I’m sitting here waiting on the windshield guy. The crack in the window was too big to fix, so the replacement is coming. Exciting stuff…made more exciting by the second shingles vaccine reaction. Woo hoo! Oh yeah! By about 9 PM last night, I had chills and a fever. You can count on my immune system to react to the crazy vaccinations. It was a rough night, but I woke up fever free…at least for now. Can’t say that I’m 100%…or even 75%. Laughing..well, I knew it was probably coming. The nurse was like, oh you know it’s not usually bad the second time. Yeah. That’s what they said about childbirth.
Anyway, I’m vertical. I’m still in pajamas (I’m on break. That’s acceptable.). I’m functional. I have a to-do list, even for today.
Yesterday, we took the dogs for a walk in the afternoon. I did that on purpose, because I was still feeling OK post-shot. Arm hurt, but no other symptoms…and I didn’t know if that would continue.
Only two coyote sightings, and they might have been the same coyote.
I finished grading the second period of the big assignment. It’s a large pile…
Those are the two biggest classes. Three more to go. I already had a kid email me about grading his late work. Dude. I am on break. Back the fuck off. I do have a lot to get through, and I know at some point, I won’t feel like doing it at all. Every year I handle it differently. Sometimes I start grading right away. Some years I wait until the last minute. I always have a unit that’s due right before break, so it’s always an issue. What did I say? Seven assignments? Ugh. This job follows you into the bathroom.
So it took me a while to finish grading that period. It was about 9:30 PM when I settled down to draw, wrapped up in a wool blanket, a sweatshirt, a sweater, and pajamas. I was freezing. Kitten came out to help.
I could have blown off the drawing, but I think it’s an important practice…and I didn’t feel up to cutting out Wonder Under. Probably it’s interesting to see what my overheated brain comes up with…
Apparently drawing requires less manual dexterity than cutting.
Good times. Filling in spaces without worrying about how I would make it into a quilt. It’s a nice thing, that mental freedom.
Kitten watched over me. Making sure I finished…
So today, I’ll work on the Wonder Under, while waiting for the windshield guy. The plan is to buy the background fabric this afternoon and ship the Xmas box to Seattle AND get my hair cut. Hopefully the fever will stay away and I won’t collapse from exhaustion like the last shot. But if I do, the world will continue. And I might get a nap out of it.
Well Hello. I am alive. For now. My paranoia about the 2nd shingles shot notwithstanding (the boychild has been notified that if I pass out or collapse, he is to call 911, but while he’s waiting, grab my iPad, the charger, and my stitching, in case I’m in the hospital for any length of time). Yeah, my body doesn’t respond well to these crazy vaccinations. I’m hoping it’s better this time. Just in case, my to-do list for today is 10 miles long. Windshield fix is scheduled, oil change is scheduled. All good.
Why so quiet? I survived the colonoscopy (no cancer! no polyps! Yeah because I eat all the Brussels sprouts in the world) and more importantly, the prep for it. Diabetics on no solid food…fun! Not. The plus is that I read 17 chapters of my book that’s due any day now in the middle of the night. Plus I don’t have to go back for 10 more years, and maybe by then, they’ll have figured out how to do this better. Seems unlikely though.
So what else have I been doing? Some holiday shopping. Some drawing. Some trimming of the Wonder Under. Lots of animal cuddling.
Christmas shopping at the Liberty Station Public Market, with murals by Hugo Crosthwaite…
Hey those weren’t there the last time I was there…
Nice.
I also got this clipping and a letter…which is most undoubtedly some sort of Christmas mystery thing…
No Professor Sherman Nida in this family. Yes, I Googled it. I know it’s a thing. I don’t want details. Let me experience it as if I did not know how to Google. (I stopped reading about it online as soon as I figured out it was a thing.) Exciting!
So I have this goal over Winter Break to do a drawing a day. They don’t all have to be big and fancy, but this one was, because we were watching a movie. This is the big sketchbook, 14×17″. Saturday night’s drawing.
I’m not aiming for stuff that needs to be a quilt. I’m just drawing. I do have two big drawings I need to do over break, but I haven’t started yet, and one of them, I won’t be able to show anywhere for a while. Which is hard for me. But Imma gonna do it anyway (in the words of my students).
When I was done drawing, I cut this stuff out for an hour or two…this is two yards of Wonder Under done.
Doesn’t look like much. Trash on the left.
Sunday was no food day. I picked this piece up. So I mentioned before that I’m doing this as a collaboration with a prisoner at Donovan State Prison with Project Paint. I picked a word (relationships…trying to keep it no-nudity for the prison crew) and they started the piece on canvas paper.
So this is the first layer, he says. He is Steve. He says this is the conscious relationship of playing the game a Barrel of Monkeys and the subconscious relationship of picking one’s nose. At the same time. Multiple relationships…hmmm. Not where I thought this was going, but the organizer matched me with Steve for a reason, she said. Uh huh. So he’s left space on the right (presumably for my part? He doesn’t know I don’t paint.). I could also add a strip or border, but nothing bigger than 6″ square, because they could use it as a disguise. Huh. OK. But a border is OK.
My collaborator states that he “will not be held liable for any detriment, ill effect or monetary damages to [my] career as an artist by [my] collaboration with [his] project and or so called art.” Also good. No worries, Steve. We’re good. He likes out-of-the-box abstract, he says. Me not so abstract. So I have a few weeks to put my part together and then it goes back to him to finish. I think I need to go buy some canvas paper because he’s gonna need more space. I think. Letting it percolate.
Sunday afternoon’s drawing (evening?) while experiencing the first of the colonoscopy prep liquid. Blech.
This is part of another idea. You’ll probably see stuff like this again.
Our tree grew…it’s a good thing it’s bent over, because it wouldn’t fit otherwise.
I predicted it might be too tall this year. Next year, it will need to go on the floor. I might have to plant it out after next year, but maybe a 4th year in the house? We’ll see. That was the original plan.
After the prep was fully ingested, my body calmed down enough for me to cut out two more yards of Wonder Under…
I was freezing, hence blanket. No food equals cold body.
This is after 4 yards is cut out. Does it look any different?
Not really. What about sideways?
A little.
Maybe.
Monday, after the procedure, I tried to grade some stuff, but fell asleep for 3 hours instead. Then I got up and graded one period of the largest assignment. Start with the big stuff! The dogs were oh so helpful.
Mostly. My driver conked out at 8:30 AM. This was even earlier, I think.
He had animal support.
After grading, I drew…faster this time.
Combining some older ideas with a newer one that’s been rolling around in my head.
Then I started cutting out Wonder Under again. My cat never comes out, but that Christmas tree lured her out. And then she stayed! She doesn’t usually…
She’s on my right side. And the other one is on my left side…
Understand they do not like each other. They do not like to share space or humans at all. When I got up to pee, I put the box of trash between them so they wouldn’t freak out over the other’s presence.
Strange animals.
Six yards cut out, only three to go.
Side view? Should have taken one. I only have 3 yards left. I’ve cut out for almost 8 hours. It takes 2-3 1/2 hours to cut out two yards, so I probably have 3-4 1/2 hours left. Tonight? Maybe. I’m trying to grade one period of that huge ugly assignment every day. If I do that, I’ll be done by Friday, maybe earlier. Then finish cutting these out by tomorrow…sort tomorrow night. I need to go buy background fabric, but I’m sitting here now, waiting for a quilt to be delivered that needs a signature. Then walking the dogs. Tomorrow morning is replacing the cracked windshield…then haircut in the afternoon. I need cash for that. I need to cut some matts for Christmas gifts today, so I can ship this silly box. I set up the oil change for the car. I ordered a French press for the girlchild. Not sure if there’s coffee, but WTF. AND a drawing a day, every day. Plus hiking. Plus yard work. Plus clean house. Plus wrap shit. Plus sleep more. That’s a crazy thing. Suck at that, even on vacation. But I want to be ironing to fabric by Thursday. That sounds reasonable, yeah? Probably going to be about 20 hours of that…so I could be done by Christmas and then cutting stuff out then? Maybe? We’ll see. I love being able to see whole days of maybe getting art done. Maybe.
I fell asleep last night trying to organize today’s school assignment in my head, trying to figure out who gets what and how, and how I will manage the different groups, and whether I’ll have enough copies, and whether they’ll come in time, and holy crap, even sleep is not sacrosanct. I guess I should know that by now. And I still don’t have it all figured out in my head this morning…but I know what I need to do if I can’t get it all done. It will work out somehow.
I’m looking forward to teaching stuff I have more control over…notionally. Not stuff where I’m trying to do the same thing an online system does, but without the online supports. January. It’s coming. What’s also coming? Rainy times. Not the end of times (although it may feel that way after another inch and a half of rain in drought-struck California…Rainy Times.
(did someone forget a word?). Speaking of droughty California, I came home yesterday to a neighbor who had a raging bonfire in their backyard, smoke barreling off into the sky, sparks flying up. So first of all, where are you from that you don’t know better than that in fire territory? Plus pollution? And laws? A nice little firepit when we’re not in fire season is fine…a bonfire that reaches to your neighbor’s second story? Dumbassery. Yes, I called the sheriff, who put me on to the fire department. I hope they fined their asses. Seriously stupid. Lots of wood around here and it just takes one spark. People don’t think.
Two meetings after school yesterday. I drew through the first one. It’s random stuff.
No logic at all to it.
Then I came home and numbered the rest of the heads. Not bad, actually…
I didn’t hit 2000. That’s good. A nice big solid piece to work on during the holidays. It’ll be my first 2019 finish, knock on wood.
After dinner, while finishing up the last episode of Castle Rock, I worked on sewing wooly bits down.
October blocks? I think.
And then I started tracing. I worked for a couple of hours, I think. I’m in the 100s, around 175, I think. The first figure is almost done. She needs a head and a tea cup or something.
She’s the tiniest one in there. Fussy little finger bits. I’m going to be doing this for a while…it’s very meditative, so I’m OK with that. I might be done sometime next week…although there are some bitchy meeting days next week. I think there are three days with 2-hour meetings. UGH.
This is what about 175 pieces looks like.
Not much. That’s about a yard of Wonder Under.
And that’s a sleepy puppy.
And a sleepy eyeball of a cat…
Tonight I’m hoping to add the gym to the mix, so maybe not as much tracing. We’ll see.
I have all these videos I usually have to watch for school, kids explaining their understanding of this topic or that vocabulary word. It gives me an idea of what they’re thinking, makes them practice verbalizing what they might know, and gives them some experience with talking to others without the chat factor. The kids don’t much like taking the videos, although if you put them on YouTube and get them to talk about video games or their favorite anime, then they’re fine. It’s only school that makes them incoherent…or for some of them, just amazingly intelligent. The kids who would never ever raise their hands in class, who never say a word, are sometimes incredibly competent on video. But I have to watch all of them, and that takes time, and I can’t (usually) do anything else while watching them. Sometimes I can sew, but not always. And I wanted to work on my drawing this weekend…but I also wanted all these videos out of the way. So I watched WHILE I drew. Really, I did, and it worked. I was probably a little slower at both than usual, because I did have to type in scores and pay attention to the words at least (not the pictures)…but I got both assignments done and I feel good about that. One more thing to check off my list. TWO more things…
I also got some of the holiday shopping done, although I’m still flailing on at least two people. So there’s that. I did a lot of grading. Oh! I went to the FIG opening at the Lyceum, although we didn’t stay long (someone was tired)…this is the downstairs gallery at the theater, the play is “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” and this is our Women: Poetry and Art exhibit.
It can be seen whenever the box office is open, apparently. Or before the show opens each evening. It’s a nice exhibit. Each piece is either based on a poem or the poem is based on the piece. Some of us wrote our own, but most used other people’s work.
This is my piece Sweet Delicious, based on a poem I wrote a long time ago.
So the opening was nice…some of the artists read their poetry as well. There’s another poetry reading on Thursday, but I’m already booked that night.
Mostly, though, when I wasn’t grading stuff this weekend, I was drawing…so I added paper on all four sides, some more than others…and started to fill out Head number 4…which apparently needed snakes for hair.
Like you do. That was Saturday night. That was also when I cut this section out because the hand that was there sucked that bad. This thing has a lot of hands.
It’s OK. I came back to it Sunday. But first I worked on the arm of Head 4 and the body of Head 3.
Here’s Head 5 swallowing Head 4, although the size is not that much greater…if at all. And the sun. This whole piece is currently upside down to the orientation of the whole thing.
Mostly I think this drawing is about anxiety and life sort of taking over, feeling like you can’t get it all done and you’re getting swallowed by it all. But it’s also really disorienting. And sort of frightening. The thought of being swallowed by a giant toothy mouth is scary.
I guess that’s where I’m at right now…although she seems to have it all together. Tea, cat…what more could you need?
There’s lots of snakes too. Not sure what to say about that.
There’s the redraw where the crappy hand was before. Much better.
There’s a lot going on in here.
This is the body and the hand to Head 3.
And then I tried to photograph the whole thing. Well it’s not dark enough ink for you to see all of it, but it’s big…and this is the correct orientation. I think. I could change my mind later. Maybe there will be a sleeve on each side, and you can decide how you want it to hang?
I think it’s about 64″ wide x 55″ high. Now.
Of course, the next step was to number it. Well…to START numbering it. I got about an hour in…and then quit (to go to sleep…it was late). I numbered by figure, so hopefully that will make sense when I iron it together. But probably not.
I always try for logic…and mostly fail. I numbered 3 of the 5 heads…and kept track of pieces for each.
Interesting bit that…the smallest does have a lot of pieces for its size. I counted the things that were on it. The smallest one includes a tea cup and a rug and a cat. The next one has a tree, a bird, a bird’s nest, and some sort of ivy.
This is most of Head 5…not numbered yet. It probably has the most pieces in it. It’s also one of the biggest heads. I think technically Head 4 is bigger…
But fewer parts of Head 4 show? Maybe? There is an arm.
Anyway, I’ll finish numbering tonight and hopefully start tracing. Looking forward to this one, even though it’s weird. I like weird.
Weekends are for recovery and preparation. I’m in the recovery portion now. Still not enough sleep, working a headache, medicating with caffeine, trying to avoid the work stuff, have to read a traumatic book chapter for a staff meeting, already got some holiday shopping out of the way, have more to do in person this afternoon, have to avoid a parade though, and then there’s an art opening tonight, and maybe I’ll be joined by my guy, who was up at an ungodly hour and off to work, so he’ll be exhausted. Typical Saturday in December, yeah?
I forgot to take my sketchbook to school yesterday, so I could copy that drawing right after (that’s the easiest and most efficient way to do that…I like to NOT waste time when possible). So I came home and grabbed it and left the dogs and copied. I enlarged it 250%…it made the smallest pieces a sane size, but some of the big pieces are too big. I can fix that with more pieces (details!).
Oh yeah, and I entered a show last night. I forgot that. I did that before I copied, because I was afraid I would forget. Work my butt off on a quilt for a deadline and then forget to enter. Sounds like a bad dream.
So I started cutting all the pieces apart and trying to fit them back together. This puzzle is confusing because of all of the heads spiraling around.
See, that head piece is too big for one piece of fabric, but I’ll fix that after I add to the right side so I can draw the rest of it.
All taped…full size to the left (well, minus part of a head and a whole ‘nother head)…original drawing to the right.
Somehow I managed to miss copying the bottom left corner. Can’t explain that. Tiredness?
So hopefully today, I’ll add more paper to the left and maybe the right and definitely the top and maybe the bottom. Why NOT make it huge? Well, I do have to finish it, yeah? And there is some size restriction. But I’m in the mood to be big and bold and swallow it all.
That might be a good title for it. I’ve got plenty of time to figure that out.
Calli isn’t sure I have enough time. Yet she’s the one who’s always sleeping wherever I’m working, so she knows I do.
This freaky guy. I was combing his behind-ear hairs.
Apparently that means a goofy face. What a dork.
OK, going to attempt life. Or work. I guess my life is work. But a lot of it is good and worthwhile work. Even when it stresses me out.
Ah those 10-hour work days. They just whack you upside the head like a brick. The plus is that when I finally got home, I refused to do any more work. I really don’t feel like I have to after all that. I’ve done enough. I’ve done my duty. So I turned the sprinklers off (big rain today), fed a cat, ate my dinner, read my book, and vegged out for a while on the couch, trying to find some semblance of brain power. Difficult that. Brain just shuts down at some point.
I need to get caught up on grading again, of course. It’s been a rough week for that. I definitely wasn’t doing that last night.
So what I ended up doing from about 7:30-11:30 was drawing. I found the first of the head-swallowing drawings, done during a staff meeting last February.
It looks more like yelling than swallowing, but that’s how the whole idea started. Then I did the other two I posted yesterday, which are a much larger version. I think this small one is about 6×8″, while my larger sketchbook is 14×17″. Can’t fit that thing in my purse. Harder to hide at a staff meeting too.
So while I was drawing last night, I kept looking back at the others, because there were things I liked. I tried to be purposeful about where I put stuff so I could fit more heads in. I waited to draw all the in-between stuff, including the arms and necks and cats and stuff. And in the end, I got to 4 heads…but I want 5. I need to enlarge the drawing anyway, though, and add some stuff on the top and finish the 4th head, because it goes off the edge, so I think I can fit a 5th head in there. Odd numbers are better than even for some things.
So here’s last night’s attempt.
It’s good. This is the one. I can make this. I want to make this, more importantly. It needs more stuff, but that’s after I make it bigger. Which I’m not doing today, because I have to drive all over the place tonight and it’s raining, so I don’t want to attempt paper sketchbook transport to copy place in the rain in between this errand and that meeting. Tomorrow will be fine. Enlarge, draw the rest, and start to make something new. I’m ready for that.
He was so bitey. But he was cold, so he snuggled. For a while. Sleepy baby.
This was after I combed out a lot of the knots and scritched his butt fur. So that makes him less bitey and more happy. It’s not a bad evening, sitting on the couch with a furry creature or two, drawing for hours. I can’t complain. Even better that it only took two nights like that for the drawing to wander out.
OK, another early morning. Tired of those, that’s for sure. But hanging out and stitching tonight. Plus picking up the quilt and photos. That’s a good thing.
Well I have graduated to eating turkey sandwiches for breakfast as well as for lunch. I don’t think there’s a problem with that. I froze a bunch of it, so it’s still good. And the oatmeal/fruit thing I ate yesterday didn’t last all the way until lunchtime. I love being dizzy in 4th period. Not. This blood sugar thing…you never get it right, that’s for sure. Change a medication? Relearn everything…from how your body reacts to how to get it through TSA lines. Fun stuff. I may get sick of turkey sandwiches at some point, but they still taste wonderful at the moment. Good thing.
The school days are long at the moment, punctuated by meetings and panic over meetings we didn’t know about and more panic about moving the meetings that were when the meetings we didn’t know about now are so that we can still do ALL the meetings, followed by emails that remind me that not all parents keep track of their kids in middle school and maybe more of them should. Gotta answer some of those today. It feels like Friday and it’s so incredibly not.
The quilt did go to the photographer yesterday, though…so that’s cool. I beat out the other two quilters who are entering the same show…so I’m not TOTALLY at the last minute…just mostly. This sunset while I was sitting in stopped traffic to GET to the photographer was totally worth it. It looked much better in real life. Camera phones cannot handle intense skies…at least mine can’t.
Then again, I think my phone is close to the end of its useful life. It crashed yesterday, randomly. And then popped up a message that I couldn’t read before it disappeared…something about my phone crashing unexpectedly. You’d think there’d be a way to read those messages…but apparently not.
So I was home late and did a union thing and shit I still need to do the union email from before break (ugh), but then I ate late and then was reading my book and then finally decided I should do something. DO SOMETHING. Don’t just sit there. Do. I could quilt a wool quilt (ugh, too tired). I could just sit and embroider on the Folk Tails (Tales?) quilt, but that doesn’t get me to making another piece of art, even though my brain couldn’t handle much more than that last night. So I pulled over the last big sketchbook, which dates back to 2014 (I haven’t been drawing as much in the last few years…more pointed drawing, drawing with a purpose, rather than just random stuff, at least in the big one), and I was going through old drawings, seeing what spoke to me. And it was the heads swallowing heads thing. I started with this one (this is just most of it…not all of it)…
And in some ways, I still think this is the best one. Wait, I think there’s a smaller one somewhere. Huh. Should find that. It might have been the first.
Then I did this one…trying to fit more heads in.
You’ll notice I didn’t fit more heads in. I’m strangely obsessed with trying to get more heads in on the page…this one, well, there’s nowhere to put another head, unless it’s swallowing her elbow, and bizarrely, in my head, it’s all about heads swallowing heads. Don’t get all middle-school on me, people. Heads. Like people heads. Not penis heads. That’s a whole ‘nother type of quilt…one I get accused of making, but really don’t do. Maybe it’s about life or other people trying to swallow us up. I don’t know.
So that motivated me. Looking at old drawings. While half lying on the couch and falling asleep at one point, I tried again…
Maybe 3 is the maximum number of heads I can do on a page this size. I should have put the bird somewhere else and had one swallow from the top, and then I could have fit a fourth head in there.
This is a strange discussion, and yes, it’s all in my head (oh dear)…there’s certainly something going on. I need to draw more of these, I think. There are things I like about each drawing…but none of them is right yet. Five heads is the magic number, but I don’t think I can get there on a page this size.
With that, I have meetings until 6 PM tonight, so who knows what I’ll be capable of by then (not a lot). I should get moving. Really. I should.
We’re back. Quick trip. More driving than anything else, I think. It was worth it…I wanted to see the whole Things That Matter exhibit in one place…although now I think I might be able to see it in St. George as well! On the way to Zion for Spring Break anyway. We’ll see.
So I had some pieces left to cut…my plan was to cut in the car, so I set this up…double-boxed. I’ve done this before. It’s a little crazy, but it works.
Arizona is so flat. This might even be the flat part of California.
Cutting while not driving…
We try to do 2-hour shifts…after that, you need a break. This section was pretty, through the Sonoran Desert National Monument. It was the short way around Phoenix to get to Chandler. We never went into Phoenix.
So we went to see the official opening of the entire exhibit of Things That Matter, an exhibit I was invited to be in last year. The preview exhibition, which didn’t include all the work, was at Visions Art Museum in Spring. I really thought I had done a good job of taking photos at that exhibit, but it turns out I didn’t take hardly any…and this trip was no different. Honestly, my phone camera sucks for this stuff, and the sun was going down and causing issues with lighting. So go see the exhibit or get the catalog on Amazon. Because I suck.
And another view of my piece that includes Susan Else’s amazing and terrifying When? on gun violence in schools, and Alice Beasley’s very cool From Russia With Love.
And another Blotner piece, this with Elizabeth Addison…Hanuman’s Journey.
Please remind me if I go to the St. George installation to take WAY BETTER PHOTOS. Sheesh. And all the pieces. Seriously.
So then we ate and went back to the room and I finished cutting out the quilt pieces. California, Massachusetts, California, Arizona. Impressive.
It took 13 1/2 hours total. Kind of long.
Back in the room, interesting accent wall, especially this bit, which is totally out of reach, even if you’re standing on the bed.
But don’t hang anything on it with a coat hanger. Warning noted.
I drew…this is a baby start for something that’s in my head and is much bigger and fancier. Or more detailed anyway.
I haven’t been drawing much lately. Need to work on that.
The next morning, after a solid American breakfast, we drove back.
There was crankiness. Sigh. 10 hours of driving does that. I finished the owl’s eyes though! And the giraffe, but I forgot to photograph him. I still need to finish the hut for that block to be done.
Now that I’m home and ready to work on the quilt that has to be done in like 7 days, the wool stitching is not really a priority. So yesterday afternoon, I sorted all the pieces…
Less than an hour for that…
And then I started ironing…a snake before dinner…
Then the landscaping starts…hard to do because the water goes over and under the feet, and the water is in the 0-100s box and the feet are in the 400s box, so there was searching and I lost a toe so I had to recut it.
Then a couple of birds went together…
And the background behind them…
Here’s where I’m at so far, with about 150 pieces ironed…well, more because of the toes.
There’s a hill behind the legs, or two hills really, that have to be done, and another bird in the sky. My goal today is first to bang out the 17 errands I need to do, and then iron until the cows come home. Except also go to the gym, make dinner, and grade at least one assignment. Not a small list. But I’m glad to be ironing. It would be good if I were done with ironing sometime tomorrow and then stitching down. I think I need to be quilting by Wednesday. Seriously. You think I’m joking. I’m not. But first, groceries. There’s no food here. Can’t sustain artistic focus without food.
Go vote. Now. Unless you’re like me and you already did…dropped the ballot envelope off at the library on Sunday. Everyone associated with my house has voted now. Good stuff. May the force be with us.
I’m at home. Grades are done, unless those two girls with non-working websites email me before I leave for the ultrasound. I did in fact get up early to eat and drink stuff before the deadline. We’ll see if it helps. I then tried to go back to sleep, but no. Dogs. Cats. Brain awake. So much for sleeping in. I suck at it.
I do still have grading to do…it never ends. I have to write sub plans for the days I’ll be in Boston. But what I really want to do, besides walk the dogs, is finish ironing.
I started late again last night, mostly because of grading. Ready to pick out flesh…I went through all 6 boxes of pink and finally found the right transition between 4 and 6 in the last bin.
I laid out all the fleshy pieces…
And I started ironing them down. It’s a weird puzzle I do…
How do I save the most fabric but fit all the pieces on there? Like that.
It was after midnight and I looked at the clock and thought, ugh. Gonna have to be up early. So I left the last two fabrics for this morning.
The box is getting fuller.
So that puts me in the 600s, but I have all the innards and hair to do. Mostly bones and cardiovascular stuff. So that’s also this morning. Or afternoon.
This was yesterday in class…
We’re piloting a new unit and it’s difficult. Mostly because I don’t have access to all the electronic stuff, and then my kids don’t either, plus I keep getting myself absent, and this curriculum is not at all friendly to guest teachers. Or to taking a rest from talking, for that matter. Lots of direct instruction.
Anyway. I’m going to shower and NOT eat or drink anything for a while and then go get this thing done so they can show me a picture of the alien in my gut. And then work and iron and all that stuff.
I woke up this morning, having slept through lots of noises and daylight arriving and I feel like I didn’t move all night, I was so tired, I must have been like a block of sleepy concrete that weighed down the bed and refused to let pillows and blankets move, until the first dog whined, and then it was awake time.
Quilts=Art=Quilts opens today and I have a piece in it…this is You Pollute Me…
It’s actually not a very big piece…just long.
I’m grading Unit 2…lots of them. I didn’t actually bring them home, because I have three days next week, maybe four, when the kids are supposed to be working on stuff independently (ha!), so I should be able to grade them in time at school. That’s my goal anyway.
We’ll see what reality looks like, won’t we.
Last night was tiring. But I got the field trip permission slips all trimmed, checked, and double-checked, so I know who’s going and who’s not. I started a spreadsheet for the chaperones as well…and I did seating charts for Monday for the project week, which will drive me nuts, but they do have work to do, so hopefully they won’t be total assholes about being with their friend. I’m always boggled by certain groups…when a fairly high-level girl agrees to work with a boy who does NOTHING. Sigh. Oh well. They don’t always get to pick their groups, so I guess I’ll balance it out. Put all the lazy non-workers together next time.
But the dogs last night…this was after I came back from watching the band play. Calli heard fireworks before I left and it was still upsetting her. The other two just wanted closeness, I guess.
That’s Calli’s nervous face. At this point, the fireworks happened three hours ago, but she was still panting and breathing hard about it…
And here she is with her head on my leg. Yes, I petted her lots. I told her she was a good girl and it was OK. It just doesn’t seem to help any more. Oh yeah, and here I am cutting out yard 4 of Wonder Under…
Four yards in, one to go…
Hopefully that gets done today…along with the humongous pile of other things that need doing, which are giving me palpitations at the moment: grade one assignment, start looking at the next unit which we’ve never taught before because I’m going to be gone for two days in the beginning of it so I have to leave something they can actually do with a guest teacher, plus find and sew on D-rings for a quilt that has to be delivered next week, and do another blogpost for the fiber art group I’m in, plus laundry and deal with compost bins and vacuuming and cleaning floors and groceries and cleaning up in here so I can start ironing, because if I don’t start ironing soon I’m not going to get this quilt done in time.
Deep breath. Maybe more than one. I’m overwhelmed. I know that. What my brain and body really need is a 7-mile hike today. And I’m not going to get that.
So I did go watch the man play disco, of all things, last night. Not their genre. And I drew this…
Definitely influenced by the music. I’ve been to this venue, crashing this same party, at least three years in a row, and I recognize the wait staff and one of them waved at me. I’m amused. Anyway. There’s art. I did do art. I did school. I slept. I’m going to make a list and conquer its ass. And then hopefully get some down time. Get out of the house time. Maybe some exercise. Definitely dinner out with that guy I’m barely going to see in the first two weeks of November. Yeah. That.
