Golden Dreams Were Shiny Days*

‘Twas better yesterday. The labs were a bit smoother than before. Mostly I dealt with kids who can’t work with other people. I’m having a hard time getting stuff done at home though. I’m really tired…even went to bed early (ish) last night (before midnight). Really tired is usually a message from the body, and I try to pay attention to those. I didn’t try sewing on the machine yesterday though…another deadline popped up. So I tried to deal with that…a friend has written a performance piece and wanted a drawing. I’ve been sitting on it for months because it was hard to wrap my head around it. I’m not particularly good at drawing to commission. To theme? Even then, it’s a crapshoot. My version of the theme is often not the organizer’s version. I’m not sure my brain sees what y’all see. I don’t know because all I have is my brain, but I know that words and music put images in my head that don’t necessarily match others’ perceptions. I’m OK with that, but in a situation like this, I just have to hope that what I see is what they see (it probably isn’t).

Anyway, I started drawings about 7 times…this one was doing OK until I got to the legs and the guy, but it’s OK…I used it for the next three iterations.

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So this is where I’m at now…then I was sort of frozen because I hadn’t put the other figure in and I was afraid I was gonna fuck it up.

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So I’ll try to do the other figure and the rest of the tree tonight. So that’s why I didn’t sew, although I could have at that point. Maybe. I just wasn’t in the mood to fuss with the machine.

I spent most of the night with animals…it was cold…

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There is no room for people on my couches. At some point, they all moved around and I got three in a row…

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I took a break from drawing to do the feathery leaves around the P…

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Then I had two of them back…

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A yin yang of furballs.

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Not the most productive night…but whatever. I’m trying not to get frustrated with myself for not being further along on this quilt, but it is what it is. I’m stressed. I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m doing the best I can right now. Much like many of us, I think. So hopefully tonight I’ll finish the drawing and then go back to the stitch down. Hopefully the machine will behave.

*Earth, Wind, and Fire, September

Karma Police, Arrest This Man*

Plagued by frustration this week. Really. So what is one to do? Well actually DOING does help, although sometimes, like last night, it causes additional frustration. At some point, sleep is the only option.

I did start stitching down at a fairly early hour, and was mostly successful…

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Although the tension was having issues, which is more than a little frustrating. I’m thinking it needs adjusting of some sort. It seems really random. So I kept trying to get it to its happy place (and me to mine).

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And then I broke a needle (still not sure how) and then I couldn’t get it to anywhere happy at all. I rethreaded everything. Tried everything.

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Finally turned it off and walked away. Fucker. It better work tonight. I did finally bring the other one home, and it does work as long as it doesn’t get too hot (not a problem this week), so I can throw it in for a while if this keeps happening. But so frustrating…because there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason for the lame-i-tude. I hate not being able to fix it myself. How long have I been sewing? 42 years? I should be able to make it work.

That was after a frustrating day at school. So. Hopefully today will be better, because this week is kicking my butt and I’m not even halfway through.

Sometimes puppies help with that and sometimes they’re just bitey assholes. You pick.

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I added the orange stars and crosses on the left. Gonna fill in all that space around the words.

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I pulled the beanbag out of my son’s room into my office, so the puppy could sleep in there while I’m stitching. But this is what happened. And she’s scary, so he just stares at her. Now I feel bad, because Simba really did think that was his beanbag. Sigh.

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My daily ball-throwing exercise…once they had decided they were too tired to run any more.

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Calli gave up way before Simba did. He would just leap over her.

OK. Well. I have a plan if the machine continues to create stitch nests. I’m not sure I have a plan for how to deal with students being frustrating today, but I’ll work on it. I know they don’t think things through and I have to remind them of 17 million things, which frustrates me as well. Today will be different than yesterday. I just have to keep telling myself that. Also true of the big picture…the political stuff is weighing on me. I just keep taking tiny actions, because that’s what I can do. And not engaging with those who still think I don’t have a right to object. There’s really no relief at the moment.

*Radiohead, Karma Police

Pressure Pushing Down on Me*

I’m feeling. Yup. There we are. I write postcards to my senators yesterday, amusingly, because I’m in California and they’re both women, Democrat women. But I expect more from them because of that. My local guys, well, that’s another thing. They’re gonna get me in person. A voter and teacher in their district…maybe they don’t have a clue that not everyone is is a white Made in America. That seems unlikely, but whatever.

So I came home from a staff meeting where I felt frustrated. I’m an adult, not a young one, and I know how I learn, how I retain information. And I’m back to an authority figure who won’t respect that. Sigh. The first one I remember was maybe 2nd or 3rd grade? My mom handled that. But now I’m not allowed to use technology to take notes. So to keep art brain entertained, because otherwise she causes issues, I drew.

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The principal was talking (incorrectly) about nuclear fission and fusion…hence the nuclear power cooling towers. I can’t explain the rest. It would make a nice coloring book image maybe. It’s not even done. I brought it home.

I did all my school and political stuff after that…and then made dinner. Honestly, my brain wasn’t into anything last night. Just tired. And frustrated. Three animals in this picture, two of them on or very close to me.

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Then I stitched the last word. Now to fill in with all the stitches.

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I stitched down for a little while. The dogs needed a lot of entertainment yesterday, so I didn’t get much done. Here it is piled up on the sewing machine to keep the cats off it.

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I’m hoping I have a better attitude toward it tonight. Hard to say. It’s a long process. And sometimes frustrating. The machine is having some random issues that make me swear at it. I finally threw out the end of the spool of Sulky transparent thread, because it was behaving so badly. I don’t like wasting supplies, but it was causing me to waste time, which is more important than the throwing-out part. But it’s still having some issues. Oh well.

Sigh. OK. Gotta go to school, much as I don’t want to. Days and days of labs…kinda driving me nuts. A couple classes are fine, but one is remarkably incapable of reading instructions. And the clean up. Sigh. Geez, I’ve got a great feeling going into today. Meditate on the way to work?

*Queen and David Bowie, Under Pressure

I Know Those Lights Still Call You*

Well. Yesterday. Yeah. At some point I went into overload. I think that was around 11 AM yesterday. And it just kept coming! At some point, you just stop dealing and start ironing instead.

First of all, I’d like to thank Betsy…whoever she is. This was in my driveway.

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Her message is a little late but appreciated anyway. Whoever she is.

Boychild was stranded in Newark last night until tonight, and wasn’t sure what to do. So I sent him some options. I love trying to get this kid in and out of Ithaca. I should just buy him a car. It would be easier. Possibly cheaper.

The fun part is he’s not even flying into Ithaca tonight. He still has to get there from Syracuse. The options are limited. I can put him in another hotel or put him in a taxi. I don’t envy him these trips. Apparently grad school might be located closer to a major airport.

I emailed this to a few students. Apparently telling them to Google That Shit all the time is not something they can handle. So I did it for them.

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Seriously people. I did also explain it in class. But this is the kind of thing that frustrates me. And then I realize I’m becoming easily frustrated because I’m overwhelmed or emotional or all of the above. That was yesterday.

I don’t know what’s going on here. I just started stitching flowery leafy bits.

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So I gave up on all that shit, trying to get boychild home, figure out phone upgrades and phone plans, answer a multitude of emails, organize a photo shoot, figure out where to be on Saturday. And I ironed.

As far as Saturday is concerned, first of all, I used to be one of those people who stood in front of Planned Parenthood and escorted people in during the years of bombing places where women go to get health assistance. What is Saturday’s Women’s March about? Feminism? Solidarity? Reminding people that we have a voice and opinions and we’re allowed by law and morality and ethics and biology to have those? Reminding people there are a shitload of us? Standing with a bunch of women (and men and children) across the country, the world even, and having some hope for the next four years, despite the bassackwards slide I’ve seen toward women in the last ten years? Yeah. Fuck yeah. If you don’t agree, then stay home. If you agree but don’t want to march, that’s fine. I’ll do it for you. Or not. And if it looks like we’re protesting Trump’s existence and nominees, then so be it. I’m OK with that. I have the right to protest anything in this country that pisses me off and/or hurts other people. That’s why we live here…because this country gives us that right.

Pictures of hat to follow (was not that organized last night).

I started by ironing intestines. And Christmas lights. I don’t know if I can explain that, except to say that if I pull open my torso, I would hope there would be Christmas lights in there.

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I ironed all the innards.

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Then came the fun part. I pulled the rest of the torso off the teflon sheet and piled it up.

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And then made the innards fit in that hole…with the zipper.

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What’s miraculous is that it fit! No really. It’s always a crapshoot. Some quilts are better behaved than others. This one has been good so far.

Then I started the neck. I thought about starting the head, but it’s a lot of overlapping snaky hair and it was already after midnight.

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More delays. That whole day job thing is cramping my style. Tonight? The head, the cloud, and hopefully down to a background.

The dogs were quiet yesterday without all their entertaining friends. When I told Simba to go to bed, he got up, crawled onto Calli’s bed, and curled up next to her. I felt really really bad making him go in the crate, but he’s awful otherwise.

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He’s been much calmer since the kids have been home. He needs more people interaction. That makes me feel bad…especially since I’m going to be gone all Saturday. But I warned his other people, so hopefully they’ll come release him relatively early.

Today I go back to school, the home of those who think they are already done with yesterday’s assignment. Oh no, my chickadees. You will write a scientific claim with evidence and reasoning that includes more than made-up stuff that you thought was in the video. Because I will make you. Trust me. I am way more stubborn than you are.

*The Alarm, Spirit of ’76

Control Your Poison, Babe*

Up early. Two meetings before school even starts, then off to the district office for (cough cough useless) professional development, then BACK to school to teach the rest of the day. Meanwhile, boychild flies back to school. Damn. All the feels. Stress AND sad and all the other crap. Stress levels are way too high. Deep breathing before I deal with kids. Or parents. Or admin for that matter. Maybe should go back to bed. I was so busy ironing and trying to get to the next part last night that I forgot to go to bed early. It wouldn’t have worked anyway…I wasn’t physically tired enough to fall asleep. That part sucks.

The good part is at least it’s not raining yet. And I might get some work done at the PD this morning (we’ll see if that’s a thing). And I might finish ironing tonight. Maybe. A girl can dream.

I started on the hands…they’re pretty light in color, so it’s going to take stitching line and ink to make them stand out.

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But there’s one side, with the sperm gauntlet. You know, like you do.

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And then the other side, with its corresponding egg gauntlet. She’s the ultimate mom, I guess. Got all the parts. Or maybe those gauntlets are the ultimate birth control. I also ironed the skeleton in where it belonged on the left side.

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All this will show up much better on a dark background for sure. I will start on the innards tonight, and then there’s the head and the cloud above it and I’m done. Ha. I’m not going to be done tonight. I wanted to be, but I did two hours last night and only really got through the 1000s and a super tiny bit of the 1100s. I’m at 16 1/2 hours…I’m guessing 3-4 more. Then stitch down. I probably won’t get to that until Sunday night, if I’m lucky, and since we’ll be underwater (stormwatch!) by then, there will be no electricity. I do live on a hill though. Maybe there’s a chance I’ll survive.

One year of stitches…second word.

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I’m gonna decorate the shit outta those letters. Once I finish that goofy phrase. Originally (after a very bad day) I was going to add FUCK to the sampler, but then decided against it. Although it’s still in my head.

Calli wondering when she might be fed. She doesn’t tell time very well.

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Head down. Deep breaths. The drawing voice in my head is very loud.

*Lady Gaga, Just Dance

Settle Down, It’ll All Be Clear*

I love how I always feel guilty the first work morning after a 3-day weekend where I’ve completely blown off school…OK, not completely, because I was AT school yesterday trying to get organized. I got sort of organized. But I didn’t take any science units home to grade. I didn’t even finish the warmups from last week, the easiest thing to grade. I wasn’t in the mood.

I was in the mood to iron, though. In fact, I wanted to be done yesterday, but that’s not happening. I have about a thousand pieces ironed down, which leaves about 350 or so pieces to go. That’s about 3-4 hours, plus then ironing it down to a background. So it’s gonna be a couple of days before I finish. If I’m lucky.

Honestly I didn’t start yesterday until after 8:30 PM…again, too many things to do. And it doesn’t look like I got much done…I ironed this to go on the skull…

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And then put it on the skull. I also added another scapula piece underneath the right side of the ribs, because it looked weird before without it.

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Those little figures took a good long while to put together…lots of overlaps.

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And then the rest of the lower torso, minus the zippered part.

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I stopped there because it was after midnight. Tonight, I’ll have to figure out how to attach the skeleton to this…and decide if I’m adding the stove now or later. Probably later…this thing will get pretty unwieldy and heavy if I have the whole ironed-together piece hanging off the ironing board.

I realized the boychild was leaving soon (my yard/house helper). I’d already had him help me with the Christmas stuff, putting it away, but we still had one more rain barrel to install. As he said, unless I wanted it to sit there for six months. There’s too many things around the house that take two people to do. So even though it was getting dark, we went out there with the dogs and installed it (it was easier than the first one)…

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Simba was happy to play in the succulents. No, I don’t know what’s on his face, but it didn’t come off easily.

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At least that is done. It’s the only yard thing I really accomplished over break.

So for 1 year of stitches, I did the one word (there are more to come) in stem stitch but didn’t love it.

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I don’t tear stuff out. I went back and whipped it, whipped it good. It looks much better.

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Remember that for lettering…it’s better as a whipped stem stitch. Just holds together better. Now you can guess what the rest of the words might be. This might be a test of how well you know me.

OK, lots of work and art to be happening in the next week. Lots of time sucks as well. And if you’re in San Diego, maybe you got that breaking news alert: 6 straight days of rain! Oh my. After living in the UK for a year (300 straight days of rain!), I am amused. Although honestly, everything is so saturated, it’s mostly going to be runoff…into my rain barrels! I probably need 10 or 12 more to catch all of it…seriously, it looks like 3-4 inches, which sometimes is our annual rainfall.

Anyway. I have that to look forward to…but today? Sunny and pleasant. Enjoying that while I can. Not really, since I’m in a classroom all day. I love that finding a balance between my personal life and my job is like a protest. Something to keep in mind.

*Phillip Phillips, Home

Oh I’m Just About to Lose My Mind*

I don’t have much to show for yesterday. I didn’t do art really…just the stitch a day thing. Which is something…I sat there and stitched the blue flowers. I almost stitched the word FUCK because that’s how I was feeling, but at the last minute, I decided not to. I might change my mind later. Then I went to bed, because I was exhausted. Not a shock for the first week back. I used up all my patience in 2nd period. Not true, actually, because I managed to get through the whole day without killing anyone. We are halfway through the school year…and reading and listening to instructions is still an issue.

I got home and my water was off. They’ve been building a new house down the street for a year now, and they were apparently moving water lines yesterday and nicked (and broke) my pipe. I wonder what that does to my water bill? I suspect they turned it off quickly enough that it wasn’t an issue. But sheesh. I’m so tired of dealing with construction right now.

The plus is the sun is out today…blissful cat moments happening right now. And it’s a 3-day weekend, so I get to have one extra day free of work stress…as long as I ignore the grading part. And the girlchild is leaving, but she’s been crankballs for days, so it’s probably time. Boychild leaves next week. He knows how to put dishes in the dishwasher. That’s a plus.

So this…

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And the drive out to gaming…so yeah, I was gone for like 5 hours, so that’s part of why no art got done. I’m hoping to get started this afternoon…get a bunch done today…we’ll see.

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My game character did kick ass last night though. So that’s a thing.

I’m not in the best of moods, but hopefully I can pull out of that. I blame hormones and tiredness…so if I can get some sleep and make some art, that usually helps. So that’s my plan. Simple.

*Marvin Gaye, I Heard It Through the Grapevine

You Scream You Learn*

Oh holy heck this is a morning. Rained hard most of the night, disturbing my sleep. I know some people find that noise helps them sleep, that drip drip drip pounding away of water above my head. I wasn’t put on this Earth to sleep apparently. And we need the rain. Even though it seems our annual rainfall is all happening in one week. We haven’t hit our average annual rainfall yet, nowhere close. Not even as much as last year. But day after day of drippy wet feet and spotted glasses and damp clothes starts to wear on a Southern Californian. Or as every teacher recognizes, the squeaky tennis shoes on the linoleum floor…oh, well, only the science teachers at my school, because the other classes have carpet. So yeah. I will write a referral if you are purposely doing that screech with your shoe on my floor…you don’t deserve to stay here if you are that guy (it is always a guy. Seriously.).

Yeah, I’m tired. First week always kicks ass. And my co-teacher is still on her honeymoon, so that makes it harder…although I’ve apparently survived it. Hopefully she’ll come back. And then both kids are leaving in the next week. Which makes me sad, but some things will be good…fewer dishes. Holy crap, the dishes are kicking my butt…and yes, they help, well, mostly…but it’s still more work. And there’s some drama I could do without. Because I don’t get enough of that at school. Really. I had to have a real-life discussion with a relatively high-level student about why it’s not OK to copy other people’s words. Why it’s important to engage your own brain with the material. “Why do they put it on the internet if they don’t want people to copy it?” Not a bad question, but you have to wonder how she got to age 12 and doesn’t have a better idea of copyright. Because yes, I teach science…but I also teach behavior and grammar and spelling and copyright and politics and history and compromise and how to get along with other people without being dickheads all the time. This week has been a lot of the latter.

There’s a 3-day weekend ahead though. It’s not an ideal 3-day weekend for a variety of reasons. Emotional. Sure. And a little too busy. But doable.

And most importantly, I’m finally on to the next stage of the quilt…I finished cutting pretty damn quickly, only another 30 minutes. So that’s what 19 hours of cutting pieces out looks like…

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Not much, honestly.

I hold on to the trash until I know I have all the pieces, because if I’m going to lose a piece, it’s usually a tiny one, and sometimes I can cut it out of the trash pieces.

Then I sorted…it was not an easy thing to do after standing all day. I sort by 100s. It’s easier to deal with 100 pieces at a time rather than 1300.

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An hour and 38 minutes later (ugh)…there they all are…

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Ready to be ironed together into a quilt…probably will take about 20 hours for that. Although it took a lot longer to cut them out than I thought it would. So we’ll see. There’s a lot of little pieces, apparently.

I had both cats with me…

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Kitten is trying to simultaneously sleep and watch me. It didn’t work. She slept. When the dogs are gone, I do get both cats. With the dogs, Kitten is less likely to venture out, unfortunately. I try to give her safe spaces on the couch and the desk, so sometimes that works…

I did my year of stitches thing while on the phone with my SIL…outlining with stem stitch (which is a pain around curves) around that blob of flowery things.

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I haven’t been able to keep up the daily meditation…I often remember just as I’m about to fall asleep. Last night, I did remember, and I turned it on and fell asleep until the very end. That should tell me something, I guess. Hopefully my unconscious brain was doing a good job.

I need to go to school. I’d like some sun tomorrow. Or at least sometime this weekend. I’d like some peace and quiet. I’d like some conversation with my kids before they leave. I’d like to get some clean up dealt with. I’d like to get this quilt ironed together. I think that’s enough for one 3-day weekend.

*Alanis Morissette, You Learn

Leave Me Be*

First week back, brain is mush, too much work, feeling overwhelmed, exhausted on top of it. I don’t sleep through the night most of the time. Last night, I suspect I would have if there hadn’t been puppy barks and late-night teen entry…I was exhausted enough. I went to bed early…well “early” because many of you are not night owls and manage to be in bed by 9 PM, which is when my art brain perks up and starts yelling. Falling asleep is not my superpower; neither is staying there. I have to be at work early today for a meeting, so I have to LEAVE early, which means leaving even earlier to account for the crazy elementary school parents I have to avoid on the way to school, plus the high-school traffic. It’s actually more efficient to leave later.

I just realized tonight is the full moon, which could partially explain everything at school.

So my brain is so fizzled at the moment that I thought I had a union meeting yesterday after school (to my credit, it’s always the second Wednesday of the month, so it wasn’t impossible that we might have one, but apparently they gave us this month off and I didn’t fix my calendar)…and was quite relieved NOT to have one, but came home to stress and cranky (none of it mine). I didn’t cook, but the cleanup on dinner was significant. Which I did do. Dishes dishes everywhere.

Although it seems someone will miss someone when someone leaves (you fill in the names as needed, because it is obviously going to affect both of them)…

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I kept on keeping on…with a different animal companion…

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I’m almost 19 hours into the cutting, and dammit, if I could have stayed up another hour, I would have been done. All I have left is big stove pieces. I wanted to finish, but had to be a responsible adult, dammit.

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Another hour? Maybe? I have a scissors callous on my right index finger and my hand is stiff this morning. But hopefully tonight I will finish cutting and sort these assholes so I can start ironing. Because it’s about time.

This is not a small quilt. It is not a simple quilt. It could be worse.

My one stitch for today…the spiderweb rose or I can’t remember what the book called it, woven something? And some french knots and seed stitches to use up the last bit of the bright pink thread.

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Ugh. Tired. We knew I would be tired by the end of this week, so we designed instruction to get kids to a more independent place by today. We’ve taught you a bunch of stuff, showed you some stuff, told you some stuff, had you read some stuff…now you need to go figure some stuff out on your own and explain it to us.

Let my teacher brain rest a bit (as much as it ever does).

*Sara Bareilles, Gravity

And We’ll All Float on OK*

You know, sometimes progress doesn’t look like anything. I have almost 16 hours into the cutting out of tiny little pieces, and there’s more to go, and I told you I couldn’t predict how many more, because as I go through the pile of pieces in there, I’m never really sure if the piece of fabric below the one I’m currently picking up will have three huge pieces on it (easy to cut, nice and quick) or be the one with all the finger bones (not easy, pain in the ass, gonna take me an entire episode of Supernatural, if I’m lucky).

I cut for over 3 hours again last night. I’m not bringing school work home at the moment. I will eventually. But not until I get these cut out. So if you look at yesterday’s pile of stuff left to cut out and today’s pile of stuff left to cut out, you might feel as discouraged as I did, because I was sure I was getting closer…

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Except at least two of those pieces of fabric on top are full of tiny fucking finger bones. Or rib bones. Or whatever that’s tiny and curvy and time-fucking-consuming. My hand hurt last night. It’s stiff this morning. Am I closer? Sure. Do I think I’ll finish tonight?

I don’t think I’ll EVER FINISH. OK. That’s silly. Of course I’ll finish. Some day. Probably not today. And it amuses me that this is what one of my quilts looks like at this stage…a pile of never-ending strangely shaped pieces.

Another day in 1 Year of Stitches…I finally Googled it and wrote it on a post-it note and attached it to the computer so I can remember the correct wording. Until the cat takes off with it.

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Yesterday was a curvy line of Palestrina knots, which used to scare the crap out of me, but are really very easy to do. Don’t get me wrong…I still stare at an instruction book while doing them.

You saw my cover page yesterday for the new unit. I do apparently occasionally inspire kids to do their own thing…here’s one of my student’s covers for the last unit (which I’m currently grading, because it’s the one assignment I blew off grading during break).

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That’s a lot of bubbles. Must be a chemical change.

If you’re on Instagram or Facebook with me, you’ve already seen this part of my Christmas gifts…a little late, but blame the post office. I do wear boots to school quite often, so I really can wear them to school…

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(I’m wearing a pair now…they’re kinda inspirational.)

Last night was chilly and the dogs were at the other house, so Kitten ventured out and sat right next to me on the couch. This is a strange thing. She does not do it often.

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So it’s sweet when she does.

*Modest Mouse, Float On