Gonna Make You Burn, Gonna Make You Sting*

So yesterday morning I was convinced it was Friday. By the end of the day, I was sure it was Wednesday and I had one more day to finish everything. The brain is a strange thing. My brain on days of the week is apparently a messed-up thing. It’s Friday! You’re all like, yeah, we know. Today I have two parent meetings…in the morning…and then I get to drive in Friday rush-hour traffic to deliver a quilt…in the rain. If you live in Southern California, you know we don’t drive in rain well. Water confuses us. So I might be “driving” (sitting stopped in traffic) for hours. Fun stuff. But at the end of it, there is a weekend. There will be sleep and no students. For Two Whole Days. That will be good.

Although yesterday we had a good solid discussion on what teachers look for when grades come up…say a kid has a 59.5% (F) and they want to know if the teacher will bump it up to a D-. Well I told the kids we look at what the kid has been doing. If they’ve been working hard, on task, asking about makeup work, and turning it in, odds are we see that hard work and bump them up (not every teacher…but in middle school…in MY middle school…that’s a good sign. I want to encourage that behavior). However, if they have 18 missing assignments and I’ve reminded them of that a few times and they have done nothing, no makeups, no tutoring, nothing…then they have earned that F, fair and square. And extra credit bathroom passes will not fix that hot mess. These kids still believe in magic.

So that is a significant chunk of my weekend: getting grades done. I have two periods graded of the science units, three to go. Ugh. I’m getting there. There’s light…it’s a ways off, but there’s light.

I had a meeting last night, my stitching friends, so I worked on this…

And realized I was going to run out of the thread for the grasses. Damn. Can’t get that locally. I’m going to go through my stash and see if I have something that will work…

Then I had some time when I got home with animals. This one is way too close. He can’t just hang out on my lap…it’s gotta be in my face.

Then I got up off the couch around 10:30 PM to iron…to finish the last bit, the second figure.

I ironed the eyes separately…it’s easier to make sure they’re placed correctly that way. No crooked eyes!

And there she is. So I could iron both figures to the background tonight and then iron to the background. Yay!

That sounds good. Hopefully I won’t be too exhausted when I get home to do that. Then I’ll grade some stuff tomorrow and Sunday, but hopefully I’ll have time to stitch this down and get it pinbasted for quilting. That’s my goal anyway.

My current goal is getting through those two parent meetings and all day teaching energy to kids who alternately have way too much or nowhere near enough energy. Should be interesting.

*Led Zeppelin, Black Dog

Playing with Fire Gets You Burnt*

Some mornings, I’m so sure it’s a different day. It’s Friday, right? I think that’s because I had two 4-day work weeks and this is the 4th day. So it must be Friday, right? Oh no. It’s not. But I did survive everyone turning their stuff in yesterday, although the boys (it was ALL BOYS) who didn’t have all their papers in order and strew them all over the desk and then the end-of-class bell rang and they stood there helpless and ever hopeful that I would come over and do it for them…yeah. Well. I’m not enabling your shit today people. I also wouldn’t let any girls come over and do it for them. I said “You’re not their MOM” about 72 times.

So there’s that. And the doctor…so I think once you hit a certain age, they just want you to do all the possible invasive tests, so that’s fun. Because then I have to schedule all that for one of my breaks, because no way in hell am I trying to schedule and prep for a colonoscopy during teaching. They were adamant that I do a sleep apnea study too, because I admit to not sleeping well. I tried to explain that I had never ever in my entire life slept well, plus I’m an old lady with hot flashes, but that was not stopping them. So fine. Whatever. I’ll sleep with the machine. We’ll see how that goes. I did get to run downstairs to get to radiology for foot X-rays (ironic that) before they closed…and then the guy told me to stay in the room and never came back. It’s OK…he did the X-rays…and then I think he went home. I don’t blame him. It was late. No one was there when I came out of the room. I could have been locked in there with no supplies but hand sanitizer over night.

Anyway, that’s done. I just have 118 science units to grade. I did a few yesterday…I brought the rest of 2nd period home to grade last night but that didn’t happen. I ate dinner and then packed up a quilt to ship today, which took a really long time. Part of that was ironing it…it’s huge. And then dehairing it. I didn’t finish getting it all packed up until around 10:30. I didn’t start ironing until 11:24…and honestly, I almost didn’t start. But I’m a fan of At Least 30 Minutes a Day. It works. It makes me feel better and shit gets done.

I just walked away to warm up my tea, and the cat ate my Cheerios. Or licked them really. Now they’re all sticky. Crappy breakfast anyway, but it’s all my stomach can handle some mornings. I am NOT a morning person. I realize I sent an email this morning and it was cranky as hell, but I’m tired of editing something for this woman and having her ignore the fucking Oxford commas. Why ask me to edit it then? Because it’s fucking wrong! OK. See? I’m not fit to do anything in the morning but drink tea. And I’m obviously bad at that, because it’s always cold because I forgot to drink it in a timely fashion.

So 30 minutes of concentrated ironing…I started on the other figure. It’s a frontal view, but with a tree…all those rib bits will look better when they’re outlined during quilting.

So I ironed the tree separate. Why the tree? Two things…rooting her into the Earth, but also the support she’s getting from the surgical stuff. Like this strong tree trunk that’s helping to hold her back straight. To give her the room to grow.

Pick up tree, iron on top of body. Lower torso done! That was easy.

Seriously, it was. Tonight, if I have the energy (I have a meeting), I’m doing the rest of the body. So maybe Friday I get the whole thing ironed together. Hopefully.

I am pretty damn exhausted at the moment though. But I really like the ironing part, even though it’s late at night and I’m tired, it’s cool and feels good and is meditative and there’s a picture at the end. Damn, I need grades to be done so I can ignore them for a few weeks and get some art done. Seriously. This is annoying. Stupid job sucking up so much time and energy. For what? So you can tell me no more money for SCHOOLS, but we’ll give money for GUNS? Florida, you are a fucked-up state. I appreciate California so much right now. I love my stoned, hippy, snowflake state. We rock.

*Yaz, Midnight

Time Has Come As We All Go Down*

Today is the day I’ve been preparing for, the day I get (shit…I don’t remember how many students I have right now…hang on…133 students)…wait, it doesn’t matter how many kids I have, because inevitably, a bunch of kids won’t hand them in, but hey! Let’s be optimistic, even though we’re a public middle school teacher in March about 4 weeks before Spring Break and 3 days before the end of the trimester and there’s very little optimism available to my brain right now, let’s say I get 133 science units turned in today! Yeah! Let’s say it! Yeah! Then I need to grade them all before, well, honestly, Monday night. Yeah! And my doctor is gonna give me shit tonight about working too many hours and not exercising enough! Yeah! And I’m gonna tell her that on the days when I do 12,000 steps AT SCHOOL before I even leave to go home, hell, there’s no steps left in me (not true…I do more because dogs). Yeah!

I do work too many hours. I don’t exercise enough. This is not the time to stress about that balance. When my grades are done, I can stress about it. If I get far enough in the grading by Sunday, I can even take time off and go to the gym. That’s my goal at the moment. It’s a few days out, so it’s still doable. Meanwhile, my lunch is made, I have a plan for the day to balance my sanity with my job (that’s a thing…and this week, that means I’m allowed one Rice Krispie treat a day. ONE, doc, ONE.), and I’m hoping to come home and (well, grade a bunch of science units, honestly) iron the last body down. Hopefully. It’s about 150 pieces, so it’s doable.

By the way, when it’s cold, apparently it’s acceptable to have a cat face up your butt…

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After dinner was eaten, while once-nightly TV show is being watched, I have been sewing on circles…I figure I will never get them done otherwise. I think I got three done.

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Then off to the ironing (I did grade before all that). See this is the part I was kind of afraid of…that’s a lot of little tiny spine pieces…

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But honestly? It was pretty easy to iron together. Because of all the metallics, I used a press sheet between iron and fabric…and I’ll need to remember to keep doing that.

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I decided the space in her back was going to be just that…SPACE. There’s definitely a space theme going on in this. I guess I’m thinking of all the potential a teenager has…and it feels like they have all the potential of SPACE. Or something like that. It’s HUGE.

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Then I laid the spine piece all ironed together on the space and put the border around it…and voila! ‘Twas awesome. Seriously. I really like it.

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Kitten is not so sure…

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I gave her some hair and finished all the finger bits, thus getting me into the 520s or so.

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One figure done. The other one does have another 150 pieces, true…but I don’t think they’re as bad as those back pieces. We’ll see tonight. Then hopefully iron down to the background on Thursday night and start stitching down? I’m not sure how these fabrics will deal with that, but let’s just assume it will work out. Yeah!

That optimism (that really isn’t optimism…it’s some sort of crazy)…is what will get me through the day. Maybe.

Oh yeah, I just finished this book…Golden Hill by Francis Spufford…

My ex-SIL sent it to me at Christmas and I just started reading it a few weeks ago. At first, I was like…um…this is 18th-century stuff and I’m sort of a fan at times, but it’s not easy to read, but after a few pages in, I realized, OMG. No really. OMG. This book is great. It’s funny as hell sometimes and stressful at others but it was published just a few years ago by someone who generally doesn’t write fiction, but does like history. So the history is there, and it’s definitely got some accuracy going, but then he throws in this half-assed explanation of sword fighting that made me almost fall out of my chair. And he full on admits its half-assed. The ending is also awesome. So yeah, I recommend this book…and if he writes any more like this, I’m in. Totally in.

Now I have less than two weeks to finish my book club book. Yikes. Priorities.

*Kaleo, Way Down We Go (didn’t we just hear this one while writing not that long ago???)

The Pleasure, the Privilege Is Mine*

Some much-needed rain today…we’re at less than 3 inches for the year, so far, and this is the rainy season. The dogs aren’t happy though. Sometimes I think the puppy will hold his pee for days just to avoid wet feet.

I’m at the point in this quilt where I’m dealing with a lot of little tiny pieces, instead of the big sweeping bits of earth and sky, so it looks like I haven’t done much, when I’ve ironed 100 pieces together. Last night, I cut out all the little holes in the second line of the text and laid them out…

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I haven’t ironed them down yet…I want to wait until I get the figures ironed down, so I can get the curve right near the arm.

So then I started on the left figure…

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Again, this is about 80 pieces (lots of finger bits)…the back is another 100 pieces, I think.

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So it’s gonna take me a couple days to get through that I think. I’m hoping to finish this figure tonight. But I’m also trying to get through grades and do things like cook dinner etc. And maybe get enough sleep (ha! Never gonna happen…).

I did sew a few more circles on after dinner last night…on this from a million years ago. It’s just filler stitching…for when I’m not quite ready to get up and iron.

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More ironing tonight. I have a goal…makes it easier.

I have a quilt in this exhibit coming up. I’m looking forward to being at the opening…

I have a lot of openings coming up…this is one of the ones I can go to, luckily. Tonight I do need to pack up another quilt for shipping for another LA show. I forgot to do that last night…oh well. So many things on my calendar shift days as needed.

OK, off to school. The unit is ending, so today is test day and tomorrow they turn in the last month-plus of work. Always a bit stressful…and then I have like 5 days to grade them all. Crazy really on my part. Oh well. Job of a teacher.

*The Smiths, There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

I’ll Be At Least 2 People Today*

Yesterday was a long day. I left here around 8 AM and had an easy drive to Pasadena to QuiltCon (pictures later this week). I went and saw all the quilts and the vendors. Then I sat in a coffee bar named appropriately Art+Science…

(mom, you wanted to know what I wanted for my birthday…look up) and graded stuff and drank tea. Really strong tea. Then I drove a few miles west into Los Angeles proper to our opening (more pictures later this week)…

(sat around outside for a bit and read my book, waiting for the opening to open…)…

(opening was at the Brewery…)…hung around for a while, and then headed back to San Diego, making awesome time, until some accident that must have had major injuries occurred just north of Oceanside. Added an hour and a half to my drive. Mostly creepy crawly drive, but some out and out stoppage. So like any good artist, I drew. Seriously, I turned my car off and drew.

But it got dark. And eventually we had to drive again. Apparently seeing all the word quilts at QuiltCon made me want to cover a body with them. I’ve done it before, with parts of bodies. I might need to do a larger version. We’ll see.

Anyway. I was sort of exhausted when I finally got home, but managed to get the trash out, eat dinner, and semi-function as a dishwasher. And then it was like 10 PM and I thought I should maybe get up off the couch and do something. I considered going to bed, but I wasn’t really sleep-tired, just drive-tired and brain-tired. I don’t need my brain to iron. This is not a brain-heavy part of the artmaking process. So I ironed.

Wait. This is from Saturday, because I didn’t blog Sunday morning. I did this bit Saturday, finishing off the Earth and doing part of the sky…

The screws from scoliosis surgery…they’ll be floating in the sky later.

The music-playing device…everybody’s got one…

The shoe signed by Mac DeMarco…I’m pretty proud of the signature, although the smiley face needs eyeballs. I figure I’ll stitch those. They’re too damn small to cut out.

That was Saturday and I didn’t want to start the next phase of the ironing, so I came in and finished handstitching the Climate Goddess piece that I’ve been working on sporadically since last June. It’s done.

Real photos later. When I go to the photographer later. Like much later.

THIS is Sunday night’s ironing. I started on SPACE…

Space is beautiful. I need to draw more space. Space and ground…

I’m quite happy with this…

Then I attached the bottom piece in the middle…I’ll have to hoist everything up on the teflon sheets to iron the sides down…

There’s writing in the sky…but I only cut the outside edges when I trimmed the pieces. I didn’t do the little holes in the letters, the part that makes o’s and a’s and e’s. Because those are a pain in the butt. I leave them until the end and use the tiny scissors and re-iron the paper on the fabric so I can use it to help me cut.

Looking good…think the “us” needs the “s” cut out better, but the others are pretty good.

Of course, that’s only half the words. I’ll do the rest tonight…and get started on the bodies, which is where a good chunk of the pieces are…

So it was a productive and exhausting weekend. I’m still fighting this Not-Really-A-Cold thing that comes and goes and bugs me and then goes away. It’s just annoying. Grades are due next week, so I’m in all-out-grading mode (hence sitting in a coffee shop in Pasadena and grading shit). Hopefully I’ll get this whole thing ironed together in the next two or three nights, then move on to stitch down by the weekend. Hopefully pinbaste and sandwich over the weekend? That would be cool. I’d be ready to quilt next week. I’m still debating getting this other quilt done by April 6…which would actually have to be done by March 28 so it could be photographed before I leave on vacation. Ha! I might be nuts. I don’t even know if I can do that. We’ll see.

*Gnarls Barkley, Who Cares

Be Proud to Be Outta Your Mind and Outta Control*

Well so I thought I’d be too tired and sick last night after work and gaming to do anything artistic. Apparently my art brain totally did not agree. So after I did 24 points of damage on some Bloodthirster thing by blowing out its spleen (I was aiming slightly lower), I came home and sat around for a bit, drank some tea, took some meds before that, and tried to get my head around stupid gun people shit…seriously, I can’t even look at Facebook at the moment with all the stupid gun people shit…then my cohabitant went to bed and I came in here to basically just straighten up the studio and get all the relevant pieces in here so I could iron today. So I’d at least be ready.

I laid out the drawing and moved the ironing board and sorted the first 100 pieces…and then started to iron. And that went on for a while, until I realized it was after 1 AM and I should probably try that sleeping thing (which I really do suck at, so honestly, I might have been better staying up longer, except I am sick and I don’t want to make that worse).

Wait, so let’s go back. I embroider at gaming because I’m tired and it keeps me awake. Sad but true…Friday night socializing is not my strong point. I’m almost done with the road part and then I can start embellishing the rest of the June blocks. These are June, right? Why would you know? Yes, I’m behind. Plus this is from 2013. So I’m really really far behind.

Don’t judge.

So yeah, while I was trying to wake up after gaming, I set up the week’s pages for next week…this is the basic format I use. Top section for general to-do list. Middle section for art-related, although more the doing of art, rather than the business of art. Business of art ends up in the top section. Bottom section is for exercise logging and doesn’t get used nearly enough unfortunately.

The other stuff is a little random…to-do lists that I don’t want in the dailies, notes to myself, mostly about art stuff…I found someone else’s version of this and tweaked it slightly for what I needed. Then here’s last week’s after I got through (it was a busy week).

Sometimes I draw stuff on there too, when I feel like it. Some weeks are busier than others. It’s keeping me accountable for what needs to be done…better than online calendars, although I’m using those too…plus a white board calendar on the fridge. I’m pretty damn visual. It helps to check in with myself regularly. It’s even better when I get to use a lot of colors to do it.

Usually I set up the week on Sunday, but I’ll be in LA tomorrow, heading briefly to QuiltCon and then on to an opening downtown-ish. Then home. Long day really. So I have to get all my Sunday stuff done today…groceries, work email, stuff for class on Monday. So I did it last night. That’s probably what jumpstarted art brain.

But I also want to iron today…because I started last night and here’s an hour’s worth…

I didn’t finish all the earth bits, but I got a bunch done…planning on doing more today.

Girlchild finally found her phone charger and started communicating again. Apparently they had some sort of caravan transport on three boats to that thing out there? I think? Or maybe that’s coming back? Anyway, she balances way better than I do.

Not that it’s hard to do that. My balance sucks.

I sent her a puppy picture…because he’s tired of me right now. I’m no fun. I won’t play with or pet him nonstop…

And I’m the only one here today. Oh well. I have my work cut out for me (ha. Cut out.). I’m going to iron for a while and then do schoolwork. Woo hoo. The ironing…I just wanna do that until I’m done. I love this part of the quilt…getting to see it all come together. Yeah. Gonna do more of that.

*Eminem, The Real Slim Shady

A Spider Web Is Tangled Up with Me*

Yeah that’s a virus inhabiting my head. Dammit. I need a voice on a lab day. I need my head straight. Fuzzy and compromised. Scratchy. Sigh. OK. It’s Friday. I’m a little on the irritated side. Hopefully the lab will go well anyway. I don’t remember how we did this last year. We need warm water but not hot water and I remember 2nd period didn’t work hardly at all…and then we figured out some trick for the later periods. My co-teacher will remember. I hope. Did we use warm water? I just don’t know. Do we have enough yeast? I freakin’ hope so.

This is relevant because our classrooms don’t have hot water. We can get slightly warmed water from one faucet after letting it run for about 3 minutes, and it only lasts for a short time. It’s lame. Seriously, a science lab where we have to wash dishes regularly, and we’re not allowed to have hot water.

BUT YOU WANT ME TO HAVE A GUN.

Don’t get me started. Again. We’re also supposed to lock up any materials that do not say non-toxic on them…so Windex. And baby wipes. And that stupid antibacterial soap. Which the district gave us during the swine flu epidemic. All those things have to stay locked up. So 12-year-olds won’t eat them.

OK. So I graded last night (again) after restarting all the internet-y things because the internet was moving like molasses…cold molasses. And then I made a relatively healthy dinner. And then I found a bunch of my bins…and sorted fabrics.

This is not a long horrible process…it took just under an hour…

There’s a lot of big pieces in the first 400…and then a lot of tiny body parts in the next 300.

But I am ready to iron together tomorrow…and if I really am driving to LA on Sunday (go away virus), then I need to be uber-efficient tomorrow. Ugh. OK. I can do it.

I’m actually really looking forward to ironing. I like that part. I just need to get all the work shit and health shit to behave.

I was tired of standing after sorting those though, so I sat on the couch with Simba and worked on a binding that’s been lying around for a long time. It was what I could handle. This is the same puppy who is currently harassing me because he wants to pee out front (which requires me and a leash) rather than out back (which requires neither). It’s because it rained yesterday and last night, so everything is wet, and apparently his Pom sensibilities are offended by wet dirt. He’d like to pee and poop in the middle of the driveway instead. Yeah. Seriously, that’s what he did last night…little asshole.

Sometimes all the demanding animals kinda drive me nuts. Calli wouldn’t pee last night because it was cold and wet, so then she woke me up early because she really needed to go. I love my animals, except when they’re idiots like this. I guess it’s good that we live somewhere that is usually pretty dry, so the rain doesn’t cause them even more issues.

Sigh. I want another 3-day weekend. And a clear head. And no sore throat. And world peace. I want that too.

*Coldplay, Trouble

I’m Trying Hard to Take It Back*

Yesterday was a no art day. I went to book club. I was tired. I think I might be getting sick, which would probably mess up the weekend’s plans. I’m holding out hope at this point. We’ll see. I did grade a little bit yesterday, but mostly I read a bunch of stuff online about our stupid president and his belief that arming teachers is the best way to solve the school shooting issue.

If someone told me I had to carry a gun to do my job, I’d quit. If someone told me that someone else on campus was carrying a gun, a teacher or a coach, to apparently protect us, I’d quit. I wouldn’t trust the idiot who thought that was a good idea. The idiots who believe more guns solve the gun control issue can come teach. They can come work the monstrous hours we work, deal with the crazy behaviors and rules and testing we deal with, they can do the parent meetings and the staff meetings and the professional development and the reading of this book in your free time so we can not discuss it later and the grading and accountability and all that shit. They can look at their paycheck and see how they feel about being highly educated and highly disrespected by their own society. They can stress over the weekend and late into the night about lesson plans, kids with suicidal tendencies, and principals with crazy agendas. They can do all that.

Oh wait. They can’t. Or they won’t. There are so many things wrong with this solution, I can’t stop banging my head on my desk over it. It’s bad enough that I have to consider my life over those of my students (because we would protect them). I did not choose that as part of my job. I did not join the military, the police force, or even the fire department. I do not fight in wars, I do not train in artillery, I do not shoot at targets. I chose to teach kids to think and grow. I chose to do something positive in society. I did not choose to carry a gun. I will not choose to carry a gun.

Sigh. So today is my last day with my current counselor…I started seeing her in 2013 because something really shitty and awful and devastating happened and it was beyond me. She has calmly and rationally pulled me down off whatever sky-high branch I flew to and helped me remold the pieces of my brain that broke back then so that they are mostly functioning. They’re not perfect…they never will be…they won’t even be that cool Japanese Kintsugi, where they mend broken pots with gold. They are stitched together with my drawings and my quilts and held with a few hands in place. The joining places do feel fragile at times, even now, but I think I’m OK. She tried to graduate me out of counseling a year ago, and I wasn’t ready. It feels like if I stop going that some massive horrible thing will happen again and I will fall to pieces again. I’m really paranoid about that. And when I tell her that, she nods her head and walks me through my achievements of the last 4 1/2 years and I say OK, I get it, I hear you, I’m not ready.

Someday this will be a quilt. I’m not ready for that yet.

But I guess I’m ready to stop going to counseling. Because I know if more shit hits the fan (and it inevitably will…it’s just a matter of how and when, because that’s what it was last time…a how and when and out of the blue with no warning is not apparently a good thing for me), I will maybe freak out and maybe not and if I do, I know where to go. I know how to get there. I did it last time. I realized my head was broken and I went to get it fixed. I didn’t think it was fixable at the time, but it turns out I mend. I’m not the same person any more. But I am still me. I’m better at some things now and worse at others. I can’t see colors in the dark very well any more. I’ve got some major baggage that I don’t seem to be able to shed. I guess it’s enough to know it’s there and to manage it when it tumbles down on top of me.

So tonight? Tonight I will say goodbye to my counselor and hope I never need to see her again (strange relationship that)…and I will come home and hopefully sort some fabrics and start ironing them together, and this thing that’s pretending to be the beginnings of a cold will give up and move on, and the president and all his gun-toting cronies will disappear in some sort of a meteor crater that also sucks up all the automatic weapons and other stupid shit but doesn’t hurt any innocent people or children. Wait. That one is probably pretty unrealistic.

*Fun. We Are Young

The Dew Will Settle on Our Graves*

‘Tis chilly here in sunny San Diego…some random cold front making it colder than Ithaca, NY, where the boychild is, but probably just for today. I’m pretty sure that will change soon enough. Cold enough to make me a dog sandwich on the couch, a cat sandwich in bed, though. Amazing how close they’ll get when it’s really chilly.

Yes, I actually cut stuff out with the two of them like that. It wasn’t easy. I’m used to one box on either side of me and one on my lap. Instead the boxes were precariously perched on either side of dogs who move erratically.

Earlier, I graded…because that’s all I ever do…and this one was already half in my spot. She didn’t move until bedtime.

It was a frustrating day at school. Independent thinking is probably not best achieved on the first day back after a three-day weekend. I still remember what happened Friday, but not so my little chickadees. And even once I got them through a review, then I wanted them to come up with categories. Oh My Goodness. You’d think I had asked them to cure cancer. In my top class, chock full of honors students, I got one table with three categories: True, False, and IDK. Um. Ladies. They’re all true. LAME. It’s OK…today they will have to use what they did to make more sense of the world. I’m just damn cruel that way.

So yeah, I graded because grades are due soon and I know I will run out of time. I always do.

But I also was done with grading and dinner and all that dishery (I even cleaned a bathroom…just one and not the floor) around 9:30 PM or so and I did a few drawings in between cutting out the last of the pieces.

I like this one better…of course…because it’s weirder.

I did about 2 hours of trimming last night to finish up everything…with a total of 9 1/2 hours into the process. Box on top is the trash. I’m putting it in a ziplock bag with the trimmings from the LAST quilt and mailing them to someone whose address I saved (seriously, I did…). Box on the bottom will get sorted into bins tonight for ironing probably tomorrow night.

I have book club tonight, so I will go out and socialize with my tribe. Plus I read the book. So that’s a plus.

Girlchild has some access to Messenger this week, although she is back to camping in the wilds of Madagascar. On the beach. Near a hotel. Where no one likes to go.

It looks somewhat like my Spring Break trip to the redwoods last year…except the trees are smaller.

She’s really enjoying this. I’m really glad.

They seem to take care of the kids…unlike my group when I went abroad in college, which flew me to London and kept me there for about 3 days, but then sent me off to the wilds of Aberystwyth with zero support…although I think they gave us Thanksgiving dinner…that’s something. I guess we were less likely to die of a nasty disease in Wales. And they apparently spoke English there, although some days that was questionable.

Anyway, today I throw cellular respiration into the mix. That should make smoothies of my students’ brains. It’s OK…they’ll survive. I might not.

*Tom Waits, All the World Is Green

It Shines Like Destruction*

It’s interesting how I can get most of my to-do tasks done, except the cleaning ones. Those just suck and I suck at doing them. I just can’t get motivated to clean the kitchen floor. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t throw parties…I’d have to clean floors for that. I did clean the kitchen counters last night…and the stove, so I guess it’s not hopeless. I just reach an ending point on cleaning, and it’s never when everything is clean. I’d rather draw or something…anything else.

The project videos are done. It’s a miracle. I have plenty of other crap to grade, of course, but those are out of my hair. Next week, I get all of Unit 4, which will have to be graded in 6 days. And people wonder why I’m not going to a bunch of social stuff on the weekends. I did about 12 hours of grading this weekend, maybe more. Ugh.

No more 3-day weekends, which help with balance. Five weeks until Spring Break though. I can do that.

Sometimes school seems really heavy and hard. It’s usually right about now.

So add on hikes and art and whatever else makes the head rise above the slog…because I still have to go back every day and teach difficult subjects to kids who don’t necessarily want to learn. Labs help to keep them engaged, but it’s nothing if they don’t get understanding out of the labs…so we’ll see how that goes.

But yes, we walked the puppy yesterday…he needs exercise, and so do we…

It was a gorgeous but chilly day. Good day for a hike.

Then I came back and finished up as much of my to-do list as I could…and in between cutting out pieces of the new quilt, I did some smaller drawings that could be quilts…

I don’t really like all of them. And I have absolutely no time to make them, even more importantly.

I realized last night that I have five openings in the next month…two in Los Angeles. It’s gonna get a little crazy around here.

And grades are due for Trimester 2. I like this one…

I needed those breaks, because I trimmed pieces for about 4 1/2 hours yesterday. My hands get tight…

But I don’t think you can tell from here (trash top, to-be-cut in the middle, cut in the bottom)…I’m almost done. Like maybe an hour or two from finishing…with about 7 hours in. So that’s cool. It means I should be ironing together this week. My favorite part…where the image finally starts to appear (besides in my head). I hit the halfway mark on most quilts (on time) some time around finishing the trimming and starting the ironing. Although I need to be faster on this half, for sure. Keeping that in mind.

Meanwhile, back to school today, hammering the photosynthesis chemical reaction (which hopefully they’re getting by now), so I can throw cellular respiration at them next. Then tonight, I can cut out the rest of the pieces hopefully…

*Eurythmics, Love Is a Stranger