God damn what a way to start a Monday! I’m rolling (roughly) on 4 hours of sleep, trying to get an eye doc appointment this morning after a lovely (really it was) ER visit at midnight last night (was it last night or was it fucking today already). Started seeing flashes yesterday , but didn’t realize that’s what I was seeing until I was turning all the lights off to go to bed. SIGH. So I have vitreous detachment, possible retina. Well. Fun times. I’ve been told to stand in the doc’s office until they can see me. I wrote sub plans at 1:30 AM, forgot to request a sub, luckily remembered to email my amazing office staff, who are covering my ass as always. I had a minor panic attack for about oh 3.7 hours before I fell asleep. I’ve messaged the doc team and will call at 8. Meanwhile practicing meditative breathing and trying not to grind my teeth out of my mouth.
This weekend…well, I graded for like 11 hours, plus went to a closing art reception, where I saw my piece, And Then There Was One.
Which I then picked up from the venue on Sunday, the crazy driving day. My bro came and we went to dinner after. It’s been nice seeing him more often. He lives far away and when we are in the same place, he’s often super stressed about having all the kids around etc. but they’re all adults now…very weird.
I did a different drawing Saturday night…
Then enlarged and added it to a drawing from last June…
Like you do. Now I just need to connect them. Long story…decided to try to enter a show, different than the banned book one. Still gonna do that one. Not sure I can pull it off…especially with the eye stuff. Whoops. Not thinking about that right now.
More art of mine in an opening at Shoebox Arts in Los Angeles this weekend…
The drawing in the top left is mine, interpreted in digital collage in top right by Moya Devine. Then her collage is in the bottom left, with my quilt version in the bottom right.
I think I have some animal pix and a meme to finish up, as I wait for the on-call doc to triage my info.
Dog sat Annie this weekend. Bought a new computer because mine went into old age almost dead stage.
Cyclops Luna. Eye on said dog.
This is me. Actually I just ate cereal even though I don’t feel hungry because that’s what you do when you’re a diabetic.
But I can’t jump around or head butt anything because I don’t wanna fuck up my eye.
I have some grading to do and a headache from not enough sleep. Just waiting for a call to go in. Stressful, but at least there’s help to be had. Gotta lot of political stuff in my head too…trying to figure out how best to deal with that. Those two dimwits in the Oval Office with Zelensky reminded me of middle-school gaslighting boys. Deep breaths. Take care of yourselves.
Still no working computer…and this iPad is ancient. I will have to deal with all that at some point, but not today. Today I will be teaching more lunar phases, going to an art opening, having dinner with my bro and the Man, and probably grading. This weekend I will be grading until I’m done. Not really looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. I want next weekend off work. Yes, I was traveling the last two weekends, but I graded. Got two weeks of homework graded across California and Arizona. Anyway, the plan is no grading. One weekend. That’s all I ask.
I’ve been drawing the last of the banned book pages…
I feel like I could do way more than 4, but time is limited. And now I think I’m going to try to fit another one in first, another quilt. Not a huge one…we’ll see.
Maybe I’ll plan out how to do the words by hand while I’m working on the other piece?
Not sure. Not a lot of brain power left at the end of the day for creative endeavors.
Too bad the current administration isn’t staffing the parks.
I did say I was retiring, assuming they didn’t fuck it up. It looks like they’re fucking things up for everyone but the rich white boys. Mind-boggling stupidity. I keep googling the crazy stuff I see my few friends who support the Cheeto post, wanting to fact check them, because they make so much shit up. It’s like middle school…if I say it’s true, it must be. Honestly I don’t know where to start protesting. Let alone how.
Such destructive tendencies. Just like middle schoolers…who by the way, are losing their minds this week. Let’s hope they can pull it together so the next 5 weeks before Spring Break don’t make us bang our collective heads on the desk. Also I need a plan for camping over break. I have two nights in Humboldt in the redwoods, but need to figure out where to stop on the way up and how to come back down. I’m hoping to get that figured out in the next week. Knock on wood.
Ok, gonna let the next possibility of a drawing percolate today. Hopefully kids will be more focused, less asleep and whiny. The art opening and dinner should be cool. I’ve got a book to finish. and the hot weather is gone. All good. Artsy thoughts. Art gets me through it…just want to make more of it.
So my computer is being nonfunctional. Aka it’s on but refusing to behave…I restarted it because every time I tried to use the mouse, it would do something whack instead of just scrolling like a normal mouse. There was a cat/keyboard interaction Monday night that might have been part of it. The boychild comes back here tonight, so maybe he can figure it out.
I feel a little nonfunctional as well. I mean all I do is work work work and try to fit art around all that. Got back to clay on Monday…
Her hand needs some work. Trying to keep everything from breaking and/or falling apart is a challenge at the moment. Never mind trying to figure out the head. I have too much going on this week so I probably won’t get back there until next Monday. Which sucks.
Quiltwise, I need to be working on my friend’s mom’s quilt but haven’t been able to clear enough time at night. Just playing catch-up from being gone two weekends. So I’ve been spending a little time (not enough) with drawing the next piece, which will have four panels. I think. I drew the first one before I went to QuiltCon, but inked it Sunday. Monday, I added the author (it came to me…).
Then I sketched the 2nd page…
And yesterday, I inked it.
And numbered the first two pages. Then stared at a blank piece of paper for a while, waiting for pages 3 and 4 to manifest. I can always start tracing these. Hard to have brain power some nights unfortunately. It all got used up for the day job.
Ok. Today is a chill day where the kids are working independently and I’m grading. Originally I was supposed to be at the District Office one day this week and that fell through, so I had a lesson plan ready for a sub. I’m going to take advantage of that today so maybe I won’t have to spend the entire weekend grading. Ha! It’s not looking good. Then Pilates…thank goodness. I missed the weekend class. Then home to grade and draw. Hopefully. And quilt maybe too. I think if I just get the quilt back under the sewing machine, it will be easier to do a little every day. Oh yeah, and fix the computer. Sigh.
Oh hey, yeah I’m totally off on days this week. Oh well. Travel does that to you. I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning for Phoenix for QuiltCon, where I found out, one of my quilts IS actually hanging, but in the SAQA vendor booth. Check it out!
That’s my quilt, Woman 3.0, on the right side of the middle. IDK whether it’s random that it’s hanging there (this is part of the StitchPunk exhibit that’s been traveling) or they knew I’d be in the booth, but I love it! If you’re at QuiltCon, you should go see it. It’ll probably be the only time I’ll have a quilt at QuiltCon.
I’m totally jealous of all the people posting that they left early and are touring all the parts of Arizona etc that are naturally awesome (like as In Nature). I won’t have time for that this time. And school makes it always hard to tack on any extra time.
In other quilt news, I finished this piece, which has notionally been called Self Portrait for the four months I’ve been working on it.
I may or may not retitle it. It needs to be cleaned up and photographed. It’s got body bags and bunnies, bullets and a fox, lots of political stuff, lots of personal stuff. All drawn in October, before the election and all the crazy shit that is going on now…stuff I’m not even sure how to process into a visual image.
I have a deadline coming up, so last night, I started figuring that out. It needs to be a certain shape and size (book shape-ish). So I’ll need four ‘pages’. I started drawing one of them last night…
My goal is to get them drawn in the next few days, although I kinda have a shit ton of crap going on, so we’ll see how that goes. In the background, with all the writing on it, is another possible deadline. One I’m interested in, at least…I’m going to have to read a book to complete it though. Not that it’s usually a problem, but I’d need to read it, process it, and draw something in the next three weeks. Hmmm. It’s not impossible. I could. If I have an idea, I can draw it fast enough. And I’m trying to clear some weekends in March (ha!) because February is such a mess. It’s a GOOD mess, but hell, this day job just kicks my butt when anything else is going on.
In clay, girlchild made the boychild a chip and dip bowl for his birthday…
Although she then left it with me to bisque and glaze fire and it just came out. It’s pretty. One air bubble. No breakage! A miracle.
I also finally got to do some building…it’s been rough getting into the studio the last two weeks. I worked on the right arm and hand, which still need work, and lengthened the left arm.
The bottom piece is dryish, but I want to paint it with underglazes…so I’ve been spraying it to rehydrate it, but then not having time to paint (or in this case, I forgot the glazes and I barely had an hour to work anyway).
Normally I’d go tomorrow after school, but I won’t be in this state. So Monday it is. Maybe I’ll remember the glazes. I can paint at the bisque stage…but I think I want to carve into the underglazes, so that needs to be at this stage. I keep having to beg people to NOT put things on the shelf where I pulled the base off…it’s big and only fits in a few places. I’m constantly fighting to keep it in the same space. The top is on my shelf, so it’s OK, but the drying shelves are really full right now.
OK. Today. Yikes. Need to pack. I had ordered supplies for my Saturday class but they aren’t coming now until next week, so I had to raid my stash for stuff. I don’t have much in the way of sequins…plenty of beads. So hopefully the instructor has some or I can buy some at the show. I’m looking forward to messing around with stuff, but I did not do a good job of editing threads or beads. The Man will have to deliver a bag to me right before class so I don’t have to carry it all day. I need to finish/edit sub plans and print them, copy seating charts, prep my kids for not being dumbasses while I’m gone, start a group project, be observed teaching vocab, finish the notes from yesterday, be totally efficient during prep period, go to at least one, possible two kid meetings, and drive to a stitching meeting tonight with a quilt that has sold. WOW. Maybe eat dinner. I mean there are no guarantees. Oh yeah, do laundry so I actually CAN pack. Maybe sleep, but probably not. Why sleep when you can lie awake with stupid songs running through your head (see post title) and a list of all the things you need to get done (grading! FFS). Yeah. Don’t try this at home, kids.
This day. Man. I was sort of hoping for news that the swearing in didn’t happen. I don’t even care why…like I’m voting for aliens from a distant solar system at the moment. I’m off the Meta socials this week. I considered not doing it, because my dad always told me if you want to change something, you need to do it from the inside out. And why are we letting them control where we are and why? But then someone said that there’s ad revenue and that gets them where it hurts…so I changed my mind. I’ll be here on the blog, and I’m over on Bluesky (@knida.bsky.social), posting there instead. I’m a picture/visual person, and Bluesky is more like Twitter, where I never really hung out. So yeah. We’ll see if it changes anything. I don’t trust a rich white man farther than I can throw them, and I don’t throw well at all.
Some guy is out looking at my shed right now with my dad, and I’m sort of listening. I’m not sure I care about the details of how to fix the damn roof right now. I’ve got too many things on my to-do list. I did finish grades yesterday, and then, like a crazy woman, I sent 72 emails to kids/parents about specific missing academic assignments, so when they see their grades, the kids won’t be able to lie about the teacher not letting them turn late work in. Today? I plan to not to school…except I never graded the warmups yesterday and I need to do that. Or I could just do it in class tomorrow. Maybe. We’ll see. I’m aiming for day job sanity and having a hard time getting there.
Quiltwise though, things are going better…I got the visual disturbance part done…
Those are the things I see…not all at once, but one at a time. Swirling around in my visual field.
Saturday night, it took almost 2 hours to do the words…which do fade into the background and they’re supposed to…
Like I’m yelling about these things and no one is listening. I’m a little concerned that the arm is not quite reaching where it should, but I can futz with that when I iron it down to the background.
Last night, I got a good chunk of the tree done.
Plus all three owls…
The three has all four seasons on the branches, so I have a few hundred pieces left, hopefully today.
I lost Kitten on Friday…couldn’t find her anywhere. Usually when I call for her, she comes out. She has some very specific hiding places, but the actual kitten, Bowie, has been harassing her. He doesn’t understand that she’s old and sick, so he tries to chase her. He’s really curious about her. So she’s been peeing up in her safe spaces. I finally pulled all the batting out and replaced it with pee pads…which she hasn’t used. I also carry her out to the litter tray twice a day. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Anyway, I was searching all over for her and finally had a guess and went outside…there’s a glass sliding door on one wall that is essentially not accessible because of the sewing machine table…and there she was, hunkered down behind it…
Snuggled under the quilt I’ve been working on (which she did NOT pee on, thank goodness…it now has a towel covering it). I’ve found her there twice now. I think her hearing is going. Poor baby. She’s old but not in pain. She still purrs when I pet her, snarls at Bowie for invading her space, eats a little food, and goes back to sleeping. Sigh. It’s hard to deal with elderly animals.
We’re trying to use up our stash of restaurant gift cards, so Saturday night had us in Little Italy at the Princess Pub & Grille, which had pretty decent British food…
I drew…it was really loud (football!)…
Need to remember to stay away from sports bars for a few weeks I guess. I don’t actually know if we’ll be going out at all for a while. Long story. Been here before.
Hey, there’s my quilt in the background! At Form, Not Function, where it won Honorable Mention.
It’s the only photo I could find of it in the show.
OK, I need to leave to get my hair cut, rescheduled from when I had stomach flu. I was going to go to ceramics afterwards. Not sure how I feel about that right now. I’m tired. Nothing new there. Got some art to do, some cleaning to do. Need to make lunches for the week. Hoping to still be able to retire in 2029, but who knows what the fuck that idiot is gonna do. If I can’t afford to retire, then it’s gonna be rough to stay in teaching. We’ll see where we’re at in four years…hopefully somewhere better.
I somehow have lost a week. The year has changed. I have not posted my memories of 2024 nor my goals and hopes for 2025. I missed the boat completely. What happens to me if I do not consider everything that 2024 brought and 2025 might bring? I dunno, but I don’t seem to have the brainpower for it. Although I redid my big long huge CV/resume/whatever the hell it is yesterday and I know that I was in 12 exhibits last year and I made 6 quilts and 10 bug things that aren’t really quilts. I read that an art quilter I follow made over 60 quilts and I can’t fathom that, but probably she’s not working full time as a middle-school teacher. So that’s another reason I have a hard time with the review/gratitude part of the year ending. It makes me feel inadequate until I have some interior brain argument about what people are capable of and that’s why I picked a fucking retirement date last summer. Oh yeah. I remember now. So in 2025, I hope to make another 6 or so quilts and get into another 12 or so shows and keep messing around with clay and trying to keep my day job from inserting itself into my recharge time more than it already does. No change. I actually usually do resolutions in August, right when I’m about to go back to school. It makes more sense as a teacher to think about those things then rather than in the middle of a school year. I am glad I have next week off, because I have to get 6 quilts out of here in the next week or so for delivery to shows. So some of that will happen today.
I’m quite happily ironing the first big quilt of 2025 together now…
I forgot how fun and relaxing it is to iron stuff together. I had been putting it off because it seemed hard, but it isn’t. Time-consuming? Yes. Fussy as shit sometimes? Yes. Absolutely relaxing? Oh yes.
I’ve got the dirt done, with its furry beasts, body bags, bullets, and skull.
And I’ve done one leg. That’s it. Well, it has a snake on it. So there’s a lot to come. I’m well into the 200s…I’ll be here for a while.
Then I finally quilted this beast, which I started in January 2013.
No joke. Those bird blocks went to almost every soccer game in the girlchild’s last two years of high school. Two years ago I started quilting it, and then it sat. So here it is…
Just need to do the handstitching of the binding and sleeves, and it’s done. Twelve years. Impressive. Can’t say I don’t finish shit. I do eventually. This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Dance, by the way. I called it Bird Crazy for years.
I also needed to get to the next step on this one…trimming all the houses…
To the same size. A few are a bit short, as always. Wool stretches. But the center piece is definitely too small, so I’m not sure how I’m going to handle that. I have ideas.
That’s the layout. This is Sue Spargo’s Homegrown, which might have been started in…hell, IDK…wait! OMG. Started March 16, 2020. The day they sent us home for two weeks because of COVID. Little did we know. Oh my. I’m laughing. So this one is just two months’ short of being 5 years old. I did Folk Tales in between the bird one and this one. And there’s another bird one I did too, Chirp…both Folk Tales and Chirp are ready to be sandwiched and quilted, but this one needs to be put together so I can do borders, so it’s a good year out from being finished, if I’m lucky. Anyway, I have a Zoom tonight and I will sew things together and try to figure out how to solve the problem of the center being too small. It’ll be fine.
Right now, I’m going to pause in the writing (you won’t even notice) because I need to pick up a quilt and then head to ceramics and pick up meds because my online pharmacy ran out of insulin again (they did last year too). But I’ll be back and you won’t even notice I was gone for three hours. Like I said, here I am. Sigh. But in a fairly rancid mood…thanks to health insurance and pharmacies and ugh. It’s fine. I just lost an hour to whatever stupid shit happened yesterday that I didn’t do. I’ll have meds on Monday. The only medication I really freak out about is insulin. And that’s the one with the biggest issues. Ah well. Done now. I ate lunch and read for a bit, and that helped.
I found my SIL’s heart…she had asked for it back in November and then I ‘lost’ it (read, hung it up and put this drawing over it and completely forgot it was behind there…
In fact, I didn’t even see it when I first pulled the drawing down so I could iron on it. I saw it last night, because the Man came in and was talking to me, so I was actually facing that direction. Sad but true. So I need to finish that and mail it to her.
New Year’s Eve was a little low key. Nice fire in the fireplace. Tried to draw and watch a movie. The movie was horrible. The drawing wasn’t entertaining enough…
So eventually I went in and put the binding on that bird quilt instead. I did make it to midnight, no worries. Unless I’m sick or exhausted, I stay up that late on the regular…unless I’m working. Then I have to be up between 6 and 6:30 AM, so I need to start heading for bed at 10:30…although I haven’t been good about that lately. Huh.
I think he’s smiling.
But he’d had a 4-mile walk and a bath because he pooped on himself and then vomited on himself. I wasn’t there. He was certainly tired out.
I’m actually finally kicking this thing.
KNOCK ON WOOD. My sinuses aren’t completely clear, but mostly. I’m not coughing stuff up any more. Time to go back to school and get sick again, right? Sigh.
OK. Well I have a bunch of stuff I need to get done, mostly in the quilt realm. I added to my CV last night, but still need to finish and submit the application by Monday. Lots to do, lots to do. Looking forward to three art classes next week though. Fun times. I appreciate the time off, but it’s too bad the job is so hard that the time off feels so absolutely necessary. I don’t have a solution to that.
Oh hey, Monday. I don’t have school today, so I’m not sure I recognize Monday. Although I have to do things today. And it’s the last week of November? I don’t even know what happened to November. October was the longest month ever and November is like blip. Gone. Done.
I’m still sick. I’m on the second illness now, which started out like a cold and has turned into the rest of that sinus infection, I think. I do already have a doc appointment for later today (made months ago, seriously), so hopefully there will be a solution besides, here, take those same antibiotics again that cause horrendous diarrhea. Or spray salt water into your nose, which has done nothing useful so far but to drip back out. I’ve been switching up meds, trying to find something that will bring some, any relief…spent most of Saturday asleep. Yeah. I’m up and showered today, but only because (1) a shower seems to briefly help with the congestion and (2) I have to go to the doctor later. Ugh. I’m tired of being sick. I’m just tired. So although I have a giant to-do list for break, mostly house- and yard-related, I don’t think most of it is getting done. The girlchild is here for the week, which is nice. I barely got her room cleaned up between Saturday and Sunday. I’m reading a lot. Sleeping. But not well. Too stuffed up.
So there’s all that. Hoping I can recover enough this week to survive the next three of school. I keep cancelling exercise classes because I can’t breathe well enough to go to them. Let alone exert energy. I have one set up for Wednesday, although I haven’t actually gotten into it yet (on the wait list)…hoping to be able to do that.
I did manage to finish tracing all the Wonder Under on Friday night, despite the congestion. Being upright is better than sitting or lying down.
Six approximate yards of the stuff. Two of the old, four of the new. A little over 17 hours of tracing. So then I started cutting stuff out.
Remember how I didn’t feel well Saturday? I cut things out for 4 1/2 hours in the afternoon/evening, because it was sitting on the couch and I could handle that. Once I stopped sleeping. I did some more last night…
I’ve got four of the six yards cut out…two more to go. Tonight? Maybe. We’ll see. Might take me two nights. I’m not particularly energetic at the moment and I might have to go grocery shopping again.
Our field trip Friday was to Petco Park.
Eh. Not the most exciting field trip, especially if you don’t give a crap about baseball. They didn’t even get to go on the field because some golf event was going on…
From the press box. Not sure I ever want to go there again. Not sure I get a choice in the matter, unfortunately. Ah well. We got back to school and the police followed us in: major altercation on campus. Gotta love Fridays before breaks. Dumbassery abounds.
This was part of that Saturday night rest-fest.
He didn’t hang out for very long, luckily, because I could do nothing else.
It’s been cold and cats have been almost cuddling.
Almost. Speaking of cuddling…the girlchild is here and her favorite dog likes to cuddle.
Finally remembered to take a family photo!
Did pretty well with that one.
Someone needs to make a tshirt with this for me to wear.
And this…is what I wish I had the health and energy for right now.
I swear, I haven’t been hiking or barely exercising due to all the sinus crap. I’m just so done with it. I want energy. Sigh. OK, maybe the doc can help. Hopefully. I don’t want more antibiotics, but I’ll do it if it’ll kick this thing.
OK. Doc today, plus book club. Need to turn in my library book (yes an actual book from an actual library building) and pick up cat meds. And maybe do Thanksgiving food shopping. Plus read and sleep and maybe eat. Although I haven’t had much of an appetite, that’s for sure. Ugh. I’d love to go do some clay at some point, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen. Maybe after the doc? for an hour? Maybe? Not sure I feel up to it. Haven’t been in over a week. Feel like crap does not translate into go to a place where you will have to sit on a stool and manhandle clay for an hour or so. Maybe it will later. Hopefully.
I’m almost there. I need to get through today’s two contentious (probably) meetings, a field trip to Petco Park, and two more classes of kids who are checked out and mentally already on vacation before I can come home and collapse into a 9-day pillow fort for which I’ve already checked out two books from the library in preparation. In reality, I have some shit to grade and some doc appointments and a whole bunch of family and food requirements, plus household crap that hasn’t been getting done, so it’s not very realistic to say I can be in that pillow fort for 9 days, but it would be nice if I could, eh? I’m tired, I’m still sick (2nd virus), and I need a break. We all do. The kids probably do too, but since a ton of them lost their minds two days ago, I guess December will be a shocker for them. Woo hoo!
So I’m rallying up all my bitch witch energy to get through today. I have absolutely no desire to tour Petco Park, but it wasn’t my choice and I’ll try anything field-trip-wise once. The Midway is not my favorite either, but I got into it. Less the military part and more the ‘everyone has to live in this contained space’ part. Plus the planes are cool. And you get your steps in. I wouldn’t PAY to go there, but hey. I don’t pay for field trips anyway. They’re just glad I’ll go.
I’ve come home from school every day this week pretty much right after, exhausted and sick. I slept Monday after school. The rest of the days, I just collapse on the couch with my tea and a book for a while until my sinuses clear a little bit and then I trace. So I’m close to done with the tracing…still…but not done…in fact, I could probably post the same tracing Wonder Under pictures in here every day and you probably wouldn’t notice.
I made it into the tree the other night. Trees are a pain. It’s my fault for drawing all these long interlocking bits and details.
Every time I do it, I swear at myself a little bit. But I have about 150 pieces left. So that’s good. Finish all the tree bits, trace the space cat and the spaceship, and I’m done. So maybe tonight? Tomorrow, I have to clean the girlchild’s room; she’s driving down from San Francisco to spend the week. Always good, although a bunch of work to get there. Hoping I have the energy tomorrow to do that.
I have two pieces at Citrus College in Glendora right now, part of the California Fibers’ show Over Under Over.
I’m not sure when I’ll be able to see them, because the gallery is usually only open when I’m teaching.
Which kind of sucks. The opening was midday earlier this week. I did not make it.
Sareytales remade Goodnight Moon about the current state of affairs.
It’s a little too real.
You can find her on Instagram.
OK. Ugh. I really don’t wanna do today. I had to buy a clear plastic purse, like when you go to concerts (I usually shove everything in a ziplock bag, but I need food and meds for this). One teacher was like, it’s only 90 minutes…well, it’s not, if you count getting all the kids ready, lining them up, getting them on the bus, riding the bus, coming back, repeat all the steps. It means I can’t eat from 9 to 1:10, and that’s too long for me and my recovering body, which feels like crap and doesn’t feel like eating most of the time. I’m trying to get today’s breakfast into me right now, and it’s like, nope. Don’t want it. Move on. Ugh. Frustrating. I wish I could just show a movie when I get back, but so many of my kids didn’t finish the academic thing yesterday. It’s mindboggling that they need a full 51 minutes to write 4 sentences. Sigh. I seriously watched some kids sit there for 15 minutes and not write a single word. So checked out. OK. Well. Grades, y’all. Grades. I’ll grade these after break. I’ve been trying to force myself through the last academic thing and I just can’t deal with it. I don’t have the brainpower either…sick self. I’ve been doing the easy stuff and leaving the harder stuff for when I have more mental space. Whenever that might be. Thanksgiving Break is never really stress free…there’s always a ton of school stuff to do and then all the family stuff on top of it. So if I can just pillow fort a little bit, that would be good.
Oy. I don’t think I ever really got well from the last virus, and now I have a stupid cold on top of it. I was just thinking that I’d kicked the cough, and now I’m all snot running everywhere and need-a-nap-after-school tired. It’s been a month of being sick, and I keep trying to give myself rest breaks, and it doesn’t help. Usually my immune system does better than this. Not this year apparently. I got the flu shot already, so when that comes around, I’ll just get some other variant for fun. Ah well…not being able to breathe through your nose or talk without it sounding weird? It’s just me this year.
I really did come home early from work last night and crash out on the couch for like 45 minutes. I may do it again tonight. Then I tried to grade, but the system was being super cranky. So I gave up. I’m trying NOT to have a big chunk of things to grade over break, but I suspect I will have that no matter what.
Artwise, because of being sick, I haven’t made it to ceramics the last two days…maybe by tomorrow? Or Friday? I hope. Wish. I have been tracing still…made it up into the 1200s last night.
I did all the weirdo eye things and moved into the words…
I thought I might finish all the words last night, but I didn’t…still a few more to do. Then a tree and some stuff around it. Four more nights? Slow as heck.
A boy and his cat.
Bowie can be sweet as hell. Or he can be hell. He’s a kitten. Doesn’t know his own crazy.
Here’s another shot of my quilt at the Philadelphia craft show…
On the left. Fun stuff.
Well, I don’t feel well. I can take more meds in an hour, I think? You know it’s bad when you wake up in the middle of the night to take meds. It’s just breathing. And lying down and breathing are problematic together. When you’re sick. It’s hands-on stuff today, so taking time off is not happening. Finish up analog sounds with a little digital (my class sounded like a music class yesterday with digital piano exploration…more clicking than writing, of course). Then move on to researching analog v digital signals and an academic question tomorrow. Field trip Friday. Collapse Saturday. Oh wait, I’m supposed to go to a potluck. That might also be on the chopping block. Right now, I’m just exhausted by all of it. I have a meeting this morning, then they want to do one Friday AM and I really can’t. I also don’t want to. Sigh. OK…need to find some Kleenex for this new virus…it wants to run…kinda like me. Except when I want to sleep. I could run in my sleep, I guess. NO! I want to finish tracing by the weekend so I can cut things out and iron during my week off. I want to get better. I want to get as much grading as possible done this week so I don’t have to think about school next week (ha! So funny.). Know your own crazy, I guess.
OK. I can do 5 days. You can do 5 days. The kids can’t do 5 days. Even if they know they have 9 days off after 5 days, they still can’t. Well, some of them can. Next year, the school board is giving us the Friday of the week before Thanksgiving Break off, which I think is idiotic. We already have a week. It’s already hard on both sides of that week. But whatever. Just because you’re voted in to a school board position doesn’t mean you know shit about how to teach kids. In fact, these days, it kinda guarantees that you know nothing. Am I looking forward to the 9 days off? Yes. But my to-do list is a little nuts. It always is. There’s family and food and doctor appointments you couldn’t fit anywhere else. And fixing cars and cleaning and yardwork and whatever else you haven’t had time for since August 9, when we started back to school. Kinda nuts. But you still have to plan and grade so December isn’t hell on wheels. So I spent a large part of my Saturday banging through one academic assignment. I have another one for this week, but odds are, I won’t get far. This week is already a little nuts. Plus I’d like to have all of December planned before going on break, and I’m not sure we’ll get that. I’m gonna try anyway. I’ve taught this stuff before…no need to reinvent the wheel completely.
Artwise, I did a bunch of tracing and a little bit of ceramics.
I’m still aiming for an hour a night and mostly falling short.
Grading until 9:30 PM and then starting…I don’t always start on time. I did get some extra time in on Saturday afternoon, once I’d finished grading. My brother was in town and I went out to dinner with him and then took him to see the Man’s band play. No photos. I’m lame. So I traced before all that. Good plan, because I was too tired after. And last night, I graded during a Zoom meeting, so then I started tracing around 8:45…so I got further, up into the 1000s (only barely).
Definitely more than halfway. I’m tracing all the weird shit I see when I close my eyes. That weird thing they still haven’t identified. Fun times. I’m on the 5th yard of Wonder Under. Why does that matter? They used to sell 20-yard bolts…now they are 10 yards, so I can see one big quilt basically taking almost all of a bolt. Annoying. Because they’re about the same price that the 20-yard bolts were. And harder to get…mine came from Florida and took a week. Nothing available locally. I just need to plan ahead. Ha! I try so hard to do that. And I suck at it.
I meant to go to clay on Friday, but had to stay for a bunch of stuff after school, and then we were going to dinner at the parents (again, forgot to take photos), so I wasn’t going to have time. Then I thought, Saturday? But grading it all was a priority. So I went Sunday at 4 PM, after finishing stuff. It was easier because I didn’t need to cook last night. So there’s no pressure to come home and do that.
I had a partner this time…
Bartholomew is a semi-feral cat they’ve been feeding. He came in with me and I fed him. He was loud for a while, hung out with me for a while, and then wanted back outside.
I added the other foot and shaped some things…added more to make the top mostly level. I have ideas for what to do next, but we’ll see how it goes. It’s big. Takes up most of my shelf. I can’t go much higher, so I’m back to needing to figure out how to stack parts. It needs carving and details added. And a decision about the inside. Which I think will be fabric. Making in clay and making in fabric are two very different things.
I also underglazed a small pot I made, and I forgot to take a picture of this bisqued before I put the clear glaze on…
It looked good. Hopefully will also look good in the end after the glaze fire.
I think I’m going back today after school. The rest of the week might be messy.
My piece Heart-Shaped Box was at a special SAQA exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show this weekend.
It looks like it had a pretty good location in their booth.
Nice to see it in video anyway. I have two pieces in another show right now, and probably three videos have been published and my two pieces are not in any of them. It’s always a little frustrating to not be able to see your stuff when you can’t travel to the show.
Nova love…she was drooling at some point.
And Bowie being a dork.
Some political leanings…
One of the reasons I made that Supreme Court quilt last year. Although they left out Alito.
From the book I just finished reading, The Dictionary of Lost Words…
Which I really enjoyed.
OK. Today. Is a lab day. Demos and stations. I’ll be demonstrating ripples all day. I haven’t really thought through how that’s gonna work? Because we made three stations and IDK how they’re going to move through them. Because it was a little chaotic last week. Hoping for less chaos this week. Today’s staff meeting is now shorter than it was supposed to be (hallelujah) and then hopefully clay afterwards. Although I have to cook tonight. And grade. Because class will be 100% on all day. Yikes! Tomorrow is a little easier, although we need to make some things during prep today. Double yikes! OK. Deep breaths. Go to school. Do the things. Make some art (and some dinner). Hope for the best.
