Accept the Fuzz…

Hey. It’s Spring Break. I’m exhausted, overwhelmed, buried, and woke up sick this morning. That squirrel is back on the fence, running along…he hasn’t figured out how to get to the bird feeder yet (the Man moved it). I’m waiting for the Mark Rober adjustments to the feeder if he does figure it out (if you’ve never watched Rober design systems to foil squirrels, it’s definitely a squirrel hole to fall down some day.). I leave early Wednesday morning for Virginia, and every time I turn around, something else gets added to the to-do list. The oil light came on in my car yesterday after driving to Long Beach and back for an art meeting (hardly any traffic, luckily). Hoping I don’t get all those people sick. But I felt fine yesterday…just tired. And I’m always tired. Here’s to hoping my middle-school-teacher immune system kicks in (and my flu shot) to make this thing go away quickly. I don’t have time to be sick. I don’t want to be sick on a plane either. Sigh. OK. Need to buy/find masks now.

Did I finish my taxes on Saturday? Nope. Not even. I packed and shipped a quilt that will be at the New England Quilt Museum as part of the Soul Stories exhibit opening there around April 14. It will travel to Birmingham, UK, and then to International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas, in November. I can’t go to any of those shows, I think. Ah well. The quilts travel more than I do…always.

I have the closing reception for the Fantastic Stories exhibit at the Virginia Quilt Museum this coming weekend. We’re doing demos on Friday and then an artist talk on Saturday. If I had a car and more time, I’d then drive up to the Art Quilt Elements opening at the Wayne Art Center; I have a piece in that show as well. The opening is from 3-5 PM. It’s about a 4-hour drive from where I am in Virginia, I don’t have a car, and I’m planning on going to museums in DC on Monday. I’m not making it to the opening. I couldn’t do the 8-hour roundtrip drive plus rent the car. Money is tight. I’m appreciating the museum finding us a place to stay while we’re in Virginia and transporting us around. Saves me a bit of money I don’t actually have.

But this is the artist’s life…I could never afford to be a fulltime artist and feed my kids. The paychecks are not regular (or honestly big) enough. One quilt selling from this show would cover my expenses easily, but my stuff does not sell easily unfortunately. I probably don’t market well either. In my spare time! Anyway, if you are in Dayton, come see the show. If you miss it this week (it comes down Saturday night), I’ll have a piece in the No Boundaries exhibit that opens right afterward, on March 31.

I did finish the smallest of the dye paintings last night. On Friday, I finished all the embroidery so far and was considering threads for the hair.

Then Saturday night, I started working on the hair…

This is the smallest of the pieces I’m working on…

This one is about 20″ square…smaller than I usually do. And last night, I finished up the purple in the hair…

And sewed the sleeves down on the bottom edge (I waited to make sure the embroidery didn’t catch in the sleeves).

I don’t usually make pieces this small…trying to see if this is faster than the other way I make quilts. For something this size, it’s not.

Official photos will have to follow. I have a piece about this size that I did last year, in my normal technique, and it’s about the same number of hours. Interesting. It’s still a worthwhile process though, for a different type of image. I’m not giving up on it. Certainly, I make more work by adding the embroidery, but that was part of what I wanted to do. Moving on to the next one tonight. Might be some bedazzly stuff going on with that one.

I really wish they’d pay TSA. Getting on a plane and going to DC is somewhat nerve-wracking, now helped by long lines and ICE agents.

Such a frustrating system we have at the moment.

This was not surprising, unfortunately. Men in power. Strength and love to Dolores Huerta.

But true. I don’t want anyone in the Epstein Files to be in power anywhere. Don’t care who they are. That’s the difference.

Going back to the Dark Ages, y’all.

This is how men control the story. Take the meds away…I don’t see anyone removing Viagra or its equivalents. Of course not. Not making men responsible for their bodies and what they do with them. Birth control is mostly hormones…interestingly, hormones men have as well.

This is what I always feel like at the beginning of Spring Break. Except when I’m sick.

But it does feel like a good morning despite the headache and sore throat. I’ll try to stand outside in the sun for a bit. Just stand. Then go back to prepping for this trip, trying to grade stuff, trying to finish taxes, trying to keep up with all the stupid stuff I’m supposed to be doing in the next two days. I’d like to get to ceramics today too…maybe later. Brain is very fuzzy. Spring Break fuzzy? Sick fuzzy? General old age fuzzy? It probably doesn’t matter…accept the fuzz.

Watching Squirrels Sleep…

Hey I usually do more of a countdown to Spring Break, but I haven’t even had the mental space for that…it starts today! At 3:30 PM…but it’s also Eid today, so I’m guessing I’ll have at least 40 students missing, just based on what got turned in yesterday. We normally miss a bunch the Friday before a break, but with a massive religious holiday…it’ll be a lot more. We all planned for it…easier to plan for it at the end of a unit, right before a break, than for the beginning of a unit, right after a break (that was last year). So I’m not expecting a lot of stupid shit today, luckily…hopefully quiet, watch Bill Nye while I grade, be quiet, turn your stuff in. Meanwhile, I made a grading list and it sucks. My fault of course, but whatever. I only have four days at home before I leave for Virginia, and about a million things to do, so that should be interesting.

Survived field trip…

Had to explain what the metal string things were for and that the seagull was not making a nest there and dropping its eggs into the water.

Meanwhile, embroidery takes forever. Wednesday night…I got the speech bubble etc on…

I may have embroidered more around the heart…and then last night, I did embroidery in the speech bubble and more around the heart.

Better. The heart itself needs more. Then the hair. Probably outline the speech bubble. Doesn’t sound like much but I probably won’t be done until next year. Ha! No…it won’t take THAT long.

My brain fuzzed out last night for a bit so I have a lot of memes expressing my frustration with the world. Well, this is not a meme…just a direction to the drones that are not really over California, looking for places to drop bombs.

I love California most of the time. Not all of it. But in general.

Keeping up with the political theme of Why TF are we at war and everything costs so much.

Plus deportations still happening, people dying in custody, little kids separated from their parents. People trying to be legal about immigration and that doesn’t matter. DACA recipients ffs. They pay taxes, you idiots.

The damn SAFE Act is just fucked up. I did check my passport last night, just for giggles (is it giggles when it’s necessary?). I never changed my name though…I also checked that I had my birth certificate, and I do. Thanks mom for smuggling those out of Alaska. I really do think we’re in an alien dystopian movie at the moment.

There’s also this though. I do this all the time.

That’s an anxiety thing. Fun. And this…

I know I’m going to have to be up early on Sunday to drive to an art meeting in freakin’ Long Beach. Ugh. I wouldn’t be going if it weren’t Spring Break, but even then, I don’t have much time before I leave and I WANT to: finish grading, have my taxes done, get a bunch of yard work done…and I NEED to: pack everything, set up demos to take with me, make sure I have food (we have a kitchen…I just found that out). So I’m doing all of that. OH. And get to ceramics on Tuesday or Monday so I’m not leaving my piece for too long. Plus get the damn toilet fixed. It’s been months.

This amuses me…because it is also true. But today is Hawaiian shirt day (for Spring Break), so I’m wearing a bulky men’s shirt that buttons on the wrong side and isn’t my thing at all.

Just like a middle-school teacher. I brought a shirt and flip flops to change into later for ceramics.

I need to grade all of Per 5 and 6’s Unit 5 packets, because I’m bringing home Unit 6 today. Sad but true. I also need to copy all the stuff for the first week back; I have the first day copied and that’s it. So that’s my goal for the school day. Plus be chill (my A/C sort of works?) and not go off on anyone (I already did last night, but it was semi-justified…maybe could have worded it as a suggestion instead of a rant, but I don’t have that in me right now). Do my afterschool duty in 97-degree heat (seriously?) and then go to clay and then go home and eat leftovers and maybe grade some shit because downtime is rare and I’m on a mission to clear the second week of break from school shit (ha!). SLEEP. Maybe. Because hot and the Man yelled out “Text him” the other night in his sleep. Plus a cat hit my head and I was bleeding…luckily under the hair and not on the face. I’m currently watching a squirrel run along the fence between my yard and my neighbors…thinking of getting a squirrel box and putting a camera inside so I can watch them sleep. Seriously. Google it. It’s funny.

Supposed to Do…

Hello all. It’s Wednesday, although my brain is convinced it has survived more than two work days this week. It’s wrong…well, unless you count the weekend, when I also worked. As always. I finally finished all the bindings on the dye paintings…with everyone’s help. Here’s Nova…

Who headbutts things and then drools on you.

I started embroidery (finally!) on this one last night…

Probably take forever. I was going to do more applique on it, but that would have meant getting off the couch and I was well past that. I will still DO the applique, but I need to prep for it earlier in the evening. Probably not tonight. Today is a mess. We’re going on a field trip to the Midway (big military boat; my favorite thing really…ha), then we’re back in our rooms for two periods and I still don’t have air conditioning (it was 97 degrees outside yesterday). Then pilates and cooking dinner. Ugh. I’ll be half dead by the end of it. And I’m grading like crazy to hopefully limit what I have to get done over break.

I went to the ceramics studio last night and took this half-assed photo of the bowl ready for glaze fire.

It took me almost an hour to do the glazing. I’m hoping it turns out well.

The Forbidden Words Project quilt is done…I have three words/phrases in it.

Let’s see if I can find them…

The girlchild might make it to the opening where this will debut up in San Francisco. It’ll travel…hopefully I’ll see it at some point.

Yesterday was crazy hat day AND tattoo a teacher (fundraiser)…

What’s funny is that I went to the ceramics studio after and forgot I had the tattoos and got some weird looks until I remembered.

Good times. Getting them off was a bit more challenging, but I think we’re good.

This is where we’re headed. Again.

I’d like to bring up the guy who said my comments about the Repugs/MAGA need to throw women back to the 1900s were a conspiracy theory. After I bring him up, I’d like him to explain what’s happening now and how I was wrong. (not happening; it’s fine. It’s not like I wanted to be right.)

And this. Sigh.

Keep voting y’all. And caring about all the people. It’s what we’re supposed to do.

Extra Hour…

If you’re a teacher, this is my day: it is Friday the 13th, a week before Spring Break, we have an assembly, and it’s supposed to be 94 degrees. And my air conditioning in the classroom is still not working. It worked for one day and then turned off again. Managed to keep it under 74 degrees yesterday with the use of a fan and opening and closing doors to other people’s A/C. But really not sustainable. So fix that shit! At least there’s no full moon though. Pro: short classes. Con: trying to get a thing done with short classes. All the kids who were absent yesterday when I explained how to do the project are on their own; I made a video of the explanation. I have to check every kid’s paper today before they can go to the next stage (this is the fun part). I’ve have no chance to grade the packets all week. I think I have half of one class done. HALF. Fuck me. I need that done before break.

In other news, I’m still working on four quilts at one time. I got the bindings pinned on Wednesday night…

Except for one, because I forgot to zigzag the edges of the seam. Yes, I do that. Crazy sewing training. Then last night, I started the handsewing of the binding.

Simba did not help. I did not finish even one quilt. I got about 3/4s of the way around. On most of them, maybe all of them, I’ll wait to sew the bindings down until the embroidery is done. I don’t want to embroider through the sleeves…that would make them nonfunctional and be very silly. Some people are probably wondering why I did the binding before the embroidery. Because I don’t have the creative brainpower at the moment to decide what and how to embroider. Hopeful that shows up soon, but currently in exhaustion mode. Wish me luck with that.

Last night was my monthly stitching-in-person meeting and I managed more of the raccoon.

Cute; not hard, but fun.

I had Nova next to me and Scribble decided to be on my lap and then bite Nova’s neck.

I swear, Nova is the most submissive cat sometimes. She just sat there, like “this is my fate”. So weird.

This is true.

And I know what I’m gonna do with it.

OK. Seriously, today is not a trivial day. Plus two meetings and trying to wrangle the sex-ed packets between grade levels. Last night’s parent info meeting was also not trivial. More parents than we’ve had in years, maybe ever. Long. Thanks to the translators. After school, I have to book out of there to get to the dentist to get my stitches out…finally. They’re driving me bonkers. Then hopefully I’ll feel OK enough to go to ceramics. More bindings tonight (handsewing…sitting on the couch, staring at the TV in between stitches), and sleep, beautiful sleep. Although the dog hasn’t been letting us sleep in past 7:20 AM. Ugh. Hopeful. I am ever hopeful for that extra hour.

Don’t Really Know What I’m Doing…

Well. Here we are. It’s Monday again. I’m not sure how I feel about the last weekend. I did some things. I didn’t do all the things (I never do). I don’t feel like I did enough of the things (I rarely do). Sometimes though, it really feels like a dearth of productivity or enjoyment. So I sit here on Monday morning and remember that I did plan my summer trip finally; I actually have stuff booked. I should have done it two months ago, but I didn’t…but it’s good that I didn’t wait any longer. I had the mental space for that because the dog was up at some ungodly hour on Saturday morning and I just started and then I was done. I also started my taxes (see, this is why it doesn’t feel like a good time). My country started a war. You know, standard Saturday morning. What did you do today? Bombed a girls’ school. How about you? I accidentally shot my coworkers out of the sky. No biggie, right?

So let’s start with the art…I didn’t get much done. No ceramics on Friday because the dog needed to be let out. Adjustment in schedules for all of us when the boychild goes back to work. Honestly, we dissected eyeballs on Friday and I was pretty exhausted anyway.

Couldn’t go on Saturday because they were doing a class there. So it’ll be today. I quilted Friday night…

I’m adding a speech bubble. Gotta keep it clean for this venue. Then embroidery and binding.

Saturday night, I quilted the next one…

Definitely something needs to happen with the hair. Not sure what else.

Then last night, I started quilting this one…

It’s more complicated; requires more color changes. One of the colors was not happy about being sewn, so there was that. This one needs a lot of embroidery in the hair, I think. There’s one more after this to quilt, and then I can start the other stuff. I might put bindings and sleeves on first? Can’t decide…depends on if the sleeves will get in the way of embroidery. So maybe wait, since I don’t really know what I’m doing with that yet.

Four at a time? Unlike me. But it’s what I’m doing right now.

I hiked Saturday. By myself still. Which is fine. My brain wanders (not always good). So do my feet.

It was warm…over 90 degrees during midday, down to 80 or so when I hiked at 4:30 PM.

Lots of flowers out. Weird cloud formations.

Flowers were out at home too. I took a break from grading and planning and taxes at some point and watered things and moved a few plants.

Noticed some weird flowers.

Interacted with Simba.

Stressed about war.

And children.

And that’s kind of where I’m at today…not happy with my government…still…again. But I’m still going to work and doing the things. Although one of those stressed me out all weekend. Sigh. Parents using Chatgpt to make excuses for their kids. Fun times.

I’m glad I’m not a history teacher right now. Although we still get asked questions, stupid ones: “what do you think about the Epstein files miss?” WHAT THE FUCK do you think I think? Seriously. And I can’t really answer except to say, the man was in jail for a reason. In my head? More people should be in jail. Lots more. One big dumb one in particular.

So that was the weekend. Taxes are never a good way to spend time off, but it needed to get started. It’s fine. These things have to happen. Today, I give a test on the eyeball and kids turn packets in. Grades are due in a week. I’m behind in grading…still…again. Hopefully I get to go to ceramics after work and work on that piece that will soon need to go on a drying shelf, which means there needs to be ROOM on a drying shelf (there hasn’t been). Then home to read my book for book club (Wednesday, not done yet) and then more quilting. More fabric decisions, thread thoughts. Those are things I can look forward to today. I will have to grade before I get to that, but OK, I can do that. Keep it short, but get it done. Right now? I need to go take my meds and then drive the ex’s dog to doggy daycare so I can go to work. Deep breaths. Holding onto anxiety with this parent…didn’t read the last email. Didn’t want to lose more sleep over the enabling. Not worth it.

Good Place to Be…

I woke up this morning having an internal argument with a student about an email they sent last night, then realized I am not in the classroom today because after teaching sex ed for over 23 years (maybe more), I need to be trained in how to do that. For the third or fourth time…fourth. It’s the fourth. Don’t blame my school district; blame my school board. It is their fault. Good times. Luckily, we will get time to plan, which we desperately need. Not for sex ed, but for the upheaval in lessons caused by having to teach sex ed in the middle of April, before state testing, instead of after it, like normal. If anyone at the district says to me, “It’s only one year” again, I will punch them. And hopefully get fired, so I can stop doing stupid shit because adults fucked up. Well, probably not. It’s not like our government isn’t equally idiotic.

SO. I still have to go to school, make sure my sub shows up, set up my classroom, blah blah blah. Listen to an hour or so of stuff I already know how to do (I was on the committee that designed the damn curriculum) and then work. For real. Then hopefully ceramics afterward and come home and grade and I have a book club Zoom tonight, plus work on some fabric stuff. I delivered the newest quilt to the photographer on Saturday, and then started working with the dye paintings I did last summer. I have a show coming up that has to be no nudity, and I had four of those dye paintings with no nudity, so good start…

I had bought some border fabrics a few weeks ago. Originally I thought I wasn’t going to use borders, but they needed some space before the edges. On Saturday night, I bordered one of them…

There’s going to be embroidery on this thing…and then last night, I pinbasted it…

And bordered the next one…

Two more to go…

They are very different from what I normally do, so we’ll see how I feel about the embroidery part later. But I’m hopeful that I’ll still like them. Never know. That’s the whole point of branching out, experimenting…to see if different things appeal. I still have a drawing copied that was supposed to be the next quilt after the quilt two quilts ago…when I got sidetracked by deadlines. So it’s ready. It’s not political though…yet. So with politics all up in my face constantly, it’s hard not to make something political.

I saw a lot of art on Saturday…drove around to a few shows. This is the downtown library…Helen Redman has a small exhibit on the 2nd floor.

Cool drawings of babies. Then upstairs, in the 9th-floor gallery (where I had to wait for 20 minutes for someone to come open it up, after opening time)…it was FINE. The M(other) Tongue show is up there…totally cool. Here’s one of the paintings that was up there…

By Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami. Beautiful painting…this is Invisible Identity 2. Lots of fiber stuff up there too. I also went to the SD Pottery Guild exhibit at the Coronado library…hard to get good photos inside cases, but definitely worth a trip out there.

Then at night, we went up to Oceanside for the Ace Gallery opening of Counting Threads. There’s some great stuff up there, but it’s a tiny space and it was claustrophobic (too many people) and hard to see stuff. Still worth it if you’re in the area though…this is a detail from Elly Dallas’ Story Quilt.

Fun embroidery sketches. We then tried to find somewhere to eat that had what we needed (clean tables, not a lot of screaming children, and beer and wine, plus something we could both eat). We got two out of the four things…and the pizza was really good, but not good enough to go all the way back and survive the noise…

Plus ET looks like a penis in that photo. Maybe he always did.

I hiked on Saturday afternoon…it was warm but not too warm; nice after all the cold and rain we had for the last week.

In a few weeks, those yellow daisies will be everywhere…

Yesterday, I ran all the errands I don’t have time for during the week plus graded for 5 hours, which sucked.

We had a squirrel infiltrate the bird feeder…

Remarkable picture through a screen for that. We moved the solar panel in hopes he would not be able to figure it out (he will; we know).

Some comparisons here…

You know, I lived in the UK for a year, married one of them for 13 years. They’re slow to respond sometimes, but I’m impressed by all this.

Whereas my people are fucktards. So there’s that. Speaking of fucktards.

Sigh. Idiot. People who don’t have to pay for stuff or who have so much money, they don’t know how much a loaf of bread costs, shouldn’t be making financial decisions for the rest of us.

And then there’s this. I’m not sick, knock on wood, but I have a fractured, possibly cracked tooth that needs surgery…

And may explain all the sinus crap I’ve had since last summer. Last Summer, y’all. Yes, I went to the dentist. More than once. And now that they’ve told me what’s going on, NOW I have pain up in that tooth. Now I know what that is. Damn. Can’t do the surgery for another week and a half. It’ll be fine. Motrin comes in big bottles.

OK. School to set up. To the district office to be edumacated on things I already know. Then planning. A professional adult lunch (not rushed into 15 minutes of shoving food in my mouth and running to pee before I teach again). Then ceramics. Joy! Then other stuff. I think I read the book for book club. Not sure I remember it. Will read a summary before the meeting starts. Then pinbaste the next quilt and border the third one. Good place to be with that.

What Is Normal?

Oof. It’s Friday, yes, short week, yes, but holy crap, these short weeks have packed a punch. It’s almost a relief to go back to a normal week (except next week is so not normal). What is normal anyway? Not sure. It’s rained on and off all week and been cold (hey it’s Southern California, but it was 40 degrees here when I woke up…yes that’s warm for a lot of the country, but I don’t have the clothing for that…well, I do, but not to leave the house). I busted out my Ugg boots last night. I got home in the rain, pulled the trashcans in, in the rain, got really wet, in the rain, peed the dog, still raining, and totally damp, I wanted to just put my pjs on and curl up on the couch. But no! A friend I haven’t seen in person for 22 years was in town, so I gladly drove through (guess what, the rain) not-so-bad traffic actually (considering the rain) to hang out with her, another friend, and another on Zoom for a few hours. I got some raccoon done…

These are super relaxing to work on.

So is binding. It’s just the same stitch around and around.

I got the binding done on Wednesday night and then both sleeves on last night…

Not really helpful cat.

Great image, yeah? Well it goes to the photographer tomorrow…

Also a great photo. With my hand in it and a pile of trimmed ends of the threads from the stitching. But it’s done! The first quilt of 2026. With the next ones ready to go…a departure from what I normally do, but I’m excited about that. We’ll see how it goes, how long the excitement lasts before I want to do something different. Or the same. It’s hard when I’m teaching to find the brainpower to branch out into different techniques and processes. I spend so much of my creative energy at school trying to plan and solve problems, that sometimes I come home and there isn’t much left. There are things I can do without a lot of conscious thought, like trace, cut things out, even pick fabrics…but the original creation, the drawing, that requires more thought. And these next ones, however many I do (I have four ready to go) will be completely different…well, not the first stages. Those will be rote…stuff I know how to do…but the later stages will be very different from what I’ve been doing. Excitement? And anxiety. Woo! I don’t know that I need more anxiety at the moment, but it’s creation anxiety, and that’s not always a bad thing. I guess watch this space?

Here’s Nova giving me a judgy look because I yelled at her for eating the kitten’s food.

I did call her chonky. Rightly so.

Well no ceramics tonight unfortunately; this is my normal day though. I have a meeting during my prep (silly parents) and then I have a long meeting after school that will require brain power (make more tea) and will probably go for a couple of hours or longer (hopefully not longer). Then clean up that quilt tonight, iron it flat, get all the damn cat hair off of it. If there’s time, I’ll start the next thing, although I may just fix my pants. I’m hoping to go to a bunch of art shows tomorrow…I have three on my list; two while I’m delivering to the photographer (already almost there…might as well keep going) and one in the evening that I will drag the Man to…it’s fine. We’ll do dinner after. Plus I need to grade a million things again. We’re almost at the end of the trimester, which is stressful. And next week is a shitshow ending with eyeball dissections. Woo! But hopefully sleeping in tomorrow a little and doing some fun things to make up for all the work? That would be nice. And I’ll have some grading time on Wednesday and planning time on Monday to make up for the LACK of it at all other times. Yeah. It’s Friday. Let’s do this.

Do Everything Faster…

It’s Friday. I don’t think I got anything done in the last two days. I mean, I’m sure I did something, but not enough. Never enough. And this weekend is a long one, but chaotic as fuck. And because I didn’t get anything…well, not enough done in the last two days, I will have to do everything faster. And maybe just not sleep. That might do it. Might be able to get it done.

Even quilting…missed one evening…for a good reason, but I had plans to get through some grading and quilting and it just didn’t happen. So no, I am not done quilting…not even close…I did get the outlining done.

Looks good. Then I started the background quilting, which is a pain in the ass.

I did all the tiny fussy areas in the center bit and then started around the edges. Imma be here for a while.

I’ve been buried in meetings, so I made it to ceramics for 10 whole minutes on Wednesday after one meeting. Yesterday there were three school-related meetings and I didn’t even get home in between those and my stitching meeting, where I started the next Sue Spargo block of the month embellishment. These animals are gonna be fun…

Plus I’ve had two early mornings, which fuck with me. And tonight will be IDK how late, but it sounds like I might need to go over two hours early. Ugh. It would be fine if I could sit in the bar and grade while the band sets up, but then what do I do with my computer after? I’m actually considering this y’all. It’s the Man’s band’s last show in the version they currently are. The drummer is leaving, one of the guitarists and the lead singer already technically left. They’re gonna have to remake themselves, but everyone is coming back for tonight, so it’s going to fill up quickly. That said, the Man usually has a bag of stuff backstage. Maybe I can just hotspot the computer and grade for a while and then shove my computer into his bag? It might work. I know, it’s a crazy thing to do on a Friday night, but otherwise, I’m just sitting there for two hours until the show starts. I can’t even go out and sit in the car or something, because they’ll just stop letting people in at some point. Aargh. OK. It’s a plan.

Yesterday’s drive to stitching…the sky was so much more stunning than a phone camera can ever capture.

And then I turned north and just kept seeing it in my rearview mirror getting redder and redder and then just fading out. The sky is fascinating. I used to teach the color part of that…but this year, this year is absolute shit for that. Maybe the last 5 years. Sigh.

Here’s Annie and Simba at the other house. Apparently not allowed on the couch?

Man, Simba looks old there. He’s 11. He’s not really old. Just a baby.

OK, apparently I did a lot of meme-hunting instead of all the things I should be doing. Disassociating. In the way of my people. Honestly though, with all the crazy shit this country is doing, it’s a miracle I can get my head around any of it. This one…except I do love me some sci fi…

And I had to explain this one to my students yesterday when our warmup question about spying came up (we’re reading Maze Runner in Advisory and the docs are spying on the kids with these weird beetle blade creatures).

Crazy world. Sick world. I mean my phone did want to tell me yesterday about the places I’d been and what categories they were.

So then there’s the Epstein Files…or more importantly, all the (mostly men) people who should be arrested.

Do it! Let’s protect some little kids for once. It’s about time…even if they’re grown up now, they still deserve protection.

Sigh. Did I tell you about my high-school acquaintance who was like “the American people don’t care about the files; move on.” WT everloving fuck. I want to talk to your wife. Now.

Exactly. And watching Bondi yesterday? I can’t. These people. And I don’t know what a quilt about this looks like and it’s possible I’ve used that imagery of telling the stupid people in the bubble to stop while we protect women and children and they look stupid, but oh, maybe I can do that again. When the art you’re making is pissing you off…I really need a short break from the part where the topic of it, the content, makes me angry. We’ll see how that goes.

Or both. At the same time.

OK. Meeting at school, in my room. Last-minute. I asked someone else to handle all the organizing and he did jackshit. Love that for me. Then I have an assignment for the kids that is pretty low-key for me. I’m hoping to bang through the homework assignments from last week and maybe work on the academic one I tried to grade Wednesday (I got halfway through). Then duty at school, race home (pick up prescription first), eat, pack quilts, go to the Man’s show, collapse into bed. Up tomorrow, gotta quilt but also have to drop off quilts and do other stuff, hopefully hike, chaos to-do list, scares me, mostly work but also digging and who knows what else. Shit, I need to set up a lab today too. Ugh. I don’t think there are any more bins for that. Huh. Will figure that out. Maybe. Unless they make me sub my prep again. Hopefully not (that was yesterday).

Make More Tea…

Well I’m a bit tired. Not uncommon I know, but cat night shenanigans were at an extreme level last night (not mine; she was quietly asleep by my leg) and my sleep was stolen with a pillow over my head mostly. It’s always fun to go to school when you are already really trying to get your eyes to open and you’ve already had your shower. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. Grades are due, mine were done, until I realized the ending date had been set wrong (not by me…higher up), so the last stuff I put in is not counting. The district reset the date to January 14 now (it was December before), but no clue why, because the trimester closes on a Friday? Whatever. If you want your employees to stop giving a shit, keep doing random things that make their jobs more difficult. Seriously. I guess the kids will have the grades set as of December because I don’t have time to go back and redo everything, and it won’t even count the one grade I input for that week because it was due the 16th. Whatever. I do the best I can for the kids DESPITE the adults. It’s all I can do.

Still trimming tiny pieces. It gets hard to tell the days apart by looking at the bins, especially in the middle. Here’s Wednesday night…

And last night…

I got through a big chunk of the flesh pieces, so it looks like a lot. I don’t have a clue how far along I am; I just know I probably won’t get much done tonight. The Man has a show, and although he’ll be done early, the second band is friends of ours, so we’re probably staying. That said, we’re both exhausted and cranky from the cat crap, so maybe he’ll want to come home early (I’d be OK with that). This weekend is also a shit show of meetings, plus I’m trying to regrade the things kids did this week so the improved scores go on their progress reports, but realistically, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull that off.

Scribble wants to help…

You know, usually, she just sits next to me on the couch and sleeps when I work here, but lately, she wants to be asleep on my lap, which is cute but more complicated. Easier to just read with her there.

Apparently she was interested in the book, because the boychild sent me this yesterday.

Bowie is still isolated in a room, so she hasn’t had him to play with. I’m hoping he can come out soon too. We offered it last night, and he hid under the bed again, which is really unlike him. He is eating more and peeing, but has a hard time seeing water in the bowl…that has always been an issue. Anyway, not sure what is going on with him, but the Man has been sleeping in there with him and his other two cats were scratching at the door all night, which is why I had a pillow on my head. UGH.

I finished the last Sue Spargo Rooted block last night, finally.

This was a fun mini-block-of-the-month…

Now they just have to be trimmed, sewn together, and bordered. I think there’s more embroidery on the border, but not as much as on the last one. These are a nice size of block to travel and stitch on. They’re fun to do. I can’t really carry my art quilts with me when I travel, and these are more mindless for me, so easier. Not that I travel a lot, which is why it takes me forever to finish anything. I do have the next one all appliqued down and ready for stitching. I didn’t sign up for the mini one this year…I have a lot of these; I’m way behind, and sometimes they don’t appeal to me…like this year’s. The Christmas tree one my mom and I did together…that was nice because she got to do all the embroidery and keep it. I think I have three minis saved up. Plenty to work on. Hell, I always have plenty to work on.

OK. Today. Will be long. Luckily, no meetings today, just teaching digital and analog signals, and mostly, it’s the kids working independently. Halle-fucking-lujah. I’ve been ON for days. ON ON. ONONON. Singing too (frequency, highs and lows, and my voice is shot). Played guitar, explained cassette tapes and records and old phones and video recorders and cameras (actual FILM cameras) and CDs and Walkmans. It’s been a lot. So it’s good that today is more on them than me. We’re behind in planning, so I just finished Monday’s worksheet last night and copied it after school because one of the copiers is down. So I have worksheets for Monday and Tuesday…don’t need one Wednesday, and I have no clue what’s happening after Wednesday. Light, I think. So hopefully the copier gets fixed. My partner has dance performances coming up, so she’s trying to grade at school, and so I’m trying to do things on my own, and realizing my teacher brain needs someone to bounce stuff off of…which I knew, seriously, that year when she was out was hard, but I’m not sure this one is easier. Her kids are lower than mine; I have all the honors kids, so we do kind of plan alone…together…sometimes. And support the new guy. And then all the union crap. And walking field trip crap. And and and. It’s a lot. It always is. I haven’t gotten home before dark any night this week to paint the wall next to the deck so I can start putting plants back up against it. Hell, I haven’t been able to do anything with the deck since Monday. Ah well, we do make decisions as to what to do with our time. I will be at ceramics after school this afternoon before coming home in the dark and then heading downtown for the show. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine and eventually we will get more sleep than last night and everyone will stop being so cranky (cats included). Maybe. Until then, I’m gonna make more tea.

Cocooning…

Friday. Last Friday of Winter Break. I’ve been really out of it this break…not sure why, although I can blame some of it on being sick for the middle third and then feeling like I never caught up. I’m never ready to go back, so it’s a moot point to say it again, but here I am. In terms of classwork, I have one class of packets left to grade, one whole academic assignment, and two smaller one-class assignments. Plus I need a worksheet done by Thursday and my notes from December make no sense. So there’s that. Fun times. I might figure that out this weekend. Or not. I’m not really motivated to get ‘er done in terms of school, except to finish the grading because progress report grades are coming up. Soon. And I have this quilt to finish, plus the deck railings, which are taking forever to paint. It’s been wet and cold and nothing is drying until today, when it’s still cold, but there’s a breeze and that’s helping. So I have three coats plus primer on 3/4s of the sides and I need to do the other side. I was hoping this project would be done by this weekend, and that’s not happening. It never does. Seriously. DIY is torture. School feels the same way sometimes, and so does housecleaning.

I did manage to finish trimming all the Wonder Under; honestly, I finished the first large chunk of it in the first day, then the last little bit last night.

Scribble slept through most of it.

Then after I finished trimming last night, I sorted them all…

At this point, Scribble was less than helpful…she kept seeing shadows under the bins and shoving them apart to get to them.

Fun times. I managed to get it all sorted despite all that.

I also bought background fabric, so I’m hopefully ironing down to fabric starting tonight. The office is a bit of a mess, and I need to fix a pair of pants first, plus put away fabric from the last quilt and move some stuff out of the way so I can get to the fabric bins. But it’s not a lot to do. Hopefully I’ll finish ironing to fabric in the next week and start trimming. We’ll see how that goes with going back to school.

I went out to meet stitching friends last night…this one is almost done.

It’s the 9th tree in Sue Spargo’s Rooted, so the last of them. Plenty left to do on it.

You’d think when it’s this cold that all the cats would be curled up. This was only because Bowie wanted the blue blanket and me.

And Scribble was already there.

Babies sleep a lot.

Anyway. Next step in the quilt. Scribble tends to follow me, so presumably she’ll be in the office while I iron. She’s set herself up before in the sleep spot Kitten used to frequent.

I wish I had something insightful to say about the ICE shootings in the last few days, but it’s beyond me. I just finished an ICE-related quilt with a body bag in it, not because I can see the future, but because people had already died in ICE custody. This is heinous. It’s not law enforcement, it’s not making my world safer. My world is not safe at all, and I’m an old white lady. I can’t imagine the fear and anxiety being a person of color or someone in the middle of the immigration process must feel…I just know it’s wrong.

There are a lot of wrong things in the world right now…some of them have always been there, but we’ve made some attempt to make them better. And now that’s not even happening.

This one applies to so many things…

Back to vaccinations and health recommendations. So many idiots. So much not learning happening.

Anyway. If you like my work, odds are your brain is going through the same confused contortions mine is. With no solution in sight. So many lies. So much bad information. So disheartening.

It’s late in the day…I need to go buy some cat food and figure out where to get one skein of DMC floss. Then grade some stuff and clean some stuff so I can iron later. Read a bit. Eat something healthy…or not. Resign myself to going back to work in a few days. Fight for the time to have a life outside of my job. Go back to ceramics…it’s been two weeks since I’ve been there. Sucks. Work on getting the gym back into my selfcare regime. HAVE a selfcare regime that isn’t just about cocooning in the house with sweats or pajamas on. OK, maybe that’s not a bad thing.