Rough day yesterday…sometimes school is hard, y’all. And I’m still not feeling well…can’t separate out whether it’s a cold I’m fighting or the new medication, but none of it feels fun. So that (of course) affects my ability to deal with stressors, like kids who pretend to be windmills. Whatever. Today I will handle it better. I might have to sit next to the windmill for a while, but I can do that. Even when I’m dizzy and headachy. Seriously, that shit can take a walk. I’m trying to stick with the new meds for a week before emailing my doctor, hoping the worst of the side effects go away. We’ll see.

So when I finally made it home, I seriously wasn’t a fan of doing any work for school, but realistically, grades are due in less than a week. My goal is one assignment a day. If I can get some done at school…great! Yesterday was not the day for that. Even the non-windmill kids weren’t in the mood to do anything independently (aargh), so I did a lot of management. Like why are you just sitting there? I’m thinking. No you’re not. Thinking is more active than what you’re doing and you shouldn’t be drooling. Also talking to your friends about what you saw before school? Not thinking. So there’s all that.

I went to the gym instead for a while. I wanted to read my book, plus I’m one of those freaks who actually likes exercise (wish I had time to do more of it), so I went for it. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Should do it again soon. Came back, co-cooked dinner (um, so even when you’re co-cooking, apparently you’re still in charge. Hmn. There’s that. I’m going to go on strike some day.), ate the foods, and then finished watching the first episode of Umbrella Academy (cool show!) and grading that one assignment per day. Success! I did good. Then I input those grades and all of a sudden it was 11 PM. See, that’s the shit that happens. But art! Art is important and WILL be done every day. It was way too late to clean the entryway floor though so I could trim the giant ass quilt. I’ll do that tonight, when I don’t have to deal with dinner. So then what can I do in just an hour?

Easy peasy. Finish the drawing. This is for a show that’s about indoors and outdoors, comparing those of us who live in mostly sunny and warm Southern California to a artistic group in Sweden, where it’s fucking cold and snowy. So their take on being outdoors is significantly different from ours, we think. Or not? We’ll see. I personally love being outside and wish I could do it more. Being in a classroom all day sometimes drives me bonkers. Anyway, all I had left was the sky, so I stared at it for a while. I didn’t have to do anything, but in keeping with the outdoors theme, I added space. I should work on my space though because this is the same space I keep adding. I should research more planets and weird space things (NASA here I come! Insta follow follows…)…

But this will be good. I like it. This is about 3 1/2 hours of drawing…not counting the original three drawings or so that I rejected.

Then it was only 11:30. Go to bed early? Fuck no. Number the damn thing (and this is how I never go to bed at a reasonable time).

So yeah, those ladybugs will need embroidery. Maybe even their little antenna things should be embroidered, but I numbered them for fun.

Lotso bugs on her face. Kinda like the hike the other day. Very buggy. So there’s 803 pieces I think in this thing. That’s not too bad. I don’t have much time to finish it, so yeah…should get on that. Deadlines! I’ve been ignoring them. Doesn’t help to not feel well and be stressed about health issues. I’m working on that…from multiple places.

OK, work calls. Windmill boy and all. Art tonight. I can do this!

*The Marshall Tucker Band, Can’t You See

Why did I not get much done last night? Well, we got to sweep water out of the garage and then move some stuff around because of that. I sat down to read for about 30 minutes, a new book, and that time expanded. Because books are more interesting than grading assignments. Then Valentine’s Day, we go to the total dive we had picked out to avoid the nice-restaurant crowds, and their cook hadn’t shown up. Hmmm. So we drove to dive-ish bar number 2 and ate.

After all that, all I had the mental space for was trying to draw the start of the next quilt. AGAIN. I’m trying to enlarge (and slightly change) a drawing I already did and kept thinking it would be easy, but my brain and fingers aren’t cooperating. Every single face has been off.

Here’s the original (too small and not quite right) drawing…

I want to fix what’s on the face a bit, and then have her shoulders above the dirt, and do something totally different with her hair and the sky. So really, it would be easier to redraw it larger and then fix it there. But I haven’t been able to get the face right…

Attempt number 2 has some things going for it, but I don’t like the shape of the nose at all…or the hair.

Although it doesn’t look as bad in the light of the morning. Sigh. Nope. That nose.

Attempt number 3…didn’t make it past this stage.

Nose is wrong. Eyes too small. Mouth wrong.

I’m not usually this fussy. I usually just go with whatever I draw, figure it’s fate or something.

Attempt number 4…

Fucking A. So I like how the face is going, the stuff ON the face, but totally hate how long and narrow it is. Eyes are too small, needs a forehead.

So I’m debating going to the copy place and just enlarging the first one, but then putting it underneath a larger piece and tracing what I like. Because I really like the eyes and nose and mouth in the first one. And I’m trying to repeat that and maybe that’s not worth this much time. So I think I’m going to toss the smaller sketchbook in my bag and hit the copy store after school.

Other things: I’m sad about Opportunity, the Mars Rover…I’m sad about the wall and people’s obsession with that instead of solving the other problems with immigration. I had to take Benadryl last night to deal with the stupid post-CT rash from the contrast dye…it’s not going away without help. So this morning, I’m totally groggy (on one of those damn things). And it’s a lab day, so that ought to be interesting. I’m glad that the rash is somewhat better. I’m sad that Monday is the last day off of school for the next 8 weeks. I’m going to totally enjoy the fuck out of Monday then. I’m glad the heavy rain from yesterday stopped before the garage totally filled. I’m superglad that years ago, we put everything up on shelves and off the floor. I’m also glad that the branch that fell off the tree in the backyard onto the very spot where Calli likes to pee did not hit her or the house or the deck. Yes, trimming that tree is on my list…when I get the other crap paid off that needs to be paid off. I’m incredibly glad today is Friday. And I can see blue sky this morning. I’m also glad that I found some of my more expensive diabetes supplies on Amazon. Fuck the pharmacy man. They gougin’.

All right. Off to school. Gonna steal some of the boychild’s Spring Roll Bowl from my Monday night dinner (’twas good) for lunch. It’s spicy, so hot flashes will come…but they’ve been coming anyway. Oh yeah, and yesterday I got a llama. Or an alpaca. I love it. I bought the flowers…our special-ed kids are doing these pop-up shops for coffee every week, and added flower delivery yesterday…

Very nice job on the teacher’s part…oh yeah, I got a chocolate from one of my special ed kids. He can be very nice. I guess they all can be. Laughing about that. Good thing to remember today I guess.

*The Lemonheads, Into Your Arms

So I have no running water. Apparently my pipe way way way down the street, but AFTER the meter, so it’s my problem, is broken…has been probably for days. Not that we could tell here, unfortunately, so I probably have a $3000 water bill coming that I don’t wanna know about right now. It’s interesting because the neighbor down the street widened our private road when he built his place, and in doing so, moved my pipes. Like 2 years ago? And that’s the road that’s now broken with my pipe underneath it. Working on getting some info on that, because seriously, I don’t think they should be breaking if they were installed correctly, but more importantly, I need water. I took a shower at my parents’ house, because I have to go to work today, like a normal person, although there will be two people here who also might need water at some point. I’m hoping the plumber calls back soon…because I’m leaving for work in about 20 minutes.

Yes, my stress levels are a little sky high at the moment. It’s a lab day at school too…so lots of management and behavior checks, plus reminding them NOT to pour all the water into the sugar. Ah chemistry. Plus we’re supposed to be going on a hike with a group tomorrow morning, and I’m trying to decide whether to cancel. I don’t want to, but I might have to.

I found out about the leak while I was at my monthly stitching meeting, getting very little done…

Seriously, I did the stems/leaves under the lion and next to the house. And I didn’t even finish. Stress does not help me stitch. Stitching helps with stress.

I came home and meditated (in real life, I actually did, because generalized deep breathing was not helping)…I did some school stuff too, because yeah. That never stops. And it’s not like I could fix the pipe right then anyway.

After meditation, I couldn’t quilt. That requires a significant amount of motor control that I was missing, but I needed something to try to shut up the panic brain, the one that’s trying to fix everything (just STOP…you can’t DO anything right now)…so I started trying to draw the larger version of what I need for the next quilt.

I briefly debated just enlarging the existing drawing, but there’s things about it that I wanted to change, so I went bigger and different, but not a lot.

But the new nose really bugs me and now I want to change the hair too. I’m going to try again. But not right now…right now, I’m going to go to work and attempt to function without exploding, and hopefully at some point a plumber will get involved and maybe even fix this clusterfuck. Who knows.

Ah yes, dogs and rain. One dog doesn’t mind, trundles out in all weather, although needs a friend when it’s dark. She gets scared. The other one runs out, pees as fast as possible, sometimes still on the pavement, then yips to come back in and refuses to be toweled down. Kind of an asshole. The other hides when it’s raining, pretending he doesn’t really have to go out for hours on end, until he’s desperate. Totally an asshole. This morning, the good one, the one who doesn’t mind weather, had a poop fail. Gaack. My morning, nauseated. Oh well. I don’t really need to eat breakfast. Oh wait, yes I do. The little one, the one who hides, ran out and did his thing with no complaints. He must have been desperate. The other one, who’s leaving tonight (the cats will appreciate free reign over the house again…reign, not rein, right? In this case?), did a lot of barking and scratching at the door. The rain will stop soon and hopefully that will help.

Yesterday was a mess. The lab went well, although rushed because we had short periods. We’ll catch up today. I came home and went to the gym, which is good, but it kicked my butt for getting anything else done apparently. Well, not entirely true. I did a bunch of computer stuff, booked a hotel for our LA trip in May to see Amanda Palmer, excited about that. Sent the girlchild food money on her school account. Very exciting that. Sent out a bunch of emails about photos for an exhibit I need to put on a blog for an art group. Finished my book. Well, that was at the gym. I meditated. That was good. I might have fallen asleep quicker? Or that might just have been how tired I was from not sleeping the night before. Worried about a student. Can’t do anything about it, of course. I’ll worry until I know something, and the fun part about that is that I might never know. I still worry about this kid I had when I was a student teacher in 2001. Seriously. I wonder if she’s OK. Can’t remember her name, but I still wonder. Worry.

So did I make art? Well, sort of. I was trying to let my brain stop running like it was on fire, so I reconciled the daily calendar, which was a clusterfuck until around 10 PM…up until then, I had one thing crossed off and 72 things clamoring for my attention. I moved some stuff further off than today, talked to the guy about some things and moved them into a different list, and just plain old moved some to the weekend. Sigh. And then I drew. I knew I couldn’t make any progress on the quilt last night…not enough time or energy. I needed a good 2-hour block (maybe tonight?). So I drew a little picture…

Still working out the ideas for the next quilt…this drawing stuff helps quiet my brain down.

I wish I could sleep like this guy…

I don’t think he worked very hard yesterday, but here he is. He probably has fewer responsibilities.

OK. Well so yesterday wasn’t a great day for achievements. Today can be better. Just don’t think about the 2-hour workshop after school. Today I pinbaste. That’s my only goal. Well, and eat right, drink plenty of water when I have access to a bathroom (problematic), have healthy conversations with 12-year-olds, get some grading done, and drive safe. There we go. That’ll do.

‘Tis Saturday morn and the wind comes and goes, some large droplets splash down between the tree branches, always hitting my glasses. Seriously, they never miss. I hear the sounds of a big dog slurping an entire water bowl up, which means she’ll need to pee soon, and the whisking of the last 4 eggs in the house. Boychild must be making breakfast. Note to self: buy more eggs. My breakfast? Triscuits and pub cheese with horseradish. I can’t be bothered to be more creative. No eggs too. My blood sugar is some weirdo anyway. It doesn’t behave the way it’s supposed to. At some point, I’ll have to go back to the doc to figure that out.

Yesterday was exhausting. I’m not sure why. Maybe just because it was Friday. I had to prep Monday’s lab ahead of time…probably better to be prepared anyway. This chemistry unit is high maintenance…the kids are engaged, fully, but it’s a mess to clean up and a pain to set up. We try not to do labs three days in a row…it’s too much. Put a weekend between them. Or a day of something else. That said, they did awesome with the Oobleck…very few issues. I’m glad.

I worked when I got home…got through one assignment and inputted about four. This is the weekend of work, for sure. I need to get closer to caught up. That’s the plan. It’s supposed to dump down rain, so that should help.

Grading happened on the couch with this little one grunting in his dreams…

The little gray one trying to climb into my lap or onto the computer…

And eventually settling down. Boychild fed me something that looked like it would be weird from the ingredients, but as always, was quite tasty. That’s when my blood sugar went whackadoodle though, by no fault of the meal…it was well below the carbs I should have been able to handle. So I got on the bike and continued to read my book for 45 minutes or so. After that, I was too damn tired to do any sewing. That’ll be later today.

I did draw though.

Because I didn’t want to feel like I hadn’t done anything dammit. I hate that feeling. I’m not going to have that feeling today. First I’m going to shower like I’m leaving the house. Then I’m putting my pajamas back on. Then I will grade stuff and prep for next week, followed by finishing the stitch down. I might venture out. You never know. It is supposed to rain a lot, but whatever. I need some plants. I might do that. I might even do another drawing. It’s all possible right now.