Some People Say I’ve Done Alright for a Girl*

I wake up in the morning and my brain is still heavily involved in a conversation it was having with itself last night before I went to bed. Like maybe it went on all night while I was sleeping (not that I slept all night; y’all know how that goes…it might be why my eyes are a bit twitchy this morning) and it will continue to go on while I’m teaching and maybe I’ll get reinvolved in the conversation some time after school. If it lets me. I wonder sometimes if I’m a little insane, because it really does feel like parts of my brain are over there discussing things without telling me until something is decided. And then I remember Art Brain. I constantly let her go wander around with drawings. She always comes back, sometimes years from now, like the most recent quilt.

This is Womanscape.

She’s big…54″ wide by almost 82″ high. I like to do one really big quilt a year, usually over the summer. Last year was a bit weird for that, because I finished the big one in January or so. There’s a lot going on in here…honestly, this is a picture of my brain having a bunch of mostly related conversations…starting with a drawing from 2012, tearing it up into bits, and reworking it into this.

I also finally photographed this one, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman…

Yup. It’s me. Back when I was young and skinny. My kids are in this one too. Shadows. I just realized girlchild has what looks like a target on her uterine area. Whoops. She’ll love that. Anyway, obviously I made this one for the IQF Power of Women show, but if she doesn’t get in, she’ll get in somewhere. So that was the summer…two quilts. Nice.

I think I entered 8 shows in the last 3 weeks. Waiting to hear on all of them. It’ll take a while. Probably be a bunch of rejections too. I do have one where I’m guaranteed to get one piece in. That’s a plus.

So I finally finished all those pink bullion knots! A miracle. There were a lot of them for some reason. Now I only have one color left, this blush orange, they call it. And here’s why I left it for last. That stitch. It’s crested chain stitch. It’s not HARD…but I keep having to look at the book to remember what to do next.

Plus I’m not very good at keeping it even yet. Oh well. It’s progress. I always feel like I could embellish these Sue Spargo quilts forever, but then I remember I have more of them and maybe I should just finish it and move on! I know. Crazy.

I did finally get to tracing around 9:30 at night. I had tutoring after school and then went to Home Depot for wood slats for the quilts I need to deliver and then I was trying to book a hotel or AirBnB for the Chandler opening of Things That Matter in November. Yes! I’m going! It’s a long drive, and I may hate myself in the middle of it, but I’m going. We’re going. November will be a clusterfuck of travel. What’s new? Anyway, I traced for about 45 minutes, and then I was tired and nausea took over my brain.

These new diabetes meds are a constant issue. The positive is they’ve brought my blood sugar down. The negative is they regularly make me sick to my stomach. I’m not sure what to do about it. I thought it was getting better, but the last week wasn’t great. Patience, I guess. This is how they make you lose weight (it’s one of the side effects)…you can’t eat or you throw up. Fun stuff.

Anyway, I took a break for about an hour and then felt better and started tracing again. I don’t do well with nausea. But then it was late, and even though now I felt fine and wanted to keep going, I also want to survive a day with middle-schoolers, so I went to bed. I’m in the 300s somewhere. So much for being done last night. I’m just under 3 hours in. More than halfway.

Maybe tonight I will get more done and/or feel better. Some nights it doesn’t bug me…not sure why. And I get dehydrated but plain water makes it worse.

This is Kitten Television. She has pushed the slats over so she can watch the birds and the bunnies in the front yard.

And if she’s really offended by their existence, she bangs the slats and wakes me up. My cat is so weird.

*The Dollyrots, Brand New Key

Drive Until You Lose the Road*

It’s a shorter work week…normally someone would make me do back-to-school night this week too, but it’s next week for some reason. I actually might have some brains this week. Who knows? I’m feeling a little rough this morning, but I know I didn’t sleep well. The brain wouldn’t turn off and I couldn’t get comfortable, either mentally or physically. I’ve had crazy dreams the last three nights. Can’t remember what they are…just that they’re crazy and they wake me up and I’m lying there with hot flashes or shivering (make up your mind…), trying to remember why it was so bad in my head. At least if I remember the dream, I can parse it out, make some sense of it. Not remembering seems worse.

I’m sitting here, trying to remember what I’m teaching today. Oh yeah! I’m giving a quiz. It’s OK…it’s open note. They’ll survive. We’re still short computers, though, so that’s an issue. Everything online has to be printed out…ironically, I’m teaching digital citizenship and some kids will be doing it on paper. Sigh. Deadlines though! I have to get everyone in my homeroom through the lessons and passing the test by a certain date, and it always comes up faster than you’d think.

Anyway. School. So much mental energy goes there.

I’m still doing these. Who knows if I will ever finish? Well, I only have 1 1/2 of the pink balls left to embellish…

So there’s progress again. I have no idea what stitch I’m supposed to do on the orange balls. I left it last, so it must be complicated. Maybe. Who knows. I’ll find out tonight, I guess. After my prediction that I’d be done with these by the end of July, I’m hesitant to set another date…but end of September? Seems reasonable. So did the end of July, though.

Yesterday, after the hike, I basically ran around doing bits and pieces of things. I found the four quilts I need to pack up for Saturday. One needs a label. I pulled that one. I found wood slats for the quilts that didn’t have them. I’m one short, unfortunately, so that’s a trip to Home Depot after school…today I have tutoring, so I might be dead by then. I paused all that until the wood is purchased. I started using the new composter…the old one needs to sit for a while. There’s too much stuff in it. I’m going to let it go for a while, turn it occasionally, and then empty it onto the front yard dirt. The logistics of that might be somewhat complicated. How to get dirt from Point A to Point B. Through the house. I have a couple months to figure that out. I took my sewing machine over to my mom, so she can drop it off this week. I did some school stuff, setting up those digital citizenship lessons, at least through this week. I read my book for a while! I love being able to do that. It’s a good book too. It’s my book club book…and I probably won’t be able to go to book club for a second month in a row. Oh well.

And then finally, I started tracing Wonder Under. This piece won’t take long. I mean, it will be weeks, but I could probably finish tracing Wonder Under tonight. I could have done more last night, but the hike did my feet in. They were tired. Standing can be hard.

I got to piece 194, but that’s when I realized that there were two of them. I really don’t know how my brain skips backwards while I’m numbering. Maybe I walked away from it. But there’s duplicates from number 183-192. Hmmm. Thanks brain. Your dedication to your job is noted. So I’m about a third of the way through, with only an hour and a half in. I could easily finish tonight.

I keep track of all my time…last week, I only did about 4 hours of quilt stuff…compared to the previous week, with 15 1/2 hours. Then the week before school started, I got almost 22 hours in. Four hours is a little light, but that’s mostly because I was between quilts…I drew some, but I don’t count those hours until I enlarge a piece. Then any further drawing time counts toward the final total. Anyway, I’m not expecting a lot of hours this week, with gaming and tutoring and a meeting and who knows what else I’ve committed to in my head that I’m not remembering right now. I’m caught up on grades until Friday. But I think I can get the Wonder Under traced between now and the weekend…and I should be able to start cutting it out as well. So hopefully I’ll be ironing to fabric by next week. That’s the current plan anyway. You know how those change.

*The Fray, How to Save a Life

I’m Unusually Hard to Hold On to*

I’m thinking this was a very good weekend. It helps to have an extra day, doesn’t it? Especially for teachers, who usually lose a half to whole day of their weekend to planning and grades. I spent a significant chunk of time on school stuff, only because I had to organize the parent email for Sunday, but it wasn’t too bad. I know it will get worse, so I’m enjoying this weekend, when I had some time to laze around with a book or just NOT do something, which is really hard for me.

So we went to a couple of local wineries on Saturday afternoon…this one was nice, because of the view.

It was a great day for grapes as well…

And they had alpacas.

We came home after and had some dinner, and I started trying to finish this drawing…

And then decided I should stitch these to their boxes…these and four quilts need to be delivered next weekend for the Soka University show that opens on September 20.

I’m going to have to figure out when I can go see it…since it’s only open Monday-Friday.

I’m still working on these…I have 5 pink balls left to embellish, and then all the dark orange ones…

And then I’ll have TWO wool quilts that need quilting.

Puppy sleep…

Ah yes, on Sunday, I finished the drawing. It’s good, although I’m still debating something in the top right.

And then I numbered it…

High 500s, I think. Not bad. Not huge. Not too complicated.

Then we planned a hike to Hollenbeck Canyon this morning…need to get in one good long hike each month. Today was the day.

It was shady and cool at the start…

Those weird gourds…I’ve never seen the yellow flowers before though.

And these spiky things are pretty cool…

It’s definitely summer to fall here…

Old oaks, mostly dry grass…this is near the top of the hellish hill…we hiked up from the dark green in the middle right. Boychild took a different (aka longer) route…

You can’t see him, but he’s waving from the crotch between the two hills. He eventually caught up with us. Long legs and youth…I never had the first and I barely remember the latter.

The path down into the back valley…

There’s a coyote in this picture. Wave if you find him.

Dead snake…probably got hit by the bike that went by earlier.

And the long view out toward the south and the Jamul mountain range.

Boychild for the win. It was a little over 5 1/2 miles. Not bad. Home before lunch!

There’s all the parent emails I input and/or checked on Saturday. Kitten’s got this under control, yeah?

OK, so on the schedule for today: enter one more show (I’m up to 6 or 7 I think), drop sewing machine at mom’s so she can take it in to the shop for me and they can figure out the tension/feed dog thing, make my lunches for the week, start tracing Wonder Under, pack up the 4 quilts that need to be delivered next weekend, put a label on one of those quilts, maybe read my book. Not a bad ending to a 3-day weekend.

*Sara Bareilles, Love Song

Tell by the Way That You Switch and Walk*

I’m posting a little late today, because honestly, I didn’t do anything last night except try to finish my book because it’s overdue (I didn’t finish it yet, and now two more are at the library to pick up…the horror!) and cook dinner and import a bunch of email addresses for school and try to make sense of what my students typed in the form in the first place. Oh my. I’m not done with that mess. Although it was better than typing them all in myself.

But after a decent night’s sleep, I was ready to do some art stuff. Although then I remembered the hand stitching that I was going to do on the quilt I dropped off at the photographer’s last night. Whoops. Oh well.

Actually, here’s what I did in class yesterday…the first unit cover page for the new year.

How to alternately scare and fascinate your students in one go! Yeah!

Then I worked on this again. More embellishment of balls. Remember how I was going to do 3 a night and be done at the end of July? Yeah I remember that too.

Laughing hysterically at that one. I was also going to quilt that wool quilt…and honestly, I need to take my machine in. In fact, I should call about that right now. Hmmm.

OK, I called. She’s going in this week. The feed dogs refusing to stay dropped is what persuaded him. Cool.

Meanwhile, I enlarged a drawing that I originally thought needed redrawing, but now I think it just needs more. Then I taped it together this morning…

Looked at the size, since there are limits…

And added some to the bottom and the left (needed room for the tree’s leaves)…

Then debated, and added some more to the top. I’ve got some drawing to do now.

So I started.

It needs to percolate in my head more. My nature friend Julie is currently wracking her brain for what animal I just drew. Who knows? It’s fuzzy or spiky and has naked legs and a naked tail and a pointy little nose. And it likes cherries. Who doesn’t like cherries? Well…half my household, that’s who. Or some of them only like maraschino cherries, which make me gag. So there’s that. But y’all know I totally made up that animal.

OK, the plan for today involves wineries. So that’s good. It may or may not be conducive to drawing. Hard to say. But this quilt is gonna get a significant start this long weekend, that’s for sure. I also need to clean up and pack 4 quilts and 2 boxes for the Soka show that will open in September. Yikes. That’s work. Plus deal with all those emails. Sigh.

*Violent Femmes, Gone Daddy Gone

Nobody’s Right if Everybody’s Wrong*

It’s Friday. You may have noticed. I had this long conversation with my brother’s family last night and he kept asking, so what are your plans for the weekend, and I’m like, survive until it happens? Sleep in? Send a parent email? Get 300 email addresses input from the spreadsheet that hopefully the students have filled in properly? Did I mention sleep? I suggested a hike to my household and my one reluctant co-hiker was like, what? Really? And I’m like there’s three days off…seems like a hike could inhabit one. Really? There was a lot of disbelief there. And the other co-hiker will probably want to do 17 miles (not happening). In full sun. So we’ll see. But I did just finish a quilt and the next one is around…sort of…but not quite ready for starting, I think. Maybe. And I have no grading to do yet, because we have a wondrous teacher’s aide this year who is highly efficient and even writes positive comments to the kids. The best I do is smiley faces and the occasional Very Nice or Awesome. She finished the one assignment we had this week. Woo hoo! So that’s three days with a lot of stuff I don’t have to deal with yet. I know I’ll have packed, stressful weekends with a ton of work involved. This isn’t one of them. Revel in that. Somehow. Imagine me dancing around!

So the first thing I did when I got home yesterday is do these blood-type tests. Girlchild keeps telling us she’s O-neg and that’s why the Red Cross harasses her to come in and donate all the time. I had this vague memory of being A-something, but wasn’t sure. I didn’t know the boychild at all. So we did these tests.

Boychild is O-pos and I’m A-pos. So we did some Punnett squares in our heads and read up on it…it’s like doing science labs at home. He was convinced she couldn’t be O-neg. I wasn’t sure either. Surely it would help if we knew what their dad was. Now we know he’s a lot of things, but probably O-pos.

Puppy on my lap…I’m still in that state where I come home from school and half-collapse on the couch.

He doesn’t mind.

After everyone ditched me for the night, except for the cats, here’s Satchemo harassing a baby gecko on the screen…the same one that was there last night.

Might be a really stupid gecko.

Then I entered an art exhibit that took a really long time because I had to write art statements for two quilts that I finished a while ago, and my brain was not in the right place for that. I think I wrote coherent things. It’s hard to know. I still have three more to do this weekend, but I need photos for two of them.

Then I ironed these two quilts, removed as much cat hair as I could, and rolled them up for the photographer. So I have duty before and after school today, and then after that, I’m driving to the photographer’s, so I can meet two deadlines. Cool stuff.

I should have rolled them up on the light table, because it’s nice and big, but I prefer to torture myself with trying to roll up a really large quilt on the ironing board, all the while trying to keep the parts from hitting the floor and getting covered in hair again. It’s a challenge. Really, who needs to go to the gym when that’s how you’re spending your afternoon.

I didn’t eat dinner. It’s a good thing I didn’t feel like eating dinner, because my dinner plan had already been eaten by the boychild. I just didn’t know it. I guess I could’ve cobbled something together, but I was tired and that is not the best mindframe for cobbling stuff together.

So then I settled down to draw. I had no real plan in mind, except I was supposed to be drawing for the poem exhibit I’m going to be in. I had drawn for it a few weeks ago, but then rejected it for some reason. Except now when I look back at the drawing, I think it’s fine. It needs more, sure, but I think it’ll work. So I’m going to enlarge it today, tape it together, and see how I want it to go from there. So after photographer, I need to go to the copy place. And then I need more milk, so that’s a grocery store on a Friday night. That’s probably a mistake. Expect more collapsing on the couch when I get done with all of that. Everyone is helping cook tonight. It’s not just gonna be me.

But I’m sitting there last night with my sketchbook open. And tiredness all throughout me. So then, I’m like, what other shows am I considering? I picked one and read the requirements and thought about it a little bit and drew a little bit. I did actually sketch in pencil first (I don’t always do that), because the parts needed to look a certain way.

Not a bad start. I’m not sure this will be anything in the long run, but if it is, this is a good way to begin.

Although it’s not what I meant to draw at all. So there’s that. And it’s not done, if I’m going to keep going with this one…there’s a whole bunch of stuff that should go on behind her. Anyway. We’ll see. I’m not sold on it yet.

So this weekend? Sleep. That stupid email with all the crap that goes with it. Some sort of thing outside with my hiking boots on. Hopefully with one or another persons or maybe dogs or who knows, I’m on my own with the coyotes. Probably some food. Maybe some music or art or a movie or I don’t know. Something that sets my head up for the month of September, always a joyous month of holy crap is that my to-do list when it comes to school. Laughing. Really. And maybe some more random drawing.

*Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth

Sinking Is All I Had Planned*

Oh my, the internet is so slow here at the moment. Last night, I tried uploading photos to an art entry site and it took three tries, because it was slow as molasses and then would freeze, and if you saved a draft and came back to it, all the photos you’d already uploaded were gone. Then the third try, I came in after dinner, and it went super speedy. Right now, it’s taking 6 minutes to download a photo. Just one. Or 2 minutes, because it just revised the estimate, and now it’s not even trying. Nope. It froze. Network error. I suspect there’s a bunch of restarting technology in my (or the boychild’s) future. I have two more entries to do tonight. Or tomorrow. Not sure. I currently have 7 pieces out in exhibits and another 6 ready to go. So it makes sense to enter another 5 or 6 shows. I’m surprised I have enough work to pull it off…it’s because some of them don’t care about dates, I think. Anyway…it gets the work out there and seen, which is what I like.

I finished inking the long skinny woman last night.

IMG_7088 small

It didn’t need a lot. It didn’t take long. This quilt took me 85 hours to make. The big one that’s also going to the photographer tomorrow? It took 160 hours. In two months. And when I look back at how long each task took, it shouldn’t have taken two months…I was not very efficient in July.

So the acceptances and rejections will trickle in over the next two months…I actually have a couple I already entered that I’m waiting on. Rejections are part of the process. I just enter it somewhere else. No biggie. It’s nice to get in though.

I got my diabetes numbers yesterday from the doctor. I’ll have to go back and have them suck more blood in another 6 weeks. Fun stuff. But I have a reprieve from setting goals with the educator (the same goals I already set with myself). I told her I couldn’t figure out what was affecting the blood sugar…it’s true! I woke up this morning with the lowest number in ages, but I was drinking ginger ale last night because my stomach was a mess. Honestly, when those ads say you’ll lose weight? It’s because you’re vomitous all the time. Sometimes it feels like there’s aliens in my intestines. There. I can draw that along with being on fire from menopausal hot flashes. Fun stuff. But I don’t know what’s affecting it right now. It seems completely random. Maybe throw that at the educators.

I meant to draw last night, but I was just too damn tired. It’s OK. It happens. I didn’t get home until 6:15 or so because I had to go to the dentist. It’s not surprising I didn’t get much done. Tonight I iron the two quilts and dehair them and roll them up for the photographer. Hopefully after I do that and enter another show [one a night…like an apple a day, makes Kathy healthy, wealthy (ha!), and wise (eh)], I’ll be able to draw. I wish I could just grab one of the smaller drawings that’s already numbered and ready to go, and make that instead, but I have deadlines. Can’t ignore them. Not much time. Art brain is a beast when it comes to deadlines.

*Aimee Mann, Humpty Dumpty

New Year, New Crew

Oh yes. I finished a quilt. It still needs some ironing and certainly the cat hair needs removal. That’s on task for tonight. The other one I finished a while ago needs the same, but also needs ink. Then they both go to the photographer on Friday. I think I’m entering 5 shows in the next week. Crazy that. I already had two on the books, waiting to hear. I need to figure out total hours on the last two quilts too. Also going to do that this week. None of these tasks are particularly picture-heavy though. I like posting pictures. So I guess I’ll work on what else is visually interesting (besides the dying cyst on my toe…it was on purpose, but it’s still ugly) for a few days.

I need to start drawing (or redrawing) the next quilt, but I will have to finish ironing etc first. Probably not tonight. I did one art entry last night…figured I would do one a night, except I think I have to call on one of them. That’s actually one of the reasons I haven’t entered that show in a while. Phone calls take time during the work day. I often don’t have that time. Today, for instance, I have my homeroom class for more than 3 hours, I miss my prep period, I can’t pee that whole time, and I have to keep them engaged and not off task without computers. I am not looking forward to it. I’m also not in a good mood, which doesn’t help. It never does, eh? And this afternoon is the dentist, and I already know there’s a problem. Blood sugar is frustrating as well…I’m waiting on results of yesterday’s test results…hoping there’s positive progress, so I don’t have to worry about more stuff.

All that. Swirling in my head.

But I finished a quilt! A big one! One I’ve been processing mentally for like 6 years. That’s a plus. Here were the last two hours or so…cat butt…quilt…now I have a poked hole in my right middle finger from the needle. Because I forgot the thimble sticky pads. Or I was just too lazy to rummage through the box to my right and find them. Sigh.

It’s not a small quilt…about 54×80″. The next one will be much smaller. It has to be, for the space. I’m drawing a response to a poem I wrote many years ago…a short poem. I used to write more poetry, but honestly, I’m not very good at it. And it’s not that this one is particularly good either…it just elicits a visual response (or 17) from me, so that works.

Speaking of visual responses…one of my students decorated her page on Safety…definitely went above and beyond. My kind of kid…

I love this. In the first week, I find out who the artists are, who the kids with impulse control are, who the kids that like to answer everything are (whether they’re right or not, or even on topic), who the kids that can’t sit down for 5 minutes are, who the babies of the family are, who should not be in the same class together, who may never smile or speak (I worry about some of those), who is going to fight to turn classwork in, who isn’t listening to directions, who doesn’t understand directions, who needs way more support than I can ever provide, who has way more in their head than how to get through 7th grade.

New year, new crew.

I Brought the Poop to the Wedding

It was an interesting walk…rarely do we get to the wildlife reserve and see only 4 or 5 cars on a weekday afternoon. It’s normal to see people all dressed up. The bridge and the trees just beyond are a magnet to local portrait photographers…all old metal with greenery interspersed.

We hiked for over an hour, heard a pack of coyotes and never saw them, climbed some hills (remember, that’s my goal), tired the dogs out…

Runners ahead…Simba wanted to join them or kill them. Hard to tell which.

And then, on the way back, there’s a wedding going on in the middle of the bridge. So we crashed it. For sure, we’re in the video. There is no way around this without going way out and onto a busy road. I guess if you don’t have a backyard, this is where you go? I was carrying two bags of dog poop and was sweaty.

Weird. Boychild mentioned maybe they lost their original venue. I guess I might have just tried to consider that other people might want to use the bridge. Laughing really. A bike came through, at least one jogger with a weight vest, who knows who else. Plus me and my poop bags and my dog and that tall guy I call the boychild.

It was a good hike though…after a 2-hour, overwhelming, head-banging, hysterical-giggling staff meeting. Some day my principal will figure out how useless most of us are in the second hour. I know I am. I REMEMBER NOTHING.

Back to the binding! I know I did this for about 2 1/2 hours last night…same position as the previous night…actually, I think I’m a bit more prone.

All I have left to do is that bit you can see…plus the two sleeves. I should be able to finish that tonight. I also have three entries to do tonight. Ha!

One thing that really helped last night was these.

I used to applique all the time and I used these because my teacher told me to, and then I ran out or lost them all and I tried to buy more, but I couldn’t remember which ones, so I have a bunch that are way too small and hard to thread AND hold onto, and a bunch that are way too thick to smoothly slide through the fabric, and they all suck. So she reminded me of what to get and I did. And that was a wondrous thing.

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody*

Busy weekend. I meant to post yesterday, but I forgot that I rarely do that during the school year. Sundays get eaten up by errands and groceries and trying to get ready for the school week. This weekend was no different. I was just not back into the swing of things yet.

First of all, on Saturday, I trimmed this…it’s big…

And then I machine-sewed the binding on. So that was good.

Then I joined a hike up in the Lagunas, going up Garnet Peak.

I’ve hiked this before as part of another longer hike, but I’m really out of shape at the moment, so this is a shorter version.

Even though we didn’t start hiking until almost 6 PM, it was still warm, but breezy.

The first part of the hike is very flat, super easy…

There is a climb later on. You can’t get to the top of a peak without climbing. Climbing is where I have issues.

So my goal is to work on that this fall. Here’s a great view toward the desert.

And northward…

And looking at Cuyamaca Peak, where another group of ours was hiking for the same reason…sunset and moonrise. When we hiked back in the dark, we flashed headlamps back and forth.

We had a potluck at the top. So yeah, I hauled cookies to the top of the peak.

Someone even brought wine.

You can see the moon in this picture. It got bigger and brighter.

And there’s the sun setting.

The sky was more beautiful than an iPhone camera could capture…

Really a nice hike.

There’s something about being on top of the world…

We saw Mars, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn (thanks to my star app on the last one…she was shy).

And finished off in the dark. Home by 10:15 PM. Tired, yes.

I need to do more of these.

This is what awaited me in the office when I came home. It’s a good thing I didn’t want to sit in there.

And this was the next morning…Hi, Calli.

I move slowly on Sundays…but boychild likes projects. We had these towel racks for years, because the old ones absolutely suck and will fall off while you’re trying to get your towel off. Annoying. You can see our special wall treatment (3 layers of godawful wallpaper…no, I don’t have the time or money to finish them at the moment. We just keep pulling layers off). But the new towel racks are up! So you can hang ALL the towels now! What a concept.

Then I went to the airport to fetch the man back from Sweden. He’s back at work this morning. No lie in for him. After he collapsed from exhaustion last night (up for 24 hours straight traveling), I settled down for TV and binding.

I can’t remember the actual mileage, but I got about a quarter of the way around. So more of that tonight and tomorrow night, at least. But then I’ll be onto the next quilt! The one that’s not drawn yet! Yeah! Kind of looking forward to it. But first? School. A 2-hour staff meeting (ugh). The stuff that pays the bills.

Oh yeah, there’s this…

*Fergie, Q-Tip, & Goonrock, A Little Party Never Killed Nobody

Rolling Thunder, I’m High Up*

Ah yes, I remember Saturday mornings now. I spent about 10 years going to soccer games on Saturday and sometimes Sunday mornings. Then the kids went to college and I didn’t have to do that any more. But Saturday mornings after a work week are all about sleep. Beautiful sleep. With 4 animals who want to be fed. Now.

I’d like to say that I was totally efficient and amazing last night and got a bunch of art or work or something done, but really, I just ordered a pizza and finished my book. Those are achievements, but not great ones. I did leave school and go buy binding fabric. And then I came home and washed it. I wanted to trim and bind last night, somewhere in my head, but the tired part of my brain told that part to shut up and let me finish my book. So there.

Oh yeah, and I also organized some art exhibit entries and actually entered one of them, so that’s not nothing. And it’s art-related, so I guess it wasn’t a no-art night. I try to avoid those. Every night should have some art in it. For instance, I’d really like to sit and draw on some night, maybe drawings about hot flashes and then everything I draw has flames coming off of it. Not tonight though…tonight I’m hiking. It’s good for me. It’s fun. And to stay in the hiking group I like, I have to do something every 90 days. I’m pushing it right now, because I haven’t done anything since April? It was too hot. I can’t handle hot. Right now, it’s cloudy and there’s a coolish breeze and that doesn’t even matter because I’m hiking at night for most of it, out in the mountains. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to pushing more hikes in as it gets cooler. I don’t deal with heat well. Scandinavian blood just boils.

So the green one is the binding. I was looking at blues, turquoises, but this went well with the water, the background and that giant hill, so that’s what I did. The others are just because I always need more.

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Very subtle black and white and very beautiful leaves. Who knows where they’ll end up?

When this one is done, I have three possibilities coming up…one that I have to do, because I’m already committed. I did a drawing for it, but want to redo it. Plus I think it can have boobs but no other parts. Not sure. And the other two? I probably won’t be able to do both. Realistically. There isn’t enough time. So I’ll do the one I have to do and then reassess which of the next two can be done. But I’m glad that I made this one…that original drawing from 2012 has been bugging me. I kept pulling it out and trying to figure out how to make it work, and the answer was to pull it apart and put it back together differently. Whatever works.

So today…first I’m going to get myself fed and showered. I’m going to hydrate all day so I’m ready to hike. I’m going to trim this quilt and get the binding on it. I’m going to print all the student photos I took yesterday and try to figure out who all these kids are. Learning names. Ugh. And maybe I’ll draw. Maybe.

*Elle King, Shame