A Giant Experiment

There are three days of school before we go on break. There’s been some crazy shit (there always is), some crazier than usual. My blood sugar responds to stress, and yes, it is responding to stress. And cake. That was my fault. To my credit, I ate it in two shifts. On Monday, after the holiday party, which was really just a confession and food (is that the definition of a party?), I had to get on the stationary bike for an hour. It’s OK…I finished my book. Although my knees did not appreciate it the next day. They rarely do though. It’s weird…we usually have spirit week before break and dress up most of the days, at least wearing Santa hats and pajamas, and that’s not even happening. I think everyone is just trying to survive. That may be true of everyone honestly. Christmas is coming up and it’s crazy. I still don’t have a box for the stuff I need to ship. I keep forgetting. I have a to-do list but it keeps getting impacted by school. We have three days to get at least the first week of lessons done and we don’t have enough time to teach everything before the state test because the school board did a stupid thing and got sued and now we have to teach stuff that’s not on the test before the test and I can’t even tell you how frustrating that is after we spent hours this summer backwards planning from the end of the year to make sure there was enough time. And now we’re fucked. No one paid me for those summer hours and no one will pay me for the hours it will take to rearrange stuff to fit the school board’s fuckup. Summer self did that work because she knew that May/June self would really appreciate it. And now both of them are pissed off. “It’s fine,” the District says, “It’s only one year and then you can go back to whatever you normally do.” Great. You gonna pay me for the extra planning this year? Nah? I didn’t think so. Plus I have to do more training even though I helped write the damn curriculum. I guess all that is January/February/March’s problem. She’s already irritable about it though. December self just wants the first week or two planned and maybe to have a table of contents for the unit that doesn’t have to be totally rewritten halfway through. Big dreams.

Meanwhile, this is the third morning in a row I’ve had to show up early to school for something…luckily, I think it’s the last one in 2025! Maybe. Knock on wood.

I did finish all the stitchdown on Monday night…stayed up late to do it, which pairs well with getting up early.

Stitchdown is generally pretty fast…this was 4 1/2 hours. Last night, I cut the batting, washed the batting, dried the batting, washed the floor (it was gross), and cut and sewed and ironed the backing. Then it was 10:15 PM and I knew it would take an hour to pinbaste this thing, so I didn’t do it. Did I go to bed earlier? Nope. Totally not. That would make too much sense. I just didn’t want to crawl around on my kneepads for an hour…I’ll do that tonight after yet another early morning and a long day. It’ll be fine. Quilting by tomorrow. Done by? I don’t know. I need a binding fabric…I know I don’t have enough of anything for that.

Cat integration is going really well. These two play during the day (and the night).

Not touching yet, not curled up together…but I know Scribble wants that. Bowie is kind of an asshole (that phrase is said so many times in this house), but he is still kittenish and appreciates the racing around. Scribble bites gently, plays gently (with us), doesn’t hook us with claws, purrs a lot, loves a lot, squawks, and is a sweetheart.

Ceramics! I got this one out of the bisque fire yesterday…

Then glazed both with a clear glaze…hopefully the colors will hold. We’ll see. They do darken in the glaze fire, but I’m hopeful. They are both frames for the wall. I haven’t figured out construction for frames for just standing up. And I forgot to check how much they shrank. Oh well. It’s all a giant experiment anyway.

When I left the studio, Bartholomew had just showed up for dinner.

He’s definitely got more than his share of nine lives.

OK then there’s this…

This might help. Sigh. We don’t solve problems well as a species, but especially here in the US. Dumpster fire has taken over.

OK today. It’s a catchup day. The kids will hopefully get everything done, we’ll do a lab tomorrow, a quick test question Friday, turn their packets in, and go away for three weeks. I need to finish grading last week’s homework and start grading the academic assignment they just finished. Whatever I get done this week I don’t have to do during break. That would be a plus. Pilates after school, then I have to cook (normally I would have done that last night)…oh wait, I did do it last night, but just for me. Then pinbaste, kneepads on. Maybe setup or start quilting. We’ll see. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to some time off too.

Appropriate Responses…

It’s totally foggy this morning, foggy and chilly. It’s also the last Monday of school in 2025. I had a fairly successful weekend, but whenever I picked up my phone, some horrible disaster had happened somewhere…mostly with guns…and I had to stop and take a breath and wonder about the world and humanity. I may always wonder about that. And guns. And how people get so angry that guns (or knives) seem to solve that problem. And then a reminder that Sandy Hook happened yesterday, 13 years ago. I remember that day. That’s why we have gates and fences and locks and were told to keep classroom doors locked for a good long time. We had active shooter trainings before that though. When my students ask, “when will I ever need this?” during lockdown trainings, all I can say is, “I hope you never do…” but the odds are increasingly against that. Who thought celebrating Hanukkah on the beach would require gun avoidance training? Or taking college finals? Those things should be gun and violence free (despite how you might feel about final exams in general). According to CNN, the shooting at Brown “followed at least 75 school shootings in the United States this year. So far in 2025, there have been at least 391 mass shootings and 13,929 shooting deaths nationwide.” Insane.

So in that vein, I finished my Forgotten Words Project phrases. They just needed to be stitched down. I’ll mail them later this week.

My goal this weekend was to finish ironing the quilt down and get a goodly chunk of stitchdown done. I needed to make a video with the quilt for a meeting I’m missing on Zoom this week, and that was going to be easier if I could hang it up, so it needed to be completely ironed to do that. I spent a few hours on Saturday getting that done and making the video (and finding speakers since my subwoofer broke/died and I couldn’t edit the video without sound).

I guess I ironed Friday night too. She was too wide to hang up well…

I usually go vertical more than horizontal. My original plan was three bathtubs…that would have been insanely wide.

And then Saturday night, I stitched down for over 2 hours and got a huge chunk done.

Last night, I finished the larger bathtub with all its rugs and stuff.

I’ve got at least an hour to go tonight after book club. Then sandwich, pinbaste, and quilt. I’m on track to get it done with time to spare, which is good, because shipping 6 quilts is stressful no matter what, and I need to do another quilt fairly quickly. Plus however much free time people think I have over a school break, that’s when I do all the things I don’t have time for when I’m teaching, which is almost everything. Including mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms.

This week is a mess, for sure. Here’s the drawing I kept trying to get done before dinner arrived the last two Saturday nights.

I may give up on it. These aren’t really meant to be finished beasties anyway, just a way to keep the drawing hand in.

Scribble does know how to be IN the kitty tent…

Mostly. She’s been playing with a few of the older cats, definitely speaking her mind, eating more, purring lots, sleeping, and basically underfoot or on lap. Good times.

I guess this is how we end today…

So true. Sanity and kindness too. Those would be nice. Today is…sigh. Someone set up an 8 AM parent Zoom call, which is good, because she wanted to meet at 7 AM and that’s not something I do. Then finishing a test. Two of my co-teachers are out for good reasons; hopefully the kids will be too tired to malfunction. Then a staff meeting that was supposed to be a holiday party that got cancelled due to lack of interest (and probably morale, honestly). At least that will be short. Then book club later. Plus stitching stuff down and dealing with Christmas, because holy hell, that’s rushing at us like a train out of control. The fog is still out there. I’ll have to join it in a second. May today be full of love and peace and appropriate responses…across the board…

Strangely Warm…

Pro: I slept solidly last night (because I was exhausted…wait, I still am exhausted). I got to hang out with stitching friends last night. I didn’t grade anything last night. It’s Friday and I’ll be ironing a solid chunk of the weekend and then stitching.

Don’t ask about school. I might lose my mind. Not kids (well, sometimes kids). Just all the other moving pieces. And there are a lot of them and some of them are stupid. In case you’re wondering. I know why I became a union rep so many years ago, but it’s hella exhausting.

I also have a book that I need to finish reading by tomorrow at 2 PM, when the library whisks it away. There are 78 people waiting for the book, so if I don’t finish it (which might happen), I won’t see it again for 5 weeks and then I’ll have forgotten the already tenuous link I have to the story. I could just stop reading it, but I have a hard time with that. I think I should stop and then there’s a few pages of clarity and interest and I’m back in again, but…realistically…I have 3 hours left in it. And that’s a lot. And I have a lot of other things that need to get done. So we’ll see. Sigh.

OK ironing. I ironed late last night. The night before, I did much better.

I got the whole bathtub water thing done plus all the things floating in the water and the legs.

Last night, I finished the torso and both arms, which are fussier than maybe they look.

I’m in the high 700s and I’ve pulled a few 800s, so honestly, I’ll finish tomorrow and get it ironed to the background and hopefully start stitching it down. I’ve got a new deadline that popped up that I need to get started on, so I’m pushing through on this. Deep breaths.

I had a plan for the next quilt that was kind of a break from the heavy political stuff, but it looks like I’m diving back in. We’ll see what that looks like. I’m letting my brain percolate it as I finish this one, because I’ll have to leap right into drawing sometime in the next week or so.

Stitching last night with friends…all I did was couch down the fly stitches.

It took forever. It was nice to hang out and chat about travel and other stuff though.

When I get really busy on art stuff and school, I don’t have a lot of extraneous pictures apparently. Even of cute kittens. Here’s Scribble sleeping on the bed I bought for Simba a year ago so he could be comfortable out in the living room (he prefers to lie on my leg or on the couch behind my neck).

I think one cat slept on it once. So it just sits there. Maybe it will be Scribble’s. She’s a sweetheart. Doesn’t sleep with me every night, but comes and says hi every night. Very purry and kneady. Follows me around. Holds her own with the big kitties.

OK. I’m giving a test today, which hopefully will be quiet and calm and shut up. But you never know. Also it’s still strangely warm here, despite being December, and that seems to be affecting brains. Some kids think next week is already Winter Break (it’s not). Some kids will be gone even though they know it’s not Winter Break. We got two new kids this week and their names are almost the same but flipped in order, which is beyond confusing. So I’ll probably have them in the same class period and will never figure out which is which. I think a teacher’s brain only has so much capacity for learning names in one school year and I may have already reached it. Also limited patience. Yup. Reached it. But it shouldn’t be a hard day…not a lab. Just management. And then duty after school and ceramics and I need to buy Drano and a light timer. I don’t have to cook dinner. I do need to read for 3 hours in the next 30 (ha! That is so not happening). I need to hike tomorrow. I need to SLEEP. But not right now. Right now, I gotta go.

Alive and Pissed Off…

OK, I thought it was Tuesday, but it’s Wednesday. I was so tired after school and pilates yesterday that I just lay on the couch and considered how it was only Tuesday. Really that was the fault of the pilates teacher…and my body. My knees mostly.

I’m ironing. I’m trying to iron a lot. I need to finish this piece. I think I’ll have time during break, but then all the Xmas stuff happens, and I’m fucked. So here’s where I was at on Monday night…

It didn’t look like much. I did the edges of the bathtub and the words and the flag; there’s stuff hanging off the top as well, but not much.

Last night was a little more impressive…

I got the lamp and some portion of the water done. There’s things floating in the water and then obviously the body in the tub (this one is alive and pissed off), so there’s a lot going on here. I’m about halfway through. I’ll be in the water again tonight and then maybe even tomorrow. I’m hoping to have it all ironed down or close by the weekend, so I can start the stitchdown Saturday. I have a big block of time. Maybe. At the moment. Also need to fix a bunch of things and deal with Christmas stuff.

I’m not putting a tree up until I’m home during the day, because…kitten. I did put some lights up on the deck so that’s festive. I have more lights but no timer…and it requires a ladder and a hammer, which I have, but I need to do it in daylight hours and I won’t be home in the evening in light until Saturday. Ah Winter. So many other things to do. A little panicky about that, as always. I’m teaching more magnety stuff today, hopefully less handholding than the last few days. They really do just want me to write the answers for them, and I won’t. Also, getting kids to talk in some of these classes is torture…or to talk about science instead of whatever they want to be chatting about. Crazy stuff. But maybe I can get caught up on grading before the next big assignment? It’s a goal anyway. Union meeting after school tonight and then about 17 errands, depending on what’s still open (not the post office unfortunately). Then did I mention ironing? I did.

Too Many Things…

Oy. Two weeks left in December to teach. On the one hand, thank goodness. On the other hand, holy crap, how do I get through it all? A bit of a challenge on multiple fronts. Trying to deal with Christmas shopping and shipping, but also school and just maybe a bit of sanity. We spent the weekend doing the local ceramics tour, which was really cool, but also time-consuming. I did manage to deal with three Christmas presents, which wasn’t bad. So I feel good about that. I also got to see a lot of cool ceramics and be inspired a bit, which is also nice. Did I get a lot of other stuff done? Hell no. How would I?

I did iron…Saturday night…

Finished the first bathtub, which has a body bag in it. Then started the rug under the second bathtub…

Finished that and started the second bathtub, barely. More on that tonight. Much as I love having the girlchild around, she had projects this time and I ended up not doing art stuff for that…which is still a good thing. Hopefully in the future, she’ll know how to frame stuff herself. This one, she cut the matt and then we covered it in fabric.

I did the complicated one…

But I made her cut the backing pieces. So she drove home with four completed pieces. All the frames came from thrift shops or the grandparents’ house (which is a different kind of thrift shop). She did buy three pieces of matt board and 3/4s of a yard of fabric. All good. I had a stash of hangers and archival tape and all the stuff I used to use to frame my prints, way back in the day. Way way back. Useful skill, though.

She left Saturday morning, but she’ll be back in two weeks-ish.

Scribble likes her. Scribble pretty much likes everyone though, so that’s nice. She inspected the two plant pots I bought on the tour.

I fits!

More politics…

I guess Cloud Walker was the best choice. Sigh.

I spent Friday trying to find all the lab materials I needed for today; missing a handful of magnetic rocks that may have disappeared. They’ll live without them, but it’s annoying. Because we had them before. I’ll go in this morning and check another location and recheck the original location. Teaching magnets today, then a staff meeting, then ceramics. Hoping to finish the second frame today. Not entirely sure what I’m doing next. I did get the tree for the top of the head out of the kiln. Now I need to make the little quilt that goes in the belly, but I can’t do that until I finish this quilt; it has a deadline and it’s coming up. So maybe I’ll make some bowls. I need some new bowls for the house. Then home to iron some more. Probably grading stuff too. I’m not entirely caught up, but I’m doing OK. The redoes are hard to do unless I’m not tired. I should have done some last night, but I did late work instead, because I hadn’t looked at that in almost a month. Too many things…not enough time. Always.

The Muck

Hey. So yeah, this week has been a mess. Seriously. Adults make such a mess sometimes. And I can tell that I ME I am dysregulated. I am. Let alone students. Sigh. Like take your hood off and stop interrupting instruction. Plus the adults in charge of teachers…sigh…just do a better job. And the adults who schedule meetings, for goodness sake, 8 AM is not necessary most of the time. And if you set a meeting, show the fuck up to it. Yes, I get that there are emergencies, but as a teacher, there are so many meetings that the people who need to be there don’t show up to and then I’m sitting there, because I’m responsible and I show up. And I sometimes wish my car would break down so I could just go home.

I have to tell you, I’m incredibly cranky and beat down by the day job at the moment…not the kids. I mean, there’s some annoying kid stuff, but most of it is because another adult didn’t do what they should’ve done, so I’m having to handle it. So I’d rather not. Please do your job. I have a weekend tour of ceramics studios I’m going on this weekend with the Man and I’m totally looking forward to just doing that and telling school to fuck off, but for at least another 10 hours, I need to deal with school and all the requests that I shouldn’t need to deal with, welcome to the job.

OK. And the Man wants me to think more positively, and keeps trying to force that on me, and please, you gratitude people, please stop. Some of us think about what we appreciate all the time and there’s still a bunch of slimey smelly crap from the day that we need to get out of our system so we can function. That’s me. Every day, I am thankful to make art at the end of it. Seriously. I love that part of my life, even when it’s stressful and I miss deadlines because I have so many of them. But I still need to verbalize the muck or it fills my head. I need to go yell out into the universe regularly, it seems.

Artwise, I’m still slow. I framed another (pain in the ass) thing for the girlchild…

I think I have one more frame to cut for her, plus figure out how to hang this one and stabilize the other one. Don’t ask me how my Xmas shopping is going…it’s not.

I did iron last night, for more than an hour, to try to make up for all the not ironing the night before.

Solid start on the mucky bathtub.

I also went to ceramics last night, because I can’t go this afternoon; they’re setting up for the ceramics tour. I was hoping they would start that later, but no. So I did some finalizing work on the other one and then glazed more on this one.

It’s pretty close to done. I need to patch up some of the black and clean up the back. The other one is pretty close to dry, to being able to get fired. Hopefully Monday.

Bart(holomew) the semi-feral cat of the ceramics studio, was very helpful.

Sometimes he bites if he doesn’t like what you’re doing, so I fed him. That generally works. I also squirted orange underglaze all over everything. Fun times.

And I graded. Because I never don’t grade. Scribble was very helpful.

She’s very people-oriented. Which is nice.

OK. I have a parent meeting at 8 because someone thought that was a good plan. My co-teacher is out, so I have to print her plans and seating charts before 8, which means I need to get my ass to school soon. I need more tea. I need to finish and print a worksheet and set up lab bins for magnets on Monday and write a note to our TA to do something and probably write warmups and I think I have abdicated teaching to the students mostly because they need to do some independent work so I can think straight. I’ve been doing direct instruction all week and I’m tired. Then an emergency union meeting (on Zoom, thank goodness, I’ll be on that while I’m at Home Depot) after school. It’s cold and the Man keeps overheating at night, so I haven’t been able to put the flannel sheets on, but I think this weekend is the time where I do it anyway, because I’m freezing at night and that doesn’t help my sleep. Until I’m hot, and then the blankets get thrown off, and that never stops people, it never stops. Yes, I have all the meds and the things and this is just something the women in my family get to do: vomit all through pregnancy and overheat at night until we die.

Positive thoughts. You know what I’ll be doing tonight at SOME time? Ironing. I’ll be ironing. A bathtub with a body bag in it and a rifle underneath it and bullets and blood all around. Yup. You got that.

Mostly…

Back into the screaming fire that is school sometimes. Trying to keep the head above water. It’s three weeks. I can do that. Maybe. I mean, I don’t really have a choice…it’s just how much hair pulling and mental screaming I might do while I get there. All good. Deep breaths. My office calendar still says November. No worries.

I did get the office/studio managed enough to iron in here. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fucking disaster area in here, but I can iron. It’s genetic, by the way…the stacking of things in a studio. I saw my mom’s on Sunday and it was just as bad, although the boychild said hers was organized better than mine. Her studio is also 4 times the size of mine, so I don’t feel bad. I do need to do something about it over Winter Break though. I can’t breathe in here at the moment. Too much chaos.

I finished sorting fabric pieces on Monday night…

I had about 30 minutes of super tiny pieces to figure out, after matting and framing a couple pieces for my daughter. I miss Aaron Brothers for mat board, y’all. Had to wait forever in Michaels for a few beatup pieces. Annoying. Their fabric selection still sucks too. We asked about one that was on the website and said it was available here, and the staff was like, I dunno? It’s over there. People put fabric back wherever. Which is true, but hey, thanks for helping…we’ll go to an independent store (which unfortunately, they all have shitty hours if you work full time). And for those of us still using Alto mat cutters, the blades are hard to find. Too bad they went out of business…the cutters don’t die. I think I’ve solved that problem though. Maybe.

Then last night, while dinner was cooking, I sorted the studio (really I just made more bigger piles out of the way of the ironing board) and started ironing after dinner.

Still a week behind on this quilt, and at some point, I have to catch up. Don’t ask what that is. It’ll be clear later. Ironing like a beast each night from here on out. Maybe. Girlchild is still here. I love it. But I suspect more framing is in my future.

I made it to ceramics last night for a lovely 80 minutes of painting sgraffito. I think I finished the other one (mostly touchups) and it’s drying. This has an hour into the painting alone.

IDK how to make simple things y’all. But I love it.

Scribble missed me my first day back to work. It was her first experience with people leaving all day. That night, she curled up by my face and purred at me all night, occasionally reaching her paw out to pet my face. I didn’t sleep much. I’m not mad though.

She’s still really unsure of the dog, but is doing fine with everyone else. Last night, she settled on my lap while I was trying to grade, and in the way of most cat owners, I let her. Graded around her.

Here’s Simba letting you know how he feels about not being invited to the dinner table.

Yeah dude, whatever.

OK. My left eyelid has been twitching for a week now. Really driving me bonkers. I’m still teaching electricity, plus vocab and independent and dependent variables (sheesh) for a few days before going into magnets. I realized it’s a lot of direct instruction, so pretty exhausting and a lot of talking. I did spend all day yesterday rubbing a balloon on my hair and using it to make a soda can move. Like you do. As one student said, by the end of the day, “Ms. Nida, your hair is CRAAZY.” Well yeah. It does that. Things you do for learning. After school, I have a lovely pilates break, then book club, I think. And ironing. It’s a lot. I do love the artmaking. I don’t mind the teaching…I mind all the minutiae and the adult crap and the school board crap and the state school board crap (which is because of the local school board crap). Anyway, I need to go write a parent email and then go to a meeting with the principal (sigh) and then do the teaching thing. All good. It’s Wednesday and I mostly have a handle on things. Mostly.

Didn’t Finish…

I downloaded photos on Friday for a post, and that’s as far as I got. I think I briefly considered it on Saturday, but then got sucked into other things that needed doing and lost track of that thought. Last night, while I was trying to fall asleep, my ever-helpful (not) brain was trying to remember if I’d posted on Friday or not…not is the answer. So here we are, back to Mondays, back to school, three weeks of crazy to survive on many levels, not ready for any of it…except the next stage of the quilt. Oh wait. Not ready for that either. It’s chaos in here and I can’t iron a quilt together in chaos. So. Yeah. But I’m going to have to…and that might just be the best explanation of most of my adult life right there: can’t do it; gonna have to.

OK, quilt…the quilt that I’m a week behind on…easily. Here’s more cutting out, with Scribble.

And more cutting out…

with Scribble’s tail. And more cutting out with Scribble.

And the final push…

14 hours to do it all…

And I have a lap cat. Which is nice. She quickly learned to keep her paws out of the bins, until last night, when I started sorting…

She definitely wanted to be IN the bins. But wasn’t violent about it (unlike Bowie a year ago or so). I didn’t finish sorting last night…started late and then was tired and needed to go to bed to get up early this morning.

More Scribble pix…she is allowed in the sewing room if I’m in here.

Although she has already found Kitten’s cave, where she hid on and off for the last 6 years of her life…

I mean, it’s full of batting. Why wouldn’t you want to hide there?

The girlchild is here; Scribble is friendly.

Which everyone appreciates.

She just settles in and lets the other three cats try to figure her out.

Even Bowie is starting to come around; he wants to play with her, but he’s not sure how.

Three cats vertically in a row. So it’s been a good transition so far. Of course, today is the first work day, when there’s no one around for most of the day. That will be different. But she seems very adaptable…

Strangely enough.

The Man and I hiked again on Friday, because…

we had my family’s Thanksgiving on Friday…

Both kids cooked…nice food choices.

My dad fell asleep on the couch with Annie…

I think he was in her seat.

Saturday night dinner’s drawing…

Not finished, but I only have the time from when we come in the restaurant until they serve the food.

I finished the pomegranate seeds on May’s Forest for the Trees block.

At the moment, all I can handle is the applique. I’ll get to the embroidery, but who knows when? Going back to school has sucked up any loose time I had.

I still think we’re not allowed…

But I appreciate the sentiment.

OK, there’s so much school stuff I didn’t finish over break. Always. I have seating charts written for 2 of my 6 classes. Today is chill, though…starting a new unit, so just vocab and cover page and a short lecture on how to bring your grade up and it doesn’t involve Google or AI. Then staff meeting(s?) and hopefully ceramics. I need a porcelain patch kit from Home Depot too…purposely didn’t go get it this weekend, but I still need it. I also need to finish the other sgraffito frame at the studio before it dries out. I had plans to go Saturday and Sunday, and both fell through. It’s fine; other things happened and it was good, but I need to go today. And tomorrow. And Thursday. Or something. Three weeks…I can do three weeks. I think.

People and Carbs…

This week is just never relaxing. I’ve been to the grocery store four or five times, the pet store twice (I know, that one is my fault for adopting a new kitten), plus trying to catch up on cleaning (ha!) and yardwork (double ha!), and to finish grading? (triple ha!) …nothing is happening the way I’d planned. What’s new? Nothing. It’s always like this. I try to steal moments for reading or artmaking, but there’s other stuff that snuck in…like all the emails about stuff I needed to do that I totally ignored for the last three weeks? Yeah, those. And the four things that need renewing, but now I can’t find the renewal emails. Ugh. And then being invited to be on a cool website…awesome, but it required an hour of photos with the boychild (thank goodness he has a clue, because I don’t) and I’m sure he spent a ton of time resizing, and then I had to find art photos too and send all of them, plus fill out three pages of forms. I appreciate the opportunity, but I don’t have extra time lying around for all of that. So the bathrooms are still dirty and so are the floors. Oh well.

The kitten is adjusting. She has a name finally…Scribble. She’s like a little ADHD and very balls to the wall with the other cats. Right now, she’s sleeping, after racing around for 5 hours this morning. She’s definitely a curious little thing and won’t let her inability to jump high enough stop her.

We started out with my hanging out with her in a room with no other cats, but once we let her out…man, she didn’t want to stay in.

That said, she’s not banging on the door to be let out when I do put her in the room, which is when I leave the house, because I don’t entirely trust the other cats with her yet.

This was a very tentative moment between Scribble and Nova. Both wanted my lap.

I think we’ll all be OK in the long run…it just might take a while. Certainly last night, when Scribble was all puffed up, jumping sideways, I’m Big! I’m Big! toward Bowie and he’s just staring at her like she’s the scariest thing in the world…I think Bowie is having the hardest time adjusting. But he does appreciate an animal that will run around and parkour like he does, so he’ll come around.

One of the boychild’s photos.

OK, so artwise, I’m mostly still cutting things out.

Which is not particularly fast…

I really wanted to be ironing things together by now. Oh well. I’ve got another 2-3 hours of trimming, I think. I’m going to go do some more in a bit. I might do some yardwork first, before it gets dark.

I also spent a couple of hours at ceramics on Monday…and did most of this. It’s very relaxing.

I need to fix the cloud and a couple of other spots, but I think otherwise it’s ready to fire. I was hoping to get there today as well, but so far, that hasn’t happened? Maybe in an hour. We’ll see.

Found this in the yard.

Such a perfect mushroom.

This…I know some people are leaving for legit reasons, like being afraid of deportation…that’s a real thing and I don’t blame people for leaving. Detention or deportation to Venezuela or whatever other psychotic thing this government has come up with are legitimate fears. Go. Be well. Come back when the crazy is over (knock on wood that this ends at some point).

But if you’re a rich white American-born citizen and you’re leaving? You’re not staying and yelling with the rest of us? WTF. Seriously. I guess it’s easier than living here and being stressed about it, but those of us who don’t have tons of money and the ability to just up and go, we’re here and loud and not putting up with it, and y’all with money need to stay and be part of the fight…OR…take those fucking billionaires with you, the problematic ones, the racist misogynist ones. Take them. I mean, we can’t get rid of the ones who aren’t even here legally and have committed multiple financial crimes, but we’re trying to deport Native Americans. It’s just nuts. And if there’s no one with power and money left behind to yell louder than the rest of us, that’s on you, what happens next. You ran away? So stay away. Because you’re making it worse. You’re not helping.

Sigh. This is a frustrating world we live in. By the way, yes, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, but there’s so many cultural things wrong with this holiday. So much that’s made up. So much violence toward the native cultures that was just shoved aside for the pilgrim story. So I’ll be thankful for a hike tomorrow, and thankful for spending time with family, and thankful for good food (although at the moment, the thought of people and lots of carbs is not really something I want…I’ll get there. But going to the store yet again today made me want to pillow fort for about a week), but remembering all along that we white people are appropriating disease-carrying xenophobes who don’t really belong here. Positive thoughts to all. It’s a rough week for a lot of people.

Best-Laid Plans and All…

Ah, the best-laid plans and all…I was doing so well. Graded all day Friday, cleaned Saturday, then got a kitten. Yeah, I know. I should’ve known! I’m not getting much of anything done except kittening. Which is fine…I’m a little stressed about some of the other stuff, but I’ll figure it out. Because Kitten! Except she doesn’t really have a name yet. We’re tentatively calling her Mouse, which is weird, because the kitten we didn’t take was actually called Mouse (and was very much more mousey than this one). Names are hard. Anyway, we took the older one because she seemed like she’d be better with our crew, more outgoing, less scared, more playful.

As I show you a picture of her hiding in a sink. Well, it’s all new so she’s a little nervous, but very people friendly and lovey. All the first few pictures of her were blurry because she wouldn’t stay still…

But people wanted to see her face.

Very people-oriented. Bonded very quickly, which is nice. She’s a dilute tortoiseshell. There’s a glut of them and dilute oranges locally. There was a house with a ton of babies all with similar coloring. The other cat we were looking at could have been her cousin. I’m less about what they look like and more about attitude, and she has that.

She hissed and blew herself up as big as she could for the dog and for Bowie, and a little for Nova. We let her wander the house this morning, and apparently it was so traumatizing to the big cats that they all hid under the bed. We’re bringing her out in short stints. She’s very growly about it, but also very curious about everything.

For now, she’s in the girlchild’s room, but the girlchild is here on Wednesday, so not sure what happens then. I do have a crate and other spaces, but I’m hoping she can be out during the day with us by then. We’ll see.

Until then, here was my makeshift cutting station last night. Yes, she wanted to sit in all the boxes and play with fabric pieces (who wouldn’t?), so I played with her until she was tired enough to settle and apparently watch TV.

So I’m not getting as much art stuff done as I’d like (or honestly, as I need to), but that’s where we’re at right now.

It’s not a bad thing to slow down a bit…although this quilt has to be done and photographed by the first week of January. Eek.

She’s similarly unhelpful with the grading. I think I got four graded and then had to go get the toy on the string again for her. It’s all good. She’s going to be my kitty (the others are the Man’s), which I realize is a strange distinction because we live together, but Kitten was definitely my baby and the others are definitely his. They love me and all, but daddy is first.

So. Today. I need to pick up meds and find green beans. I have no clue what’s going on with Thanksgiving dinner; not my problem apparently. I am going to ceramics today to work on my frame. I tried (notionally) to get there Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and failed across the board, so today it is. It’s hard to make myself leave the house on break. I just want to stay in my pajamas and not even go outside…although the weather is quite nice out there. Not too hot, not too cold, a little cloudy. I should do some yardwork honestly. Or not. I should do a lot of things, and that is always the problem with this week off. There are worse problems to have, though, so I’ll stick with this one.