, and then last night, I did the head with corresponding eyeball tree (not the first, won’t be the last)…
And then started quilting the background.
I’m over 9 hours into the quilting, and there’s at least a couple more to go. There’s a lot of background filler in the upper half of the quilt, plus the borders around the bottom. So ideally, I finish tomorrow night, then trim it Wednesday, get the binding on, maybe ready for the photographer this weekend? Then on to the next one, which will be a difficult finish. I have a complicated idea in my head, but don’t have the time for the whole shebang before the deadline. Might have to tone down the complication.
Luna thinks that’s crazy.
But it might be what has to happen.
I asked my students a question about why National Parks were important…this kid…
Which is better than the girl who just wrote that she didn’t really care. Yeah. We know. Neither does half the planet. We’re aware. It’s obvious.
Anyway, we try. Yeah, I’m trying to brainwash your kids into caring about the planet more than I’m grooming them to be homosexual or trans. I still think the best answer to the teachers brainwashing kids thing is the fact that we can’t get them to turn any work in. I mean, that’s where I’d start. It would make my life easier, for sure, if they would just turn shit in. Stupid politicians.
OK. Today. Review for three classes, finishing up all the things with the other two. We had to juggle the schedule slightly. It’s fine; this is easier. It’s OK to make things easier sometimes. Then staff meeting, run to Home Depot afterward to get a sprinkler and some stakes for the lemon tree. Some more dirt too. Can never have enough dirt apparently. Then book club tonight…just finished the book on Friday, I think. It was good: When Women Were Dragons. Then quilting after that. Hopefully a chill day. That would be nice.
Kathy Nida 