Category: Drawing

Morning

Good morning. Or morning, as I prefer. I mean, maybe if I looked out my window and saw endless forest vistas and no humans, maybe that would count as a good morning, especially if I could roll over and go back to sleep, but that’s not really a common occurrence for me. Unfortunately. There are 43 days of school left. I did not accomplish much of anything this weekend except spending time with visiting family, which is a good thing…so there’s that. But I have no lunches prepared for school for this week (yet), I forgot to defrost my breakfasts so I’m eating cereal (at least I have that), I graded one assignment and posted one assignment, no two (it’s fine; I can do it during class), and I planned nothing for next week. That worries me a bit, but I’ll just have to work more during the week to get there. I also lost my mat cutter somewhere in the house, and I need to cut two mats. I don’t want to buy another new one. I know how to cut mats without it, but it’s a pain. So there’s that.

So WTF did I do? The Man’s band (Radio Thieves) had a show on Friday night…they opened, so I was home by 11 (good thing really…I was exhausted)…

I did not go to bed right away, though, because that would make too much sense. I taped more of the drawing together and added paper to the top and bottom for more drawing.

Went to bed way too late, then got up way too early (for my weekend brain) for the online SAQA conference. I did the morning coffee meetups, then took a shower, drove to the ceramics studio, and listened to all the webinars…well, in between people trying to talk to me. I did put a neck on the head and forgot to photograph it (I’m really bad at remembering to photograph things there)…then added grass to the bottom of the planter.

This was going to be a mug until I realized how big it would be.

All my home mugs have cracks in them right now. I’m waiting for them to leak. So far, so good. But I wanted to make a mug of my own. And since I don’t throw on the wheel, handbuilt is how it’s gonna be. I’ll get there. But this is a planter.

After ceramics, I putzed around the house a bit, trying to get my brain to function, then headed over to my parents’ because my brother, my SIL, and one of my nephews were in town to visit colleges, and we were gonna hang out. Which is what we did…both Saturday night, and then Sunday night, with a hike on Sunday afternoon as well. Lots of family fun and arguments about nipples. Don’t even ask.

Saturday night, after we came back, I finished the binding and sleeves on this…

It just needs a label and hanging slats and it’s ready for delivery on Saturday…but I need to frame the drawing; hence the need to cut the mat, so that’s a thing to figure out this week.

Here’s one hike picture…

And one nephew picture, with Simba…

Last night, we got home later and there was no art happening. There wasn’t much of anything happening except folding my laundry. So there’s a hefty to-do list this week, but it was worth it. Not sure how Kitten feels about it.

Yeah. I feel that way this morning too. Fill up the teacup a little more.

This sucks. I’m glad I was able to see some of her work in person in Los Angeles last year.

Her work was some of the first quilt work I saw that wasn’t traditionally pieced and seemed to tell a story. She was an amazing storyteller. The world will miss her insights.

Leaving you with this…

Am I the only one who wants to know what’s under that black rectangle? There are a lot of pictures of emotional support sharks on the internet. Who knew?

OK. School…kids are finishing up an assignment from last week that does not require a lot of my input, except for all the kids who were absent half of last week for Eid and other excuses, so yeah, that’s fun. I can hopefully plan some space stuff for next week (if the other teacher answers me) and post things for the rest of this week, plus write sub plans to be out half a day for literacy on Friday. Fun times. Then a staff meeting about state testing and hopefully ceramics studio time, plus yardwork, making lunches for the rest of the week (it would be nice to have something besides random food I found in the freezer), starting to iron that one quilt together or drawing the next big one. The sewing machine is awaiting parts with no estimate of when they will arrive. Frustrating, but I will survive. No, I don’t want to borrow other people’s machines. I hate trying to sew on other people’s machines. I will just do other things until I get mine back. Thank you. I’m so tired, y’all…I guess this is how we do the next 43 school days.

A Hole in the Middle

Hey. Am I glad it’s Friday? Fuck yeah. This week has been a mother. Not the good kind who takes care of you. The other kind. One more day of school…well, 44 more days of school. Had a third of my kids out yesterday, more like half on Wednesday. And yet we teach on! We’re so close to state testing that we can’t just stop. Since the start and stop of Ramadan are dependent on the sightings of crescent moons, some kids didn’t know when it would start (they should watch the news!). And some came back yesterday…but some said they wouldn’t be back until Monday. And then the other kids seem to be out in sympathy with them? Or? Whatever. Most of this week’s school stress has been adult-related or program-related or organizational-related. This whole year has basically been that. The kids are not horrible…they’re not great sometimes. There’s a lot of apathy that drives us nuts, but there’s no constant bad behaviors that make the days horrible, like last year. So that’s good. It’s just a lot of other stuff: do this, do that, now do this. Ugh. I don’t have time to do all the things.

Anyway, today they are working on a natural selection comic, which is pretty chill, so I can like grade homework or plan space…I should plan space. I’m teaching that a week away. I need to figure that shit out.

So exhaustion. Too many late-night wake-ups, not going to bed early enough. This morning’s blood sugar was high…because I was dreaming? I don’t quite remember what I was dreaming, but it was stressful. Environmentally stressful.

Keep making things. That’s my plan. So I had enlarged a drawing I did before. I had some ideas for a crone quilt, but these women are too young, but that’s OK. I think I can make it work like I want. I don’t like the middle head, so I’ll need to fix that. Anyway, Wednesday night, after pilates and working on school stuff, I started taping this thing together…

I did not finish. There’s a hole in the middle. There’s more legs. It’s going to be big. I’m OK with that.

I also started the handstitching on the binding last night…

I should be able to finish this over the weekend. The Man has a show tonight and my brother and part of his family are in town, but since I need to deliver this next weekend, it needs to be done. Also I need to find some decent matboard in my stash to frame the drawing that will hang with it. Ugh. Time.

Absolutely no clay has been touched since Monday. I was hoping for today, but I have to take two animals to the vet after school for regular tests/etc so they will continue to give us meds.

Luna looks like she’s about to attack Simba, and Simba looks like he knows it. The boychild is working part of the week, so Simba gets to sleep with us. He’s been pretty good.

I did have my stitching meeting last night, so I got this mostly done, except for the flowers…

Check out the book Kitten’s reading.

It’s a very visual way to figure out what things in nature are. I read through a bunch of it Wednesday night when I couldn’t deal with life. It’s always amazing how little we know. Fascinating stuff though.

OK. Watch them draw today, encourage them to be done drawing. Finish planning. Do the other things that need doing. Take animals to the vet, figure out dinner, then go watch the Man’s show, which thank goodness, is early. Then sleep, beautiful sleep. Or maybe stitch for a bit first. Then get a million things done this weekend. No problem.

A Day Late…

A day late. That’s OK. I was in the mountains. I forgot it was Friday. Today is Saturday. If I keep telling you what the days are, maybe I will remember them myself. I have doctors’ appointments next week; I have to remember to go to them.

We were up on Palomar Mountain for a couple of days…one full day really. It was nice. It was cold. There was still snow up there. We had a discount to stay in a really nice yurt and it was cool.

These are nice yurts (Baileys on Palomar)…take advantage of discounts if you can. We had a mid-week discount. I’m pretty sure it’s snowing up there right now though, so I’m glad we came home yesterday.

Inside was warm, sometimes too warm. But nice.

My drawing brain was mostly out of it. This one isn’t going anywhere.

And this one might. Maybe.

We couldn’t get a fire started the first night…pretty sure the wood was wet from the previous storm. The second night, after 5 firestarters and some weird juju of frustration (the Man’s, not mine…or the fire’s, for that matter), the fire started and kept going…me drawing by the fire…

The Man telling me about something circular…

It was cold out. I think this was still firestarter fire, not real fire.

Eventually we got cold and came back inside and got violent and slappy with this game.

I won.

That was after hiking to Palomar Observatory, which I’d never been to. The hike wasn’t hard or long…well, it was 5.3 miles with 800 feet of elevation. So not too bad. Certainly my legs were feeling it yesterday.

Those are some really big acorns…

My app says Canyon Live Oak. Acorns and their caps fascinate me. I brought caps home. Dunno what I’m going to do with them.

It’s funny, I only saw the observatory once from the hike until we were on our way back.

It was cool. San Jacinto in the distance…definitely snow up there too.

It was a nice day to hike…mostly not hot, mostly not too cold.

Definitely at elevation snow. Not a lot by the time we got there.

I stitched a little too…finished this block.

I remembered a chalk pencil for the bike. Started another block while I was there.

Forgot the proof of life picture. Yes! We were in the same place together.

It happens.

We came back, cleaned up, I peed some dogs. The one on the right is hunting bees. Or bunnies. Hard to say which.

Stood in line for 3 hours at a quilt store that’s closing so I could use up my gift card and my mom’s too, because she showed up halfway through and handed me more. Then held my place in line so I could find more stuff to buy. She’s a good mom. I’m supposed to be at the ceramics studio right now but there was a full on flood-level band of rain that came through and dropped like half an inch of rain, so I didn’t drive in it. I will now, because I think that band is done and I can wait out the next one. There’s an art opening at Oceanside Museum of Art tonight, though, and that’s gonna be a slog if it’s still raining this hard. Ah well.

Last night, I suffered cats. Lots of them.

They missed us. And then I finished trimming this one…

Time to sort and then to iron. Meanwhile the girlchild and friend camped in the Northern California band of this storm last night. They were not washed away.

There is a tent under there. There is also a rain fly. The tarp is just extra. I wonder if there is a tarp underneath as well? Hmmm. Did we train her well? Maybe not.

OK. Art opening tonight. Ceramics studio for now: gonna see what came out of the kiln plus do another level on what I’m building…maybe start something new? I need to be back here by 3 PM I think. Ugh. I’m sure it made sense to sign up for things weeks ago, but today’s brain is not up for it. Typical.

I Can’t Do All the Things…

Look! It’s a Monday and I’m not at school! I don’t even need to go to school tomorrow! Well, I kinda do because I left a couple of things and need to get them. But no kids! No work stress! Just home stress! I’m trying to cut down on all that. Certainly today’s blue skies help, although the pool is doing things, my eye is doing things, there’s still the boob thing floating around, I have a doc appointment today where she will once again tout the Mediterranean diet that I sort of follow anyway, but not really. I also got the door code to the ceramics studio so I can go ANYTIME. And I went and meditated with clay on Saturday.

I made a thing.

It started as one thing and then became another. So now it’s an in-process thing. I’m hoping to work on it a bit tonight before my orientation (required) and then I have my final class tomorrow, which is about glazing. I always had issues with that part. It’s weird. Painting. I don’t like shiny things really. Not big shiny things. So there’s that. And glazes are expensive, so I’ll need to figure out what I want to do about that. My studio provides some, just not the stuff I like. And I want all the colors. And that’s not a thing. Unless you’re rich.

Anyway. More clay over break…that’s my goal. Put it in the calendar with the gym etc.

I did grade yesterday. I didn’t bring home much, but I did bring home some. “Bring home”…it’s mostly on the computer. I have one paper homework, one academic digital assignment I haven’t started, and one academic digital assignment that I still had two classes left to grade, plus warmups, last week’s digital homework (graded itself!), and another digital assignment. Plus all the kids turning in late work. So I did the warmups, one class of the academic digital thing, input the other digital things, and got a goodly chunk of the late work graded. Still have a few hours of grading to deal with, but also need to spend some time (hours) planning for after break. I need a table of contents for the Monday we get back and I have about one week of three planned out. Then we start test review, which worries me (it’s kinda boring), then a quick egg drop, then sex ed, and we’re out! It sounds fast, but it’s not fast enough. You know? I did appreciate this…

Be safe! There’s my sink, my eyewash, my doc cam, my rulers, my stick-figure body. All accurate.

I also took in my sewing machine on Saturday and it wasn’t a quick fix. I was hoping it would be. Ten days. No, I don’t have a backup machine. I can go to my mom’s house if I get desperate, but it made more sense (don’t question this) to start something new. I did want to spend Spring Break drawing a big new piece to get me through the end of the school year, but my brain is like mush at the moment and all I could do is pull one of those 12 drawings I copied back in December or whenever and start tracing.

It’ll be fine. The crone quilt is building itself in my head. We’re going out to Palomar Mountain for a few days later this week to stay in a yurt. I’m hoping to get my head around a drawing out there. There is too much crap to do here for my brain to back the fuck off and stop the to-do list.

So tracing Wonder Under makes sense right now.

Meanwhile, two shows opened this weekend with my work, one in Wayne, PA: Art Quilt Elements…

My piece My Body. My Choice. is on the far left…

And here, on the right…

I always have to scroll through Facebook looking for images from the shows.

Here’s one, Sweet Delicious, in a gallery in Japan…

Between the two women.

Interesting flyer…my info is the only stuff in English.

Also I guess that’s my name in Japanese?

It was a little scary to send stuff off to Japan, but now I know the two guys in charge of this show (they’ve been in my studio at least), so I feel better about it. I send work off all the time to people I don’t know, but it’s almost always been to a venue that has regular shows. Somehow that seems better. I don’t really know why.

I’m sitting around waiting for ophthalmology (I cannot spell that word correctly the first time for the life of me) to call me back, but I also need to take a shower before my doctor appointment, so I feel like as soon as I get in the shower, they will call. Right? Yeah. But I have a book to read (or 17), art to make (but not finish, because no machine until next week), a house that is never clean or functional, a pool guy to replace (seriously sick of this guy), and who knows what else on the list. But I’m not at work, and that’s the plus. And ophthal…fucking-A can’t spell it…called back and they don’t think it’s an emergency unless I see flashing lights or a veil over my eye (oh my). So next week for that. Ugh. During my opening…guess I won’t make it to that. Or I’ll be late. Whatever. I can’t do ALL the things. I just can’t.

Why?

Omigod omigod omigod, Spring Break is finally here…well, in 8 hours and 8 minutes, except I have to do duty after school and then set up or clean up or something, so a little bit more than that. Yes, I’m still sick, but not as bad as the two I live with were, so that’s a plus. Knock on wood. I met with a contractor last night who will start fixing the things that caused the flooding in January (or at least caused the shit ton of rain to come in the house…I don’t doubt we will have more instances of shit tons of rain, unfortunately). It won’t be cheap. There isn’t much I can do about that. It won’t be a quick fix either; we’ll be doing stuff in the summer too. Ugh. My summer already is problematic. Ah well. It’s not summer yet.

I was planning on finishing these two small quilts in the next few days. On Wednesday, I pinbasted the one I need for a show at the end of April…

And then continued stitchdown on the one that’s been hanging around for a while.

My machine needs service, a good cleaning. I had it on my list to call today after it was being fussy the night before, and then last night during my stitching Zoom. I had done about 35 minutes on it and then walked away to eat my dinner.

Usually the machine powers down if I don’t turn it off (and I didn’t want to reset everything, so I didn’t power down), but when I came back, it would turn on, it would beep, but the touch screen wouldn’t turn on. I restarted, I unplugged, I googled, but it looks like who knows WTF is going on, and I can’t sew dammit. REALLY? WHY. WHY. WHY. Deep breaths. OK. Calling them during my prep period. It’s fine; I can start drawing tonight instead, but My Goodness. Universe, you suck.

In better art news, they made personalized marketing for two of the upcoming shows…this is awesome!

Turns out Stitchpunk will be in Oregon in summer 2026. Plan that trip now in my head at least. Warn the Man it’s coming.

Nice choice. Fierce Planets isn’t coming close yet.

There’s still time.

Interestingly, I only have to teach advisory and two classes today, due to the dumbass planning of the literacy team. I’ll be in the library for the rest of the day. Planning things. Sounds lovely, eh? It’s pajama day too, so I’m enjoying that. Although I would have sewn up this pocket in my PJ pants if the sewing machine wasn’t on strike.

This is for my absent co-teacher…

Who talks about dinosaurs and space in equal amounts.

I actually finished coloring a cover page for once…

Penis-shaped volcanoes. Fun times.

And this…if you remember, I posted an appropriate version earlier this week. Although weird in the end (like how does that stick baby get out?)…and then there’s this one, from one of my not-so-sweet ones.

Seriously? Must have opted out of sex ed last year. I feel for his girlfriend, who I also have in class. Ignorance is real, y’all.

Anyway, gonna go do the things for as long as I have to, drink lots of tea, get as much schoolwork done as I can so I can do less over break (I already know I will have to come in to print things and set up), then get the fuck out of there for two weeks. Seriously. This year needs to knock it off. I’m done. Peace out though. Spring Break is a much-needed and appreciated respite.

I Blinked

OK, I’m pretty sure I blinked and the weekend was gone. I know I did things because the bathroom and kitchen floor are finally clean and there’s dead leaves in my hair and clean clothes in the laundry basket, but I honestly don’t remember much of it. Just took a deep breath in and it was over. What are the odds the school week will go so fast?

Five days until Spring Break. I have no clue what I’m teaching Friday (and I’ll have a sub for half of it due to pretty shitty literacy planning), so hopefully that will come to me in a dream or something. It’s actually more about not knowing how long this stuff will take to teach more than being totally clueless. I’m juggling a variety of things in my teacher brain, but I need to know how much time I have. I also need to write sub plans. All of that might be happening Thursday night, which I hate, but when you’ve never taught these lessons, it’s a crapshoot. Plus the kids are amazingly tuned out to grades and work completion at the moment, so sometimes I just walk around and look at the kids who are working and compare the kids who are fast to the kids who are super slow but still work, and kind of pick a place in the middle. The lazy kids who do nothing are not part of that equation. It’s not ideal, but it’s where we’re at. Hopefully some of their brains will turn back on after Spring Break (not expecting it really) and we’ll see some progress again. Ha! I’m not really counting on it.

Meanwhile, I did do some art this weekend…some more ironing…

I got the bugs done and the bird…

And the sun. And then ironed everything onto a background…

Looks good. That’s one of my hand-dyes…where I slop up all the leftovers with a piece of fabric. Works. So tonight, I’ll be doing stitchdown.

My ceramics studio posts a video when stuff comes out of the kiln…some of my first class pieces are in there!

Mine are all the weird non-cactus shapes. I made a bunch the first time. I think one of the coil pots might be mine? Can’t remember. Need to go back and look at my photos. I joined the studio last week, ordered my first clay yesterday, and have been writing down all the things I want to make, some of which are very utilitarian, like plant pots and a mug and a number sign for the house since my cheap plastic one is fading. But also, I’m making a list of art things I want to try. This is cool. I’m looking forward to spending some time there making new things.

I did read a book and a half on Saturday, started a third on Sunday…actually, no, started it Saturday night while waiting for the Man’s band to start playing. I might be hiding in fiction, y’all.

Beautiful. Plus I listened some more to another book. So LOTS of fiction. I know I wrote “mother tree” in my journal. That must be something. Certainly it feels like something.

I got my copy of the Fierce Planets catalog…

It looks like a really beautiful show, y’all. I’m hoping to see it somewhere. I can’t go to the opening…too far, wrong time of year. But it will travel, hopefully closer.

Dinner drawing, Friday night with the Man. Using up a restaurant gift card…

We had to drive to two locations. Long story. It turned out nicely. Weird drawing though.

There he is at his Saturday night show.

I didn’t make it all 4 hours. He barely did. He’s got some nasty cough. Both he and the boychild are sick, so knock on wood that my immune system is strong this week. Ha! Boychild went back to work today. His breakfast smelled better than mine. I should get that recipe. You know when you make something and freeze it to get you through the next two weeks, and then it’s OK, but not really great? Yeah. That’s this week.

Simba would totally eat it, if I’d left him.

Man, he has crusty nose again. Need to find the nose butter. He doesn’t like it, but it helps. Weirdly designed dog.

This popped up. Might be relevant in November.

In some states, much sooner than that.

OK. Teaching adaptations. Not hard, I think…but you know…Monday brains. I think my staff meeting after school is watching the staff-student basketball games. Last time, I felt like I needed to stay and watch the girls play, because they play last and everyone leaves, which I think is rude. Also, why can’t they play first sometimes? Sigh. What I really need after school is to get a handle on the rest of the week and the week after we come back from break, so I don’t need to come in and prep over break. We don’t have a nice trip planned for many reasons, which sucks. But I have shit to do around the house…hoping to get some of that set up this week. Yeah. Well. It’s just not a fun year. Parts of it are (the ceramic stuff) and parts are just keeping me going (all the books) and parts could feel better (the art in general)…so those are all things to think about that are more exciting than cleaning bathrooms and floors.

NOT Being a Teacher…

(groans) What is this early morning hell? How much tea can I get into me before I start to teach? I didn’t even finish posting things for class yesterday. Why? Because I tried to spend a chunk of my weekend NOT being a teacher. Mis. Take. Well, not. But sheesh, this job. Last week. Deep breaths. I think I can get through the next two weeks. I’m gonna hafta.

Friday night, the Man had a show at the Music Box. Before that, I had made it home and was slumped on the couch, trying to decide what dinner might look like. Glad to say the boychild is a good cook, because he fed me…

Also luckily, the singer in the band, his wife had a table and let me sit at it, which is good, because I was exhausted. And they were the openers, so they only played for an hour. Much nicer than the four-hour show that’s coming up this Saturday.

Saturday morning, I crazily got up kind of early and took an online class from Nicholas Ball, who was in Wales…

At some point, he said, OK hold up your fish, and I had been diligently taking notes, NOT sewing. So I only did two and one has its fins in totally the wrong place (oops) and some people made like ten and I feel like a fish loser, but I will survive. Then I drove to Oceanside to drop off my piece for this show…

I’ll be at the opening on March 30. Hoping it’ll be a cool show.

Came back and persuaded the Man to go for a short birthday hike…

Three miles. But it was beautiful out. Spring has sprung.

And I love being able to make it outside like this.

Then boychild had the suggestion of San Diego Restaurant Week for dinner, so we picked a restaurant and navigated shitty parking…

That was in the bathroom. The food was good, different, which was nice. I drew a little, but the food came out too fast to finish.

Then we came back and I trimmed fabric pieces.

Sunday was full of all the normal get-ready-for-school-week things, but we ended the day going out to dinner with my parents…

And then I finished trimming everything.

On to the next step. I also shipped a quilt off to this show, opening March 24.

The Man is delivering another today for a local show. I have that announcement somewhere too. Sigh. I’m discombobulated. And buried. Two weeks until Spring Break…

I will have to speak to people unfortunately. Need to get the house fixed. And this will be the next two weeks…

Maybe not die…just internally die. I have books to read, though, and art to make. I should commit to making a fabric fish a night, and then I’d have 10. Except I can’t commit to that this week…3 out of the 5 worknights are going to be late and doubled up. Whoops. Oh well. No plans. Just wish teachers luck today. You know how tired YOU are? Imagine a bunch of 13-year-olds. Yup. It’s gonna be crap.

I’ll Need to Pick Another One…

IDK what happened this morning, but it’s already late and I’m not ready. Really, today, I’m sitting in my classroom while someone else does a presentation that will apply to maybe 10 of my students, if that, but it’s not MY decision to make, so I’m just going to use the time to work so I don’t have to do it all after school this week. Win maybe win? We’ll see. I know I need to put in a healthy chunk of time this week on work because I didn’t do it this weekend. I finished grades Friday night, then mostly blew it off for the rest of the weekend. I was busy with other stuff.

I went to my quilt guild meeting and worked on this…

Then went to a baby shower and handed over this…

Then went to dinner with this guy…

And drew this…

Friday night, I finished tracing this…

And Saturday night, I turned it into this…

And last night, it became this…

I had picked a background fabric, but I don’t think it’s gonna work. So I’ll need to pick another one.

This was me trying to finish grades Friday morning.

Thanks to our grading program. It eventually figured its shit out. Typical though. I also gave a quiz (it was one question) and then got to deal with this.

I guess. Huh. Fun times. Both A students. Come-to-Jesus moment for them. I guess.

I just now noticed Kitten had thrown up on the top part and under the keyboard. Sigh. Ugh. Cleanup is fun. And somehow I’m still late this morning. I wonder why.

Good explanation there.

OK. Sigh. This week. It’ll be fine. As long as the thunderstorms stay away from the field trip day and all the things work and nothing more breaks and maybe even some good things will happen, in between my boob hurting (still, apparently can for up to 4 months, shoot me now) and my stress levels. At least I have art at night and books on my iPad.

Give Them Cookies…

My days are still off. Whatever. I think I know they’re off at the moment…certainly I chant the current day in my head over and over just as a reminder (THURSDAY THURSDAY). I’m kind of exhausted and braindead, but also getting stuff done, but really not all of it or enough of it. Y’all know how that goes. I know that my car key fob battery died yesterday, so I have to set the car alarm off to get in the car. That’s fun. I did it in the school parking lot, then went to one place to buy a battery (nope), set it off again, went to Pilates, set it off again, used the internet to find another place to buy a battery (double nope), set it off again, and then a third place (triple nope, the internet is a big bad fucking liar), set it off again. The Man says I can take his car today, which is good, because otherwise I would set it off at least four times that I can think of. Good times. I was so exhausted by the time I got home that I just sat on the couch for about an hour (reading and drinking tea and petting the dog) until I could deal with dinner. I had to deal with the trash and compost crap first when I got home. Not good times. At least I got to read. Always pro that.

It didn’t give me enough energy to work on the baby quilt, unfortunately. I got an email that I needed to meet today with the boss, losing another prep period, and I’ve already lost the other three this week, so I spent about an hour last night trying to make sense of (and find) all the assignments for the next unit. Trying to get my head around the logical story of it. Because the other (mostly newbie) teacher was like, oh yeah, I’m all over the place, and I’m like, hey how are your kids dealing with that? Hmmm. So yeah. Please ask me again why I don’t have time to do all the extras at school. So hopefully today and tomorrow’s prep-sucking meetings won’t take ALL my prep, so I can actually copy stuff and create stuff and make sure next week isn’t a clusterfuck. I mean, it might be ANYWAY. Yesterday’s assignment certainly threw them. Shouldn’t have. I blame Trimester 2 lazy ass didn’t do any of the work last week (so many blank papers). So I gave them more time (not a ton), and today we move on. Lots of blank stares. Lots of my reminding them that they have stuff in their folders that will help them. One kid is like, “so where do I find the answer?” and I gently touched his head. And nodded. Figure it out.

The next academic assignment will be easier.

ANYWAY. School. Fuck me.

Art though. Also maybe fuck me. All over the map. The kids and my ex gave me a ceramics class series for Christmas and I had my first class on Tuesday night. We started with pinch pots. I made a lot of random things. I didn’t have a plan (obviously).

I think I decided four of them were plant pots. That one on the right is too heavy on one side. It might fall over.

I can’t really explain any of it. I was just messing around. It was very meditative.

That’s definitely some sort of figure on the right. Anyway. Next week is coiling, which is my favorite, but they have an extruder, which I’ve never used before and am totally looking forward to messing around with. Woo! And I have to think about what larger project I’m going to do in Week 4. I might become a member. I don’t know. Maybe for the summer? It’s open 24/7 to members. I could go in there for three hours and build random garden ornaments.

I worked on this a little on Tuesday night when I got home. It’s cool. They need feet. Also they need to be a lot older for what I really want to do next.

But it’s a place to start. I tend to draw indeterminate/young age. I will need to practice old age. More wrinkles? Not sure.

And then I finished this one. Not sure about it.

But I numbered it. It’s small, but there’s 313 pieces (because I never know when to stop).

So blurry. Amazing photography. Really. I can start tracing tonight. No, I haven’t finished the baby quilt or the other art quilt, but this one is for a deadline, so I should do it first. Wah. Whatever.

I’m really proud of this. We have a certain publisher/author we use for all our homework assignments. They’re called thinking probes. But there aren’t many for the genetics unit. I made some other stuff, cobbled together from quizzes that were part of assignments I was giving (I don’t do a lot of quizzes), but I needed something for GMOs, and I’m sitting there staring at one of our thinking probes…I can do that. So I used AI to answer a question that AI created about GMOs, and then I used the names of the other science teachers as the friends…

Although one of them wants to change their answer to something about bringing dinosaurs back. Which I might change for next year, but I’d already copied them for this year. I’m so proud of this one thing. I was trying to use AI for a lot of things yesterday, because I don’t have anyone really helping with this grade level. AI is like a sort of competent and sort of knowledgeable friend. Not a great one. Either friend or competent or knowledgeable. Although it gave me a good BAD answer. ANYWAY. I did this one good thing yesterday.

Simba is stuck with just us this week with the boychild gone. We couldn’t find his lion toy when Katie was visiting…we hide all the toys because she eats them. But he found it and brought it to me the other night…

Wanted to make sure I saw it again last night…

DON’T TOUCH IT THOUGH. Yeah. I did.

I just don’t send it at that point. Really. Fuck that.

OK. Today. Is a lot. We have the district coming by to see what we are doing with literacy, which means a lot of outside during advisory with our kids, trying to get them to mingle and talk about the book so we can give them cookies. Sounds hard? You’d be surprised. Then I need to remember to do literacy in science (it’s been a rough month y’all…I’ve been slacking) so they can see it when they tour through, although if they don’t come in the first ten minutes, they won’t see it. So there. Then teach about pedigrees…next part of genetics. I revised a lot for this so they would have to do big chunks on their own. It’s my new thing. Less direct teaching, more putting them on the spot to do their own work. We’ll see how it goes. It helps me get the grading done, for sure. I just sit at the table with the kids who won’t get on task and grade…they are remarkably compliant then. Although some birdwalk like crazy. Whatever. So yeah. I need to make more tea and go to the place that exhausts me. Run errands after school. Hope my battery shows up so I can drive my own car tomorrow (my jellybean stash is in there). Zoom with stitching friends. On the couch. Stitching. Nice. SLEEP for fucks sake. Really need that. Start tracing that quilt and try to get my head behind it. Goalz.

Off.

I’m off again. What day is today? First day of work day. Whatever day that is when it’s not Monday? So yeah. I’m off. Brainwise. Blogwise. Not actually off work today. That I do have to do.

Let’s start with art because it’s nicer. I am drawing something for a FIG show that is based on a collage someone else did on a word (rights) that I assigned to them. They are doing something (probably digital collage type) based on a drawing I did on a word (unity) that they assigned to me. So I started with what they had…and drew a little…

I needed to let it sit. So I did. And last night, I did a little more…

I seemed to own a little more of the redo there. Still needs some stuff, so I’m not done.

I also did some straight up, just drawing…a little at dinner…

And more last night…

I have something I’m working on in my head. This isn’t really it, but it’s a place to draw until what IS it comes out. Drawing is good. I miss it.

In not-art, but still fabric news…I finished this beast…

Imma say no to things more this year. Seriously. It’ll get delivered this week.

And this one, which I did take on because it’s a friend’s baby…from fabric…

To blocks…

To a plan…

I sewed them all together and cut the borders. I have until March 2 to finish. Should be fine.

We walked the parental dog…lots of water at our local hiking space.

This is not a trail we normally go on, but we needed to go around the lake that went across the path.

My sewing machine doesn’t like to fill bobbins from the needle. So it was fussy, didn’t stop filling (so I stopped eventually), and that was too much for it.

Grrr. OK. Well Imma give up on filling it from the needle then.

I framed this piece I bought from @cedarhilljackie.

aka Jackie Bradshaw. I love her stuff and she was having a sale, so I bought one. Made me happy.

Legit concerns.

I just prefer not to hang out with a lot of them. Ironically.

Cool. So the doc called yesterday with superfast biopsy results. It’s not cancer (yay). It’s a complex sclerosing lesion (fun to say 5 times fast). So it probably still needs to be removed for a variety of reasons (feel free to Google it). So surgery. But not cancer surgery. So there are many feels and thoughts about that. I’m still processing. But in general, good news. As long as I don’t think about surgery. Yeah.

ANYWAY. Today is an interesting clusterfuck. Obviously I’m going back to work with a slightly sore, slightly bruised, and slightly itchy boob. Always fun. Plus a giant spider bite I picked up Friday night. In bed. On my neck. Hopefully it then crawled into my mouth and I swallowed it and dissolved it with my stomach acid. So there’s the teaching thing. What are the odds kids did the work on Friday? Whatever. Not my problem. Theirs, because we’re starting an academic assignment based on it today. Fun times. I did spend about 2 hours Saturday and 5 hours Sunday grading. Then Monday, I spent about 5 hours trying to get my head around the next part of the unit. I’d been seriously stuck on HOW to teach it and I had a breakthrough so I think it’s good. I’m actually planned out through Thursday, maybe Friday of NEXT week for once. Yeah. Exciting. Gotta copy some stuff today. Don’t know when, because I have to meet with the grade level I don’t teach. Plus do some learning management system meeting after school, and then I’m going to my first ceramics handbuilding class! The kids/ex gave it to me for Xmas and yes, I know how to do all the things already, but you have to take the intro class to use the studio, so I’m doing it. Con: I’m not sure when and how I’m eating dinner and I won’t be home until probably 9 PM and probably I’m still gonna have to empty the dishwasher because it’s ‘my turn’ but sheesh. I’m hoping someone takes pity on my long day and does it for me. Betting not, but whatever.

OK, itchy spider bite. Itchy boob. Going to work.