Dirty Windows

My windows are dirty. This is not a euphemism for something. My actual house windows are dirty. I see them every day and it’s on my to-do list to clean them, but then I do 5 things and the day is gone and I still haven’t finished everything, I’m still eating dinner at 8:30 because I didn’t start cooking early enough because I was grading things and making videos (I made 11 videos for school yesterday). I think I read my book yesterday. Maybe. A chapter. I know I didn’t shave the Man’s head…I remembered this morning that I was supposed to help with that. Oh well. He’ll do it himself. If only the windows would do themselves.

Busy weekend, but they all are. I actually slept in on Saturday until 9 AM. I mean, minus the dog barking and the Man opening and closing things. It was delightful. But apparently not enough, because here I am on Monday morning feeling like a truck hit me and maybe I need another three cups of tea before I’ll be functional again.

Let’s start with clay. I have this mug that was too big so it became a planter that I was making, just for fun, not art, and it was finally dry enough to either fire or decide what I wanted to do about glazing. Glaze is hard, but I wanted to try these glazes that are shiny after the bisque fire. So I remembered to bring the glazes to the studio on Friday (not enough room to store them there) and painted it…

Painting glazes is a pain in the ass…you need at least two coats, maybe three. We’ll see how this turns out.

Pro: it’s done. Con: I realized when I was done that it had taken me 2 hours. Another late dinner. Ah well.

I also traced…in fact, I finished tracing the Wonder Under last night…15 nights…

19 hours and 13 minutes…

7 yards and a bit…

I think I stayed up too late for all of those 15 nights trying to get an hour in, or last night, just trying to finish. It’ll be at least 7 hours to cut it all out, probably more. Lots of little pieces in there.

Saturday, I went to Visions with my quilt guild folks to see the new Latine exhibit there. There’s a design thing going on because San Diego and Mexico, so the museum had some new and different artists showing, which was nice.

Mely Barragàn…

Her piece Shallow Water Emerges Til Dawn…

Very much asks you to touch it. The chains were especially nice, dangling off the ends.

Chain fabric even.

Marisa Raygoza…

Emotional Support Rock…I’m feeling this one especially.

Tumble Dry

Some embroideries from her movie The Path of a Tear…

And some soft sculpture, although there’s nothing soft about a gun.

She Used Her Head As a Revolver

There were art dresses, which somehow I didn’t photograph, and weavings as well…

The most intriguing part of this piece, by Olivia Arreguin, Womb in a Dress, was the DNA she knotted into the womb.

Cool exhibit…check it out.

Also walked the dogs…was puppy sitting Annie…

We all needed a walk.

The path was really overgrown with flowers…

The two old guys were a little…um…panty.

Got my 3 miles in though.

Check out the glare on that cat…

Nova seemed very offended by Simba’s presence.

OK, well, I’m still reviewing science for the state test. The kids are rebelling against it, but whatever. They’d rebel against anything but naps and candy right now. Makes my life fun. Friday was annoying. Thank goodness for clay at the end of the day. Today will be different…I changed it up. Constantly trying to find different ways to get info in their heads…takes a ton of time and energy. I’m running low on both. Then staff meeting. Then clay again…not sure which piece I’m going to work on. Then cutting things out. Probably need to grade things in there too. Ugh. Or planning. That’s definitely a thing. This week is survival. Maybe all of them are. Well, I start teaching sex ed at some point, so that’s at least an attention-getter…but they’re all convinced they don’t need to do anything else for the rest of the year. Fun times.

It Might Be Easy Next Time…

Hey Monday. Be nice.

So I was productive this weekend; always feels better than when I’m not. I got all three of the big plants I bought planted, although the first one was such a challenge that I thought the next two would be horrendous too, but they were easy peasy. Nice that. Don’t give up! It might be easy the next time. Am I done planting and weeding and trimming? Never. I met this guy…I left his weed standing so he could continue to shelter sort of under it.

It’s OK. There’s lots of weeds out there. I left a bunch. My protea is gonna bloom nicely this spring…

I have two volunteer tomatoes…one is inside (it’ll have to move) and one is tiny…

They’re both compost tomatoes. Best kind. I let the mice eat them really, they’re so tiny. Must have been cherry tomatoes.

So artwise, I got this one out of the kiln and now have to decide on glaze…

She’s from February and is meant to have a tiny quilt hanging inside her.

Then I got this one together and onto a shelf.

Hopefully she holds up. I changed her a little, moved the mug. Now I get to start something new…although I should figure out glaze first on that other one. Two drying, one bisqued.

Then I worked on the big crone drawing…

Added a barn owl and some bombers…and a cat.

Then sketched out what’s next down below…

Hopefully I’ll draw that tonight. And I did more up top…

Oh, I forgot, I framed this for a FIG show that will open next Friday at Liberty Station at the Dance Place hallway gallery.

My co-artist used this for a digital piece she made that I haven’t seen finished yet, and then I made that smaller quilt from another digital collage she did. So we’ll have four pieces hanging together in the show.

We also went on a hike Saturday…lots of flowers…

And one big coyote that kept traveling toward us until it found its way up the hill.

So one of the thing that has needed to be fixed for about 6 months is my stained-glass side window in the entryway. The supports had come loose and it would wiggle and make noise if the door was closed too hard. It’s been there since before we moved in, so probably from the 80s. The previous owner made it. The wood around it has been an issue too, so with the repairs related to the January flooding, I had asked for the wood to be replaced. It took a while to find a glass expert…

But he had a plan for it…enclosing the art glass in layers of tempered glass to protect it and weatherproof it and stabilize it. Sounds good.

So they leveraged it out of there on plywood…and now we have this lovely view for 4-6 weeks.

It has a tiny gecko door in the bottom left. The cats are excited. The entryway is also very dark now.

Saturday night’s dinner drawing…

They forgot about us so I got more of the drawing done. It’s been hard to finish one lately (and this one isn’t finished); they bring the food out so fast.

OK. So drawing tonight, clay this afternoon, staff meeting with homework (ugh). Teaching today is an assessment of what we did for most of last week. We’ll see how that goes. The previous assessment was eh. So many kids didn’t turn it in that it made it easier to grade. I did that this weekend, all but one class. So hopefully I can get through that class today as they’re doing the next assessment. Getting closer to the end…one more short unit, then test review, egg drop, sex ed, and I’m out! OK. That’s a lot. This week is a lot. Getting there.

Morning

Good morning. Or morning, as I prefer. I mean, maybe if I looked out my window and saw endless forest vistas and no humans, maybe that would count as a good morning, especially if I could roll over and go back to sleep, but that’s not really a common occurrence for me. Unfortunately. There are 43 days of school left. I did not accomplish much of anything this weekend except spending time with visiting family, which is a good thing…so there’s that. But I have no lunches prepared for school for this week (yet), I forgot to defrost my breakfasts so I’m eating cereal (at least I have that), I graded one assignment and posted one assignment, no two (it’s fine; I can do it during class), and I planned nothing for next week. That worries me a bit, but I’ll just have to work more during the week to get there. I also lost my mat cutter somewhere in the house, and I need to cut two mats. I don’t want to buy another new one. I know how to cut mats without it, but it’s a pain. So there’s that.

So WTF did I do? The Man’s band (Radio Thieves) had a show on Friday night…they opened, so I was home by 11 (good thing really…I was exhausted)…

I did not go to bed right away, though, because that would make too much sense. I taped more of the drawing together and added paper to the top and bottom for more drawing.

Went to bed way too late, then got up way too early (for my weekend brain) for the online SAQA conference. I did the morning coffee meetups, then took a shower, drove to the ceramics studio, and listened to all the webinars…well, in between people trying to talk to me. I did put a neck on the head and forgot to photograph it (I’m really bad at remembering to photograph things there)…then added grass to the bottom of the planter.

This was going to be a mug until I realized how big it would be.

All my home mugs have cracks in them right now. I’m waiting for them to leak. So far, so good. But I wanted to make a mug of my own. And since I don’t throw on the wheel, handbuilt is how it’s gonna be. I’ll get there. But this is a planter.

After ceramics, I putzed around the house a bit, trying to get my brain to function, then headed over to my parents’ because my brother, my SIL, and one of my nephews were in town to visit colleges, and we were gonna hang out. Which is what we did…both Saturday night, and then Sunday night, with a hike on Sunday afternoon as well. Lots of family fun and arguments about nipples. Don’t even ask.

Saturday night, after we came back, I finished the binding and sleeves on this…

It just needs a label and hanging slats and it’s ready for delivery on Saturday…but I need to frame the drawing; hence the need to cut the mat, so that’s a thing to figure out this week.

Here’s one hike picture…

And one nephew picture, with Simba…

Last night, we got home later and there was no art happening. There wasn’t much of anything happening except folding my laundry. So there’s a hefty to-do list this week, but it was worth it. Not sure how Kitten feels about it.

Yeah. I feel that way this morning too. Fill up the teacup a little more.

This sucks. I’m glad I was able to see some of her work in person in Los Angeles last year.

Her work was some of the first quilt work I saw that wasn’t traditionally pieced and seemed to tell a story. She was an amazing storyteller. The world will miss her insights.

Leaving you with this…

Am I the only one who wants to know what’s under that black rectangle? There are a lot of pictures of emotional support sharks on the internet. Who knew?

OK. School…kids are finishing up an assignment from last week that does not require a lot of my input, except for all the kids who were absent half of last week for Eid and other excuses, so yeah, that’s fun. I can hopefully plan some space stuff for next week (if the other teacher answers me) and post things for the rest of this week, plus write sub plans to be out half a day for literacy on Friday. Fun times. Then a staff meeting about state testing and hopefully ceramics studio time, plus yardwork, making lunches for the rest of the week (it would be nice to have something besides random food I found in the freezer), starting to iron that one quilt together or drawing the next big one. The sewing machine is awaiting parts with no estimate of when they will arrive. Frustrating, but I will survive. No, I don’t want to borrow other people’s machines. I hate trying to sew on other people’s machines. I will just do other things until I get mine back. Thank you. I’m so tired, y’all…I guess this is how we do the next 43 school days.

55% Eclipse

OK. School. 48 days of it. With an eclipse today and Eid tomorrow. I think half our kids will be out for the first 2-3 days for one of those or some weird combination. We only get 55% of the sun covered today, so I’ll pull out the class that starts right after the peak…I’m not sure about the class before, because my prep period is the first 40 minutes or so…I don’t know that my 2nd period will be able to see anything. We’ll see. Also they are ‘fun’, so I’m not sure I want to deal with them outside.

East Coast gets an earthquake…we had a 7.something a week or so ago that I didn’t even feel. Californians. Seriously.

I did buy some weird plants last week…so we’re fucked.

Anyway, should be an interesting day…mostly an exhausted day…ending with a 2-hour staff meeting about literacy. Ugh. What are the odds that the woman in charge of literacy will have any interesting things to say today? I’m so not in the mood. Don’t know if you can tell. Pro? I slept last night. I don’t usually sleep well the Sunday before we go back.

OK, let’s do the art stuff. I cut stuff out Friday night but forgot to take a picture. Actually, I thought I had taken a picture, but it was not on my phone, so did it ever really happen? Here’s Saturday night’s progress.

And last night…I’m almost done.

I’m hoping to get my sewing machine back today or tomorrow so I can quilt that piece that has to be delivered in less than two weeks. If not, I’m probably going to Mom’s. I should probably tell Mom that.

I also finally remembered to take clay pictures. This was at the beginning of yesterday’s session…

The sponge was supporting the arm after I attached it. The wings are for support only. I have holes in the arms to support fabric wings I’d like to make. I wasn’t sure how big to make the supports in the beginning, so I erred on the side of way too small, so yesterday, I added more…

They’ll be hidden from the front by the fabric versions, which I obviously haven’t made yet. Let’s see if this thing survives the kiln first. And we’re weeks away from that happening.

Here’s the chest…

And the back…

I started a head/face, but I’m not sure about it.

It definitely needs a lot of work. And more head stuff. This clay is pretty soft and so I left it to harden up a bit. I’m hoping to go back today to work on it some more.

I also had started to make a mug and realized very quickly that it was way too big to be a mug, so now it’s a planter. I feel like that’s how clay works sometimes. That sculpture also started as a mug. So there we are.

It’s currently upside down so the lip on the top will dry mostly flat. Otherwise it starts sagging.

Those are clouds. The next clay I buy will have more grog in it. I already know that. Although I like how smooth this is. So there’s always trade-offs. The real trade-off at the moment is how much time I can do ceramics each week and still have time for everything else. Augh.

I found this while doing yardwork the other day…

Happy owl pellet.

We had Annie for 24 hours…

Yes, that’s a quilt she’s cuddling with.

A sighting of one of my sold quilts on social media…

Always cool.

And a Saturday evening hike…

Lots of water, lots of flowers…

An alligator lizard…

And some dumbass version of an alligator…

Why do we have to spray paint nature y’all?

Baby bunny not quite smart enough to realize we can still see it.

Does not bode well for its survival.

Well, we’re back. Mostly to crazy rat-race tendencies. Not enough time to do anything. Ugh. Gonna go take my meds, pack up my lunch, find a sweatshirt, make more tea, and gird my loins for the sleeping and whining and phones out and hopefully a cool eclipse experience and a chill staff meeting (ha…that last one). Then time with clay and fabric, and maybe sewing. Hopefully. Yeah.

A Day Late…

A day late. That’s OK. I was in the mountains. I forgot it was Friday. Today is Saturday. If I keep telling you what the days are, maybe I will remember them myself. I have doctors’ appointments next week; I have to remember to go to them.

We were up on Palomar Mountain for a couple of days…one full day really. It was nice. It was cold. There was still snow up there. We had a discount to stay in a really nice yurt and it was cool.

These are nice yurts (Baileys on Palomar)…take advantage of discounts if you can. We had a mid-week discount. I’m pretty sure it’s snowing up there right now though, so I’m glad we came home yesterday.

Inside was warm, sometimes too warm. But nice.

My drawing brain was mostly out of it. This one isn’t going anywhere.

And this one might. Maybe.

We couldn’t get a fire started the first night…pretty sure the wood was wet from the previous storm. The second night, after 5 firestarters and some weird juju of frustration (the Man’s, not mine…or the fire’s, for that matter), the fire started and kept going…me drawing by the fire…

The Man telling me about something circular…

It was cold out. I think this was still firestarter fire, not real fire.

Eventually we got cold and came back inside and got violent and slappy with this game.

I won.

That was after hiking to Palomar Observatory, which I’d never been to. The hike wasn’t hard or long…well, it was 5.3 miles with 800 feet of elevation. So not too bad. Certainly my legs were feeling it yesterday.

Those are some really big acorns…

My app says Canyon Live Oak. Acorns and their caps fascinate me. I brought caps home. Dunno what I’m going to do with them.

It’s funny, I only saw the observatory once from the hike until we were on our way back.

It was cool. San Jacinto in the distance…definitely snow up there too.

It was a nice day to hike…mostly not hot, mostly not too cold.

Definitely at elevation snow. Not a lot by the time we got there.

I stitched a little too…finished this block.

I remembered a chalk pencil for the bike. Started another block while I was there.

Forgot the proof of life picture. Yes! We were in the same place together.

It happens.

We came back, cleaned up, I peed some dogs. The one on the right is hunting bees. Or bunnies. Hard to say which.

Stood in line for 3 hours at a quilt store that’s closing so I could use up my gift card and my mom’s too, because she showed up halfway through and handed me more. Then held my place in line so I could find more stuff to buy. She’s a good mom. I’m supposed to be at the ceramics studio right now but there was a full on flood-level band of rain that came through and dropped like half an inch of rain, so I didn’t drive in it. I will now, because I think that band is done and I can wait out the next one. There’s an art opening at Oceanside Museum of Art tonight, though, and that’s gonna be a slog if it’s still raining this hard. Ah well.

Last night, I suffered cats. Lots of them.

They missed us. And then I finished trimming this one…

Time to sort and then to iron. Meanwhile the girlchild and friend camped in the Northern California band of this storm last night. They were not washed away.

There is a tent under there. There is also a rain fly. The tarp is just extra. I wonder if there is a tarp underneath as well? Hmmm. Did we train her well? Maybe not.

OK. Art opening tonight. Ceramics studio for now: gonna see what came out of the kiln plus do another level on what I’m building…maybe start something new? I need to be back here by 3 PM I think. Ugh. I’m sure it made sense to sign up for things weeks ago, but today’s brain is not up for it. Typical.

NOT Being a Teacher…

(groans) What is this early morning hell? How much tea can I get into me before I start to teach? I didn’t even finish posting things for class yesterday. Why? Because I tried to spend a chunk of my weekend NOT being a teacher. Mis. Take. Well, not. But sheesh, this job. Last week. Deep breaths. I think I can get through the next two weeks. I’m gonna hafta.

Friday night, the Man had a show at the Music Box. Before that, I had made it home and was slumped on the couch, trying to decide what dinner might look like. Glad to say the boychild is a good cook, because he fed me…

Also luckily, the singer in the band, his wife had a table and let me sit at it, which is good, because I was exhausted. And they were the openers, so they only played for an hour. Much nicer than the four-hour show that’s coming up this Saturday.

Saturday morning, I crazily got up kind of early and took an online class from Nicholas Ball, who was in Wales…

At some point, he said, OK hold up your fish, and I had been diligently taking notes, NOT sewing. So I only did two and one has its fins in totally the wrong place (oops) and some people made like ten and I feel like a fish loser, but I will survive. Then I drove to Oceanside to drop off my piece for this show…

I’ll be at the opening on March 30. Hoping it’ll be a cool show.

Came back and persuaded the Man to go for a short birthday hike…

Three miles. But it was beautiful out. Spring has sprung.

And I love being able to make it outside like this.

Then boychild had the suggestion of San Diego Restaurant Week for dinner, so we picked a restaurant and navigated shitty parking…

That was in the bathroom. The food was good, different, which was nice. I drew a little, but the food came out too fast to finish.

Then we came back and I trimmed fabric pieces.

Sunday was full of all the normal get-ready-for-school-week things, but we ended the day going out to dinner with my parents…

And then I finished trimming everything.

On to the next step. I also shipped a quilt off to this show, opening March 24.

The Man is delivering another today for a local show. I have that announcement somewhere too. Sigh. I’m discombobulated. And buried. Two weeks until Spring Break…

I will have to speak to people unfortunately. Need to get the house fixed. And this will be the next two weeks…

Maybe not die…just internally die. I have books to read, though, and art to make. I should commit to making a fabric fish a night, and then I’d have 10. Except I can’t commit to that this week…3 out of the 5 worknights are going to be late and doubled up. Whoops. Oh well. No plans. Just wish teachers luck today. You know how tired YOU are? Imagine a bunch of 13-year-olds. Yup. It’s gonna be crap.

Off.

I’m off again. What day is today? First day of work day. Whatever day that is when it’s not Monday? So yeah. I’m off. Brainwise. Blogwise. Not actually off work today. That I do have to do.

Let’s start with art because it’s nicer. I am drawing something for a FIG show that is based on a collage someone else did on a word (rights) that I assigned to them. They are doing something (probably digital collage type) based on a drawing I did on a word (unity) that they assigned to me. So I started with what they had…and drew a little…

I needed to let it sit. So I did. And last night, I did a little more…

I seemed to own a little more of the redo there. Still needs some stuff, so I’m not done.

I also did some straight up, just drawing…a little at dinner…

And more last night…

I have something I’m working on in my head. This isn’t really it, but it’s a place to draw until what IS it comes out. Drawing is good. I miss it.

In not-art, but still fabric news…I finished this beast…

Imma say no to things more this year. Seriously. It’ll get delivered this week.

And this one, which I did take on because it’s a friend’s baby…from fabric…

To blocks…

To a plan…

I sewed them all together and cut the borders. I have until March 2 to finish. Should be fine.

We walked the parental dog…lots of water at our local hiking space.

This is not a trail we normally go on, but we needed to go around the lake that went across the path.

My sewing machine doesn’t like to fill bobbins from the needle. So it was fussy, didn’t stop filling (so I stopped eventually), and that was too much for it.

Grrr. OK. Well Imma give up on filling it from the needle then.

I framed this piece I bought from @cedarhilljackie.

aka Jackie Bradshaw. I love her stuff and she was having a sale, so I bought one. Made me happy.

Legit concerns.

I just prefer not to hang out with a lot of them. Ironically.

Cool. So the doc called yesterday with superfast biopsy results. It’s not cancer (yay). It’s a complex sclerosing lesion (fun to say 5 times fast). So it probably still needs to be removed for a variety of reasons (feel free to Google it). So surgery. But not cancer surgery. So there are many feels and thoughts about that. I’m still processing. But in general, good news. As long as I don’t think about surgery. Yeah.

ANYWAY. Today is an interesting clusterfuck. Obviously I’m going back to work with a slightly sore, slightly bruised, and slightly itchy boob. Always fun. Plus a giant spider bite I picked up Friday night. In bed. On my neck. Hopefully it then crawled into my mouth and I swallowed it and dissolved it with my stomach acid. So there’s the teaching thing. What are the odds kids did the work on Friday? Whatever. Not my problem. Theirs, because we’re starting an academic assignment based on it today. Fun times. I did spend about 2 hours Saturday and 5 hours Sunday grading. Then Monday, I spent about 5 hours trying to get my head around the next part of the unit. I’d been seriously stuck on HOW to teach it and I had a breakthrough so I think it’s good. I’m actually planned out through Thursday, maybe Friday of NEXT week for once. Yeah. Exciting. Gotta copy some stuff today. Don’t know when, because I have to meet with the grade level I don’t teach. Plus do some learning management system meeting after school, and then I’m going to my first ceramics handbuilding class! The kids/ex gave it to me for Xmas and yes, I know how to do all the things already, but you have to take the intro class to use the studio, so I’m doing it. Con: I’m not sure when and how I’m eating dinner and I won’t be home until probably 9 PM and probably I’m still gonna have to empty the dishwasher because it’s ‘my turn’ but sheesh. I’m hoping someone takes pity on my long day and does it for me. Betting not, but whatever.

OK, itchy spider bite. Itchy boob. Going to work.

Brain Is Tired…

Oy. Well, it’s a Monday I’m not at work. I do appreciate these longer weekends, an extra day to try to get stuff done. That said, I’ve got two doctors’ appointments today and they’re not in the same place or at logical times, so it’s just drive a long way, do the thing, drive back. Wait 45 minutes, then drive again. Do the other thing. Drive back. Fun times. I think the afternoon is shot. And I’m moving pretty slowly this morning. Brain is tired. Brain is done. Brain can’t be done…I tried to explain, it doesn’t care, it wants me to sit on the couch with the fluffy kitty and read the book. Sigh. I’ll try. Maybe later.

Lots of what I have to do is art related, which is cool. A bunch of shows are coming up, so there are shipments and contracts and deliveries and headshots and all that crap. I’ve done a chunk of it, but just found a decent headshot requested by one, and still need to fill out, scan, and send two forms.

And I still need to be digging up the outside planter area so we can progress on fixing what happened with the water. I have a rough idea of the order of things, but coordinating that with my schedule and contractors gives me hives. Or breathing anxiety. Yeah.

Anyway, let’s start with art progress. I finished cutting things out on Friday night…spent about 2 1/2 hours doing that (it was a rough day).

Nova was very helpful. It wasn’t too late, so I sorted them too…

It’s super fast when there aren’t very many pieces. I think it took about 18 minutes. Boom!

Then Saturday night, I started ironing them together…

I got most of the sky stuff done. Then last night, I got most of the male figure done…

It’s kind of a pain to try to iron bits on the sky like this; I can’t see the parts that are covered by the sky fabrics, so sometimes I iron them elsewhere and then put them on top. I will have to do that with his left hand and his face, so that’s why I paused there. Also it was late and I was tired. It happens. I might finish tonight? We’ll see. Maybe Tuesday night.

I do have an idea for the next big quilt though. I’ve been listening to The Power of the Crone by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; I loved her Women Who Run With the Wolves book in college, and had seen ads for this, which is all audio, so I started listening. She makes me laugh and her language fills my head with images, which is cool. It’s all stories of the crone and the wise woman. I do have a quilt I made with the crone, maiden, and mother–Awakening the Crone; it sold. So I made that in 2014…I think it’s time for a crone/wise woman update. Something with the world how it is now. I don’t seem to be able to separate my art from politics and people suffering. Anyway, it’s percolating. Always good.

Other fiber stuff that’s happening…I finally got my act in gear and started quilting this again…it’s for a friend who doesn’t quilt. I finished all the white squares, which just needed some additional stitches to hold them together, and now I’m doing the sashing and borders.

This stuff takes longer than people think, though. It probably took me a little over 2 hours to do the 9 white blocks, and I’ve put in at least an hour on the borders/sashing. It’ll be more than an hour to finish; I didn’t get quite halfway. Then put the binding on and stitch it down. So if you ask me to do something and I say no thank you, you will know why. I have little time. Just how long it’s taken me to get to this one shows that. I should be done this week, though. That’s my goal. Get it off my plate! I still need to draw the piece for the upcoming FIG show. Didn’t get to that this weekend yet either.

I went fabric shopping for a friend’s baby quilt. She wants cactus and she loves purple, although she said the green, so we’re doing both.

This is definitely a labor of love. I use the same pattern from 2000 for all my baby quilts (haven’t made one in 8 years, y’all…). This one is manifesting good baby health. So this is next on the list. It’s not hard or complicated.

Then a pair of jeans had an issue last week, and I’m not willing to toss jeans that fit and are comfortable otherwise.

No one will ever see this part…

Manifesting some cactus too.

Hiked on Saturday…FINALLY. Although the Man didn’t want to hike in mud, so we did the mostly boring lake walk on pavement.

Geese though. Beautiful and terrifying.

We’ve had no more water come in the house, which is good, so I mopped the concrete (it was really dirty, even after multiple sweepings) and put down these cheap temporary rugs to keep feet warmer until June/July when I can get to carpet.

These were on mega sale. I thought I would dislike them more, but they actually kinda work with the concrete and walls that need painting. Desperately. Yeah. And people want to come visit my ‘studio’. Sigh. It’s my house, y’all…and it’s in disrepair.

I draw at dinner; we hadn’t been out for a few weeks due to things, stuff, band things, whatever. I started this one on January 20, but food came so fast, and then Saturday night, I kept going, but food came really fast.

It’s not that I want the food to be super slow or anything…I think I used to be able to draw faster? I don’t know. Anyway, it’ll take a third dinner to finish this. And since the Man is having dental surgery this week, it might be a while before I have that opportunity again.

The boob thing though. She has a star on her left breast. I sat through a 3D mammogram, which hurt like a bitch, but the tech was fast (she said she was fast) and then the ultrasound didn’t find something that matched the mammogram, so that makes them nervous. Family history and all. So I get to have a biopsy. No appointment yet. Have to wait for them to call me (what are the odds they’ll call today when I can actually take a call? LOW low low low low), then they’re scheduling about 2 weeks out because it’s not an emergency (except in my head, which the radiologist acknowledged during her very perky speech), then 3-5 days for results. Doc already called to find out my preference for notification (call me ASAP, as long as it’s after school; she already knew that bit). So I guess my birthday present will be news of some sort; odds are it will be fine. Knowing me, it’ll be a watch and wait thing, and I’ll get to scan multiple times. They’ll place a marker during the biopsy so it’ll be easy to find. It’s an architectural distortion. Which is a great name for a new quilt, if you ask me. Anyway. I did have a repeat mammogram once before, not for this, and made a quilt for it…also 2014. Bitchy year, if you ask me. 2024 is starting rough…hopefully it will chill out at some point.

We’re reading The Maze Runner in my advisory class…

I’m with her on this, but there has been action. Maybe not before she wrote this comment. It’s hard to read just one chapter a day.

This is me always. I’m not a morning person.

I do have to get my act together though. Gonna shower and make more tea and eat something and do some work and fill out these two forms and scan and email them and then drive off to the dermatologist and then the knee doctor, and at the end of all of it, go to my rescheduled stitching meeting with friends. My stomach just chimed in about the eating something. I think I’m ready to teach tomorrow; I moved stuff around because kids are stupidly not finishing work, and my being gone Friday afternoon didn’t help with that. Oh well. What am I gonna do? Not go to the doctor? Well no. So there will be at least one more (and hopefully no more) appointment that makes me miss school. They should figure out how to be self motivated. Surely it’s time for that. Ha.

Doing It Better…

Well hello 2024. Nice to see you, and all those folks in the back kicking 2023 to the curb and welcoming you with open arms. Not sure where I am on that yet. 2023 wasn’t fun, but I’m not seeing the light in 2024 yet. I’ll let you know. No matter what, it’s some sort of a mental reset, although for teachers, I think Winter Break is a reset even if you don’t give us a new year in the middle of it. For me, I will hopefully get caught up and even ahead of the game. That’s the plan anyway. Although, what I planned to do today didn’t happen. I cleaned up my office space instead, the area around the computer and the sewing machine. It needed it. It was a disaster. It will be again, but I can start clean and semi-organized. Just don’t look at the rest of the house.

So the Man and I planned a weekend away to start the New Year. It’s been rough for both of us in the last month or so, and this was a better gift than anything else we could think of. We didn’t have much of a plan, but getting out of here is always a start. We started with a winery gift card I got in 2022 for Christmas and kept forgetting to use…we drove out to Julian…

Had a tasting and got a bottle of wine out of the gift as well…

Nice gift. This is Menghini Winery. We made the mistake of missing the turnoff through Wynola (we came through Ramona, probably because Interstate 8 is still down to one lane eastbound), so we had to endure the crazy Julian traffic.

The bathroom at this winery is stellar…

That is a living ivy plant both outside and in. I’ve been looking at bathrooms for ideas; I’ve got at least one bathroom remodel coming up in 2024 probably. A living plant taking over one wall wasn’t on my list…until now.

From there, we drove out to our Airbnb…it was OK. Not the most comfortable for a cold night. A fireplace would have been nice, but we left things too late and decided a real kitchen was more important than a fireplace.

There were horses on the next property over…

And turkeys wandering around both properties…

There was a lake with kayaks, but we weren’t in the mood…

Although it was a pretty lake.

We went for a hike on Sunday…

The Secret Canyon Trail from the north end…it’s pretty flat for apparently the first 7 miles. We did not do 7 miles…

Nowhere close in fact. There were two water crossings that weren’t bad at all, and then we got to an iffy one, but realistically, the Man’s back was bugging him…

So we did a little over 3 1/2 miles…not much…

But it was nice. No one else on the trail…that’s always a plus.

Then we spent most of the afternoon and evening reading, playing a game we both won…

I did some drawing…

(small table)…I was drawing on the bottom of the drawing I’d chosen, which was from two locations and dates in 2022.

I added more after this.

Then I numbered it…

And then some crazy drawing I did late at night…

I can’t explain this, but I’m glad to have the mindset and the down time to have done it. To more of that in 2024. However I can figure that out.

I do notice that the harder stuff is, the more I dive into reading. I went well above and beyond my Goodreads goal…

Not sure what this year brings for reading, but hopefully it’s a lot. I realized today that I hadn’t read the book I need to read for school…I’ve read it before, but it’s been long enough that I don’t remember what happens at all. I should work on that. Or not? Hard to say.

Anyway, we drove back from the mountains today, and I started by cleaning up this workspace, at least some of it. And then the boychild disconnected all the cable TV boxes to return tomorrow; that’s been on my to-do list for months, so I appreciate his help. I packed up a box for the girlchild, who hopefully flew home tonight. I have a long to-do list for this week, catching up a lot of loose ends, but also a lot of school stuff. And tracing that new quilt. Tomorrow, hopefully I will be writing a blogpost about the Supreme Court quilt and how it came to be and what all the things mean (well, most of them anyway). Then it will ship off to its new owner. The purple quilt is at the photographer. I only made 5 quilts this year, which is down from previous years. I’m not happy about that. Usually I make a little photo thing for them all, but I’m not in the mood tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I’m sad that I didn’t have time to make more. So that would be something I’d like to change in 2024, but also something that will take a lot more than my just saying it in order to happen. I just updated the whiteboard calendar on my fridge, and January is hellish for school. I’m not happy about that. I also can’t do much about it. My teacher morale is low at the moment.

For now, though, I’m going to start tracing this new piece and consider grading the easy assignment tonight, or part of it at least. Tomorrow, I’ll get some errands done and trace some more. Plus read some more. Plus clean some more. I can’t really hit rest and relaxation with so many things that need doing, but tracing is meditative and that will help. May 2024 be better or as good as or whatever you need it to be. I’m going to focus on surviving the next 6 months and then doing it better after that.

We Do Our Best…

Well I’m off by a day again. Christmas seems a good excuse. I probably could have written this yesterday in between things, but I did other things instead. It’s all about choices, right? I’m the one who makes my rigid schedule, and there’s good reasons for it…it makes me write, but I’m also the one who can revise it at will. Besides, this is the floofy part of the year that has no purpose and no actual days of the week. Except for the one when the trash company picks up. You should know that one. And if you have to donate stuff by the end of the year, you should realize that is coming. And if you are trying to take advantage of some special sale deal thingie, they probably are up by now. Too late. So sad.

The holidays are days of chaos, no matter what your choices, I think. So Friday night, I picked up one friend and her kid from the airport and went out to dinner with them. I’ll see them next December probably. They live far away and I don’t get to travel much: money, time, all that. I kept quilting Friday afternoon and night…

And Saturday morning and evening…

Then Christmas Eve, I trimmed her…

Before we went to that party. I was wearing the outfit below, but with knee pads.

That was the Man’s holiday party. Then after Christmas night’s dinner, I put the binding on…

Hand sewing tonight and tomorrow…emailed photographer now. There’s a deadline on this one. So many have deadlines.

I managed to get all the applique pieces on this and started the embroidery at last night’s event.

We’re changing up the borders. I needed mom to cut a bunch of tiny circles. She has a machine and dies for that, which she brought to Christmas dinner…like you do.

It didn’t have the one size we needed, although the box said it did, which was just weird. So we cut some varying sizes. Figured we’d alternate between 1/8″ bigger and 1/8″ smaller. We’ll see. Certainly this is easier than cutting them out by hand. There aren’t dies though for most of what I do.

On Saturday, the Man and I went for a hike…

Apparently he was more excited about halfway than I was.

There’s been lots of dog activity. Or really, lack of activity…

Annie is still injured, so the cone is on most of the time. She licks her paw otherwise…occasionally she’s allowed out with supervision…Grandma is her favorite…

But she’ll settle for the Man…some sort of communal napping going on here.

Simba is always tortured by the girlchild’s costuming choices…

Poor little panda guy.

So I sucked at family pictures. Again. Here’s Christmas morning…

Chaos all around. Then dinner at the other house…

I didn’t even take pictures of the food. Spaced out. Ah well. We hope, as always, that we’ll have another year of it. Maybe I will remember photos in 2024. Luna hopes so.

But I have plenty of pictures of her. Here, she wants pets. More pets. This is after she hooked my finger with her claw. Bloody beast.

We also cleaned out the owl box.

We found the owlet I suspected had died in June.

Headless this time. Less of a haul this year. There were some rats too, but not all of them…heads missing. That might be their skulls. Hard to say. We’re leaving the box down for a few weeks. There’s 6 trees that will be trimmed in January, and the hope is that they will not destroy the owl box in the process. We might pull it off completely; we’ll see. Certainly I’m going to have to pull up some plants to protect them. Ah well. That’s January’s problem. And stress.

This week is not stress free. I have an arts application to complete, plus some stuff to ship out, plus donations to make before the end of the year. Lots to do. Grading still too. Hoping to get a good chunk done before the weekend, when we’ll take a couple nights of destressing. We hope. Then I’ll have to start planning the next unit and a half next week. Head down. There’s so much I can’t get done. I don’t feel very productive so far this break…or relaxed. I’m hoping to get there, but it’s been difficult. I know it’s supposed to be a mindset, but the weight of the to-do list is ever present. The only solution to that is to cross things off it and carve out some time for my sanity. Which is what the rest of this school year looks like. So not really thrilled with that. I did get some ceramics classes for Christmas…literally gonna carve those out of the schedule once I survive January. So that’s something to look forward to.

Hoping your holidays were what you needed them to be. I’m glad the official stuff is over and I can stop worrying about food and wearing stuff besides pajamas. Says the woman who needs to shower and go to the grocery store today. Yeah. Well. We do our best.