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.

Strangely Warm…

Pro: I slept solidly last night (because I was exhausted…wait, I still am exhausted). I got to hang out with stitching friends last night. I didn’t grade anything last night. It’s Friday and I’ll be ironing a solid chunk of the weekend and then stitching.

Don’t ask about school. I might lose my mind. Not kids (well, sometimes kids). Just all the other moving pieces. And there are a lot of them and some of them are stupid. In case you’re wondering. I know why I became a union rep so many years ago, but it’s hella exhausting.

I also have a book that I need to finish reading by tomorrow at 2 PM, when the library whisks it away. There are 78 people waiting for the book, so if I don’t finish it (which might happen), I won’t see it again for 5 weeks and then I’ll have forgotten the already tenuous link I have to the story. I could just stop reading it, but I have a hard time with that. I think I should stop and then there’s a few pages of clarity and interest and I’m back in again, but…realistically…I have 3 hours left in it. And that’s a lot. And I have a lot of other things that need to get done. So we’ll see. Sigh.

OK ironing. I ironed late last night. The night before, I did much better.

I got the whole bathtub water thing done plus all the things floating in the water and the legs.

Last night, I finished the torso and both arms, which are fussier than maybe they look.

I’m in the high 700s and I’ve pulled a few 800s, so honestly, I’ll finish tomorrow and get it ironed to the background and hopefully start stitching it down. I’ve got a new deadline that popped up that I need to get started on, so I’m pushing through on this. Deep breaths.

I had a plan for the next quilt that was kind of a break from the heavy political stuff, but it looks like I’m diving back in. We’ll see what that looks like. I’m letting my brain percolate it as I finish this one, because I’ll have to leap right into drawing sometime in the next week or so.

Stitching last night with friends…all I did was couch down the fly stitches.

It took forever. It was nice to hang out and chat about travel and other stuff though.

When I get really busy on art stuff and school, I don’t have a lot of extraneous pictures apparently. Even of cute kittens. Here’s Scribble sleeping on the bed I bought for Simba a year ago so he could be comfortable out in the living room (he prefers to lie on my leg or on the couch behind my neck).

I think one cat slept on it once. So it just sits there. Maybe it will be Scribble’s. She’s a sweetheart. Doesn’t sleep with me every night, but comes and says hi every night. Very purry and kneady. Follows me around. Holds her own with the big kitties.

OK. I’m giving a test today, which hopefully will be quiet and calm and shut up. But you never know. Also it’s still strangely warm here, despite being December, and that seems to be affecting brains. Some kids think next week is already Winter Break (it’s not). Some kids will be gone even though they know it’s not Winter Break. We got two new kids this week and their names are almost the same but flipped in order, which is beyond confusing. So I’ll probably have them in the same class period and will never figure out which is which. I think a teacher’s brain only has so much capacity for learning names in one school year and I may have already reached it. Also limited patience. Yup. Reached it. But it shouldn’t be a hard day…not a lab. Just management. And then duty after school and ceramics and I need to buy Drano and a light timer. I don’t have to cook dinner. I do need to read for 3 hours in the next 30 (ha! That is so not happening). I need to hike tomorrow. I need to SLEEP. But not right now. Right now, I gotta go.

Didn’t Finish…

I downloaded photos on Friday for a post, and that’s as far as I got. I think I briefly considered it on Saturday, but then got sucked into other things that needed doing and lost track of that thought. Last night, while I was trying to fall asleep, my ever-helpful (not) brain was trying to remember if I’d posted on Friday or not…not is the answer. So here we are, back to Mondays, back to school, three weeks of crazy to survive on many levels, not ready for any of it…except the next stage of the quilt. Oh wait. Not ready for that either. It’s chaos in here and I can’t iron a quilt together in chaos. So. Yeah. But I’m going to have to…and that might just be the best explanation of most of my adult life right there: can’t do it; gonna have to.

OK, quilt…the quilt that I’m a week behind on…easily. Here’s more cutting out, with Scribble.

And more cutting out…

with Scribble’s tail. And more cutting out with Scribble.

And the final push…

14 hours to do it all…

And I have a lap cat. Which is nice. She quickly learned to keep her paws out of the bins, until last night, when I started sorting…

She definitely wanted to be IN the bins. But wasn’t violent about it (unlike Bowie a year ago or so). I didn’t finish sorting last night…started late and then was tired and needed to go to bed to get up early this morning.

More Scribble pix…she is allowed in the sewing room if I’m in here.

Although she has already found Kitten’s cave, where she hid on and off for the last 6 years of her life…

I mean, it’s full of batting. Why wouldn’t you want to hide there?

The girlchild is here; Scribble is friendly.

Which everyone appreciates.

She just settles in and lets the other three cats try to figure her out.

Even Bowie is starting to come around; he wants to play with her, but he’s not sure how.

Three cats vertically in a row. So it’s been a good transition so far. Of course, today is the first work day, when there’s no one around for most of the day. That will be different. But she seems very adaptable…

Strangely enough.

The Man and I hiked again on Friday, because…

we had my family’s Thanksgiving on Friday…

Both kids cooked…nice food choices.

My dad fell asleep on the couch with Annie…

I think he was in her seat.

Saturday night dinner’s drawing…

Not finished, but I only have the time from when we come in the restaurant until they serve the food.

I finished the pomegranate seeds on May’s Forest for the Trees block.

At the moment, all I can handle is the applique. I’ll get to the embroidery, but who knows when? Going back to school has sucked up any loose time I had.

I still think we’re not allowed…

But I appreciate the sentiment.

OK, there’s so much school stuff I didn’t finish over break. Always. I have seating charts written for 2 of my 6 classes. Today is chill, though…starting a new unit, so just vocab and cover page and a short lecture on how to bring your grade up and it doesn’t involve Google or AI. Then staff meeting(s?) and hopefully ceramics. I need a porcelain patch kit from Home Depot too…purposely didn’t go get it this weekend, but I still need it. I also need to finish the other sgraffito frame at the studio before it dries out. I had plans to go Saturday and Sunday, and both fell through. It’s fine; other things happened and it was good, but I need to go today. And tomorrow. And Thursday. Or something. Three weeks…I can do three weeks. I think.

A Day Off…

Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.

Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.

OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night

Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.

And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.

I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.

Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.

Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.

I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…

Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.

I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.

I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.

It looks nice.

I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?

That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.

I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.

Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.

He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.

Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.

Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.

This is me always.

The night is better.

I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.

Because we all wanna know.

Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.

Another Dimension

It was a busy weekend, even though I canceled/missed three things. The next two weekends seem to be just as bad…lots of meetings, driving, going to things, getting things done. I feel proud of the 20 minutes of yardwork I managed yesterday. I can’t keep up, for real.

So let’s do the tracing stuff first. Still doing it. Thought putting that yellow post-it on the drawing marking where I’d last been, writing the next number to trace on there, that’s smarter than I have been in the past.

Mostly I would just document the number and approximate location of the next piece in my phone and then spend 2-5 minutes the next day trying to find that on the drawing, which might be a reflection on my late-night ability to describe positions of things.

You would think like “left bathtub” would be enough, but is that left when it’s right sides up or upside down, how I trace it? I just never know. So the post-it seemed awesome…until I lost it last night as I flipped the drawing.

Super problematic since I hadn’t documented the last number I traced in my phone, so I had to stare at it for 5 minutes, trying to figure that out. I still couldn’t find the post-it. It flipped somewhere into another dimension. Fact is, I managed to get to piece 500 last night, so I’m almost halfway through. I’ve been finding it hard to even get an hour a night, which might still be a problem this week. I have a ton of grading to do…still…always…and this week does not bode well for big chunks of grading time unfortunately. So much of what I need to grade is deep-thought grading. I actually have to be mentally present to get it done. And it’s time-consuming. Of course. Anyway. Day job.

I had a moment Friday night about the No Kings protest…and made a last-minute decision to march…canceled myself out of two other things and made a plan to make it to the last thing that involved parking two miles away from the march, walking in, doing the march, and walking out. So it was over 6 miles in the long run.

Pro: I felt good about the march; it’s a plus to see so many like-minded people with a goal, when the news is so hell bent on the shit show (literally, if you pay attention to our president wannabe king). Also, I got plenty of exercise. It was all uphill on the way back though. I did go by myself, but you’re never really by yourself in a crowd of 80,000 people.

Yeah, I love my country and I don’t want it ruined by racists and people who say they’re Christian but don’t behave very Christian. And they are ruining it right now. In so many ways.

The Man and I went to a new place for dinner. It was fancy. You know how you know? I took a picture of my plate…

Yeah, if I did that every week, you’d see a lot of standard burger plates. But this was pretty.

Speaking of pretty and cool and fascinating, I went to the Visions Interpretations artist talks after the march. I was hoping to see a friend, but thanks to the military and Vance and probably the Republican party, they closed the freeway so they could shoot things over it, and many people had to leave early to miss that. Thanks to the government. They dropped shrapnel on a CHP vehicle. I find that amusing only because no one was inside and no one was injured. Maybe don’t do that again dumbasses. I’m sure that expenditure was warranted. Like the ballroom. And the parade.

I did meet an artist, Eden Quispe, whom I’d only known online. Our work has been in shows together but I’d never seen it (or her) in person. So that was cool. Here’s her piece, Grandma Pearl, made from linens from her grandmother.

She has a truly fascinating process.

I want to be more freeform in my work, but I never really get there. Maybe when I retire.

I took about 3000 pictures of Diane Nunez’s piece Multifaceted…

I took a lot of pictures because it was fascinating.

Also because I couldn’t take pictures of some of the stuff I wanted to because people were standing in front of them.

That is one of the issues with artist talks…too many people.

Although I do enjoy hearing the artists talk about their work.

Unfortunately, I’m running out of time this morning; I’ll have to post the other photos I took later this week. I’ll leave you with this sweet baby…

Ah Nova.

And this almost daily donation of an owl pellet on my front steps…

And this life truth.

Although the new system does not work the same…I actually have to think ahead about what I might want to read next, and that is truly annoying. I cannot make more decisions than I already am.

OK. School. Reviewing net forces and then sending them off to do the things without my help. Ha! Like that’s gonna work. And then dinner out with a book club group that I rarely see in person anymore. Then grading (well, grading before and after) and tracing. Then hopefully more sleep than last night (ha! more funnies) and do it again, slightly differently.

Drawing in Campgrounds

Heyo. It’s Monday. And a week of school and art and whatever else I can fit in begins. I had a great weekend camping up in the mountains, although it was definitely chillier than I thought it would be the first night, thanks to a wind advisory. 50-mph gusts took it down to the low 40s, with a real feel in the 30s. Definitely colder than I had planned, although I brought all the long underwear, thank goodness. The second night had no wind and was quite nice…still chilly, which is a nice change, but not so cold you can’t feel your hands and feet. We were lucky to be in a part of the campground with no small children, mostly quiet dogs, and no partiers, for once. It was delightfully quiet.

It was a nice campsite, plenty of shade; in fact, on Saturday, after our hike, it was a little chilly in the shade. I kept moving my chair so I could doze in the sun, which is unlike me.

We did a 4-mile hike north on the PCT from the campground.

At some point, you get a hazy view of the desert below.

It was actually kind of warm, except under the trees. Four miles seemed about the right amount. I’ve been hiking 3 miles every weekend, but the Man hasn’t, so this was more than my normal and way more than his.

It’s a beautiful place to hike though…lots of trees and blue skies and fresh air…a few people, but not a lot. So peaceful.

That golfball thing on the Man’s head (well, it looks like it anyway) is the Air Force Radar Station. I looked it up. No, we didn’t visit. Probably not allowed. I wonder why it’s white, though. It could blend in more and be less obnoxious.

I drew both nights by the campfire…it’s kind of a tradition of mine. Staring into the flames, headlamp on, seems to help me just draw these days.

So many days at home, I’m only drawing for a specific piece or purpose, instead of just drawing for the sake of it. I used to have time for that, even with the day job. Now, it just doesn’t happen.

This will turn into something else. It was a solid start.

Still working in the bathtub range.

Less political. Which I suspect the new quilt will not be…less political, I mean. I have three bathtub quilts I’ve made over the years, and they’ve been more personal than political. I find it hard to make anything these days that isn’t political. The number of insane acts and policies and pronouncements makes it impossible. The loss of freedom for so many people can’t be ignored. I don’t have solutions that don’t involve coups or alien invasions unfortunately, and since Antifa doesn’t actually exist, I have to draw what I want for the world and make it into art. Draw what is and what should be. So these were prep for the next piece. The bathtub quilts will be in Virginia at the Virginia Quilt Museum starting the end of January. I’ll be there in March for the closing ceremonies.

The first night was already cold, so we were already starting the fire at like 5:30 PM. It was still daylight, so I was stitching on this little tree. It is a tree. Can’t remember what kind…obviously Sue Spargo and very stylized.

Here it is the second day…

The Man was napping…I did a little of that and some reading too. I appreciate the time to just sit and be with the things I want to do. I did bring grading with me; I don’t usually, but I’m in panic mode. I graded one week’s worth of homework in the car on the way up and finished it Saturday afternoon. I then came home Sunday and did a ton more. And no, I’m not done. I’m buried. Sigh.

This was the cold cloudy windy night…

The moon was very bright both nights, which was nice.

This was the beginning of the book I was reading.

Too true. I did all those things this weekend. Except commit felony homicide and move a body. And here’s a quote from the book itself.

I wish I really loved the book (I don’t…it’s OK, but not really my thing). I did love some of the phraseology and ideas. I have another book by the same author…this was a book club book. I’ll read the other one and decide if she’s just too cozy for me. I don’t mind SOME cozy stuff, but this was a bit too much. I’m not even done with it and I’m really done with it.

Here’s my level of cozy at the moment. Gotta love some Richard Scarry.

And Ruben Bolling did it well.

OK. We’re still in roller coaster design today. Hopefully the next three days won’t be hellacious. Thursday was a bit much, but I have hopes that once they start actually taping stuff together and testing it, it will be very focused and I can get some grading done. We’ll see how that goes. Then a 2-hour staff meeting that could possibly be an email. And ceramics? Hopefully. I’m delivering my quilt to the photographer tomorrow and when it comes back, shipping it off to the new owner. Which is good, because I have bills to pay. Sigh. Money stuff is stressful. What’s new, right? And then hopefully, I’ll start drawing the new piece. It’s going to be big, but it has to be finished in December, so it can’t be huge. Keep that in mind, Kathryn.