Hey. It’s Friday. But it’s not a work week for me, so what does that mean? Not much, except for the people around me who are working are doing their stuff, so I guess that affects me. It’s a nice place to be finally, although yesterday tested my summer break self on the first day I actually felt like I was on break. It’s still all up in my head, so I’m going to do my best today to dispel it and do the things I want to do.
The quilt is progressing, although let’s just ignore yesterday, because progress yesterday was nil, nada, nichts, nothing.
The previous day, I sorted all the pieces…
Super fast when there are only 500 and something of them. Then I started ironing it together…
As always, although my numbering seemed logical at the time, in reality, it’s a clusterfuck. I can’t fit all the background swirls on at the same time, so I did most of the 0-100s and then laid out the 100s for the next bit, but that was where I got tired and couldn’t do any more. And last night was not conducive to doing any art, so hopefully today will be a million times better, because I wanted to be further along than this.
Part of yesterday’s issue is that I took the dogs out for a 3-mile hike to try to tire them out before a Zoom call I needed to be on (mostly the puppy was the issue, but it turned out that Simba barked during the whole thing).
It was a nice walk, not too hot, mostly breezy.
The dogs were much better after the first mile.
Although trying to keep the puppy on her side was an issue. We were all tired when we got back, but Annie did sleep for most of the Zoom, so that was good.
Yes. On the bed. Where else? Oh yeah, also here.
After that, things just kinda went downhill. So I’m not focusing on all that doom and gloom (except I say that and my brain doesn’t like to leave those things alone), It’s not the end of the world. Everything will be OK in the end. We’ll all be dead in the end, actually, but it should get better significantly before that. Meanwhile, I’m on break and I don’t have to think about all the things right now. There are books to read and wontons to make.
The girlchild made it to San Francisco, by the way…here are the two days with her dad helping.
If you want to know about the crickets, Google Ekko, Nevada. Then be glad you’re not there. She went into her job in person finally (she’s been on Zoom for weeks) yesterday. Big changes. She needs to find a real place to live and get settled. Easier said than done, yeah? Her dad comes back today to pick up the puppy. We get two days off from extra dogs, and then my parents’ dog comes while they are in Seattle (and coincidentally, me too…wait, not a coincidence…my nephew is graduating from high school). So I won’t be here for most of Katie’s visit.
Find the cat.
Nova has not been thrilled about Annie’s visit. Luna has chased Annie down the hall two or three times, so she’s living her real thug life, but Nova is just hiding.
OK. Shower. Make wontons (my reward for existing right now). Eat wontons. Save some for later. Pick up ex from airport, pass over dog. Iron some quilt pieces while watching British murder mysteries. Maybe do some more weed whacking, find the art for tomorrow’s meeting (if I can get my head around it…yesterday, I couldn’t. I tried.), read my book some more, don’t think about things that suck. Oh yeah! Go see an art quilt exhibit that has been on my list for a month. That’s my treat. Doing that.
This is the last full week of school. It’s a doozy, of course. Nothing like next week, but still a ton of stuff going on, both at school and in the evenings. Fewer kids turning in late work this trimester. A blessing for me; maybe not so much for their grades. No more lesson planning really though. That’s a plus. Spent so many hours over the last school year trying to do that. Desperately doing that. Can’t teach if you don’t know what you’re teaching. Glad that’s done. Mostly. Yeah. This week is pregnancy and STIs, plus bridge building and maybe breaking, plus a field trip, but coming back and teaching afterwards. Ugh. It’ll be fine. Right? It will? It will be something.
I did get some significant progress done on the new quilt…traced a chunk of time on Saturday…
Before a hike and after dinner. Made it more than halfway.
Then last night, I was going to grade another thing (I graded all afternoon), but then a kid, two kids really, cheated in a truly annoying assholular way, so I quit. Did not have the mental stamina to continue. So I traced instead, which may always be the healthier option.
There’s only 60 pieces left for tonight, and then I can start cutting.
Simba curled up on the couch. Yeah, I had hoped to be done with the tracing yesterday, but I did other things instead. Got a lot of things crossed off the to-do list, which is good. Feels less overwhelming at the moment.
The next goal is to be totally cut out this week and ironing to fabric by the weekend. Hopefully. Gotta put a lot of stuff away in the studio for that to happen, and I’m not sure I have a background fabric that will work. We’ll see.
I drew a little at dinner…
I don’t know if I posted this one, from the last two weeks of dinners…
Some places serve food super fast and I don’t have time to really finish a drawing. This sketchbook is almost finished. It’s a perfect size to fit in my purse. I probably have another one in my stash that will fit.
I went to my quilt guild meeting and worked on this. The never-to-be-finished scarf.
Almost got the body done. Still need to do the face and then decide what else I’m doing. I’m not covering all the black. I think.
We also hiked the dogs…mostly trying to tire out the puppy.
We tired the old man (the dog, not the Man) out pretty quickly…
But Annie was still zooming around at the end of 3 miles.
She was pretty good…a few moments of chewing stuff and she peed and pooped in the house in the first hour, but then figured out how to tell us she needed to go out. Good thing; she’ll be back in two weeks when the ex helps drive the girlchild across country. I’ll be off school, though, so hopefully that will help. Or not! Who knows.
Lots of blooming going on in the yard…
Lots of my chipping away at weeds, cleaning up the yard, trying to make it nicer. A little bit at a time. It probably needs more than a little bit, but that’s what I have time for. That and reading and making art. Lots of reading to do…looking forward to more of that. I do have a school training I have to do in July, and I really should plan things (but not sure how that goes…probably need to meet with my 8th-grade team at some point, but one is a newbie to our school and the other one is as burnt out as I am). Hmm. Not worrying about that right now. Maybe later this week.
Annie meets Kitten. Pretty sure I have scratches from this meeting.
9 days y’all. I might actually survive this school year…it felt pretty desperate last November…but I seem to have managed it. Not sure how. OK. Monday. Go to school.
I fully realize that I just had a three-day weekend, an extra day off, thank you to those who died in wars for that (I’m actually really sorry it had to go that way). But I feel exhausted still. I know I didn’t do a good job of the sleep thing; I tried, but ’twas not in the cards. At some point yesterday, I had the distinct and very strong feeling that I didn’t want to teach this week. Which is funny, because this week is pretty easy…short week, plus teaching puberty and menstruation (not hard), and starting to build bridges (shouldn’t be hard to start; might be hard to finish…these 8th graders have decided to stop working on many things). I’m not super behind on grading, for once. I have three morning meetings, which kind of sucks, but none of them are crucial. I mean, waiting until the end of the year to figure out why your kid is failing? Eh. Well nothing has changed since the last meeting, so…I’m not even sure why this meeting is happening. The other one, we’re pretty sure mom is nuts, and if your kid is home all the time, I’m not sure how you expect them to pass, so that should be an interesting one, but not crucial to the kid passing. She’s a sweet kid, by the way. Perfectly capable. Freaked out as all get out though. Not that I blame her; middle school is legit something to freak out about.
So that’s not a good reason to not feel like teaching. I suspect I’m just done. I’ve been done for a while. Maybe since Spring Break. More done than usual? Feels like it. But what do I know? I do this every year and then read my blog from a year ago and that’s how I felt then too. Sad but true. I love parts of teaching, I really do. I’m hoping to see some cool bridges next week, hoping there’s some fun with breaking them. But I’m also really deeply reflecting into what went wrong this year and why, and how much of it I have any impact on for next year. Mindset flip. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not all me. But some of it is.
So I didn’t do any school work at all until Monday. Friday night, I put the binding on the quilt…
Then Saturday morning, we made an attempt at hiking Corte Madera.
We didn’t get all the way to the top. It was a test of my knee, which was definitely having issues, but we kind of forgot the man’s shoulder/back issue. There was one portion that was basically like climbing down a rock fall. I was almost all the way down when he said he wasn’t going to be able to do it. Too much pulling on the bad part of his back. He’s in physical therapy for it and it had already been bugging him, so we turned around with 3/4 of a mile to go.
Not here. We went up that.
There’s Corte Madera in the background…
And we went up to the hill on the far right…so up wasn’t the issue; it was down that was the problem.
Because there’s a goodly way up the up. Or maybe coming back up the down that was the issue. I’ve done this hike multiple times…and it’s not easy, per se. It’s not impossible. It’s just a challenge at times, especially with injuries.
So this was on the way back down again. It was a good test of my knee, at least. We’ll try again when everyone is out of PT, maybe.
I spent most of the afternoon and evening sewing binding and sleeves on…and then finished those on Sunday…
I’m standing on the fireplace hearth to get that photo. It goes to the real photographer this week.
Yes, I already started on the next one. It’s been in my head in a variety of configurations for about 6 months, so it is proving relatively easy to draw. This was Sunday night…
Followed by Monday night, after grading for hours…
Yes, I’m drawing in a circle. I’m trying to keep it relatively simple, because I have a deadline and I’ll be out of town for a chunk of the making time. Not sure how that will work, so there’s that. But getting a solid start on it now will help. I figure at least one more night of drawing, maybe two, and then I can start tracing.
I did a little yardwork as well, this weekend, trying to clean up, still dealing with weeds. Found some turkey tail fungus though…
Never seen that in my yard before; it isn’t usually wet enough. Cool though.
And there was an owl interloper this weekend.
I’m pretty sure the one hanging onto the hole does not belong. There’s been lots of screeching going on from the parents in general. And there are definitely two babies I can hear now. So much drama.
This amused me. Because Kloob can’t do all the things for me either.
My teachers’ aide, though…she can do some toothpick counting for me today, for the bridges. She has the other science teacher, so she’ll be building them too. She filled all my glue bottles last week. Exciting life. She gets to draw a lot. Jelly.
So physical therapy, probably the last one, after school. Then home to a quiet evening as the Man is at band practice. I’m hoping to finish the drawing, maybe number it. Also maybe finish my book (at 82% and it’s good). I can do the things. I can start thinking about next year. Although that’s weird. Unless things change drastically, I won’t be teaching 7th-grade science for two years, as I’m in the 8th-grade-only part of the rotation. First time ever in 20 years of teaching. Weird shit. Change…it’s all over the place. Hopefully for the best.
Well we are back to everyone in the house trying to leave in the morning. I’m not sure Simba realizes he’ll be alone all day today. The boychild is back to work this week, so schedules will be weird. Mine won’t. Mine is reliable through the middle of June, and then I’ll be home for a bit and then gone for a bit. Hopefully there won’t be any fires while I’m in Seattle or it will get complicated. It’s always complicated. I remember driving Calli to my ex’s every day so she wouldn’t try to run away, and forgetting she was in the back of the car until I got to work. She’d sigh and I’d go, DAMMIT Calli, why didn’t you tell me you were back there. Silly old dog. I miss her.
This week is the last week of state testing…math and science. Stressful. I’ve never proctored the science test…and I’m going to feel bad if they don’t feel like we taught them what they need. That said, I also know the state tests put stuff on there that is not in the standards, which is just irritating as hell. Ah well, hopefully the next principal does not obsess over data. The test covers 6-8th grade science, and 6th grade for my kids was the COVID hybrid year…or the Zoom year, for me. So they don’t remember much, unfortunately. That said, they didn’t remember much from last year either. I gave them some review questions on states of matter and chemistry…sigh. Ah well. What can you do? I would rather have them be able to think and figure stuff out than to know the differences between the molecules of a solid and those of a liquid. Although it’s cool info, I’m not sure it’s survival-level info.
There was a bunch of art stuff I was supposed to do this weekend, but for one, I never saw the invite info, and for the other, I ran out of time. I’ll make it to the other show next weekend hopefully (have an extra day!). Not sure what happened with the other one.
Instead, we did our usual late-afternoon hike, showers, and then dinner. But Friday, the Man had a show. I quilted a little bit before I left, but was out most of the night. It was hard to get a decent picture of him: he was in the dark corner.
Their lead singer was easier to get…
This was after dissecting frogs at the end of the school day…
I only saw one obvious female in my two classes…
The table that got her was very excited. Maybe a little TOO excited (they cut all the organs up in a really destructive way to get at all the eggs). Glad to be done with that lab. It’s cool, but exhausting. Luckily, I now know that my 7th graders will respond to CLASS CLASS (if you don’t know what that means, consider yourself lucky).
So I dissected with those kids, did my afterschool duty at the corner light, got my classroom ready for this week, came home, and napped. Seriously zonked out for 30 minutes. Then ate dinner, changed out of frog/teacher clothes, and drove out to Ocean Beach to watch the Man play. I was in bed around midnight, exhausted. He came home around 1, and then I felt the larger of these two earthquakes…
Late night partying in the tectonic-plate world.
Saturday I managed to get organized enough to run errands, including buying binding for this quilt, so I can finish it this week, hopefully. We hiked…
After I sent 42 emails to parents/kids about failing grades and the trimester cut-off date in less than 2 weeks. Down from 60 emails in April. Getting there. It’s been a rough year for my 7th graders. Or me. Not sure which was worse.
Tiny pink flowers that are a pain to photograph. We’ve been trying to do at least 3 miles a weekend; next weekend, we’re going to do a longer hike. My physical therapy is probably coming to an end, so we’re testing the knee out. I suspect my knees will always hurt, but at least I can get up the stairs at the moment. The Man is supposed to be hiking the trans-Catalina trail in October with a pack; he’ll need to start training for that soon.
He’s still recovering from a pinched nerve in his shoulder/back area…and talking about lightening the pack. Probably a good plan.
I did manage a good chunk of quilting on Saturday night…
I got the pigoon done and the rest of the wing/arm, then up into the fourth arm (three is NOT enough)…
And got the bird done as well. Went to bed a little late, and then last night, I did the head with corresponding eyeball tree (not the first, won’t be the last)…
And then started quilting the background.
I’m over 9 hours into the quilting, and there’s at least a couple more to go. There’s a lot of background filler in the upper half of the quilt, plus the borders around the bottom. So ideally, I finish tomorrow night, then trim it Wednesday, get the binding on, maybe ready for the photographer this weekend? Then on to the next one, which will be a difficult finish. I have a complicated idea in my head, but don’t have the time for the whole shebang before the deadline. Might have to tone down the complication.
Luna thinks that’s crazy.
But it might be what has to happen.
I asked my students a question about why National Parks were important…this kid…
Which is better than the girl who just wrote that she didn’t really care. Yeah. We know. Neither does half the planet. We’re aware. It’s obvious.
Anyway, we try. Yeah, I’m trying to brainwash your kids into caring about the planet more than I’m grooming them to be homosexual or trans. I still think the best answer to the teachers brainwashing kids thing is the fact that we can’t get them to turn any work in. I mean, that’s where I’d start. It would make my life easier, for sure, if they would just turn shit in. Stupid politicians.
OK. Today. Review for three classes, finishing up all the things with the other two. We had to juggle the schedule slightly. It’s fine; this is easier. It’s OK to make things easier sometimes. Then staff meeting, run to Home Depot afterward to get a sprinkler and some stakes for the lemon tree. Some more dirt too. Can never have enough dirt apparently. Then book club tonight…just finished the book on Friday, I think. It was good: When Women Were Dragons. Then quilting after that. Hopefully a chill day. That would be nice.
Monday mornings. I didn’t do enough schoolwork this weekend because I just couldn’t. I had other priorities and I will pay for that today, I’m sure. I have curriculum done for 8th grade through Wednesday, probably. Not ready for next week at all, not even close. 7th grade is fine except for the fact that we just barely got approval for the sex-ed program last week, sent letters Friday, and start next Monday. It’s good but it’s less time than we usually have to prep for it, so that’s stressful. Plus frog dissections this week and collecting a bunch of stuff…so yeah. I’m not prepared. I hate that; usually this is the time of the year where we can step back a little from the crazy. We’ve taught sex ed enough that it is a known entity. There are some stressful bits, but mostly the kids are engaged, unlike in math or whatever, so that makes it easier. I’ve spent most of the year, though, with 7th grade curriculum being the known, the easier (the actual kids in the classes are not)…so that’s been the only saving grace to teaching two grade levels. Otherwise it’s been a stressful shit show. I’m not sure how the other members of my team are so chill about it. It’s been nuts. 23 days left.
My goal this weekend was to get the quilt pinbasted. Which meant finishing the stitchdown. Which meant blowing off most of my schoolwork.
Friday night, I didn’t get far…
Pigoon, legs, stopped at the arm, hadn’t finished the torso.
Saturday morning I did some before going to a baby shower…
Maybe 20 minutes. At that point, I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to finish…
Came back from the shower and hiked…I promised my physical therapist I’d hike every weekend until I saw him again to test out the knee. Lots of ravens on the hike…
Came back and went to dinner, date night, drawing with no plan…
Not sure why it ended up being a dog…but last week’s was even weirder…
Then I did stitchdown for about 2 1/2 hours. At some point, I was just thinking it needed to be done. That if I went to bed and did the rest the next day, I wouldn’t be pinbasted until Tuesday and that would suck.
This is the back, by the way, never to be seen again.
I scan the back, looking for mistakes, stuff I’ve missed, didn’t stitch down. I’m seeing one right now. It’s OK. I can catch them in the quilting.
I guessed 6-7 hours on the stitchdown and I was right…6 hours and 45 minutes.
Then Sunday happened. Chaos. I was ready to clean the floor, and then remembered I hadn’t checked for batting. So I did that. Went through the whole pile…nothing’s big enough. Dammit. Drove to Joanns, which was mostly empty (Mother’s Day?), came back, washed the batting, dried the batting, but in between, found another pile of batting I’d set aside after the last time I bought batting. Pretty sure it would’ve been big enough. Giant ass sigh. That’s where my brain is right now…in not-very-efficient panic mode. Also I cleaned the floor and taped the backing down that I had pieced, then remembered the batting wasn’t dry yet and we were running out of time to leave for the parentals, so I pulled it back up, didn’t finish before we left. See, that was the plan…finish pinbasting before we left so I could do school stuff when we got back. Or not. So I went to dinner at the parents, forgot to take any photos because my brain. Fuzz. Then came back and laid it all back out, this time with dry batting.
Then pinbasted while watching the first episode or two of Queen Charlotte.
Kneepads and all. I think I’m in love. With the show, the quilt, and the kneepads. And now I can quilt. Well, after I go to school and try to plan the rest of the week during a staff meeting. It’ll be fine.
This is very true of the classroom, except we skip the spraying it black part. Today we are doing embryos in 8th grade (embryology as part of the theory of evolution) and human impact on national parks in 7th grade. On Friday, I heard that The Way Out won Honorable Mention at Form, Not Function.
It’s still a very relevant piece. Unfortunately. Nice to get an award for it.
When you live with an artist, there are always things all over the house that remind you of that. I found this in the hallway. Not sure how it got there…on an animal butt? or my shirt? Oh yeah, and I’m the artist.
I do know what it’s from, at least. Seriously miles away from where I was working.
No yardwork this week either…
I don’t actually have a pile of dirty dishes OR laundry, but there are definitely things piling up that are driving me nuts but that I don’t have time to deal with. Ah well. I will get to it all eventually. Or not.
Quilting tonight though. I’m figuring the quilting will take 16-20 hours. There’s a shitload of details in this thing. Plus a healthy chunk of just plain background. It won’t be quick. So an hour a night this week? Maybe a little more. I don’t have a ton of meetings this week like last week. And my weekend is more free for once. I’m still not expecting to be done this week. Next week. Yeah. I have some deadlines I’m dealing with. I’ll be fine with this one; it’s the next one that’s questionable.
Anyway. Mother’s Day was stressful (school and my fault with the batting) but ended well. Saw my mom (she looks good), talked to the girlchild (she also looks good). Got some nice gifts from the kidlets…always nice when they get me stuff, because it’s not stuff I would have gotten myself. Appreciate that. Hoping to hear at school about a new science hire plus our principal for next year…hoping the district is not populated by total idiots. You know how that goes. And I get to quilt tonight. I love that. I can’t watch Queen Charlotte while I’m doing that, but I’ll figure that out. Worst case it’ll be listening to music or podcasts. Meditative. All good.
You know when you wake up in the morning and you’re not sure what day it is? And your brain is scrambling a little…what are the clues? If the alarm goes off at 6:15, it’s a work day, unless you maybe forgot to change the clock and it’s really Saturday? It’s not Saturday. You just did a Saturday, so it must be a work day. Did I go to work yesterday? Well I did work yesterday, lots of work, grades due and all, yes but did you get in your car and drive to SCHOOL, ma’am? No. No I did not. So it must be a Monday if I didn’t do that yesterday.
My brain is mush in the morning. Really, it’s often mush in the afternoon too. It’s Monday. Confirmed. Looked at my phone. Which, as long as it’s charged, seems to know the days AND the dates. Really should rely on it more for those things. And cat videos. Good that.
I did work a lot this weekend. Grades due. Last progress report of the year. The next one is the last report card and then no grades until August some time. What a relief. Almost done with this year. It’s been a year. Still trying to figure out sex ed and the school board idiocy. Find a workaround for the right-wing dumbasses who think we’re grooming their kids for homosexuality. Sigh. If I’m grooming them for anything, it’s regular use of deodorant and no pregnancies or STDs until you’re older. Or ever. Do parents really object to that? Because homeschool your little asshole then. Or opt them out, because you can do that, and then you can brainwash them yourself.
So yeah, grades are done. I’m not really ready to teach anything, minor issue, but we start state testing this week, so we have two annoying days that are shorter and less teaching, more babysitting and tech issues than anything else. Pros and cons. I have two kids in my class who might drive me bonkers, but the rest will be fine. I didn’t do seating charts though, dammit, so I need to do that before class starts. And count the packets we need for 7th grade. Today. Doing well. Doing well.
Hey, at least I remembered before I got to school, right? Some chance I’ll remember once I get there.
I also ironed this weekend, only an hour a night though. I miss the weekends when I could do art for 4 or 5 hours straight because there was nothing crucial. Ha! Not this year. Not even last year. Sigh. Not since early 2020.
Finished the butterfly…
Then worked on the head…realized I had to get up the next morning to deal with the 17 thousand things I needed to do, so I didn’t finish the head…
And Saturday night, finished the head and the fourth arm…
They’ll get attached to the body when I lay the whole thing out.
And then last night, I ironed the last bit until I iron the whole thing down…
Which should be tonight. I have to piece the background and iron it; then I can iron everything down. Really looking forward to seeing what she looks like on the dark background. Then stitchdown! Hoping that anything that needs grading this week can get done during testing so I don’t have to bring anything home. Would be nice to have more than an hour for artwork. That said, I have a school Zoom this evening, science teacher interviews tomorrow, union meeting AND book club on Wednesday, stitching meeting Thursday, had to push pilates to Friday. Not a chill week in the evenings. Ugh. I need this quilt done sooner rather than later. Based on previous quilts, I probably have another 25 hours to do on this quilt. I can’t take 25 days to do it, though. It needs to be done before the end of the month, preferably well before the end. Huh. Not sure how I’m gonna pull that off. OK then. So there we are. Have goal. Figure it out.
I did make it to one of the two meetings this weekend, but only for an hour…
I also ordered more rocks for the yard, plus went to the water conservation garden sale…and saw this wonderful creature…
That’s a male. Our male is definitely still delivering food to the owl box, but I haven’t heard the baby in over a week. Maybe it’s dead? And mom is on a new egg? I don’t know. Or maybe it’s quiet because mom is in there. Hard to know.
We also hiked.
Only three miles; it was all we had time for.
Kitten speaks. She was actually yawning. Much like I am right now.
More tea. Seating chart. Count packets. I’m sure there’s something else but IDK what it is right now so I’m moving on with my life. If it’s important, someone will yell at me for not doing it.
Weekends just aren’t long enough for all the things. I suspect some people do some of the things during the week, but all I do during the week is work on school, work on art, eat, sleep, and occasionally exercise. A few social things on Zoom or in person, but not many. Today I have a 2-hour staff meeting and a drive to my photographer’s after school, so it will be a long day. Ironically it is a short teaching day. Ah well. I’m giving an assessment (quiz?) in one class and showing a movie in the other. Should go fine.
What did I do this weekend? Lots of school work, a hike, dinner out with the Man, an art meeting almost an hour away (lots of drive time in the last week for art), groceries, laundry…maybe 50% of what I needed to get done. As usual. It is what it is. I did read my book too, so that’s my time. And pilates. Necessary but my time.
I ironed all three nights…not getting enough done on this thing. Haven’t had enough time on the weekends to spend a few hours ironing, unfortunately.
I had these tiny little overlapping veins/arteries to deal with on Friday night. They were a pain in the butt.
And then I had filled up the teflon sheet, so I was going to need to move the whole thing off and reattach it, which is always a bit scary.
Plus I ironed an incubator. Gotta be way easier than giving birth. Although not very portable. Should’ve put a handle on it.
Added an in-leg phone with apps, plus a fleshy knife pocket for dangerous situations.
Tried to consider all her needs.
She’s got some sciency experiments going on.
Some are turning out fine. Some maybe not so much.
Some protective breastwear.
Last night, I ironed the little froggy boy plus some additional tech for her arm.
Really she’s got everything she needs…except maybe a body fridge for storing sandwiches and drinks. Didn’t think of that until just now.
Really enjoying this piece, which is nice. It’s a little twisted and dark but fun. Political, but some wouldn’t see that. Not like most of mine, which bash you in the face with politics. And I have hit the halfway mark…which just means I need to go faster. I really need this one done sooner rather than later. Sigh. Ah well. There’s 12 hours into the ironing, probably 12 more to go.
And it finally warmed up enough at night to switch flannel out for the quilt I started a million years ago and finished last year.
Still need to make matching pillow cases. Haven’t done that. Have the fabric, have tons of the fabric, but time…that’s another issue altogether. I have a baby shower coming up and there’s no way I’m going to be able to make a baby quilt. Sigh.
We hiked at one of the local spots we regularly do, but haven’t been to since December.
The water moved the bridge a little off…it’s meant to move. There’s a lot more water than normal.
Lots of flowers…
We keep doing these close to sunset due to all my stuff during the day. It’s nice out, but we expect to see more coyotes and don’t. Not sure why.
Then dinner out and the drawing I started last week and couldn’t finish.
It got weird. So did the Man.
Kitten’s hiding space behind all the things.
A friend got me this…
Totally appropriate. I can’t sew with shoes on. Or slippers. The Man thought she had gotten this specially made, and I’m like no, this is a thing…I’m not the only one. I still don’t think he believes me. Finding space for it in here…
Starting the week out tired. I know, what’s new. I got a lot of 8th grade stuff done yesterday and then realized how far behind we are in 7th grade stuff. Whoops. Plus grading. I can’t lesson plan AND grade, and progress report grades are due next week. I didn’t grade any of the late work or redoes…didn’t have time. I don’t know when I will have time. I have dueling meetings this Saturday. Can’t be in two places at once. Oh well. Plus I’ve gotta fit that hike in. 33 days of school left. Getting there. Losing my mind on the way, but getting there.
Yo! April is almost over. That was fast. May is coming…one of the longest months of the school year. A vast expanse of days with testing and kids’ brains already on summer, plus grades, hurtling toward the end of the year, which alternately comes too fast (not enough time to get everything done) and not fast enough (please make it stop). Much like my weekends.
I did start ironing the quilt together…fun stuff. I did some Friday night and a goodly chunk on Saturday, which made up for only 32 minutes on Sunday. Long day there. Friday night in the dirt…
Saturday started in the green…
Got the rakunk done…
Reference to Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood…here she is with the whole dirt area…
So that was Saturday afternoon, followed by Saturday night, when I did a few of the DNA bugs I drew…
Sunday I finished those and added a few more bugs and one of the skull flowers.
Definitely progress.
We also hiked on Saturday…we hadn’t been to one of our regular hiking spots since December, and the rains had definitely affected it…lots of flowers, for one…
The path being covered by water, also a thing…
Ducks in there as well. So we wandered around to find the crossing.
And then wandered through the rest of the overgrowth…I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tarantula at the reserve. I’m sure they’ve been there…just not so obviously.
Lots of flowers…I said that…
And caterpillars…
All in the middle of the path for some reason.
And as we were coming back, there must have been some moisture reflecting rainbows in the clouds…
Hard to get photos of rainbows with an old phone camera. But it was there. Just a piece of it though.
Last week, there was an artist talk at the FIG Climate Reckoning show. I couldn’t go because it was during my school day. But my work got in the photos from the talk. There’s You Pollute Me, next to Cindy Zimmerman talking about her work.
And Beyond the Concrete near Jennifer Spencer discussing her piece.
That show comes down next week, so if you want to see it, you should go this week.
Kitten trying to see the dog next door…
Back in her cave.
This describes school and life all too well.
I didn’t sleep well last night. Couldn’t fall asleep. Couldn’t stay asleep. Every Sunday at the moment.
Yeah, I’m a little like this.
Maybe more than a little. Ugh. Gonna go crawl in a hole with my book. My book that is due in two days, so I need to finish it.
This is just damn disturbing.
I don’t know what the fuck we’re thinking at the moment.
Followed by this.
Too many attempts to control women, but not guns. I know what the bigger problem is. Unless the plan is to make women have more babies so we can shoot them? Is that it? Seems silly.
OK. It’s Monday, y’all. Monday with the week stretching out in front of me. Lots of work. Lots of meetings…one art meeting yesterday. It’s where I finished grading all the week’s homework (a plus). I panicked about school a lot over the weekend, mostly lesson planning 8th grade. After Tuesday night, I’ll probably be panicking about 7th grade too, thanks to the idiotic school board members. Dumbassery. Yesterday, I went to the art meeting, which was about 45 minutes away, so drive time and sit time. It’s a good group of artists though, so it’s nice to have that in-person connection again. Then came home and worked on school stuff, took a break to make lunches for the week, more work, then made dinner, more work. Was going to go iron and remembered one thing I hadn’t done for school that I needed for this morning. Damn. More work. Then a bit of ironing.
Today is work then meeting then Zoom book club. I liked the book, so that’s good. Plus more work in there somewhere, because there’s always more work. Plus I need to finish reading that other book. It’s big and I’m only at 78%. A challenge! I like those.
43 days. I often come back to school after Spring Break with some sense of exhaustion, sometimes burnout, although usually Spring Break helps with that…and it did. I can’t imagine how burnt out I’d feel right now if I hadn’t had two weeks off. This year seems worse. As I was making new seating charts last night, the thought of actually being in the classroom, trying to impart knowledge to some of these totally checked-out kids, of the daily war to get stuff out there and have it matter on some level…plus stress about finishing grades and the school board being stupid with the sex ed curriculum, because that means having to come up with something else at the last minute, the last TIRED minute, plus realizing I should have spent HOURS on 8th grade because it wasn’t planned out past tomorrow. All that. I needed to not think about it for a while, so that’s what I did. And now I have to think about it again.
43 days.
Meanwhile, I finished quilting…
I did a marathon (not really…I’ve done longer) of almost 4 hours on Friday…
Even did a different color for once. I didn’t want the words to overpower the lab coat.
I only had a little outlining left…here on the head. So mostly I did background scribbling.
Stayed up a little late to finish. It’s OK. Saturday was chill. Well, I had to ship a quilt (did that), buy more boxes (did that too), and buy binding (yup). The quilt store I like has never gone back to pre-COVID hours, so I can only go on Saturdays before 3. It sucks, and sometimes means I don’t go there…I shop my stash. Which is a pain sometimes, to find enough…this one, I probably JUST could have found enough if I’d had the right color of batik (they’re wider than most of the others). But I’m glad I didn’t have to spend an hour dealing with that. It’s not ideal to buy more fabric or spend money, but it’s nice and easy.
Saturday, I trimmed the damn thing. Had to clean the floor again, but this time I had knee pads!
A friend sent me a link while I was camping after seeing the pinbasting post. It helped, although getting up and down with them on was a challenge. Probably I’m doing that wrong.
Then last night, I got the binding partially on…
Still need to sew the sleeves on and then handstitch the rest. Yeah, I do that. It’s OK. I don’t mind. And I’m fast. Emailed the photographer already. Then it’s time to do the next one…which is half done already. So I will start with sorting all the cut-out ironed-on pieces and go straight into ironing it together. Which means cleaning up the disaster of fabric that is behind me right now. Yup. Not looking forward to that part.
But first, I have to go to school and get my room back in order. They cleaned floors and luckily put my tables and chairs back, but the rest is a disaster. I’m gonna sweep it all behind the counter and trip over it for a few days until I can find a place for it all again. Yesterday was 6+ hours of school stuff…yes, because I’d ignored a lot of it for the last week. I did some on Saturday night, stuff I’d forgotten about. Whoops! And one academic assignment I knew I hadn’t done. But yesterday, I realized I had needed to probably spend another 6+ hours on 8th grade. I tentatively have stuff for the whole week now, but previously, only had through tomorrow. I need to figure one thing out for sure, but need time for that, and a 2-hour staff meeting about literacy will not help with that. Although it’s important. I hope the meeting is helpful. We’ll see. Part of the planning required me to draw three strands of DNA…here’s one.
Like you do. It was easier to draw it than find what I wanted online.
Persuaded the Man to hike on Saturday. I needed to get out of the house and we need to get back in the habit…
His back was bugging him, so we did flat…
Flowers were out though. And it was 3 miles of flat. Better than nothing.
I also finished the May Sue Spargo Homegrown blocks…
I have June and July left…
Not going to be done anytime soon, that’s for sure. But I enjoy stitching them.
Luna being sweet…as a counterpoint to putting her claws in your body parts when she panics and runs away because of some strange noise or movement she didn’t like.
Kitten being very needy.
Right there, in my face, as I’m trying to eat or read.
And Nova…
Taking up my whole chair. I think she moved a little bit to let me sit down and work…but not a lot.
OK. Need to go deal with my room. Get my head in the game. I think I’m doing genetic traits today with 8th and ecosystem cover page with 7th. Changed all their seats, more for my sanity than anything else. Two-hour meeting after school. Maybe a walk after that? Another habit I need to get back into. Zoom meeting tonight…I would have gone to the meeting, but the speaker is Zooming instead of coming, so it seems pointless to drive all that way. I can listen on Zoom and finish the binding. Easier after a long first day.
From Organ Pipe, we went up to 5500′ in elevation, higher where we hiked. It was cooler, but not enough during the day to really matter. We considered (and deconsidered…unconsidered? Removed from consideration) one hike due to the climb with the heat. We’re out of shape and heat is hard. But it was still a nice place to be, Chiricahua National Monument, which might be a National Park by the next time we go. Which will be hard for it, because there are only 26 campsites or something like that. We had a great campsite when we were there in 2018 (minus the loud kids in the two sites next to us), but I couldn’t get that one, so this is the one next to it.
Not as good. Lots of sun issues during the day, lots of moving chairs to get shade. But not bad. The amphitheater was right next to it, though, and people kept going there to have private conversations and/or entertain children. Notes for next time.
The last time we were there, we had the energy to hike after we set up camp (WTF, who were those people?); this time? Not so much. We did sit through an hour-long presentation on paws, pines, and poop that was totally worth it. I know more about animal poop now than I ever did before. Did not help at all when I was on the trail, staring at scat, trying to figure out who had left it. Ah well.
There were many Mexican jays in camp.
They were pretty ballsy about being on the tables…
Good reminder to put shit away, which is good, because this is bear country…and jaguar, mountain lion, and bobcat territory, plus!!!
Our first time seeing a WHOLE coatimundi in the wild (last time we only saw the tail disappearing into the brush). This is a single male. We still haven’t seen a whole group of females wandering around.
Last time, we also saw deer. We saw them while driving this time…
But our evening attempt to hike to the meadow they like to hang out in turned into a mostly dark night hike, not so good for seeing deer. We were really bad at timing dinner this trip…either too late or too late. Really, we were always too late even when we tried to be early.
The first night, after the very long poop talk, we ate freeze-dried things and then the Man tried starting a fire, but it wasn’t in the mood and neither was he. I did draw by the dying fire…
The wind picked up while we were there.
The last time we were here, we missed a shuttle up to the top with a hike down to the visitor center (we only camped one night), so this time, we wanted to do that. The shuttle picks you up in the campground and drives you up to Massai Point, so you don’t have to come back to your car.
Last time, we went down into Echo Canyon and then had to climb back out in the heat, which was not fun. So this was more fun. Although it was still hot. So we have saved the longer hike for the next time, when we will either have to start earlier in the year or earlier in the day. Not sure which is going to be easier to pull off. PLUS be in better shape going into vacation, so no job shit that takes up tons of time, no scarlet fever or nasty colds. You know. Ha! Because we have control over all that.
Chiricahua is known for its hoodoos.
It’s different than Bryce, if you’ve been there. But still cool.
That said, it was warm and we were glad to mostly be going downhill.
Lots of different pine trees out there too, a nice change from saguaros.
Also these things are fun to consider drawing.
So this was about 5 miles down…
Mostly exposed…
Reminded us of home, honestly. But there was a breeze, which made it bearable. It really was only in the 80s, but at 6500 feet starting, the sun just feels hotter.
There was still water in the stream at the bottom though. We did another mile and half at dusk to Not See the deer, so we got our 5-mile Hike to Health pin from Chiricahua too. Cool beans. And we have reasons to come back.
I worked on this block in the car from El Cajon to Organ Pipe, in the campground at Organ Pipe, in the car from Organ Pipe to Chiricahua, in the campground at Chiricahua, and in the car home to El Cajon…
I go back and forth during the day between stitching (mostly brainless) and reading (requires slightly more brainpower, depending on the book)…nighttime is for drawing.
I finished it somewhere outside of Gila Bend, I think. Or going into Gila Bend. Hard to say. It all looks the same.
Is that Interstate 10 or the 8? And then I started the next one…got about that far in the car…
And almost finished it…
Crooked tree trunk and all.
So when we got home, we were there for less than 24 hours, and then left for a They Might Be Giants concert at Humphreys. We had reserved a room as a treat, and they gave us a balcony overlooking the venue! So I stitched there a bit…
If we’d been smart, we would have watched the whole show from the room, because it rained and rained (drizzle, but solidly wetly constantly drizzling)…
It was fine in that picture…
But no. We wanted to hang out and bounce around down where we could see the whole thing.
Although trying to see over the people in front of me got harder and harder. Ah well. And this video was because everyone was singing along to this, but you can also see the rain going sideways through it.
Amusing. And no, we didn’t bring raingear. This is freakin’ San Diego, y’all. In Spring. So I think I had 4 layers on, including a hoodie. The Man didn’t. We didn’t think it through. It was fine; we had fun.
Foggy/cloudy view of downtown.
We wanted to test out some of the AI art apps, just to see what they did. I find them frustrating, and gave up pretty quickly, but from that picture of us above, and the text “woman covered with cats”, I got this.
I couldn’t get it to do anything with my art. Ah well. I went back to stitching. The Man has 20 tries with mice with mushroom hats.
Here are better pictures of the four drawings I did on the trip…
Some were more complicated than others. Oh wait, there were five. But I abandoned this one.
It was after I’d seen a bunch of news articles about shooting and pregnancy laws and stupid political bullshit. Like this shit…
Which then turned into this one…and anytime they want to pull Viagra? I’m good with that.
Which I might make into something.
Here’s the windy night drawing…
I was reading about all this space stuff, which might explain her head. Might not.
And the last night, when we were both in pretty irritable moods honestly…
Although it’s not apparent in the drawing, unless you look at the really bad coatimundi drawing. Ah well. Shit happens.
I also managed to find the energy to quilt on Tuesday night…
It took a lot of caffeine…
And a certain amount of panic about the end of Spring Break always coming much faster than I’m prepared for. Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a artist’s grant application. My CV is now up-to-date, I’ve found some relevant press releases, and I submitted the whole damn thing around noon today…probably about 10 hours in that thing, but if I get it, totally worth it. If I don’t? I can try again. I’ve done the hardest part already. Plus maybe it’s time to try for some artist residencies too, although they would need to be paid for in some way.
More quilting last night after staring at that damn CV for about 5 hours…
I’m more than halfway through the outlining. More today. I was expecting to be done with this by today, but reality is always a slap across the face. I have four things to grade, all the makeups and redoes to grade, lesson planning for 8th grade, posts for 7th and 8th…ugh. I will have to do some of that today or tomorrow, but the goal is to finish the quilting, pack up another quilt for a show, do some house and yard work? Maybe. Eh. Floors need cleaning. I want to go on a hike tomorrow. We’ll see.
Kitten has been stalking me. She’s very glad to have me back.
The other two are as well…
I’ll finish off with this…
Made me laugh.
OK. Yard? Because it’s still daylight and a little moving around won’t hurt me. Then quilting. I’m not cooking tonight (hurrah!). Then more quilting. Yeah.
Kathy Nida 