Don’t Worry About the Extra Piece of Chicken

OK, I wrote an entire blogpost that WordPress deleted. Asshole. I don’t have time for this.

I think the cat is annoyed when I’m copyediting. She’s not half as annoyed as I am that she won’t keep her head off the keyboard.

That isn’t a bad position…it’s the current one, where she’s batting at my hand on the mouse and using the number keys as a pillow that I object to. Yesterday she eventually gave up, probably because I was playing loud music and the speaker was vibrating her butt, and went and laid in the blue fabric drawer that she prefers.

Heat rises, cats go low.

I’m panicking. Too much going on. Too many details to remember. I can’t even remember to write them all down. I even just messaged my prescription service to tell them NOT to call me to tell me I need a refill. They already emailed me, and the phone message just says I need to call, not why. So then I call and yell at the computer message because I KNOW YOU FUCKER. I don’t need the system to second guess me. I should be able to turn those off online, but no. I can’t. I can stop email spam from a company, but not phone spam from my own health insurance. Like spend less money on those phone calls and more on discounting my meds, you assholes.

OK. It’s gonna be fine. But I’m copyediting this manuscript, and I’m not even halfway, which is fine, but it makes me second guess everything I did last year. At the beginning of the year, teachers are all like making new resolutions to be amazing and build awesome relationships and conquer the pile of grading and be oh so efficient, and then we get to about January and we’re crying in the prep room because there’s this one kid who sucks and we’ve tried everything and grading sucks and everything sucks and by the end of the year, we’ve written off that kid. And sometimes that kid will grow up and still fail, but sometimes they figure their shit out and come back and tell me about straight As and a full ride to UCLA or even just that they’re a journeyman electrician and married to this awesome woman who appreciates that I taught him about birth control and I remember that I don’t really suck as a teacher. It’s a lovely ride.

I gave Calli a stick yesterday during the copyediting. She likes sticks. She also likes walks, the swimming pool, and pine cones. I think long walks are out of the picture for her future, unfortunately.

Later today, we’ll take the little dog and my parents’ dog, along with the nephew, for a nice long walk. I need that.

I picked colors for this.

And I decided where they should go…

I didn’t decide on some because I was worried I’d run out of certain colors of thread. I’ll decide later. Plus that cloud. Sigh. I need 6 colors. I also traced it on the fabric, so it’s ready for me to work on. When I have time.

And I cut more stuff out. I’m at about 5 1/2 hours…

I’m not sure that pile on top looks like 4 1/2 hours. I don’t know. Tonight anyway. I won’t finish, obviously.

I’m experimenting with some new food things. This is a sconecake. It wasn’t meant to be a scone cake. It should not be so flat. I used almond flour, which is lower carb than regular flour. However, it’s higher in fat…which isn’t a plus.

We’ll see if the frozen ones behave better. So many food things I’m trying to work through. They’re not all logical. It actually doesn’t always make sense to do the low-carb thing, and gluten-free or paleo doesn’t always work for diabetics either. It’s not just wheat that’s the problem. Plus I hate sweet potatoes…so it’s fine that they’re low carb, because I’m still not gonna eat them. Blech. Same with peanut butter. I’m still on the fence about almond flour.

OK, so tomorrow I’m working on school stuff all day at school with my team. Today, I’m copyediting like a speedy beast, then walking with the peeps. Then cutting stuff out. Trying not to stress too much. Right now though? Right now I need more deep breaths. The title? One more thing I need to deal with. Later. It’ll be fine.

I Manage

I skipped the last two days of writing. I usually skip Sunday. Monday I skipped because the day got away from me. I spent most of the weekend, like many, watching and not watching the news, repeat on Sunday. This is not ok. Fear and anger should not be weaponized like this. I suspect most of those stopping here are fully aware of that. Solutions! No more wimpy words. I actually had a guy call himself a good guy with a gun to my face Saturday night. Nah.

So many people hurt by these men’s actions.

I’m writing this on the elliptical. I was smart and preloaded the pictures at home while eating breakfast. I can’t go to the gym without eating anymore.

I finished ironing Sunday. I guess that’s the good news. It’s 149 fabrics and 15 hours of ironing.

That’s more time than this many pieces would normally take. I’m not sure why. There’s everything that needs to be cut out.

I have one more embroidery design to do, and I knew I had some sitting time coming up, so I sat down Sunday night and drew it. I still need to pick fabric and colors…maybe today.

And then I started cutting pieces out.

Baby lizard in my office. I had already saved one in the living room. This one got away.

Hopefully it will stay hidden…because both cats like it in here. Kitten was somersaulting for boychild. She likes pets.

So a good chunk of yesterday was trading my aging Subie for a newer one. My mechanic was growing more and more anxious for my well-being I think, between oil issues and a creaky suspension. She’s old and did her duty.

Bye. Yeah I got another one, but went for a basic model, low mileage though. She’ll help us camp and carry dogs just fine.

I finished embroidering this last night. Thanks to Linda for the linen itself.

It’s hard to spend time with his words when they are so hypocritical and antithetical to what I believe America stands for. I’ll finish the edges and send it off to the Tiny Pricks Project with the rest of them from my art group.

There’s a few things missing from the new car: the license plate needs two more screws and I just happened to find some on my kitchen counter.

Like you do. It may be a chaotic mess, but it often yields good things. I still need a cargo cover and a rubber mat for the back.

I cut some more stuff out last night. I’m guessing it’ll be 10 hours total. I’m 3 1/2 hours in so far.

That’s a lot of hours to go. That whole huge pile on the bottom. Plus the rest of the copyediting project showed up. And I spent two or three hours yesterday trying to get copies done for the start of school. My days are full. What’s new? I manage.

Oh yeah, everyone should read some Toni Morrison today. Her writing is wondrous. Her death is a great loss. “Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” Beloved

Our Way Is Darkest Night*

Well. In case you were wondering, making an anti-gun quilt doesn’t stop people shooting other people. And neither does voting in politicians who make stronger gun laws, because my state, although it has many positive qualities, cannot stop other states from selling angry white men more guns. And it cannot stop those men from coming back to our state, because we don’t believe walls are the solution…we believe government should be the solution, government should protect us from AK-47s…my state can’t stop men bringing those guns back to our state and killing innocent people enjoying themselves at a garlic festival. I will continue to be angry at those who perpetuate the gun sales (this gun is not necessary to anyone) and the hatred toward other and the anger and the illogical science behind white supremacy. How is a 19-year-old so angry that this makes sense? Killing a child? I’m sad. I’m frustrated.

Sigh.

I also have a massive headache because I had to fast this morning for a medical test and I just got some water and tea and food in me, and my body is still trying to decide if that’s enough. It’s not. More of all of those things.

I’ve been gone from the computer for a couple of days. I’m trying to manage all the things. Ha! There are too many things. Always. The copyediting project came in yesterday, so I will start dealing with that today. It’s a whole ‘nother mind set. The to-do list has spilled over into multiple days on my calendar now, so that’s an issue.

Sunday, I had an art meeting, so I will have pictures from that (also means I need to write a blogpost or two for them. One today. One next week. It’s on my calendar now.). I didn’t get much art done Saturday…I painted ceramics (crap, I need a photo of that) and went to the man’s show. Sunday, I only got this done…

Last night, I only got 5 more letters done. I’ll get there. It’s not hard. I just don’t have a lot of time right now.

Yesterday, I was at the EdInnovateLive2019 conference here in San Diego. This is Sir Ken Robinson, of TedTalk fame. He was funny…and right on.

There were some interesting speakers here, but it was a lot more sitting than I like. I missed today’s lectures for the medical stuff. The conference was at University of San Diego…and it was a beautiful day.

It’s a nice school. Although religious and freakin’ expensive.

I started drawing this somewhere…Palm Springs? Worked on it at one of the wineries we toured, and finished it in one of the lectures yesterday.

Want to color it? Join my Patreon. I need to scan it and clean it up, and then send it off to my Patreon peoples…

Calli last night…waiting for me to solve the problem of firecrackers. I cannot do this baby girl.

I finally finished cutting all these pieces out…

It took 7 hours to cut them all…

And another 41 minutes to sort them…

It was worth staying up a little late for that.

OK, now I’m ready to start ironing. Well. Except the studio is a mess. I have a pile of fabrics to put away. I have to think about guns and white boys and anger and abortion rights and trauma-based instruction (that’s the copyediting) and the beginning of the school year and getting new students. Then I can iron.

*Led Zeppelin, Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

A Few Moments…

Oh my Saturday. A day off? I think that means I don’t need to run any errands today. Because the last two days have kicked my errand-running ass. Really, trying to drive all over town in stupid traffic with stupid people cutting me off or refusing to let me get over from an only lane or not letting me out of my parking space (like really? MOVE…) is not a fun way to spend a day…or two. The plus is that a bunch of stuff is done and out of my hair and some things I actually did EARLY for once in a million years. I still have 4 bags of books that need to make it to library bookshops (why do they make it such a pain in the ass?). But I can do that. AND I got Speculoos cookies from Trader Joe’s (which I really don’t need…but whatever…). NO ERRAND DAY. Actually, today is kinda squishy packed anyway, but with sociable stuff. And dancing. With strangers. Because that’s how I roll.

So one thing I did yesterday was to check out this gallery where I’ll be entering work in September. I should have checked it when I was in Liberty Station last week, but that slipped my mind. And ironically, I’ll be there again today. So I didn’t need to go yesterday, but apparently my brain didn’t know that. Fucker.

Having seen the space, I’m feeling much better about hanging my work there.

I did a return shopping thing, smiled at Greenpeace kids, shipped two things out in a post office I didn’t even know existed, and checked out another library space for quilt meetings (they didn’t have one), plus got rid of some kid books in a responsible manner. I also did a little shopping for food…yet another potluck on my schedule. I think I solved it. Unfortunately, I did have some stressful annoying irritating moments while doing all that. Like seriously, why are people so stupid in parking lots? I just don’t understand it.

True story. It was good. I don’t remember the lyrics any more though, so no fame and fortune for me. Screaming did help.

When I got done with all that, I felt like I owed myself a moment. A few moments. Sitting on the deck with the dogs while talking to the girlchild on the phone and trying to draw.

All the sticks and bits of sticks on the the deck are totally and completely Calli’s fault. I need to sweep again.

Watching the hummingbirds race around…this isn’t a final drawing. It’s a drawing toward an idea.

We’ll see where it goes.

I spent some afternoon time prepping the dinner parts so I could take the little dog out for a short walk. The old lady is still having issues and the boychild isn’t feeling well, so it was just me and the little asshole. Nice plant.

Could be thistle. Could be artichoke? Nah, thistle.

This path goes by houses for a good chunk of it. It’s not my favorite walk, but it’s good for a hot day and a short time period. I didn’t leave until 6 PM, because it was too damn hot…and I still had to make dinner.

Nice bits of shade.

Non native.

Side eye from the puppy about this project…

My words keep getting bigger. I might fix that. I might not. Adjust. Not tear out and redo.

I wanted to cut more out yesterday, but life. You know. It does what it does.

I did spend a few hours cutting though.

See? I tired him out.

I am so not ready for school. I’m not supposed to think about it until August 1. I’m failing at that.

Think quilt! I wanna make this quilt. I like it.

So I finished cutting 3 yards, one to go. I’m going to work on it today and hopefully get done, but I’m hanging with a friend doing something else for a few hours, then the man’s band plays tonight. Tomorrow I have a meeting midday, so that will affect my time. I am hoping that I have a big enough piece of background fabric to do this…I should figure that out before I head out, since the fabric store is near where I’ll be picking up my friend. Because I want to be ironing to fabric tomorrow sometime.

But first, shower, food, hopefully cut some stuff out before I need to leave.

Part of the Story

So apparently evil gnomes numbered this drawing. Because there are so many double numbers, I have no freakin’ idea what happened. I must have been really tired or stressed (or both, thinking about what night it was). I screwed up multiple times. I’m like 150 pieces off. I have a’s and b’s to tell the numbers apart for like a stretch of 150 pieces. I’m hoping that after I got to wherever I stopped last night that I caught all the mistakes. One issue was that it’s round and I usually number from the bottom up. But that should have been fine because I did one half first and then the second half. I found one batch of lost pieces…I had numbered one side, started on the second side (with a completely random number…am I losing my mind?), but then realized I never numbered the arms on the other side, so I went back and did them. That does not explain the clusterfuck that was the rest of the numbering in this piece.

I didn’t finish last night. I was too busy trying to find all my mistakes and make sure I traced everything. I’m betting I still missed something. Aargh. Frustration. I don’t need things to take more time right now. I need everything to be very efficient. Fuuuck.

OK. Well. It’s done. The mistakes. They will be part of the story. The crazy story that is me and my art.

So I was at the gym yesterday, reading a book that was recommended to me by someone somewhere that I don’t remember anything about, and I get this…

Yeah. I don’t think the lack of estrogen makes us calmer. Laughing really loudly at that.

I had a stitching meeting in the afternoon…we old ladies chortle about crazy things and discuss how to overthrow the government. You think I’m kidding.

Susan spun, Kelly knitted, I stitched. I finished Earth Mother 8…

Now that’s two that need baths and ironing. One more to go.

And I started the Tiny Pricks project. I thought about how to transfer text and finally said fuck it and started stitching.

I don’t need no stinking markings. The text is from a speech he gave last weekend. It’s a rambling clusterfuck, so I’m just gonna stitch it all until I run out of space.

By the way, this is my country. I belong here. Well, the natives may feel differently, and I am sorry for that. I’m not fucking leaving. That said, if you don’t like us talking back to you and telling you how fucked up racism and sexism and genderism and all the other stupid shit y’all come up with to remove people’s rights…well then YOU can leave. My family’s been here for a good long time, but the reality is that the majority of us are immigrants here. Our families did not start here. We need to accept real life history and stop using this shit as an excuse.

The background of this piece? The signing of the Declaration of Independence…from the country we left. You know, when we immigrated.

Ahhh. Sigh. Just stitching his words pisses me off. I’ll be glad to be done with this. I have a month. I’ve done 10 words.

OK, so here’s one of the numbering mistakes…

That toenail. What the freak was I doing? I just don’t know.

The word of the day is frustration. Followed by breathe.

I traced for three hours last night. I’d like to think I’m more than halfway done, but I just don’t know how many more mistakes I have in this thing. I have to do part of the sky on one side, one whole figure, and the outline pieces. I’ve been tracing for 9 hours. I really should have been done by now, if it weren’t for the clusterfuck that was my brain. I’m on piece 439 of 727 (except there’s really 150 more than that)…so MAYBE there are 300 more pieces. Three hours? Or so. I want to be done today. Not sure I can pull that off, but I’ll try.

OK. Do you ever have a conversation with your brain about how you really need the best behavior from it now? Like please pay attention and function properly? Because sometimes it just wanders off and leaves you with a skeleton crew. Anyway. On to the day. Hopefully my brain will come along.

Double Numbers…

I’m trying to get my butt to the gym this morning. I need food first, and my brain is very discombobulated, and I’m on the phone with the girlchild in Boston, and I’m reading this weird book. Wait. I’m not reading the book right this minute. All these things do not stop me from going to the gym. The food is in the toaster oven and I’m wearing my gym clothes…that’s a start. I might not finish writing this before I decide to leave, but I’m starting it at least.

Focus is an issue. I really need focus. That’s why I make to-do lists, by the way, so when I’m wandering around the house, trying to figure out WTF I’m supposed to be doing, I can look at the list and go, oh hell no, I don’t wanna do that. Ha! And then I do it because it needs to get crossed off. I’m very motivated by crossing things off the list…by not having to move it to the next day. At least I know how my brain works.

Well, so someone gave me this to do the Tiny Pricks project and it’s a little stretchy, plus it’s not a solid base for stitching, and you can’t really see it unless there’s something behind it. So I had this fabric lying around (thanks to whatever person gifted me this, because I just used a chunk of it), and I pinned it down and stitched it…

Not a lot…just enough to hold it…

I ironed it after this. Now it’s ready to stitch. I don’t think I can transfer letters onto it, though. I could write on tracing paper and pin that on and stitch over it and then pull out the paper, but that sounds like a pain in the ass. Sigh. Not sure. I will need to figure that out before 1 PM today, I think. Maybe.

It was hot and humid yesterday. Not as hot and humid as it COULD be, but enough to make that big dog turn over to cool off.

Ugh. I ran a lot of errands yesterday. My doc is on medical leave and we’re still trying to find an answer to the weird pain/discomfort I get randomly, so this substitute doc, who is old and jolly and tells jokes about gall bladder stress tests with pepperoni pizzas, he ordered a bunch of tests and I get to sit around waiting on those. And then I went to JoAnns, which is hell on a good day. So they don’t carry my batting any more, which sucks, because I can’t buy it by the yard locally now. I can buy like a king-size batting and just cut into that, or I can buy a 40-yard roll and store it somewhere. Boychild wanted to know how long it would take to use that up. I usually buy 3 yards at a time, about twice a year, so 6 or 7 years. Nope. That’s silly. Annoying and silly. Then I went to Costco and you know how that goes. It’s just full of people who don’t know how to drive their carts. But I crossed off a big chunk of stuff on my to-do list, plus we have three bags of Ancient Grains now, so that’s good. I’ll deal with the batting later. It’s still on my list, but…I don’t know what to do about it. Make a decision.

I cooked. I exercised. I traced. Kitten is following me everywhere. It’s sweet.

So I was tracing and it was midnight and I’m realizing that I got to piece 323, and I’m looking for 324, and I’m realizing there’s a whole ‘nother set of pieces that’s got the same numbers as what I was just tracing. Seriously? I double numbered 280-323. There’s two pieces numbered 280…two pieces numbered 281. Ah sheet. So the second set all get ‘a’ after them. Plus this thing has 43 more pieces than I thought it did. So much for brain power, eh? Not sure how I did that. But I did.

That’s 280a you’re looking at. And 281a. 282a. Fuck.

I filled one yard of Wonder Under (which JoAnns still carries, but I do buy by the bolt, because I’ll use it much faster and it’s not the size of a fat middle-school kid) and started on a second. I’m almost halfway through. All good things. If I just traced all day instead of running around and doing things, I would be done tomorrow. (not happening)

Oh yeah, if you aren’t a patron of mine and you aren’t on Facebook, you probably didn’t see this video…I posted this publicly so people could get an example of what I do for my patrons…

You can also see it on my Patreon page here. My patrons will get the next part of this sometime this week. I started editing it last night. It’ll be done soon. I’m trying to build alternate sources of income related to my making art, so I can spend more time making art and less time copyediting etc. As I take on a 100K-word job because I need to pay back some college loans for the boy plus trim some trees and that whole thing where you don’t get paid in the summer but you still have to buy supplies for school and food and pay the damn mortgage even though there’s no paycheck coming. That shit is stressful.

Anyway. Selling stuff here and there, trying to figure out whether I can retire ever; these are all on my mind.

Working on the second yard. Up too late.

Then dogs and trash trucks and the man and cats this morning there is no way to attempt real sleep. I should remember that at midnight. Honestly, I was going to stop tracing before I figured out the double-numbering thing, and then I knew it would irritate me enough later to possibly delay my tracing again, so I just did it to get it out of the way.

I ate while writing this. So off to the gym I go. Stitching meeting this afternoon. More tracing tonight. FOCUS DAMMIT.

A Lot of Artsy Things…

I was gone for a few days. There was some chance I could have written a post yesterday or Saturday, but mostly I was tired, so I didn’t. I did do a lot of artsy things in the last three days though.

I finished the papercutting/embroidery class with Bhavna Mehta on Friday…and made a house. Each of us picked a body part for our house. I picked the vulva because multiple people picked uteri. This is the back of the house…I drew on the back and shaded what would get cut. To embroider, you need to make the holes where the stitches will go.

You also have to think about whether stitches will cross your cut area…that would be bad.

Also it seems to work better if you do all the embroidery before you cut. On one of my practice pieces, I tore the paper because I was trying to embroider after I had cut. I’m sure with practice, this gets easier.

I was going to make another layer of hair for this section, but we were running out of time…so I cut instead.

Then the next part is to make the house itself. I also made sperm and an egg to hang from the roof inside the house…

The building was pretty easy. And then we put them into a little body part village…

A uterus, an ear, a heart, a ribcage.

A side view of mine with the sperm and egg floating around in there.

A couple people didn’t finish…I was looking at this as a practice piece.

A couple of feet, an eyeball in the back, a better view of the heart…

I have a few ideas of what I could do in paper and embroidery, but I think they would be a lot like my teacher’s work, and not necessarily mine. I’ll think about it.

It was a fun class anyway. No matter what I do with it.

When we got home, I had planned a birthday trip for the man…up to Temecula Wine Country. We stayed in an RV…and I stitched in the morning.

I don’t know if we’ll ever stay in an RV again. But it was a quiet and relaxing morning…

Until we headed to the first winery…

I signed up for a Groupon tour that would drive us around. We were a large group of 24 people. We went to three wineries: Maurice Carrie, Longshadow Ranch, and Oak Mountain (the Cave). They were all nice enough. It was a warm day, though, and shade was often inside…

Although we did find a table in the shade here…

I drew a little. These wineries are big money for this area. And there are tons of them.

We had a good time. And a long nap afterwards. Then we headed out to Old Town Temecula for dinner.

Harvest is in August…

We’d been talking about doing this for a while, so it’s a good thing we finally did (note to self. Who plans shit? I plan shit.).

Sunday, I had an art meeting to come back for…so we came back kind of early (damn roosters). The man was done with trying to live in an RV (yeah). At the meeting, we had planned to start our version/contribution to the Tiny Pricks project…I had a few pieces, but couldn’t pick a short piece of text. Then one of the leaders asked me if I’d do this one…

Aack. Well, the big piece of text will fit on it. But I need to put it on a backing. Somehow. So you can see all the stuff. So I brought it home. The interior stretches…the edging does not. I’m trying to decide how to do this. Dark background, then bright text? Or gray background, black text? Not sure. I found it kind of overwhelming last night with not enough sleep in the last…well…ten days. Let’s be real. It was a very busy ten days. So I’ll try to make a decision on that today. Not sure how I’m going to transfer the text…

With all that in my head, I worked on this a little more.

She’s close to done. Then I need to wash this one and the last one, plus design and stitch one more.

Plus finish a quilt and copyedit an entire book. Uh huh. I worked on a public video I’m doing for my Patreon…and then started the private video for my patrons…

Kitten was glad to have me home again.

And then I started the tracing on the next quilt.

I don’t have much time for this. So I’m trying to be efficient and on task. Ha! Well. We can always try. Busy weekend. Honestly, they’re all like that this summer. It feels like there’s no down time. Oh well. I overscheduled myself.

Permission…

‘Twas a busy day yesterday. This notion of giving permission for creative exploration and play…it should be much more prevalent than it is. I realize I rarely do this…give myself time to learn something new creatively. I have to do it all the time for school, even when I’m not interested at all, but I don’t put time in my schedule for my own creativity. Now some of you are going, Nida, you draw/quilt/art all the time. WTF are you talking about? I do make art all the time, but so often I am drawing to a purpose or I’m in the process of making the quilt and there’s no PLAY. The process I use to make quilts is pretty controlled…fabric choice and the drawing are the most free, but even those are not stepping out of the boundaries of what I already know. And that stuff is hard to pop into the schedule.

Hence the paper/embroidery class I’m taking…it’s a way to play in a method I don’t usually use. It’s also in Liberty Station, which is a long and bitchy drive from my house. I’m pretty sure this woman and I have selfied before…

But that’s OK. She hasn’t changed. But it reminds me…I needed to send a headshot for something this week, and I hate those…but I like this one.

You should see the one I have in my prep room at school. Scares the crap out of any kid who sees it.

So I’m taking Paper, Thread, Story with Bhavna Mehta, who is an amazing paper and embroidery artist who I’ve known for a while…she’s in an art group with me. We started by embroidering on some postcards…recognize Georgia O’Keeffe?

Embroidering on paper takes more thought than embroidering on thread. You need holes. I messed around all day, basically…what could be better?

I just wanted to try a bunch of things. Here’s some of the samples…

Although there were a lot more later…ah yes, now we have a hand.

It’s funny…when I first started drawing stuff in ink, like my own stuff, in high school, I used a technique that looked like this, but the cut parts were black ink.

A day of play. In something I don’t usually do. OK, papercutting has never been my thing. It was fun, though. Today I go back and we’ll do a collaborative project. We are each picking a body part. Before you even ask, someone has already chosen the uterus. Sigh. OK. Well. I can do lots of things.

In the evening, I had my 2nd to last meeting with my friend who is moving. After some chaos, we found the Starbucks where SHE was, and I stitched.

I’m only doing one more of these for a pattern. So far. Trying to decide what to do. This one is getting closer to done.

The meeting was fine most of the time. Some weirdness from religious folks about people who don’t believe in God and how religious people could never harm anyone (um. OK. I really had to force myself NOT to say anything…but I knew I would never see that woman again so I was fine. Well, not fine because it’s still bugging me this morning.).

And I finished the drawing…this took about 5 1/2 hours.

It’s big. IDK how big. But big.

So I numbered it…

My goal was large and detailed, but not horribly so, because it needs to be finished soon enough and the copyediting job I knew was coming in August is actually coming early. Like this weekend.

So I have 100,000 words to copyedit, a quilt to finish, school to prep for, and all the to-do list to finish before the world ends. Hey. 727 pieces isn’t too bad.

I really like this quilt. I’m glad to be making it. If I don’t get it done in time, it will still be a great quilt.

And this…

Was in my wallet. I used it to buy tea. I did not go on YouTube.

OK, traffic is piling up as I type. Must leave. More later…although this weekend will be a challenge for that. We’ll see.

In Fragmented Bursts

Up early for a class. Mostly my brain is working, but in too many directions at once. For example, I’m typing this while waiting for breakfast to cook, and I’m remembering something I didn’t put in my bag, plus I don’t know if the boychild ate my goldfish, but I can’t find them (the cracker ones, guys, chillax), but if I’m going to remember to put that thing in my bag, I need to stand up right now and do that, but that’s exactly what they tell you NOT to do, because multitasking like that, in fragmented bursts, is really inefficient and you really don’t get as much done, so I’m going to try REALLY HARD to remember to put that thing in my bag when I get up to get my breakfast, which will happen when the timer dings. In preparation for the ding and the remembering, my shoulders just tightened up and I stopped breathing, which is also not good for relaxing or remembering or anything really except keeping you from sucking in water if you just jumped into a pool.

I packed everything for this class but food yesterday. And that one thing that needs to go in my bag. Honestly, I’ve sort of been packed since last week, except for bits and pieces. I always wish they’d explain why you need stuff in workshops. Like when you say “paper towels”, is that a whole roll? Is it just one that I’ll need to wipe my face at the end of a long day? Is it for glue? Is it because you’re going to give me treats? WTF is it for? There’s nothing in this class list that explains the use of paper towels. And if I pack them and I don’t use them, I’m gonna be irritated.

Anyway, I’m driving across town and if I left right now, I’d be more than an hour early, but it would only take 30 minutes to get there. As I get closer to the time it actually starts, it takes longer and longer to get there. Weird time dynamics. I am looking forward to a burst of non-project-related creativity though. I’m not looking forward to working creatively with people I don’t know (I know the teacher)…that gives me anxiety. But I will get over it and may even enjoy some of them. That’s my hope anyway.

So yesterday, we had no access to our road…it’s a private road, which just means we have to maintain it (aka pay for it) and it’s not even really two lanes wide, which is fine, because mostly then people stay off of it.

So my car had to be parked down the hill and around the corner, which is a bit of a hike…I did that yesterday morning to go get the dogs for their post-surgery checkups. Simba is fine, feisty as usual. Doesn’t like the vet. Doesn’t like big dogs. Calli is still a little rough in the walking arena, but that’s arthritis and not the surgery, and she got her stitches out! Yay! No more cone…

As long as we can keep her off this area…(innovative uses for old soccer socks)…

Girlchild was not thrilled that we cut up her sock for this, but I figure after 4 years, if a soccer sock was left here, it’s not one she really cares about.

The guys also did my driveway, which hasn’t been sealed in probably 10 years…I’ve been patching cracks, but so did they…

And then they swooped in with the sealant and made quick work of my behemoth of a driveway…

Which reminds me, to get out of here, I’m gonna have to hike all the way down the hill in about 10 minutes. Yikes!

The rest of the day was filled up with minutiae and tasks and clearing the to-do list best as possible, but never enough, dontcha know that’s how it always is.

I did manage some of this…

The browns are different…although they don’t photograph well at night for that…

I totally went and got my breakfast because the timer dinged and I did not put the thing in the bag. SEE! See how much brain power I’m wasting on it right now. Sigh.

And then I drew on the Yin side for about an hour…getting closer to done. Maybe tonight?

I did actually plan to be done last night, but sometimes shit happens and you don’t get shit done. Welcome to my life.

OK, gotta get my butt in gear and get out of here…now the maps app is telling me 32 minutes, but the yellow areas are creeping up…hate traffic. Wish me luck. Wish me art.

Like a Climate-Change-Induced Tornado…

I’m home. Palm Springs was tiring and hot, and my brain is full of ideas (as always), but also frustrated by the limitations caused by being a public school. Like I would be the radical alter of Betsy de Vos if I could and upend the entire standardized testing system, but I know someone like me would never get to that position. And my dad told me to work within the system to change it, so that’s what I keep trying to do. Surprisingly, I think my superintendent and I agree on that, the part about getting rid of standardized tests. So it’ll be interesting to see where things go…especially after these conversations about not teaching all the standards (I’m like, dude, no teacher I know makes it through all the standards…it’s fucking impossible). Anyway. I’m not getting much of a break on teacher brain this summer, that’s for sure. It’s whirling around in my head like a climate-change-induced tornado. One more conference before school starts…it will be local, thank god.

Today is a catchup day, get everything I can checked off the list before I relax (ha!) into two days of art classes that were my gift to myself for the summer. I need to pack up my stuff for that as well, and make sure I have food…because it’s an all-day thing on the other side of town. Ah traffic. You are not my friend.

Days like today feel overwhelming. I have to remember that I need to finish one task before going on to the next one. Multi-tasking is not always your friend. I got up early to sweep the driveway again because they’re resealing the whole private road I live on, including my driveway, and the ficus tree had dropped tiny balls all over the place since the boychild swept it on Monday. As I was sweeping and the balls were flipping sideways and backwards all over the place, and I was thinking, 45 minutes isn’t going to be enough time to sweep the whole damn driveway, the guy in charge comes up and says, “Hey. Don’t worry. We have blowers. They’ll do it in like 5 minutes flat.” I may have told him I loved him. It’s all good. On to the next task.

While I was in Palm Springs, exercising the teacher brain, I drew a little bit…I actually started this some other day, I don’t even remember when. I went back to my room for 30 minutes between sessions to make tea, but I often feel anxious when I’m just waiting for things to happen. Staring at the phone and apps is a common way to deal with that, but it often creates more anxiety than not, so drawing really is a better way to occupy my brain. I sat there for 20 minutes or so, tea steeping, and drew some more…so here’s before…

And after (can you tell hot flashes have been prominent?)…

Nah. She’s not done. But I really should work on waiting with a sketchbook instead of waiting with a phone.

Honestly, there wasn’t a lot of alone down time at the conference…this statue of Zeus (?) on the way back from a happy hour with my co-workers…

The shuttle driver gave us a quick tour of houses owned by people…but mostly this is what Palm Springs is…

Very flat. Big mountains. Hot as hell. Palm trees everywhere.

This was an awkward bad-design moment…the bathrooms…you could see the person next to you through the toilet-paper dispensers.

Very awkward. I don’t know who thought that was a good plan.

We left Tuesday a little early, kinda done with the brain part, and my new driver was just as awesome as the first one…I still stitched. (My original driver stayed an extra night.)

I didn’t get very far…I did more when I got home…although this guy wasn’t helping.

Ah…stitching…

Another thing that relaxes me. This will be the 8th pattern for Global Artisans…

It was nice to come back to drawing…I really am trying to keep this relatively simple (I could put a LOT more detail in, trust me)…but I think I’ve finished the one side…the yang.

On to finishing the Yin tonight, I hope. It’s got a pretty good start.

I was on Etsy the other day because they’re changing their shipping policies in kind of a weird way and I had to deal with it…and this popped up.

You know, I never actually search for anything that specific on Etsy…interesting. I was thinking of putting the embroidery pieces on here. I guess that could still happen, but I have to think about how to finish them then. And increase the prices to cover that and shipping…makes them kind of unaffordable, I think.

Anyway. Back to today. I’m going to need more tea.