I Have the Technology

The first day back, trying to balance food and bathroom breaks and kids who have been free to do whatever they want for three weeks, and now I want them to sit and do work for a whole 45 minutes. Today it will be 51 minutes and we’ll see how they do. We jumped right into the new unit…but I have three new students today. Sigh.

I do love drawing a new cover page though…and then hiding it so the kids won’t copy it (they still try…”Can you put it up on the screen? I just need ideas.” Use your brain sweetheart. It has lots of ideas.).

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I have to actually research stuff for this unit. I’m a little shaky on energy resources, having never taught it or officially learned it in school. Plus it’s changed a bit since the 70s. So I’ve been reading up…watching videos. Hoping I understand what’s supposed to happen in the labs and, more importantly, why.

I came home relatively early (quick staff meeting, hallelujah) and started trying to straighten up…putting away all the wrapping paper and accoutrement, breaking down all the boxes that came in during the last few weeks, putting stuff away…then I found another rug. My grandfather used to (he’s dead now) crochet rugs out of mattress ticking. They last forever and are washable. Case in point, the one on the left has been in my kitchen forever…and my grandfather died while I was pregnant with my now 21-year-old son. The puppy decided to pull on bits and pieces, though, so now it is holey. I found the one on the right in the closet (don’t even know where it came from)…but I don’t like the color. I realize most of you probably think it works fine with the kitchen (and it does), but I thought about dying it…unfortunately, it’s gotta be mostly polyester, so I’d have to buy dyes I think.

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Like I have time to dye a rug.

Next day of 1 Year in Stitches…I think I change the name every time I post about it. Fly stitches and french knots added to the lazy daisies…are they called that when the anchor stitch is long? Who knows. I just pulled a thread out of the basket and sewed with it until it ran out. That’s all I ever do.

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It needs more colors.

I cut for about a million hours yesterday…OK, for about 4 1/2 hours. I didn’t bring any schoolwork home. I just did some cleaning and then cut for a while and then made dinner and cut for an even longer while. My hand was sore last night, but not so much today. That’s good. This is about 12 1/2 hours of cutting total. As you can see, there’s still stuff in the to-be-cut pile…but I’m down to stove parts. I finished all the body parts.

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I wish I could say I knew how many hours are left, but I haven’t got a clue. At least 2 or 3, probably more. And today will be a long day, with tutorial after school. Tomorrow is the union meeting. I’ll be dead tired by the weekend. But hopefully done with cutting, then sorting, and on to ironing. I want to have the majority of the 3-day weekend for that. Progress. I’m feeling stressed about deadlines. Only one way to deal with that, and it’s to get some work done. I have to use time wisely, just like at school. I honestly think I’m more efficient about getting art done when I’m in session, because I don’t have a choice. It didn’t used to be that way, but it is now.

I also need to make a pussy hat this weekend…I’m not knitting. I know how, but it takes too much time that I don’t have, so fleece it is. I wanted to make a banner (or 7) like Stephanie Syjuco is showing on Instagram (@ssyjuco on IG), but I don’t really have time for that either. Patterns are here. You can find her on Facebook as well. She’s an artist and professor, but these banners are freakin’ awesome. Maybe I will bang one out this weekend. I certainly have the technology to do so.

I Dream of That Too…

That first day back to school after a break…ugh. I’m never ready. I even went to bed early, but the pup was barking at the wind (as far as I could tell) in the nether regions of the morning, so that wasn’t particularly helpful. I know I’m never prepared, I feel panicked, I didn’t finish everything. I didn’t even come close to finishing everything. Maybe I could have if I’d done less art…but that’s just crazy talk, right? Less art. Hmmmph. Not happening.

I did spend most of the weekend running errands and at a friend’s wedding, so not a lot of art happened. It’s OK. I knew it was coming. I did not make it to school beforehand. Oh well. I was a puppy sleeping pillow for a good long time last night…

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The girlchild is visiting her cousins in Seattle, so I’m second best…sometimes third best, depending on the boychild’s mood.

Once I got home from the wedding, I started trimming. I was pretty tired, though, so this is like the kind of stuff that will put you to sleep if you’re already halfway there…

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It looks like I have a lot done, because the big box is only half full right now, but most of that is body parts, and I haven’t even gotten down to the stove pieces. I have almost 8 hours of trimming in…I did a few hours on Saturday and a few on Sunday…

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And I need to move the already cut pieces back into the other big box. It’s more portable with two smaller boxes, since I was carrying this pile to hair appointments etc. But now, I am back to only cutting out stuff at home. Hopefully I’ll be done and sorted by the end of the week, so I can start ironing together over the weekend.

The wedding was nice, great weather, even a bit warm. The shoes did not survive though. I don’t have much in the way of shoes, so when my mom was going through her closet and cleaning out, both the girlchild and I took some…these made it through less than half of a wedding, unfortunately.

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In case you wanted to see how old shoes die. (They die on Kathy’s feet.)

I’m still doing the year in stitches…that’s Saturday…

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And Sunday…

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No plan. I just randomly stitch. It takes about 5 minutes max. Not bad.

OK, well I have to go to work. On a rainy day, so that’s like torture. Plus a ton of kids won’t show up because (a) they’re still stuck in Mexico due to border closures (protests about gas prices) or (b) because they might melt in the rain or (c) because the first day back doesn’t really matter, right? And it’s a staff meeting day. And my co-teacher is gone all week, because she’s on her honeymoon (which means I should be able to get all that grading done that I didn’t do over break on my prep periods, because I won’t be planning and I’m ultra-efficient…ha!). I am having a really hard time persuading my brain that it doesn’t belong to a full-time artist who works at home every day. It’s convinced that should be the case. Ah yes, brain. I dream of that too…

This Chapter’s Gonna Be a Close One*

Back to the post-it-note lists for the weekend. Today is a little crazy. Tomorrow too. Then a week of school. The last week of my kids being home. That part sucks. Although the amount of dishes and groceries has been a bit overwhelming. Plus three trips to the airport in less than a week.

Still debating going to school today. I think I will be fine if I get there on time on Monday…there’s not that much to do. Teachers have to set up boundaries…school intrudes on so much of our personal lives. I will be sending the parent email today…every weekend, I do that. I didn’t grade that last assignment. It’s OK. It will get done. And then there will be more. I meant to do it. I just lost momentum.

I did cut stuff out for about 4 hours yesterday…top left is trash, top right is cut-out pieces, bottom is stuff that still needs cutting (ie, most of the quilt). I’m hoping to do more of that today…maybe get to ironing by next weekend. That would be good.

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I cut for almost an hour at my daughter and my co-hair appointment. She sets up the girlchild’s hair color and then cuts mine and then cuts hers. So I sit there and trim stuff in between. Multi-tasking. I do a lot of that.

I got into a show in Camarillo with two pieces, which is good, and got rejected by another show, which is also good, because I need two of those pieces for my solo show. Seriously need new work for shows! But the solo show is kind of eating that up…which is not a bad thing. I need to draw. I keep saying that and not being able to find the time and mental space.

I think I meditated last night…maybe. I did do this…added the orange.

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It’s a double cast-on stitch. I had enough thread for two of them…but the eyeball asked for it.

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Honestly not sure I can stick with this every-day stuff. Although I blog almost every day. Routines. At some point, they do stick.

Puppy was stuck with me last night, because the girlchild is now in Seattle. She was home less than 24 hours.

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She went to see her cousins…so that’s good.

OK, so the to-do list is scaring me. Best thing to do is just bang it out. If I’m lucky, there’ll be some art involved as well…it’s my goal, anyway. Always my goal.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Can’t Stop

Something in Hand

So the ends of vacations often fall into this panicked attempt to complete everything on the list, which is always impossible. Yet I try. Check it off, cross it off, get it all under control. It’s not on the list? It might not happen then. I might forget about it completely until 1 AM 2 AM even 3 AM, when I am lying in bed…and I slide my phone out from under the pillow, where it records my lack of sleep, tossing and turning, and add that crucial task to the calendar or the list of things to do.

It’s at a point right now of What Do I Really Have to Do to Get By. What Is Absolutely Necessary. Is It Bad Form to Draw at a Wedding? OK, I already know the answer to that one, it’s OK. I multitask for survival’s sake. I know I have a staff meeting Monday. What else can I do during the meeting? Still paying attention, but not just sitting there. I’m really bad at just sitting there. I need something in hand. Stitching, a book, a sketchbook, scissors, whatever.

Yesterday was a rainy mess here. I went to school and started organizing for Monday. I’m still debating whether I need to go back Saturday to finish, or whether I can get through Monday without doing that. I’d prefer NOT to go in. I need the mental space to evaluate that. I don’t have that at the moment. Then I had professional development. There were a couple of things I noted as useful, but mostly it was like, yeah, I know that, I just haven’t found the time (while designing curriculum from scratch) to fit a higher level of that into my curriculum. There is a low level of it. I manage to get 2nd place in a roomful of teachers on a quiz…well, there’s an achievement…then back to school, in the rain, to drop my computer and head out to see Persephone.

We met in a German hostel or something like that, aged 16 or so, summer abroad program with AFS. She sang, I pounded on a piano. We were both unlike the more normal American girls and bonded. We see each other maybe every 3-7 years and it’s always easy. Yesterday was a trip to Goodwill…

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The color runs always fascinate me…

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I used to live in thrift shop clothing…I don’t ever have time to go there now. I rarely buy clothes for myself at all. It was fun…

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And we did the normal lunch and coffee/tea thing too…then I traipsed all over Mira Mesa to get to my stitching meeting. I didn’t do my day of stitch on Wednesday (already an issue? Yeah. I know.)…so I did that first…the yellow.

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Then added Thursday’s eyeball.

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And worked on the warthog’s bush. All couching. Crazy.

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I did cut a few pieces out last night, but didn’t photograph them. Left and picked up girls from the airport at midnight, in bed by 2 AM, then up early (well, for me) and out to take Persephone to the train station…a beautiful California day.

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And realized as the train was pulling away and we were waving at each other that we never took a picture together. Whoops. Oh well. I don’t think we did last time either. I never remember that kind of documentation.

Art interrupted by life. And a big ball of have-to hanging over my head. I’m feeling overwhelmed by all of it. I can feel it in my shoulders. My neck. My head. The reality is that I will get done what I can, and I may have to say no to some things. Today is still busy…girlchild leaves again tonight…but maybe later I will get fabric time. Or drawing time. We’ll see. Certainly I’m taking fabric with me to the girlchild’s hair appointment (mine is in the middle of hers and then we go directly to the airport). Oh yeah, see? Documentation…

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And taking deep breaths. Meditating. Trying to get what I can under control.

At Citibank We Will Meet Accidentally*

Back to school sort of this morning. Need to set up the classroom and do another training. Hopefully this one will actually have something I don’t already know. I’m never ready to go back. I always need more time. Such is the way of these breaks…we spend so much time grading or prepping anyway, or doing all the stuff we can’t get done when school’s in session. It’s hard to go back.

Anyway, the good news is that I finally finished ironing down all the fabrics for this quilt. It felt like it took forever…almost 25 hours when there’s only 1400 pieces? But then I figured out part of it yesterday…148 fabrics. That’s a lot…although looking at this, it’s a lot of grays and variations on white.

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The next stage requires a decent pair of scissors (always an issue for me…so many of them are very stiff, so they don’t work well) and a lot of time on the couch. Maybe 20 hours or so on the couch. OK.

Here’s the boxful of pieces…

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I wasn’t kidding about the full part.

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I should be working on that later tonight. Training, then hanging out with long-time friend. But the girlchild’s plane doesn’t come in ’til late tonight, so hopefully I’ll have some time to trim. When might I be done? Sometime next week. My three-day weekend just got full of ironing stuff down if I can get done trimming in time.

Yesterday during the day, the boychild and I did a ton of work…installed one rain barrel, although we still need some help attaching the gutter back to the wall…

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Noticed this problematic situation…don’t know when that happened.

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Took this wee beastie to the vet and then had to shampoo her with special stuff and sing songs to her for 10 minutes while it sunk in.

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Someone should redo my bathroom (ha! and the rest of the house…can’t keep up with any of it). We also did a ton of yardwork, pulling stuff down and out. Filled the two trashcans we had and left the rest in the driveway, pushed to the side, for next week. Spread all the extra leaves from the side of the house on the weeds in the front yard. Still one water barrel to install and a few more branches and volunteer trees to take out. I don’t know when that’s happening…after school (in the dark?) sometimes next week? Who knows.

So many things I’d like to get done over break that I didn’t get to. Organizing, cleaning, tossing. But my focus is on trying to get quilts done at this point…and survive work…and take care of the animals…and myself. Doing the best I can right now. It’s not great, but it’s what I can do.

*Cake, Short Skirt/Long Jacket

It’s Where My Demons Hide*

I keep thinking I’m going to get done with the ironing, but it’s taking a long time to get through the last of the fussy little pieces. So even though I ironed for almost 4 hours yesterday, I’m still about 100-150 pieces short of done. They need to be done today. Of course, today is full of other crap, as is the next day and the next day. Aargh. One assignment has still not been graded (oh well…it will get done eventually)…I need to find time to draw. I need to get this quilt to the next stage.

I couldn’t find piece 1103 for a while…turns out I thought it was piece 1193 instead and ironed it to the wrong reddish fabric. So I retraced it for the right fabric, and found 1193 and ironed it onto the red fabric. Silly stuff like that is why I’m almost 22 hours in to the ironing. That’s a lot for a 1400-piece quilt.

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I had a lasagne interlude and then some companionable TV watching…so I did my one stitch for the day, a whipped something or other. I should be better about documenting, but I can’t be I guess.

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Then back to the ironing with the cat. Hi Kitten…

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The fabric pile was getting seriously out of control…if it takes me 5 minutes to find the one yellow I know I already used in the quilt and want to use again? Then that’s wasted time…

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So I stopped and organized. That’s a lot of fabrics. This is part of why it’s taking so long. It took a run of 6 greens to make the small intestines, another 6 of browns for the large intestines.

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Complicated as shit. Anyway, all the innards are now ironed down and I’m on to the head…in fact, I just have the head and the two heads in the cloud left. Even the cloud is picked out (you can see it lying largely on top).

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So that’s good. But today is already designated yardwork and rain barrel day, so it’s gotta get done. Seriously, because the kids are gone in a week and a half, and then I’m back to no help at all. So much as I hate walking away from the quilt at the moment (especially with the deadlines crowding my brain, I need to get out there and hook this shit up.

*Imagine Dragons, Demons

There in Your Car Where I Said Those Things*

Hello rainy morning. I feel like I haven’t talked to humans in hours (it’s true, I haven’t). I didn’t leave the house yesterday, I think. Nope. I didn’t. I’m OK with that. I will need to leave today a few times. Maybe. I finished grading the second-to-last assignment (the last one is big and ugly) and I input about 12 assignments that weren’t in there yet. Probably a shocker for some kids. My copyediting project has been delayed yet again…I guess that’s a good thing, because I wasn’t really ready to drop this project and start on that. Although as the delays continue, it will start to interfere greatly with the artmaking deadlines that are approaching. Oh well. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll say no (can’t really afford to do that unfortunately).

I did spend a good chunk of yesterday doing art stuff. I didn’t even get out of my pajamas for the first part…sorting the Wonder Under, one bin for each 100 pieces…

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It took about an hour and a half to do all of them. Honestly, this piece is not as complicated as it could be considering its size.

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Then came the fun task of cleaning the office so I could start the next part. That meant putting all the fabric away from the last quilt…plus anything else I’d bought (I buy stuff every time I buy a background or binding…which are the only two reasons I really go to the fabric store). The last quilt had a ton of grays and browns. Interesting that.

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Plus this is what a drawer of fabric looks like after I’ve pulled for a quilt…it’s a disaster. So I have to clean all that up as well. I don’t have only one drawer for any color, by the way. Gray has two drawers…pink/flesh has about five.

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So I did all that. Here’s the two background fabrics I picked…still don’t know which to use. Yeah, sticking to the dark blue. I did look at other colors…they didn’t visualize well.

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I had to go way up to get this drawing to hang without touching the ground…Kitten has dislodged it once already (I added more clothespins for stability). It’s not small. I hang it up so I can see where each of the pieces are. I actually had the bottom of the drawing attached to the ironing board for a while so I could see the piece numbers on the bottom more easily.

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And then I started ironing stove parts. I’m not done with the stove even after almost 4 hours of ironing…everything but what’s on it at this point though. It was a lot of variations on white and gray…

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And a different tone of gray for the death angel in the stove window.

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Here’s everything that’s ironed down so far, almost to 200, but including a bunch of 200s, 300s, 400s, and 500s.

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At some point, I realized my feet were hurting from standing so much. I’m on a concrete slab and the floor is ancient linoleum. I always forget…this is why I have Crocs…they’re padded, so it’s like having a springy floor when I wear them. Although the puppy likes to chew on them, whether my feet are in them or not. Don’t diss the Crocs. They’re useful.

See, not a lot of color yet…mostly grays and whites. Don’t worry…

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There’s definitely color coming. No question about it.

So I need to go buy one thing today and maybe pick up my other sewing machine…and there’s gaming tonight…but otherwise, if I blew off grading (it’s oh so tempting), I could just iron things all day. I actually figured out that between today and tomorrow, I could probably iron this whole thing down on fabric (except my brain gets tired too)…but I would have to blow off everything else, I think. And that’s probably not very responsible of me. I should grade at least one period’s worth of the science unit that’s glaring balefully up at me from the table. Urrrghhh. Look away! Look away! Sigh. We’ll see. Gonna eat and clean up (ie, get out of pajamas) and run that errand…and then we’ll see where my brain is.

That means getting off this chair. New office chair. Surprisingly comfortable. Glad I accepted it into the house. Kitten likes it too.

*Iron and Wine, Promising Light

Don’t Let the Days Go By*

So I seriously overestimated how long it might take to trim the Wonder Under, which is cool, because now I get to start ironing to fabric today. And I didn’t even think I’d get that far yesterday. Around 8 PM, when I was still grading chemical reactions quizzes, I was sure I’d be cutting Wonder Under into today. OK, well, I guess technically I DID cut into today, but I did it in the middle of the night. Until 1:30 AM. Yeah. And then dogs were up early today, so I’m on less sleep than I’d like, but honestly, it’s more sleep than I get on an average school night.

For some reason, I thought grading the quizzes yesterday was a good idea. I think I just wanted to get them out of the way. Now I only have two assignments left…one quick and easy one (that’s today’s) and one bitch of a fucker. Yup. That one is waiting in the wings. I walk by it and shake my head. I’ll do it…but I won’t like it.

Someone asked me yesterday why all their teacher friends were posting at the beginning of break that they were done with their grading…and I’m still grading. For one thing, my co-teacher and I have basically given up almost all of our prep periods to planning this year, since everything is new and we have zero curriculum from the state or district. So that’s time-consuming as all hell. We also don’t use a lot of multiple-choice stuff, because honestly (at least for me), I don’t think it really shows an ability to think critically. We would have done it with the last quiz, with a short answer or two, but the school takes the kids’ Chromebooks before break, so we had to do it on paper. Dammit. Yeah. Timing. Sometimes it sucks. There’s also a bunch of online questions we do as short-term assessments…honestly, if we don’t give them something to focus on as a goal (answer this question), they often won’t finish anything we give them…it’s frustrating. And those take time to grade. It’s not that they’re lazy…they often don’t have parents who value school or education, or they have parents who are illiterate or close enough to it. If you don’t see education as a way out of wherever you are, then you certainly aren’t going to teach your kids to value it either. You’re going to buy them that new technology for Christmas even though they’re failing every class. When they tell you math is hard, you’re going to agree with them, instead of encouraging them to keep trying.

But I keep teaching, even as we face an incoming administration who thinks the 10% of kids in private schools whose parents can afford to send them there have more rights than the 90% of those who we have to take, who we can’t kick out when they don’t achieve or when they behave badly. I don’t know how many kids I’ve taken into my classroom and managed over the years who were kicked out of charters because they didn’t fit what the charter wanted…good grades, hard worker, well-behaved. Yeah. I get the ones who need more help than that. And I teach them. Every day. Please make my job harder with your ignorance. I saw a Facebook acquaintance post about how deVos must be a good choice if all the teachers’ unions were up in arms over her…it was difficult not to respond to his ignorance…living in his rich white community…with no insight to what teaching is actually like, to how difficult some days are to just keep them all from catching on fire…let alone to get them to actually learn something, even if it’s just how to think. His kids have motivation to learn…from him. He is completely clueless as to what it looks like to teach in a low-income public school with limited funding. Why we let politicians be in charge of schools, I just don’t know.

So with that in mind, I’m just gonna finish grading…because for whatever multitude of reasons that I’m not done, it’s gotta get done. Next year will be easier because of all the work we’ve done this year. And that’s something to look forward to in 2017.

That said, I still have quilts to make before that happens. It took a total of about 8 1/2 hours to trim all the Wonder Under…otherwise known as about 12 episodes of Supernatural (OK, I watched some other stuff in there…).

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You get to see my socks and pajamas in that photo…1400 cut pieces in the bin on the right…trash on the left. This morning, I’ll sort them (that will probably take over an hour, maybe close to two)…I’m waiting for the girlchild to leave, so I can watch something besides cooking shows while I’m doing it. Then I’ll grade the short and easy assignment, and then do college financial aid crap. I bought two background fabrics yesterday (couldn’t decide), so I’m ready to start picking fabrics…except the studio is a disaster area at the moment, so I’ll need to do some straightening up. I haven’t even put away the fabrics from the last quilt I finished. OK, so that was only two weeks ago, but still.

We went out to dinner last night…good stuff. Italian. Crazy girlchild face.

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Dogs when cold will cuddle. Briefly.

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But first I need to eat. Did I draw yesterday? Nope. No time. Grading took forever. I’m good at doing the have-to stuff first before the art stuff…unfortunately sometimes. I do need to try to draw too today. OK. The to-do list is made…let’s see where that goes.

*Bush, Glycerine

Only Idiots Ignore the Truth*

Today I am officially halfway through my Winter Break. My chiropractor yesterday mentioned how I must find it difficult to relax, as he tried to fix whatever I’d done to myself in the last two weeks. He’s right, of course. Too much to do. And as teachers, we put off a lot of stuff during the school year because we just don’t have time, so it all gets shoved into our breaks and weekends, meaning much of it never gets done. I’m thinking with the solo show coming up that it’s just that I know what I want to make for it and I don’t know if I have the time…so that’s making more stress for me. It’s good stress, of course, artmaking stress, but it’s not leaving a lot of space for relaxation.

Today is supposed to be nice and warm out (eventually…hasn’t gotten there yet), so I’m hoping to sit out on the deck and bask in some of that warmth this afternoon with my sketchbook, ignoring all the other stuff that’s yelling at me. Hopefully the neighbor who has been building their house down the street from me for almost a year now will have stopped using the tile saw by then. Because that thing is loud. When you’re used to a quiet neighborhood, a year of construction is a lot of noise.

I started cutting out Wonder Under yesterday…probably the most boring task to watch me do…although for me, it’s semi-relaxing. I sit on the couch and watch TV for hours. My hand isn’t even hurting too much this morning, despite 5 hours of cutting yesterday. That’s a good thing. An amazing thing. There were about 8 yards of Wonder Under when I started…and now there’s just a little over 3 yards left. So I did more than half.

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I should be able to finish today, which means I need a background. I was going to do that yesterday and spaced out on it…or thought I would never get that far…I was wrong. The bin on the left is all the cut-out pieces…it’s a lot. The one on the right is the trash, plus the stuff I didn’t finish last night when I decided it was time to go to bed.

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I graded stuff too, one of the more time-consuming assignments. Five down, three to go. One of those three is a quiz and one is Unit 3, which is going to take more than a day to grade. Unfortunately. I’m not looking forward to that thing. Hence my pushing it to the end of the grading. I want to start in January with everything graded though, so I have a week and a half. I’m also ahead of my prediction on the quilt (well, right now I am…give it a day or two)…hopefully I’ll be ironing on fabric as of tomorrow. That would be awesome. Especially since that copyediting job from November is rumored to finally be showing up in January (I’ll believe it when I see it, honestly).

But if I draw today, maybe I can get the next two pieces on paper, at least started, well earlier than I need them. That might help my brain with the stress…

I brought home another office chair…it’s better than some of the ones I have…plus Kitten likes it. So that’s how we decide whether chairs stay here or not, right? I didn’t even get it into the room. It’s in the entryway. With a cat on it.

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OK, the kids showed up with the dogs, muddy feet and all. I have to drag one to the vet, and then I can do the two errands earmarked for today. Then some grading and/or time in the sun. Then Wonder Under cutting and sorting. Easy day, right? Dinner in there somewhere. Yeah. Got this. Still on vacation (whatever that means…well, it means no students, no bells, can pee when I like)…

*Adam and the Ants, Dog Eat Dog

I Better Go It Alone*

The good news is that after almost 20 hours, I finished tracing the Wonder Under on the newest quilt. Last night. At like 1 AM. But it’s done! Anyone who thinks I get lots of sleep on breaks is crazy nutso. I should. It would be good if I did. But I don’t. I’m in full art mode. Plus grading stuff. So I got myself back on the one-assignment-graded-per-day schedule yesterday…four down, four to go…with two of those four being awful brainsuckers. I’m going to do another one today. Probably not a brainsucker today. I’m doing OK on the grading. Not great.

The Wonder Under took over 5 hours yesterday…tracing some intestines here… img_1256-small

The hair was just Wonder-Under-wasteful. I managed to put some small pieces in between hair strands, but they wouldn’t fit together very well.

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There’s 8 yards plus in there to cut out. I’m hoping to be on fabric by Friday or Saturday. I do have NYE plans, but not until late, so I’d like to spend most of the 31st with fabric if possible. We’ll see.

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We did a spontaneous hike yesterday with the dogs…it was hard, but not deadly. Being cold helps me…

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Top of Cowles Mountain…up the back way and down the service road. A gorgeous day for it…

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Girlchild’s photo of Calli and us further down the service road, waiting…we missed the sunset mostly.

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And this was in the driveway when we got back. Frozen like that until I started inching closer to them. Obviously plotting world destruction.

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If you leave a quilt top anywhere flat, then you should expect cats to lie on it…

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Apparently the same is true of college kids. This is why they love having the kids home…they lie still long enough to be lain upon. Or laid upon. Or something.

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Girlchild loaned me this for a chuckle…yes, it’s a cookbook, but a very snarky one.

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We did eventually get the dogs tired out for once…

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Today is grading and cutting shit out, plus I made it to the doc and the chiropractor. I’m done with the have-to’s for the day (well, except for the grading, dammit).

This quilt is not small. It’s gonna take me a while to get it done. I should remember that when I design the two for either side of it…or accept that there will only be one on one side of it. Or something. Ack. Thinking that far ahead hurts my head. Plus the 24″ piece I need to do before April. OK. I got this.

*Beck, Go It Alone