This Is Reality

Ah the frustration of technology. Nothing went well last night, except dinner. Dinner was a piece of cake. The computer, the copyediting, Microsoft Word (I know, but there’s reasons we use it)…all a clusterfuck. Straight up. I have a plan for tonight when I get home…but it’s gonna be a pain. And that will be after school, after tutoring, my worst days usually, Tuesdays suck. Sigh. Giant sigh. It’s fine. It will work. It will all be good. Or I’ll have to start over and I won’t make any real money on the job due to time lost. That’s reality for you.

I did cut stuff out, but only for about an hour and 45 minutes. Not what I wanted. Oh well. This is reality again.

School wall…

Ahhh, staff meetings. Do your staff meetings include how to behave when there’s an active shooter? Maybe they do. That’s reality.

Some flower stitch that’s not done, over on the right side. I’ll finish it tonight with the second strand.

It was cold, so I got the big dog. I had the little dog earlier, but the big dog is so much BIGGER. She was quite happy to sit there while I cut out pieces.

So yeah, I’m not sure an hour and 45 minutes really LOOKS any different. I can see where the flesh pieces are in the to-be-cut box (they’re usually the largest pieces), but I’m not really there yet. It takes two pairs of scissors. The larger ones are supposed to have this spring thing in them that reduces hand fatigue, and honestly, although I could feel it Sunday night after doing 4 hours of cutting, I was fine the next day. I guess that’s a good thing.

The smaller ones are for all those tiny cutouts I do. And if it’s a really small piece, I just toss it into the box uncut until I’m ironing…means I’m less likely to lose it.

All this is moot, though, until I finish cutting all those freakin’ pieces out. I’m 8 hours in, probably still less than half. But I’m progressing. And I should be honest. When it’s cold and I’m cranky and the world is full of assholes and stupid computer programs that like randomly reformatting shit without your input, I like sitting on the couch with a warm dog snuggled up against my leg, meditatively cutting out piece after piece while watching TV. It’s relaxing. Move the scissors, follow the line, finish, toss it in the box, pick up another piece, evaluate how best to cut it out, move the scissors, follow the line. There’s a place in my life for that level of simplicity.

Everything Looks Perfect from Far Away*

My efficiency was compromised yesterday by life. And my eyeballs. And the girlchild, who sobbed into the phone that she just wanted to come home. Well. That made me cry. I do miss the little fuckers. Big. They’re bigger than me. Anyway. I copyedited, I hiked, I ironed. That kinda sums up the day.

This is what copyediting looks like. Hallelujah for that raccoon, let me tell you. He makes me smile every time I look up. There’s a window above that and another one to the left. But I didn’t get as far as I wanted yesterday, because there was a girlchild incursion.

So I sent her lots of pictures of these guys. Although I couldn’t get both of them to sit picturesquely, dammit.

Then I did a 4-mile hike in the dark. It was a bit of a challenge, just because there were lots of rocks and no visibility. Yes, I had a headlamp, but I was having some issues seeing anyway.

But since it was in the 90s yesterday, at night was the only way I was gonna hike. So I’m in this hiking group, but they changed the rules to make it more active, so you have to go on one hike every 6 months to stay in the group. I begged the leader last year to leave me in, but I suspected I needed to do an actual hike with the group soon or I’d be booted. It’s just hard with my current schedule to find something I can do. After work is difficult…most of the hikes I would do are on the day I do tutoring, so it’s already a really long day.

So I went to the top of Black Mountain in the dark. Hence no good pictures. Four miles total…not bad for a Tuesday night.

Apparently she does this one all the time. I’d do it again…but I wouldn’t get there in time for after work. Too much traffic.

I came home and vegged a bit with this freak…

And girlchild FaceTimed again, now calmer and more decisive…this face is because she misses the dogs. Simba sucks at FaceTime.

I did iron last night…but not as much as I wanted to. Hikes tire me out. But there’s Midnight ironed down with her wings…

Damn I miss that cat. I made a mess again.

Got up early this morning to talk the girlchild through part of her drive to her brother…found the dog eating student warmups…luckily I’d already graded them.

Then made the dough for rolls (need to deal with those), plus brine for the turkey (mine is cooking Friday), talked to girlchild some more, talked to SIL, finally showered, my eyes are so tired right now, but I need to go make the rolls and then copyedit. Or go to the store (damn) or drop my book at the library. I graded a little bit this morning…I need to do more of that too. Ugh. And it’s dry and 95 degrees today. My body is rejecting all that. I want a nap.

What I really want is to FINISH everything. Yeah. Not happening. Gonna try to finish grading the one assignment, finish the first readthrough on the book, and iron all the pieces down (that might be a stretch). Today. TRY. I said TRY.

*The Postal Service, Such Great Heights

There’s Still Time to Change the Road You’re on*

So I spent a couple hours last night worrying about the girlchild, who was on lockdown in a dorm where a robbery took place at gunpoint. Because we need guns for protection, right? Because if anyone else in that dorm had possessed a gun, a whole lot of people would be injured or dead right now. As it is, everyone was fine, although I think both girlchild and I (and quite a few other parents and students) had the shakes for a while. But please don’t ever say to me that you have a right to carry a gun. Nope. You don’t. Not unless you’re a cop…and even then, I have misgivings because so many of our cops are racist and/or reactionary.

Anyway. That’s done.

I did some lazy daisies on the right that look like bull heads.

And then I ironed all those inner bits and pieces…here’s the layout for the heart and arteries…

And the pile of fabrics I went through last night…another 3 hours or so yesterday.

I’m up to 13 hours in the ironing…with about 400 pieces to go, I figure. It’s not been quick, that’s for sure. Here’s just one of the reds in the heart/arteries section…

Lots of pieces ready to be cut out.

And all the fabrics I’ve used so far…

I’ve been working to 1 AM and then falling into bed exhausted. The nighttime hours are better for this, I find. I did copyedit during the day yesterday…more of that today. I haven’t graded any assignments since Sunday, and I need to do some of that too. So I’m probably not going to finish the ironing today…can’t really blow off the moneymaking part of my week yet. I need to get significantly further along. I do have most of today (I’m hiking tonight), all of tomorrow, a few hours on Thanksgiving (mostly nighttime probably), and all of Friday. But I’m realizing it’s never enough. This quilt has to be done and photographed in less than 40 days. I can do that…but the copyediting has to be done in less time than that, and I have to deal with school. I can’t just push that off. Where do the hours go? Staring at fabric, I think. Mostly. And dealing with dogs. Stupid stuff like eating and peeing. I made lasagne from scratch yesterday…but that’s 3 more dinners on top of last night’s. So that was a good thing.

Sitting here watching a hummingbird on the flowers outside my office window…supposed to be in the 90s today. November, my ass.

OK, so shower, eat, copyedit. Consider venturing out for the chicken broth I should’ve bought on Sunday for the turkey I’m making for myself. Gotta make some rolls too. Should do that tomorrow…

Now get up and go.

*Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven

Now That We’re Here, It’s So Far Away

Today I have to work for real. I did grade yesterday, but today I need to start the copyediting project I took on. But first? Chiropractor and Costco. I might need assistance getting out of the latter. Shitty timing for that, after seeing the grocery store yesterday. I always forget about the crazy food shopping that happens before Thanksgiving, now that the girlchild isn’t here for the day. She’s the amazing cook, where we had to drive to like 4 different stores finding all the stuff she needed, plus some desperate Thursday morning shopping trips. Can’t say I miss that, but I do miss having her around and cooking.

So when I get done with that, I’ll come home and read and correct until my eyes blur. Maybe I’ll stop before that. We’ll see. I’d like it done before I go back to school. But I also want to get done with the ironing…so balance. Speaking of balance, I took an art workshop yesterday…I did a lot of printmaking in college and soon after, but then I leaned into the fabric and fell in. But this was nice…I had an idea going in, so I did a rough sketch on paper, remembering to flip the word and letters…

Drew it on the rubber eraser stuff…this is way easier to carve than linoleum…

Carved and ready to ink…

Not bad…probably haven’t done this for 20 years…

Maybe these are my Xmas cards this year (although I need more)…

Then two nights’ worth on here, mostly doing more feather stitches on the right around the eye.

And finally in to the ironing. I had to find all the little-head pieces and iron them to the same flesh run as before…

Here’s all the pieces that were NOT flesh-colored but shoved in there…eyeballs, hearts, arteries, lungs, etc. I had to go up to piece 948 to get all the heads and arms picked.

But I don’t have 950 pieces ironed down…I gotta do all those inner pieces…

Here’s just the pile of arteries and heart parts.

At the parentals’ for dinner, I finished sewing down the wonky sun and started to do eyeballs and nostrils.

The wool stitchdown on this set of blocks seems to be taking forever. Maybe it’s because it’s been so long since I did the last one? I don’t remember.

These two slept on the back of the couch last night for quite a while together.

I did iron a ton of pieces last night…you can see the pile on the left…and the pile of fabrics on the right.

I still have all these innards to deal with…

I did some of the teeth and eyeballs and tongues, but not much else…just the hair on the little heads. So there are fewer piles than there were before.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

Calli this morning…glad to be in the house with a HooMan.

And her little brother, who wants to play…

I did actually start this post this morning, but then went to the chiropractor visit and a hell trip to Costco (should never go there near a holiday)…and then I started the sauce for the lasagne, ate lunch, and started copyediting before I remembered I’d never posted this. Whoops. Oh well. I’ll work for a while and then assemble lasagne and then maybe iron tonight. I love the ironing. The delving into color boxes to the deep back where there might be a fabric that hasn’t seen the light of day in a year, just to toss it into this quilt. Fun stuff.

*Staind, So Far Away

I’ve Gone to Ground*

Oh brain, mush brain, brain with few thoughts, brain that is still making my left eye twitch like a motherfucker. Oh brain. Stahp It.

So the plus is that it’s apparently Saturday and I finished the copyediting project…sent it off to the author this afternoon, about two hours ago…and then paced crazily around the house, trying to focus on anything at all. Nope. Not happening.

It’s apparently July too. So that’s a thing. June was a freakin’ blur. Still have three community quilts to finish. Tomorrow. Today I am done with shit I have to do.

Yesterday, I copyedited…I went to a beach bonfire in between two sessions of staring at tiny letters with new glasses, which caused a weird 3D thing in the middle of the computer screen…it’s still doing it, but I figure I’ll get used to it. I quit copyediting at around 11:30 PM because my left eye was vibrating too fast for me to be able to read well. Sign of tired eyes? You think?

Then I did a bunch of purplish and pink lazy daisies in the bush on the bottom right, to fill in the empty spaces.

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Then I did nothing. Eventually I managed sleep. Got up this morning and went back to the computer for more. Meanwhile, boychild and the ex worked on cleaning up animals…Simba got a flea bath, Calli got combed. I think Simba’s getting fleas removed here…it’s been a bitchy year for fleas…

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Then the boychild washed both cats, brave man.

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The cats have an appointment next week to hopefully get a prescription flea med that will work better than what’s not working now.

I ordered new quilting gloves, Machingers, the other night, because I realized my old ones were getting really gross and dirty with the pastel and stuff that’s all over the community quilts.

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I usually replace them about once a year anyway…so it’s time.

Kitten recovered from her bath…

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That’s what old pieces of smallish batting are for, right? Covering papers so wet cats can lie where they like?

Then I eventually made it back to numbering this…

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Yeah, it’s more pieces than I expected, and yes, I added the damn spaceship. I’d like to think aliens aren’t adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, but maybe they are. So this one is ready to trace, as soon as I get the community quilts done. Let’s not talk about what else I need to do next week. Let’s just have a little happy dance about finishing the copyediting. Now I can pay the mortgage in the summer. No paycheck after the one I picked up yesterday until the end of August…it’s always a rough time of year. I’d like to say that I want more copyediting work, but if I don’t get a few weeks off, I might go nuts. Been working way too hard. Need some time with art and books and drawing and regular exercise and spacing out. Please.

Oh yeah, and here’s a video of me talking about my Quilt National piece, Beyond the Concrete…it’s a little zoomy around in blurry space at times, but just look away if you get motion sickness and listen to my crazy voice…I especially love where it froze on my face for the preview here…I’m singing along to some song, ooooh ooooh, surely.

Ooooh ooooh oooooh.

*Zero 7, Destiny

You Need Something Warm to Embrace*

Well all my problems are solved. I have $12.5 million dollars coming from some guy in the Netherlands who’s managing some dead guy’s estate. Of course, he had no living relatives, so I’m obviously the best choice for getting all the money.

Sigh. Morning email check is always a bust. Do you know how hard it is to fall asleep with 22 mosquito bites in unreachable places? Don’t eat outside, I guess…but it was way too hot Monday night to eat inside. Now we pay the price. Here’s Kitten demonstrating what cats do when it’s hot…they get LONGER and FLATTER.

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I can’t do either of those things.

So the good news is that I’ve made it all the way through the book I’m copyediting…one time. Well, more than one time, because I did a bunch of global changes that needed doing. But I only need one more clear read through before I can shove it off my plate (and get paid the rest). That’s a plus.

The other good news is that all of the community quilts are now pinbasted. Today is quilting day. Seriously. When I’m done with this, I’m going to shower and eat and then quilt until I die. And bind until I die. I want this shit done. Gone. Fini. Here’s the two I pinbasted last night…

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My block is in this one.

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My plan is to make it into it’s own small quilt when it comes back. We’ll see. Or I’ll make it again. Whichever.

I branched out with chain stitch last night…on the right…

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And then the girlchild posted this yesterday…

I do miss her.

So this is one of the reasons I haven’t been able to work on this drawing (well, honestly, it was more a matter of brain power). So I moved the damn cat. Multiple times. She was not happy about it.

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And I worked on the legs…trying to remember to keep it simple, because this is not getting enlarged any more.

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I forgot I wanted a third landmass, so I added that. I briefly considered covering the bit of leg I’d already drawn, but then I didn’t. So this is how drawing decisions are made. Whoops! Forgot that. Damn. Well it will have to do.

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Not sure why one foot is so much bigger. Oh well. It is what it is. I’m not really a perfectionist.

I tossed it on the ground for a different view…

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Still have some leg bits to do, plus the stuff under the feet. But it’s almost done.

Here we are by section…

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I keep adding things up here.

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Even up here…although the top is mostly done. I’m still a bit bothered by the top left. Thinking about it.

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Why are UFOs the only thing that pop into my mind?

So I’ve put in about 2 1/2 hours of drawing once it was enlarged. Honestly, a lot of that is just staring at it and pushing the cat around.

I also had a great idea for the piece I started with the gun in it. So I need to enlarge just the guy and the gun (I started drawing more on there but it sucked). Maybe today? I have a list of errands growing again. Hate errands.

So does Kitten. She avoids them like the plague.

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Then again, she avoids a lot of things, like the grocery store and school and work and cleaning and all that. Speaking of work, we had a flurry of texts going back and forth yesterday as school released the schedule for our first day back, lots of useless professional development. Oops. I’m not supposed to be so cynical, except, Hey You Bastards…I haven’t started my vacay yet. Could you leave off reminding me that I have to go back for a bit? Really?

Yeah. I’m good. I did draw yesterday. That helped. I have to remember that shit when the other shit is getting me down.

*Gnarls Barkley, Smiley Faces

Give It to Me What You Say*

I have to say the hardest part of vacation so far is the part where I’m not on vacation and I’m making less art than I would be during the school year. I’m really just trying to bully through it and get to the other side, but it’s kinda driving me nuts. Yes! I did manage to not get onto a jury yesterday. It was actually pretty easy. I sat in the “quiet room” (there is nothing quiet about a room that is located right next to a bathroom…I heard more flushing than I ever had before in my life.) and worked on the bibliography for the book I’m copyediting…

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‘Twas a mess. I sat there and fucked with it for about an hour and a half and then they called names for one trial. And the rest of us did the No Jury Duty Dance out the door. Of course, then I spent the next 5 hours working on the Bibliography. Ugh. What a mess. I said that already. Then I copyedited one more chapter. It was about 99° yesterday. No I don’t have air conditioning. I turned all the fans on and opened windows and we ate dinner outside, but blech. Ugh. Blah. Gah.

I finally gave up on being mentally present and worked on this…

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I did a yellow-green straight stitch with fly stitches on each end, then did some lazy daisy leaves with the tail end of the thread. Up in the top right. Like you can tell, right?

Then I sat there and vegged out for a good long time. I would send tiny tendrils of what was left of my mind out toward this drawing or that one (the cat was lying on that one, the other one needs copying and a do over, the third one is just not gelling in my mind). I considered cutting Wonder Under. And then I just did some cleaning instead…going through piles of paper and tossing shit I don’t need any more. I filled a recycling bin. It was the only thing I could do.

I’m frustrated about the no art thing. Really I could have done something, if I could have fought the heat and brain lethargy. Sometimes I’m really good at that. The first week or so after school gets out? I suck at it. Seriously. Every year.

Anyway. The solution starts now. Copyedit the last 5 chapters today. Then pinbaste the last 2 quilts. I’ll quilt tomorrow and then do a final readthrough on the book and get it the hell outta here. I bought the last batting and the binding fabrics yesterday. Get this shit done so I can have some of my own brain-powered work going on. Don’t let myself sit on the couch, even if braindead. Yes, the cleaning needs to happen too, but I can’t do this no-art thing any longer. Seriously. I need to be making stuff.

*Rick James, Give It to Me Baby

This Is Not My Beautiful World…

I am so disheartened by the country I live in at the moment. Although having lived elsewhere, I know that it probably doesn’t matter where you live…there will be things that humans do that I will just be entirely incapable of understanding. I hear anger toward other…but as a teacher, I have often had students who are other (insert group name here), and I know from experience and years of teaching biology that we are all the same, just a tiny tweak of DNA. It just makes me want to weep to think of one of my kids, my students (because they ARE our kids for some short period of time, and we always continue to think of them and wonder if they are OK), being hurt or killed because of this crazy stupidity we call Protection, Right to Bear Arms, Vengeance. Whatever. It’s anger. It’s fear. And it’s not necessary. We are no longer in a predator/prey relationship, trying to survive against nature. Now we apparently have to survive against ourselves, because other humans are out to kill us, harm us. Stop trying to find a scapegoat. If you have anger toward another group or people or gender or whatever, then it is you.

And I know that most who read my blog are not. And I don’t know how to get this idea across to the angermongers. I can’t even imagine if one of them is President. How that will roll. Art is supposed to help with this, but I know none of them will all of a sudden look at a piece of art and arrive at a revelation.

This world we live in. I just don’t get it. Why people think it’s OK to act that way. I just don’t get it.

I have to work this morning. I’m trying to find the right mindset. I object to having to push all this…sadness…away into a corner of my brain so I can continue to copyedit. But I have to…to survive. At least to pay the bills. And continue to ponder how to get across to the increasingly crazy killers that they need to stop. That it would be a better world if they did. David Byrne’s song…Once in a Lifetime (OK, it’s Talking Heads…not just David)…this is not my beautiful house…this is not the world I want to live in. Not my beautiful world. I hate not being able to visualize a solution…besides get rid of the damn guns. I wish we could just do that. A start. See where that takes us. Because this is just crazy.

Back to my regular blogpost…but know all that is still in my head…running circles around any attempts I make to live a normal life.

I had my monthly stitching meeting last night, and Julie brought a thread (OK, she brought bags of thread) that she thought might work for the flower stitching…

Because here’s what 13 of them look like on the left (OK, I didn’t really count, damn you)…half of them are that magenta color, and half are purple. Half have the silk velvet center and half have a cotton center that is a similar color. And I think there are two different colors in the body of the flower. But I had no more of the pink thread. As it was, I had to pick a near color for the flower and the center…so in the whole quilt? I don’t think anyone will notice…

And if they do, it was on purpose…to let the evil spirits out…right? Fact is I finished stitching everything and there was an empty space that bugged me. So I filled it.

Now I can back it and quilt it and bind it (well, except I have no working sewing machine, unless I go pull the old one out). And no time to quilt it. Minor issue. It’s still done. Ish.

Then I was working on the other birds, the last three, at the meeting…

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I had already finished all the background stitches in the beige/gray color, so I added feet and stitched around the eyeballs. I just found all the eye buttons when I was cleaning off the couch the other day. Who knows how long they’ve been there. Years. So all the decorative bird embroidery is left.

Meanwhile, I am still…STILL…cutting stuff out. I’m almost done, if by almost, I mean less than 10 hours. Because I did 3 hours last night, and there’s still a chunk left to do (14 hours in so far). Here’s the trash pile…a huge amount of fleshy bits.

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See…this is what’s left. Of course, you can’t see how big any of the pieces are that need cutting when they’re upside down…I do know that top two are all crane feathers, so not huge, but not tiny.

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This is everything that’s cut out…the box fills…slowly.

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Side by side…the to-be-cut on the left, the already-cut-out on the right…you can see progress.

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So yeah. I have to work. And run some errands. Stuff that guarantees my paycheck. And let the part of my brain that is always trying to solve problems wander around up there and attempt to find peace. For all of us. Wish I could see that.

Head above Water

Yesterday. Was good. Although a little frustrating in the first half. Jackhammering continued (none this morning!), starting too early for me…and then, because editing was going so EASILY…the document turned into a Frankenbeast of formatting headaches. I made one change, moving something into a list that needed to be there, and it literally screwed up the formatting in the entire document. And I didn’t notice until I’d made another 50 corrections or so, so I couldn’t just undo without losing all of that. Aargh. I searched for ways to deal with bulleted lists, and got nothing relevant…probably because I didn’t know exactly what words to use. Formatting can be such a bitch. So I had to redo a chunk of it, which lost me time and money. Sigh. It happens.

After that, I managed to finish a book, hike 7.34 miles with the kids, make dinner from scratch, and cut stuff out. Yup. This is how I relax. Seriously. Look under the definition for workaholic and you find me.

OK. I never really relax like this…

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That puppy is spoiled.

So the hike…we did over 7 miles of Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve, leaving from the Black Mountain trailhead and hiking out to the waterfall in a roundabout way, trying to avoid trails with bikes on them (although the bikes appear to just ignore the signs that say stay off, because they’re assholes? Or illiterate? Or special? I’ve never understood that.). There was poison oak everywhere…the wonders of a high-water winter and spring in Southern California. This is cactus overrun by poison oak…which you can only find here.

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The weather was much better than last week, and honestly, this isn’t a hard hike. There’s no up and down…just long.

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We made it to the waterfall and hung out briefly.

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But we had to be out of the parking lot by 8, because they lock it, so we were motivated to keep moving.

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There’s a few river crossings…I think we did this one twice.

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And the oak groves are always my favorite.

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A grave of a former ranch cook…

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And this sign amused us…because really? The trail to the right was pretty poison-oaked as it was…

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But whatever. We just didn’t touch the stuff.

After dinner, I managed to cut for another couple of hours…wait, make that three hours. So I think I’m over 11 hours in right now.

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There were lots of little pieces last night…some I didn’t even try to cut out (you can see a few on the bottom left), because they’re too small and I’ll just lose them. I’ll cut them out as I iron.

This is all that’s left…

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It doesn’t look like much, until you see how many of the pieces are small. It took me about 30 minutes last night just to cut out the giraffe’s spots. All curvy and weird.

This was my scrap pile from last night…

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You can see the color changes below…four different scrap piles from four different nights.

I’m getting there…slowly. Too slowly, I think sometimes. But I’ll get there. I do have to copyedit again today…and tomorrow. But I’m hoping to leave the weekend free. That would be a plus. It’s hard knowing that what would really help me relax and be ready for the upcoming (stressful) school year is not having to work NOW…but also needing to work NOW because of college and cat payments etc.

A friend sent me a link to a gallery in New Orleans where she saw stuff she knew I’d like (and I did)…and I’ve been thinking of trying to do an actual vacation trip in the next 12 months, but the money is nonexistent, and then girlchild tried to guilt trip me about coming to visit my kids instead. Ah. OK. That was discussed at one point. So we’ll see. Price it out. Work some more hours. And I have a quilt going to Houston, but I won’t be there…which sucks, but again…money kicks me upside the head. Keep making art. Keep working. Head above water…

The book I finished (and I will be reading the next one, once I get through the three I have checked out from the library) was The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch…very good, although in George R. R. Martin style, he likes to kill my favorite characters.

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I should make time to draw today I think. I believe I need to do that. I keep saying it and not doing it.

All the Things

Although the jackhammering started early, to my night-owl brain, it seems to maybe be done? I eavesdropped on the guy in charge, and it certainly seems like today is the last day. AND I am currently enjoying my new keyboard with keys that actually have LETTERS on them. I know, right? What a luxury item.

I did work most of yesterday. Copyediting. I’ll be doing it again most of today and tomorrow. It’s OK. I need the money.

Meanwhile, I do toss in some artmaking, mostly at night, when I probably couldn’t continue to work anyway. I’m a little over 8 hours into the trimming, and this is where it gets slow. The pile doesn’t change much over time once I get the big pieces cut out. Because then I run into pieces like this…

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Daisies…that was all of them in one of the three colors I ironed them onto…so imagine about 30 minutes spent cutting them out.

Midnight helped…

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At the end of the evening, well, night…because it was well after midnight. The time, not the cat. The top box is all cut out. There’s still quite a bit in the lower box.

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Simba finally settled down for a nap after I threw two balls consecutively for about 15 minutes, nonstop.

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I need to be focused today. We’re hiking this afternoon too. So yeah. Trying to do ALL the things. It’s just not possible. Plus I need to know ALL the stuff too. So I don’t have a lot of words today. Brain is fuzz.