Sewn Chaos…

And We’re BAACK. OK. I’m back. Tested negative. Going back to school. Already couldn’t sleep last night because brain was in overdrive. I don’t know how your brain works, but when I haven’t done something before, my brain does it for me, like hundreds of times, with variations, until it thinks it has the right way. It’s really annoying sometimes. Can’t make it stop. Pretty sure I do it in my sleep too. It’s useful, I guess, to figure stuff out, but I wish it would turn off sometimes.

Am I ready? No. I went to school yesterday but the colored paper I needed for tomorrow’s lab was not in my room. It was supposed to be delivered there, but no. Not. Uh uh. Sigh. So I copied what I could; it will either show up today or I will borrow from my team. I texted them yesterday afternoon, so I’d know whether to go to Staples for more paper or not. The three different subs in my room were semi-competent. Not much I can do about that. Reteach today and hope we make it through the week with some knowledge. This was all review from 6th grade anyway (not that any of them remember it…sigh).

Soldier on! So I did work on the quilt each night for a bit. I even made it to an exercise class yesterday, which might be proof of either insanity or wellness (I tested negative before I went).

I sorted pieces Friday afternoon…

I think it took a whopping 18 minutes. Love small quilts for that…much as I love the big ones for taking longer.

I had to clean up and put away from the last quilt…

Kitten assist.

Then started ironing the sky…

All blues and yellows to start.

Saturday, I started on the flesh…

There are two bodies in the quilt, so each was out of a separate run of fabrics.

I finished ironing the male figure Saturday night (bottom run of fabrics)…

And the female Sunday night…

I actually don’t have much left to do…

That’s it. Some eyes, some fingernails, not sure what the rest of it is…lips. I see lips.

So assuming I’m still upright when I get home from school and I don’t have to dig out more ditches to move the water, I’ll be finishing the ironing tonight and starting to cut it out. All good.

Luna and Kitten have been sharing the bed…

This is almost the same position they’re in at night, which pretty much traps me. Getting out to pee is a gymnastic event.

This is from one of the books I just finished reading, Crownchasers (which was good)…but I liked “sewn chaos”, even though I think they meant “sown chaos”?

But from a quilter’s perspective, I should definitely sew some more chaos. Ironically, the way I make my quilts is pretty massively organized chaos, but whatever.

OK. Go to school, find pink and blue paper, copy things, reteach, try to figure out WTF they did for three days, make them finish it, go to two-hour staff meeting about a program I don’t use (not because I don’t want to, but because it’s math and reading, not science). Then come home and rest a bit, iron the last bits. Whatever. Read. I have to finish a book by Wednesday…what are the odds of that happening? Not good, y’all, not good.

Can’t Always Be Productive…

Hmmm. It’s Friday. Kinda forgot to write. I got up and posted stuff for school and worked for a while. Then rested and read. And worked some more. School. Sheesh. I am better, though. I’ll be back at school on Monday, hopefully testing negative so I don’t have to rock the mask, but whatever. I’m going to have to reteach all the stuff they didn’t do for the last three days. Sigh. Could do without that. Ah well. Can’t do anything about it.

I’ve been reading a lot. It happens on a couch in a mostly prone position, which I hear is good for recovery. Yeah, I also graded and planned a lot, but that’s still easier than standing and talking all day.

Wednesday night, I finished tracing all the pieces…

And last night, I sat quite happily on the couch with a cat and cut them all out…

392 pieces is like nothing. I need to sort them and then see if I have the energy to stand long enough to start ironing to fabric. I haven’t done a ton of standing. So yeah. But that’s the next step.

I also need to draw the one I’m doing with a partner, plus quilt that thing for a friend without getting COVID on it. According to the internets, the virus shouldn’t live on fabric for more than a day. I think I’m good. I do have to go to school this weekend to copy stuff for Tuesday and cut it out. Hardly any of my students completed work online; hopefully they did the paper stuff, but since the online stuff was to help them with that, it’s unlikely. Ah well. Three lost days.

So this is the bedroom wall, minus the drywall that was wet. Those lovely golden bits in the black are sunlight…SUNLIGHT…where it’s shining through the exterior wall.

Problematic.

This is my increasingly older Kitten in her grumpy nighttime phase.

This is a incredibly blurry and pixelated picture of a bird taking a bath in a birdbath.

And last but not least, a hawk perched on the heavily trimmed eucalyptus, probably wondering where its perch went. Better view now? Hmmm.

So my weekend plans are somewhat squashed. Still not sure if I can exercise Sunday. I do know I have lots of work left to do on all fronts, and the Surface Design Association conference continues tomorrow, which is cool. I forgot about it all week until yesterday at 4 PM, when I remembered to log in for a social hour. That was cool. I appreciate hanging out with other artists.

Still raining on and off here. We dug out enough of the front area that the water didn’t make it inside, but the stoop outside the door slants backwards to the house, which isn’t helping. And we need gutters and drainage and to get rid of that damn stoop. Plus actual walls would be good. Otherwise, things are fine, not stressful at all. Uh huh. Gonna go read for a while longer before doing something else that seems useful. I can’t always be productive.

Petri-Dish Life

You know, I teach in a petri dish of diseases. I’m lucky when I don’t get sick (knock on wood…oh wait…too late). Seriously, I was just thinking how I hadn’t been sick this year, that my immune system was rocking! And then we got info last night that one of the Man’s bandmates tested positive for COVID…he tests, he’s positive, I’m like get away from me, I can’t be sick right now, went to bed, laid there trying to meditate, contemplating my nose that started running around 10 PM and my throat that started scratching right after, fuckity fuck fuck. So I didn’t even get sick from my students. FFS. Well. I got up and tested positive, requested a sub for the next three days, then wrote sub plans (at midnight), emailed about a thousand people who were affected either by my being sick or by my being out, wrote a post-it note of what needed to happen in the morning, and tried to sleep. Fun times.

Got up at 6:30, printed some stuff, drove to school, masked, set up my classroom, grabbed the two assignments I needed to grade (I still need to copy shit for next week; Sunday plans?), made a video of materials for a teacher who needs them today, copied seating charts, left it all and was home by 7:15. Sat down, posted all the assignments, and then tried to record a video for tomorrow (trying to teach Punnett squares by video is hard), fucked it up, did it again. I’m waiting for it to process now so I can make an Edpuzzle out of it so kids will have to write stuff down to get credit (many will still blow it off). Oh hey, Edpuzzle emailed me that my video was ready. Nice. Talked to the nurse about paxlovid. Still need to write lesson plans for tomorrow and Friday and do a video for Friday. I don’t feel too bad at the moment, but I’m listening to the Man and I’m not sure I’m going to feel better tomorrow. Which sucks. Canceled pilates, need to notify sex-ed committee (shit, I sneezed. I remember that), texted kid who lives here part time (he got clothes and food and left again, until he tests positive and then he’ll be back), texted parents (saw dad Saturday, think I was OK, but the Man might not have been…they didn’t interact though, so we’re probably good).

Still need to dig out part of the entryway before the next big rain hits tomorrow…hoping for feeling OK to do that for 20 minutes today? But not counting on it. Spacey head for the win. No water in house? Sigh.

Plus I think I got about 4 hours of sleep. But until I have tomorrow’s lessons planned so my co-teachers can print them, I’m not ready to rest. The reality of being a teacher out sick. Last year when I had strep/scarlet fever, I was REALLY ill. So ill that the videos I made, the kids told me afterwards that I sounded awful. I’m like, I recorded one of those at like 4:30 AM because that was when I could sit up. Briefly. So knock on wood, this won’t be as bad as the last time I had COVID and I’ll be back at school Friday or Monday. No sub Friday. Yikes. We’ll see.

I love having to revise all my lesson plans at the last minute. Not.

Art progress: Monday night, I was fine. I started tracing Wonder Under for the new quilt. I did the sky, mostly. I didn’t have a full hour.

I didn’t get super far. Who the fuck thought fancy divided stars was a good plan? It was me. I did. Hmmm.

Then last night, I felt fine until I went to bed…OK, my nose started running as I was tracing, but I was in denial. I got to piece 207, which is more than halfway. Not sure how I’m going to feel today, but hoping to trace some more. We’ll see. Currently just want to lie on the couch and nap. Should do that for a while.

I could finish in a couple of hours I think.

The other two quilts I need to do…well I need fabric for one, which means shopping, which I was going to do Saturday. Let’s hope I feel better by then. I suspect I haven’t hit bottom yet because I barely had symptoms last night. It’s OK if it has to wait for a week. I have time. The other one, we’re figuring out sizes, but it’s going to be small, maybe 11×14″, so that should be relatively easy. I do want to do some handwork on it, I think. I never have the time to do that…

Anyway, sure, working on three, maybe four things at once makes sense (I actually don’t usually do that). Plus I need to finish that quilt for the friend of mine, but I was thinking, damn, how long does COVID live on fabric? Because I don’t want the quilt to give her COVID. Sigh. OK.

Also made an appointment for the followup mammogram…because they hadn’t called me and I don’t like not knowing, and not knowing for 2+ weeks is more than I can deal with right now. I’m still trying to figure out concrete drying and siding replacement and drywall replacement and maybe everything just waits until it stops raining. Luckily, it’s Southern California, so after the rain dumps this week and next, we might be in the clear. I’m a little overly stressed at the moment. House then boob then sick. That’s enough. Back the fuck off, 2024. We’re done.

Nap. I need a nap. Then finish lesson planning. Then more napping.

Almost at the End

Insanely busy weekend. Do not recommend. Also have a splinter that is not removing itself. Even with significant pokey help from me. We should genetically engineer skin that pushes out splinters. Not all foreign bodies, because piercings and pacemakers, but if it’s wood, then push it out. Maybe even if it’s carbon-based. Would that work? Not sure. Not a scientist here; just play one on TV. But please I don’t want to go to Urgent Care again over a splinter. Oh wait, the last one was a sharpness from sourdough starter, and the one before that was a bougainvillea spike. You know, there are words I can’t spell right on a regular basis, have to look up, like ‘occasionally’ (one ‘s’? two ‘s’s? how many damn ‘c’s?), but I can spell bougainvillea without a hitch. How does that make sense in the brain?

Anyway. This is a shovel handle splinter because I’m digging (very slowly) trenches around the house to divert the water so we don’t have a repeat of last week’s inundation. At this rate, I’ll be done digging in September, so yeah. Working on it. In between everything else.

Let’s start with the quilt. I sewed the binding on Friday night…after remembering at school that the fabric store closed at 5 PM, so I couldn’t clean everything up from Friday’s lab (note to Monday’s self, you will need to do that when you get to school, not my favorite way to start the week). I kamikazed over to the store I don’t normally go to…it’s fine, but the other one has way more choice in fabric…but isn’t open after 3 PM. Ever. Got the binding on and started handsewing Friday night…

I finished just after the Surface Design Association conference (well, I left early to go to Pilates, so after that)…

And it went to the photographer on Sunday. Good times.

I have two projects I need to be working on right now. One requires fabric (baby quilt) and one, I need a general size to start drawing, so I have an email in but no answer yet. I might need to wait a couple of weeks to get that info, unfortunately, because there is a deadline, but I think it’ll be OK. So what next? I’m remarkably braindead about picking a topic…there are honestly too many and nothing’s floating my boat at the moment, so I went back to that pile of drawings I copied in December and picked one that spoke to me.

And then I stayed up too late last night to number it.

My brain. Seriously. But NOT making at the moment just feels ultimately very bad, so I’m making.

I think it has 392 pieces. Maybe that’s how I start this year: just making a whole bunch of smaller pieces that keep me going until a big piece in the summer. Or maybe Spring Break, because that trip got canceled due to expenses incurred here at home (can you say water?).

One of three drywall removal areas…

The baseboard needs to come up too. Still trying to figure out next steps. Fans have been going for a week. Not sure if we need the industrial fans they want $2K for. Calling today for more info.

Here’s our ghetto moisture sensor…

Getting an official one for by the door where all the water probably came in. Seems that we will have to do the outdoor fix, because IDK even who would do it. There’s no info. Ugh. Then the drywall fix, carpet can’t happen until summer, just realistically with management and moving all three bedrooms. It doesn’t make sense to replace the hallway only and leave the 45-year old carpet in the bedrooms that matches. Anyway. It’s a thing. It’ll happen. I bought cheap runners for the hallway until then, once we know it’s dry. Whatever knowing means.

Friday’s DNA extraction lab (wheat germ)…

It went well. Some kids are assholes, but you knew that.

Saturday night, the Man’s band played for 3 hours straight.

Lots of exhaustion on both our parts. Also drama on the dance floor. Stupid adults. But they played well. The next show is four hours on a school night. Let me tell you how long I might last for that. Cough Cough.

My favorite girlchild at Cabazon, I suspect.

She was vacationing with a friend near Joshua Tree. Good dino.

OK, school. DNA read and color today. Staff meeting. Possible Urgent Care. Come home, dig, pull up (gently) carpet to check bedroom. We want it to go back for now. Then book club Zoom…not even sure which book it is. Whoops. Hopefully I’ve read it. This week is another sex-ed curriculum meeting shitshow, but ALMOST AT THE END (I thought that in December and was unpleasantly surprised). More art. Yeah.

Talking Foxes…

You know, you think you’ve got a handle on everything, including the water that fucked up the hallway, and you even came home yesterday and pulled all the carpet and underlay, and then leaned over and scraped up glue and swept 40 years of dirt up (yeah, the carpet was OLD), and the boychild (who is not a boy) says he’ll pull up all the tack strip today and do some drywall sawing. Because the restoration company wants two grand plus testing which is another 1200 and that’s not even fixing the water issue and the carpet. And you mentally figured out how to fix outside, looked at the weather reports, and figured you had two weekends to do it, cool, almost doable (this weekend is a clusterfuck btw), and then you got up this morning. Couldn’t sleep last night (fan noise is doing me in, y’all, plus my overactive brain). Looked at the weather again and the next storm with more than an inch is Thursday. So digging needs to happen this weekend. Around 3 Zoom calls, pilates, groceries, GRADING, finishing a quilt, and delivering it to the photographer. And the Man has a show. OK. All right. I can figure that out. I have a plan. And then the doc messages you, because last weekend’s routine mammogram showed something distortion-y (love that word…new quilt?) and now you get to have more tests more poking more squishing more shit. Fuck me. I’ve done this before and everything turned out fine, which is what this morning’s brain is trying to tell me, but also I almost lost my mind last night because the Man and I had started planning our Spring Break trip and now we’re canceling because of all the hallway crap. And money. And time.

So I’m not happy at the moment. I’m doing a really high-maintenance lab at school today, which is actually good, because I won’t be thinking about my boob. Damn.

I did finish quilting yesterday. After pulling up all that crap and a Zoom call with friends…I quilted for about an hour and finished. Here’s Wednesday night…

And then I cleaned the floor that we had just tracked 40 years of carpet dust across, because who else is mopping their floors at 10 PM on a school night, and I trimmed it.

And things aren’t all bad, because it’s actually prettier in person, despite all the war and crap going on in the bottom of it, and the SDA online conference is tomorrow and I’m going to get the bindings on. And grade. And dig. And finish all the things. And then somehow try to figure out when the next set of squishings will happen. They’re gonna call me. Yeah well, I’m gonna have to call back, because I can’t answer the phone at school, especially not during a high-maintenance lab. Fun times, y’all. Fun times. But I will be taking this to the photographer on Sunday. I started this when? December 30. Fast finish. I copied like 12 drawings…I might just keep going. Well, I have a couple of things I need to do first.

Probably gonna have to sweep again after the boychild pulls all the tack strips.

Maybe I’ll even kill a mophead on this.

Next book I’m reading…

“Talking foxes are a sign of fever…”. I think this paragraph is why I read so much. Other worlds. Easier to live in. This one is challenging my patience at the moment.

OK. School. Do a DNA extraction lab. Grade things. Plan things. Duty after school. Go buy binding, because you went through the stash and didn’t have enough of the right thing. Dig. Put a binding on. All that. READ. I get to read. It’s allowed. Grade things. I said that already. Fuck.

It Won’t Solve Anything…

Oomph. This week packs a punch. Even without all the meetings from last week. Let’s start with the artmaking, because it’s positive and so I like to focus on it…like HERE IS STUFF YOU DID SO STOP FREAKING OUT. By the way, grades are done. For now. I didn’t finish grading one assignment. Oh well. I will eventually.

But art! So I’m still quilting. This is a small piece and I can’t remember, but I thought I’d be done by today? Maybe? Ha ha. Yeah. I thought I’d be done last night, and if I weren’t a crazy bitch who decided she wanted to quilt a tiny squiggle everywhere, I probably would be done.

Yeah. Dumbass.

So I’m about halfway done with the background, which might mean I’m not finishing quilting until Thursday night. Problematic if I want it to go to the photographer this weekend, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m close. Maybe. Who knows if I even have enough of anything I can use for binding anyway. So yeah, another hour tonight…after pilates and cooking dinner. Did I agree to cook dinner tonight? AGREE. Ha. That’s funny. There’s no negotiation there. Much. It’s my turn. I often wish it wasn’t.

In other news, San Diego got slammed by a wet storm on Monday…my rain gauge showed over 3 inches of rain in a day. Well. Hmmm. And I came home and did grades and at about 5 PM, the boychild realized there was a lot of water on the carpet in the hallway, and yeah.

So there’s water coming in, presumably from the outside (even though part of that is an interior wall) most of the way down the hallway (there’s a dry bit in the middle), around the corners into the closet at this end and the bedroom at the other end. I’ve sort of resigned myself to the ghetto concrete floor look that I think we’re going to get to soon…although the men are convinced we can save the carpet…

I think we’re up to 6 fans at the moment. And yes, the hallway wall bears the imprints of Calli, deceased, who used to lie on her back and scrabble at the wall. Have I had time to fix that? Well probably. Have I had the time AND energy to fix that? Well fuck no. So we have a call into a restoration place just to figure out what the real problem is (probably water over the bottom plate/slab thing, don’t ask me construction terms) and figure out who can fix it and then how much that shit will cost, and then probably there will be Wayfair/Target area rugs thrown over the concrete for a while until I can afford carpet. The carpet is ancient; should have been replaced long before this, so IDK why they are trying to save it, except to save me money and reduce the ghetto look. This was not in the plan. I know. It never is. Also, I can’t sleep well with the sound of the fans…I know it’s white noise, but my brain thinks it’s a zombie attack. Anyway. Trying not to dwell on it all, but you know how that goes.

In other news, I’m sending work to Japan and Taiwan in the next few months…so that’s new and different. I’m also trying to work on a collaboration with someone in San Francisco who is part of my women’s art group. We’re flailing a bit, but here was my 2nd attempt at drawing ‘unity’…a hard word for me apparently.

Pretty happy drawing for me…And here’s Nova just before attacking that cat toy.

Yesterday was eyeball dissection day…

It was cool. All but one kid participated and he was just being a whiner in general. Ugh. It’s a regular thing for him. I could do without it.

I thought I would go to the gym after school, get some exercise in, but I was exhausted. Completely. I read a bit, talked to the SIL, then made seating charts for today while half lying on the couch. Made dinner, did that drawing, read some more, then went in and quilted. That was it. It was all I could do.

Also this one…

Trying to figure out what to do with this collaboration. Ugh. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT ANYTHING. So there we are. Seriously though. I need someone to just come in and say, blah blah blah, you need to do this, this person will do it, here’s the invoice, it’s bad but not heinous, something you can actually afford, OK, let’s do it. Probably need that for EVERYTHING right now. Oh yeah, and there’s another time/energy-intensive lab on Friday. OKAY. Good plan, Nida. Ha. I think I need to sleep from now until Spring Break. It won’t solve anything, but at least I’ll be well-rested.

Problematic…

OK back to normal 5-day work weeks. Pros and cons to those. They feel more normal. There’s less time off. There you are. It’s pouring today, so probably 30% of our kids won’t come to school. Not sure I blame them. I have a good book. I could stay here and be perfectly happy. Except grades are due tomorrow, and no, I’m not done. Fuck me. I tried. But then all the other stuff, mostly art stuff, which is good…but time-consuming, got in the way. So I’m still not done with grades. I might need to just admit that one assignment isn’t going to get done. I have three more classes of this one assignment, and kids didn’t do very well on it, but I’ve already input two classes, so there’s that. Ugh.

This kid. He’s a little strange, as I’m sure you can guess. He’s not the best student, more from a lack of understanding I think, but he’s funny sometimes.

So quiltwise, good progress was made. I finished ironing all the tiny leaves down on Thursday night, after a million hours at school.

And then I started the stitchdown.

I did most of it Friday night…

But I had to be up earlyish Saturday for the annual boob-squeeze (ouch. It really hurt this time.), so I went to bed at a semi-reasonable time. Then got up Saturday and finished the stitchdown…

Cut a backing, washed the batting, went to an art meeting, which was short, but added on by having a cookie with art friends. My theory is that you should get a cookie for each time they squish your boob like that (which would mean I should have had four, but I settled for one really big and tasty one). Then home, and sandwiched and pinbasted.

Then after dinner out, came home and started quilting.

I did a small amount of school stuff on Saturday. I didn’t completely blow it off. I just didn’t spend more time than I had to on it. I saved the crazy panic for Sunday, which included pilates, grocery shopping, making breakfasts for the next two weeks, handing a quilt over to a guy who’s going to put it in a gallery in Japan (cool), putting up the owl box (with help), and doing schoolwork. I graded a bunch of stuff Friday night too, which I try to avoid, but still not done. Rumor is that the staff meeting will be shorter, so I’ll just come home, torture myself with this last assignment, and get it all done. Right? I even cooked dinner last night (and lunches for the next 7 days). I’m tired though. Still.

I did quilt last night too…

I just have the head left to do…

For the outlining. Then the whole background. It’s probably 1-2 hours left. So I’ll finish tomorrow night? Hopefully. Then trim and bind. Done by this weekend? Ahead of the deadline? I need to do a drawing for another art thing I’m doing. Sometime this week. After grades are done.

Tomorrow is also eyeball dissection, which will be a long day. Starting a new unit. DNA extraction on Friday. Another long day. But no long-ass meetings after work this week, hallelujah. That’ll be next week. Ugh. At least I have one week off from that. And the sex-ed curriculum meetings should be done after next week. Knock on wood. Well, not true…I have one mid-February, but it’s just teachers. Anything without the parents. Sigh. OK, I need more tea. I might need galoshes. I don’t have galoshes. Problematic.

It Will All Happen…

Oh my. I knew this week would be rough, but I didn’t know the universe was like, oh hey, here’s some more…but it’s mostly GOOD stuff, it’s just good stuff that takes time to do and you don’t have any of that, so GO!

Anyway, I’m carving out art time on this quilt each night for an hour (or almost an hour, let’s be honest, or I stayed up too late like last night because I got to a spot and I didn’t want to stop.). I’m ahead of my schedule, barely, which is cool. And also good. So Tuesday night, I got her all ironed together except for her face and a few things…

I really was excited about her hair…it turned out so much better than I imagined.

Then last night, after a really long day (union meeting and pilates), I did her face and the earth.

And because I was in the mood and hadn’t done an hour yet, even though it was past my going-to-bedtime, because I’d had to process and upload EM Spectrum lab videos for school, I ironed it onto a background, because it was pretty easy to do.

That said, I’m not done with that…there are about 65 tiny leaves that go in the trees on her head (see where the cat is? Around there).

I wasn’t kidding about them being tiny. And a lot of them. That’s tonight. And then start stitchdown. Of course, that’s tonight after teaching all day (yesterday was HAARD. Y’all need to use your BRAINS…) AND a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting. Ugh. The third afterschool meeting this week. Y’all I am done. And yet grades are due, I had two parents (of the same child) messaging me last night back and forth (do y’all talk to each other? Yes, they live in the same house…did you read last week’s email about how yesterday was the last day I’d take late work?)…this sweet cat was sitting on the things I was grading the other night…

Not helpful at all. Of course, these assignments are crap. My fault. I took them from another teacher, and I think they are workable, but my kids are Google junkies, they don’t process the info, they just copy it, and the rubric is awful. Completely useless. So I’ll fix that for next year. Hopefully. Not like I have time to do anything but write a note on the calendar about that, which is problematic, because the teacher I got them from will eventually see that. O. M. G.

The tree guy is on his way here so I can show him the two branches that still need to come off…

Apparently the highlighted picture was not enough. Also he wants his check. More importantly.

Here’s the soap that’s currently hanging out in one of the teacher’s bathrooms at school.

That’s about right.

OK, shoes, more tea, my brain, go to school. Tree guy first. Torture kids with an academic assignment today, but maybe I’ll get time to grade. I’m definitely rethinking tomorrow…they can do it on their own. I’m not walking them through it. Eye dissection next week, new unit, fuck me, I need seating charts. OK. Deep breaths. It will all happen.

Bring It…

I did not fall off the face of the Earth…I just had a ton of stuff to do. And if you’re my school district, trying to figure out where I went this weekend, the answer is NOWHERE. I didn’t travel anywhere. I really didn’t. I did take a necessary day off though, and they don’t like that, especially before a 3-day weekend. I had a sub though, which is a plus.

There was a lot of art this weekend, which was good and necessary to the processing of my brain. There was also a lot of schoolwork this weekend, which was unfortunately also necessary to my surviving the next month or so. This week, definitely, because I am entering the hell of 2-hour meetings for the next three days, all school-related. Sigh. Not looking forward to that bit. And some medical stuff, which is what it is, and can’t all happen after school hours, much as they’d like it to.

So the quilt in progress went from all ironed to fabric Wednesday night? I think…

98 fabrics…in just under 9 hours of ironing.

Then Thursday night, I started cutting them out…

Finished Friday night? Again, maybe that was Saturday night…yeah, I think I’m off by a night on all of this…

That took a little under 7 hours…I was on a roll. And then Sunday afternoon, I sorted them…

Sunday night, started ironing together…

And this is last night’s progress…

With all those 2-hour meetings, it’s gonna be a fight to get an hour in each night, but that’s my goal. More than an hour, actually. I have about 200 pieces left, so I’m figuring I’ll be done Wednesday, iron to the background Thursday, start stitchdown by Friday. Tight deadline, but I’m going for it. Have I mentioned grades are due next week on top of all those meetings? Yeah. And Saturday is shot to hell by a mammogram and an art meeting. There is no down time.

Ooh wait, here’s the cutting-out I did on Thursday night. Hmmm. Maybe I finished ironing fast and then cut stuff out?

I’ll ask Nova. She might know.

Setup for a class I took this weekend…

Loads of fun. Totally recommend taking classes that aren’t related to what you’re doing at the moment.

I also went to an opening and an artist talk, and I have photos from that, but no time to process right now. Because I need to get to work, need to beat the tree trimmers out of here.

Friday night’s dinner drawing…

Cute sister cats…

This current quilt is small enough to ALMOST fit under one teflon ironing sheet.

IDK when I’ll have the brain power to do something bigger this year. I’m supposed to be doing a drawing this week as well. Deep breaths. Might have to wait until Friday to have the mental space for it.

My succulents are making cute little flowers…

I hadn’t been paying attention to the plants with all the other crap going on.

I hate that.

Also finished mom’s snowflakes, so this went back to her for embellishment…

Then it’ll come back to me for sandwiching and stuff. Not sure what stuff entails at the moment. Haven’t touched the other quilt I’m doing for a friend…it’s been a rough week. It’s still a rough week.

OK, work today, something to do with light and UV damage (I feel like I should know what the something is), then a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting, then I get to cook tonight (woo!), then more ironing. Full-on survival mode this week. Bring it.

Saving the World from Nothing*…

I used to listen to music every morning, and whatever song I was listening to at the end of writing this blog, I’d go find some part of the lyrics that spoke to me and that would be the blog title. Certainly probably better than most of the blog titles I come up with now. Don’t get me wrong; I love writing the blog. I certainly do it more for me than you, and my future self appreciates me documenting shit so I remember what I did last year or the year before, or how January going back to school really felt (it’s always hard; I’m always tired). For documenting the art process, it’s also good for me to remember where I was at on a certain piece. I’m not sure when I stopped listening to the music…I have a guess, but it’s been a while, and maybe I should bring it back…if just for the title inspiration.

So I’ve now survived one work day with kids and one without. Both were fine. Although the one boy who told me I should smile more probably wasn’t ready for my impassioned sexism speech. I’m OK with that. I started with a lab, which seemed to shock the kids…not sure why. I also have been trying to do more of what we did with 7th grade, when I had a partner to plan and we tweaked things for years to make them easier on us and more varied for the kids. I’m hoping I can keep it up. It takes a chunk of creativity on my part, and I don’t always have the extra energy for that for the day job AND art. Although yesterday’s prep period was a crazy headgame of trying to get 7th-grade teachers all their stuff (I found the damn paint swatches, hidden under another lab in a weird tube of periodic tables we never use and my co-teacher on leave says I should toss. Fuck. I will do that when I get to school today. Really. I will. If no other emergencies pop up.). I was watching a video yesterday of a teacher at our school who posts on TikTok etc, and she’s showing her typed plan of how to use her before- and after-school time and her PLAN (ha! Really? She has a plan period she can actually USE? WTF) so she’s uber efficient with getting things done, and I almost cried. I mean, I guess having 7th- and 8th-grade meet on the same day each week is part of that, but it doesn’t leave much time with all the other crap I need to do. Not everything fits into a cute TikTok video I guess. She’s selling her rainbow template on TeacherPayTeachers, so all the more power to her.

So artwise, I’m really pushing the ironing. I have been coming home and trying to start the ironing before dinner time so I can do more than an hour a night. So I managed almost 2 hours both nights, which is good…I’m thinking I might be able to finish tonight. Maybe.

Monday night, I got up into the torso and finished all the things that were green, which is all the fleshy bits…

Here’s all the skin in the upper torso laid out…

And here’s all the things that are attached to or on her flesh that AREN’T green, like her heart etc.

The piles are logical. I start out with everything in number order, in piles of 10, but when I’m pulling the flesh out and piling it on the fabric, I’m sorting the others into what they are, so I can just pick up one pile and iron it all at the same time.

Here’s a video of the setup…I stand between the table and the ironing board and turn from one to the other…one of the benefits of a room that is relatively small, I guess.

Then last night, I started in on all those little piles…

I made a rainbow snake. I was looking at the drawing and thinking, well, I often make green snakes, but the main figure is already green, so that won’t work. And any snake with black in it won’t show up against the really dark background, and brown was just out…the legs are all brown. So rainbow it was. Rainbows make my brain happy. I also realized there is very little pink in this quilt. Usually the figures run in the pink to brown range, but this one is reminiscent of the Supreme Court goddess, all earth colors, because I wanted to explore that a little more. Maybe the Supreme Court quilt had way too many normal-colored people, because I’m rolling in purple and earth stuff, maybe a rainbow person is next. Although the next one is a collaboration, so who knows what that will look like.

Meanwhile, I guess I really do need that template from that teacher (not)…because I spent 45 minutes after school processing videos and pictures of the lab we did for all the absent kids (lenses and refraction). And that was NOT on my to-do list until I realized it needed to be. The slides exist now, so future self will be happy, but fuck me, this year is full of this crap.

I came home and meant to (a) go to the gym (too exhausted after trying to find my insulin at any pharmacy, and getting dog food) and/or (b) read my book, but I opened my computer and processed planning shit for about an hour before reading one chapter of my book, then getting my exhausted ass off the couch and ironing before dinner, which luckily I didn’t have to cook.

Today? Today the kids are going to do an independent assignment so I can do some planning. I’ll roll my chair around with my computer and check in at tables while working for a while at each table. Tomorrow too. Tonight is pilates and IRONING. I do have to cook tonight, but it’s easy. So IRONING. Finishing. Hopefully. Also hopefully finding insulin.

*Long Way Down, Robert DeLong