It Don’t Feel Right*

So I think yesterday was one of the most productive art days all summer. Sad that today is the last DAY of summer. And I’ll be at school for the whole morning. Oh well. At least I know I can still do those monster days. (because I’ll be doing lots of them this year…)

What did I do? I traced Wonder Under…for HOURS.

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The cats love this part of the project. I personally do not so much love their involvement, since it is mostly their fluffy butts that are involved.

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Sometimes I have to push or pull them, or pull things out from under them.

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So while I’m being thankful that this cat is still alive, I’m also cursing her existence. Or at least her existence on the light table.

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She might be cursing me a bit as well.

Really, I spent a lot of time with the cats yesterday. Wonder Under is a fascinating thing. Plus light emanating from tables. Which might be a thing if it were cold out, but it’s not. I have a fan pointed at the light table, and they don’t generally like fans. Except for yesterday. Yesterday fans seemed OK.

So did laundry baskets…

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And really, just staring at Mom on a regular basis and meowing plaintively because I am so obviously ignoring their asses.

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I traced for over 7 hours yesterday…I’m 8 1/2 hours in, I think. I’m in the high 600s, so I’m only halfway. THAT is the part that sucks. That and the fact that I might run out of Wonder Under. Sigh.

I’m four yards in? I think?

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This one doesn’t have quite so many tiny pieces as the last one. And it has about 700 fewer pieces as well, which is a good thing. I might actually finish it in time.

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Which reminds me, I’m picking the others up from the photographer today. I think. After school. And then tracing for another (insert number of hours here).

Girlchild leaves tomorrow morning. Early. That’s a hard one.

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She’s leaving so early because she’s doing orientation for the incoming freshmen. It sucks that she’s not around to help the first few days of school for the first time in like 5 years. I can’t persuade the boychild to do it. Not sure I blame him.

OK. School first. Then art. Then family.

(Apparently Pandora has decided I need some rap to start the morning. She may be right…)

*The Roots, Don’t Feel Right

There Must Be Something About Your Daughter…*

Well 19 years ago I gave birth to my youngest child…she of the changing hair colors…

Something we have in common, although I haven’t messed with hair color for years. Just letting it do the natural Einstein white freaky hairs now. She leaves for college again in four days, and although I won’t miss her dishes, I will miss having her around. I hope her 19th year is somewhat less stressful than last year. Although I’m not sure that’s how life works. I do still remember her birth. It wasn’t easy. You know how they say the second one will be easier? Fucking liars. Whatever. She’s been out for a while now…and I’m looking forward to seeing what she does.

Yesterday, I was planning at school. About two years ago, I bought plastic folders for the kids to buy from me if they wanted to replace their paper ones. And then I lost them. For two years. I found them yesterday.

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I consider this a positive omen for the new year. And god knows we’re gonna need them…the folders AND the omens. My brain sort of exploded yesterday as we planned the second unit, the unit that is gonna finish me off in October. Not really. But aack. I love feeling stupid and uneducated at the age of 49. Whatever. I’ve got some reading to do.

Saw this yesterday. Love it.

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Except the Up Early part. Nope. Nuh uh.

So I did a lot of work-related stuff yesterday, finally getting school supplies. And then I settled down for sewing on binding…for hours.

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Puppy was sleeping with me for a good chunk of it.

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With a quick trip to the pet emergency hospital in the middle, when we thought he might have swallowed a fatal dose of meds that he shouldn’t have gotten into.

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Yes. There have been some conversations about how to dispose of meds. But he’s also a puppy and gets into everything. So we lost a book and a pair of boots yesterday as well. He is fine today. Of course. Full of energy and ready to keep chewing up the world. Because he learned nothing from being forced to vomit repeatedly. Sigh.

I’ve been working on the next Spargo quilt in the meantime. This is from Folk Tails.

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Actually, there’s one in between Bird Dance and Folk Tails, but I like this one better. Hmn. And no, I haven’t trimmed and pieced the birds yet. Because the embroidery is what I do when I can’t do other stuff…like when I’m at meetings or at the parental’s house. So I don’t have time at home to trim and piece all those blocks. I’m too busy with the quilts that have to be done.

Yeah. The binding is not quite done…one sleeve left. I got tired. Today though. I hope.

Julie makes potholders. I have lots of them now. They’re nice and colorful, and it kinda feels sacrilegious to USE one…

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But it will just give her an excuse to make more.

So birthday stuff planned today. And quilt finishing. And then starting the next one. Enjoying the last few days of vacation. I should because it will be a while before I can say that again.

*Coleman Hell, 2 Heads (it really did just come up as I was finishing this…)

I’m Breathing in the Chemicals*

Hello morning. Earlier than usual. Have to leave for school in a few…still planning science today. And trying to figure out my classroom. Mostly I just walk in and go Oh Shit and then start moving stuff around a bit. I always feel bad because other people spend more time in their rooms rearranging stuff and doing new things they found on Pinterest, and I’m trying to go as fast as possible, so I can get back to my sewing. Oh well.

So in awesome sauce news, I’m done quilting. Twenty-two hours plus of quilting, in case you were wondering. In fact, Saturday evening, I had a time I had to be out of the house, and this is how much was left…

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It took me a whole 3.2 minutes to finish quilting that on Sunday. But yeah.

Here was my trusty companion, randomly typing shit with her head and hitting Like and Dislike indiscriminately on my Pandora station.

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I spent the evening watching a band and taking on my persona of Draws in Bars.

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It either freaks out or endears me to waitresses. This one was so serious (the waitress, not the drawing), but wanted to have a discussion about art and her uncle and then took good care of me all night. So it works! I did another drawing…forgot to photograph it. It wasn’t that good…and because people showed up, I didn’t finish this one until later…

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And maybe it’s not finished. I like it though.

Sunday was nice…although knowing there is only one Sunday left of “vacation” (in quotes because I am at school at least twice this week, despite not officially being back yet), and the girlchild will be gone by then. Some animals know how to Sunday though, even if I don’t.

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So I finished quilting and trimmed the quilt…huge motherfucker.

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She quilted easily, nice and flat for once. I’ve been fighting some of the last big ones in the flatness category.

Went and bought binding…ONLY binding. Nothing else. It helped that I had the girlchild with me and some time constraints. Got the binding stitched down last night…

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And then settled down on the couch for the hand sewing. I tell you, I’ve been looking forward to this part. Just relaxing and stitching and watching some TV for a while. Kitten follows me wherever I go.

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Kitten is lying on the next quilt (well, it’s a numbered drawing anyway).

There’s the back and the sleeves. In over an hour of hand-stitching, though, I didn’t even make it all the way down one long side.

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It was already late and I knew I had to be up early. So there will be more tonight. I should email the photographer…finally. A finish. No panicking on the other stuff that needs doing. Really. Seriously. I should be panicking. About all of it. Quilts, school, losing the kids to college again, money, dogs. Aack. There’s so much I never ever get done.

But I guess you can see my priorities. Spending time with people when I feel like it (probably should do more of that), lots of art and animals and even hiking when I can. It’s not a bad life…just a bit too stressful and work-oriented some days. I’ve held the goal of Art Everyday for the last couple of years now and I don’t suspect I’ll be letting that go anytime soon. It’s where my head needs to be.

Unfortunately, my body needs to hightail it to school now. Keeping life balance in mind…biggest thing in most teachers’ minds right now.

*Imagine Dragons, Radioactive

I Don’t Get What They Do It For…

I think I’m officially in panic mode…and it’s because we were proactive Wednesday and started planning the first science unit of the school year. But then you start thinking about what you need to do, what needs to be set up, what changes you want to make from last year. And you start to panic. You think about how many hours a day you will have to be grading and planning, on top of the hours at school, plus meetings etc. And how are you going to get everything else done? And new schedules and students and realizing you’re getting ALL the little brothers and sisters of the kids you happily said goodbye to in previous years. And then yesterday (I didn’t even have time to write yesterday), you have a nice luncheon with teacher friends, and it gets worse. I know I do this every year. I freak out about a week or two before school starts, because I realize how little I got done and how much is left to do, and I’m losing days left and right to school crap. Plus the kids will be leaving for college at about the same time, and that sucks too.

And the art stuff has been difficult to get done this summer, between working another job and having machine issues. And today I found out I have another project that has to get slotted in there. I mean, it’s a good thing, it’s something I wanted to do, but I’m hyperventilating.

Stop. Deep breaths. Manage.

Thankfully, all the construction noise that surrounds me at the moment didn’t start up until 9 AM this morning. They actually let me sleep a little. It’s been a sleepless summer.

Yeah. Gotta get my head out of this crazy.

So Wednesday, we hiked, and then I quilted a little bit Wednesday and Thursday nights…I’m up to 10 hours in. And I’m hoping to get it done sometime tomorrow.

I originally hoped to be done today, but it’s already 10 AM and I have errands, plus gaming tonight, so that ain’t happening. But hopefully I can get significantly into the background today.

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There’s a lot of detail on this thing, and some fussy little stuff for quilting, like those passion flowers, but they look awesome now that they’re done.

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I got the whole lower torso done Wednesday night…

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And even moved on to the heart…

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Then Thursday night, I did the right breast, covered with cat…

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Strategically placed flower for nipple…and then did the tiger (hid the nipple in the fur pattern) and the cactus and the seaweed to finish up the left breast and arm, except for the octopus. It was midnight. I was tired.

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So today, I’m going to do the head and the right arm, plus the very top of the torso. And then start the hours of background. This one has a lot of it.

So I had been wanting to do either a Cuyamaca or Lagunas hike all summer, but it takes a while to get out there, plus weather, so this last Wednesday was the first one I felt organized enough to pull it off. I have to make dinner ahead of time and figure out the leaving time based on sunset and hike times, etc. I wanted to repeat a hike I did in January 2015, but that was full snow. I read the organizer’s description, but there was one section I couldn’t figure out, so I emailed him and he sent the GPS map, which actually turned out to be way more useful than all the Afoot and Afield pages I photographed. In the end, it was a well-marked trail and we only had one minor crisis of direction. It lasted about 2 minutes.

It was a gorgeous day for it…nice and cool for most of it. They threatened thunderstorms in the early afternoon, and the clouds definitely looked like they could pull that off, but we didn’t start hiking until 5 PM.

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I love the mountain vistas, the pines, even the dead grass.

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And the views. Smartass.

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There was some minor bouldering, just because.

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I like hiking with my kids. It’s gonna suck when they’re gone. We did see a deer, but I couldn’t get a photo of it in time. We thought we’d see more when we got to the meadows, but the cows were out and so were the mountain bikers, so just the one. And girlchild didn’t see it, so she was pissed.

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There’s something about climbing up…

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Lots of bugs and grasses on the back end of the trail, the Sunset Trail portion.

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And then we came out into the cows…and the Water of the Woods, which still has water. Last time I saw it, it was mostly frozen over.

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The meadows are gorgeous, even without water in the lakes.

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We came back via the Big Laguna Trail…there weren’t any other hikers that we saw…just one pair of bikers on this end, and then a group of about 15 of them near the end, and we could outwalk them on the slopes.

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Big beautiful pines that survived the fires. You can see the burn marks on the trunks.

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The sun was definitely on its way down. We had a couple of really slow miles due to…um…chaos. Let’s just call it that. But we sped up on these last miles (and we had headlamps, worst case).

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We figure some virus or something causes these giant ball-shaped things on the old oaks…

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And this has to be woodpeckers…or something. Such perfectly placed holes, all the way up and down the trunk.

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This low-lying plant (not the grasses) had all these weird giant pods all over it.

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We saw morteros galore in this rock…would have been a nice place to hang out in the summer. Much cooler than East County is at the moment.

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I think this was officially sunset. We did think we should have gone BACK the Sunset Trail, so we could have seen the actual sunset, but this worked…

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These tiny flowers were everywhere…

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This was watching sunset hit the trees to the east…

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And the last bit of the path, as dusk fell around us.

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We drove off in the dark, 8 miles, a good hike…probably the last long one before they leave. We’ll see.

And yesterday, while talking to the garden guy who came out to help me figure out my yard, we watched the raccoon who has been hanging out in our yard walk right across in broad daylight and climb the tree…about 30 feet up. He’s sleeping in a fork of the tree up there…

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If you can’t figure it out, the left circle is one of his feet and the right circle is his head.

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I didn’t have my phone when he walked across the yard, unfortunately.

So I’m quilting today. Lots of hours. Need to get done. Construction noise has started up again. So distracting. Oh well. Turn up the noise.

*Amanda Palmer, The Killing Type

Oh Life, It’s Bigger*

I got some significant quilting in last night…was finally able to get my head down and into it without breaking the thread every 20 minutes etc. What a relief. What’s ironic is that I don’t have much quilting time in the next two days…OK, not ironic. Just plain frustrating. But it’s all stuff I need to do in one way or another, so I have to just take a deep breath and realize I’ll be quilting all weekend to get done. Or something.

I can only sit like that for so long…

So I did some tulips and grapes and a giraffe and some trees and a hand…

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And a crane that took a really long time and was very hard to see in the dark (sheesh. I need better light in here.).

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Oh yeah, and a gecko. I started on the vines around him, but didn’t finish.

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Look at his suction cup toes! OK. That’s crazy.

There’s the whole crane…

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It was not easy to stitch without good lighting. I have a light on my old machine…I’ll need to get one for this one, I think. Yeah, I think this machine will do the job.

I did a flower as well. Just a little one.

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I still need to do a good chunk of the stuff in the lower torso. It’s all lots of tiny details, but they all really pop once the stitching is done. Aargh. I really want to just stay home and do this. It’s the hardest part about going back to school, because I often come home too tired to really manhandle a quilt under the machine. Or to do anything, honestly. The first two weeks are usually pretty difficult. Plus I was missing my kids already last night. Got all sad in the head.

I played with puppy quite a bit last night to tire him out, and finally put him on the chair (Kitten allowed it) so he would stop trying to rip up the linoleum floor in here. Yes. It’s coming up. I know. But you don’t have to HELP it. He’s like offended by the floor. Honestly it makes more sense to be offended by the wallpaper. Or the general mess in here.

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I have not made a significant dent in any of the messes in the house. Well, except the entryway. And stuff is already piling up in there (OK, most of it is going to school today).

I spent most of the day with girlchild. I had a Groupon at our local ceramic-painting place. She made me an awesome mug last year (World’s Okayest Mom) and I broke it. Funny…I do break mugs all the time (I’m a klutz), but usually after years of using them. I think this one lasted a few months. So I painted a mug for me and she painted a mug for me.

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Mine is the weird one, yes.

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Hers is for me to take to school. I’m amused.

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Appropriate use of an apostrophe. Thank god.

School. I am so not ready.

*REM, Losing My Religion

Hell Ain’t For Sure, It’s Only a Chance*

Well, the plus is that the sewing machine still isn’t working this morning. This doesn’t seem like a positive thing, but it means I can take it in and he can actually SEE the problem, EXPERIENCE it in real time. That is the only way to get it fixed for good.

I’m about to go up to my neighbor’s house and offer the workers WD-40 for their wheelbarrow. Squeaking. Horrendously. Worse than the squeak is Simba’s need to bark to protect us from the squeak. Yes, it’s a horrible noise, but it’s unlikely to kill us. He’s very protective about weird-ass noises. It was so delightfully quiet on Friday, when they weren’t here. Today I have drills and hammering and squeaky wheelbarrows and more yelling.

So hopefully I’ll have a working machine tomorrow. (please please please) Then I can drown out their noise with that.

Yesterday, I finished the drawing…just under 5 hours on the full-size part…plus maybe 2 hours on the stuff that was in the sketchbook (I watched a 2-hour movie…let’s put it that way). There’s a lot of Stare Time built into that…staring at the drawing, trying to figure out what goes next and where and how…staring off into space, trying to visualize it.

I’ve done a head in the clouds before…it’s a worry space, a hope space, a remember space. Depends on the drawing.

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This one is definitely a worry space. She’s long…I know she’s 36″ wide, but I haven’t measured the height yet.

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Kitten is still invading the work space…she’s extending her claws because I was batting at her…she was in my personal typing space. She doesn’t seem to care what I need.

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The kids came back, mostly cranky and some exhausted. Simba was quite happy about that. I won’t let him sleep on the bed.

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And then later that night, I numbered the pieces. I kept thinking this one was easier than the last, fewer pieces, less crazy. Hmmm. Well. In general, it is. But I went a bit crazy in the cloud…

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I took some of the things from that other failed drawing…I figure if that one ever becomes a quilt, it’ll be OK for the gas-mask woman to show up again. The nuclear power plants and leaking barrels have been around for a while.

Oh yeah. See? It is fewer pieces than the last one. Psychotic grin on face. Uh huh. You don’t wanna know the deadline on this one. Let’s just say I’ll be tracing Wonder Under starting today, because I can’t afford to lose any time waiting for my machine to come back. I’ll quilt the other one as soon as I get the machine back, but I’m busy until then.

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It’s confusing too, because basically there’s 3 figures right behind each other, so some of the parts are labeled so I know who they belong to…and I tried to number one figure at a time. I’m sure I’ve fucked that up somehow.

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Those aren’t even her arms.

Seven hands. Yes. Only 7. I guess technically there are 4 figures…I don’t really count the little guy in front.

Anyway, the plus is that I have school kind of under control (well, for where I can be at the moment…I can panic further on Wednesday when we start planning shit I don’t even know anything about), I finished all the copyediting last week, and at least I have another project ready to go, so I’m not wasting more time. I also copied the other drawing, the one where I have to cut off the head and the bird, so I can draw that as well. Although there are two smaller ones and some coloring book things that have to happen first. So even though it’s a Monday morning and school starts in two weeks, I’m not completely panicking. Well, just a little.

*Mojo Nixon, Tie My Pecker to My Leg (yeah, you read that right…it was a challenge to pick lyrics for the title today)

Thread-Free

Well that was a stressful day. Yesterday. No need to test my adaptive abilities. Really. First there’s 8 hours of jackhammering, wherein I almost lost my mind, but then Kitten decides to eat thread.

So I’ve been quilting since I was about 22 years old. I’ve sewn longer than that, largely around cats, so yeah, I’m aware that thread and cats are a bad mix. I’ve had multiple cats over the years who were thread-munchers. Some even tried to get bits out of the trashcans, so I had to work hard to keep it away from them. But these two that I have now…well, Midnight likes the poly/nylon-y stuff, but I never leave that on the sewing machine because that stuff is really bad for them. I’ve pulled it out of a couple of cats who literally stalked the machine until I went to pee, and then went for the thread. It’s one of the reasons I always use the quilt under the machine to cover the machine when I’m not sewing. Cat can’t sit on quilt. Cat can’t eat thread.

But the regular sewing stuff, these two cats have never given a shit about it. They sit back behind the machine all the time and have always left it alone. And Kitten’s been here for 6 years, so I don’t know what bug got in her ear, but I turned around, maybe 5 minutes after she went to sit back there, and she was swallowing black thread like there was no tomorrow. Yeah, I pulled. I’ve pulled (gently of course) on multiple cats and been successful. Not yesterday. It was stuck. Dammit. Well, I cut as much as a could (a foot or so) and then called the vet, who had me call the emergency vet. Damn cat. She’s the most expensive cat I’ve ever owned now, between the nasty dental surgery a few years back (she’s got some genetic thing and had to have 12 teeth removed) and this thread thing. They sedated her, tried to release the thread (it was around her tongue). Pulled gently, it’s stuck. Scoped her. By then it was in her intestines and they couldn’t get at it.

So those who have gone through this realize how much money all this costs, and it’s funny, because I went into this summer for the first time in YEARS (like pre-divorce, baby) feeling like my head was (temporarily, due to upcoming college payments) semi-above water. Well yeah. And that was after the car costs from last month, which were fairly horrendous. But I thought I could get through the summer and actually pay the mortgage and groceries and half of the boychild’s health insurance, due on August 1. Because I’m a teacher, and I don’t get paid until the end of August. Summers always make my guts clench financially. But this year seemed doable (unlike last year, which was a giant clusterfuck until I sold a quilt).

So yeah, Kitten had surgery last night. Luckily it was quick and easy and her intestines weren’t shredded by thread and she’s recovering, but she doesn’t want to eat. And every time the doc calls to update me, they reassure me that they’ll do everything they can to make the cost as low as possible, probably because I completely lost it in the exam room. Well. You know. I guess life just wants to remind me that I am not in control. Like I didn’t already know that.

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She’s making a funny face because she only has one fang and it sometimes gets stuck on her lip.

So I had to get one of those pet loans, which luckily I qualify for, and when I start getting paid again, I’ll pay it off quickly (I’ve done this before)…but it means all the extra money I’m earning now is no longer being put away for college. So there we are. I don’t even have a total cost yet on the cat, but I know it’s bad. But she’s also my baby and my responsibility, so I didn’t really feel like I could do anything else. I know some cats pass these just fine, but it’s not a huge percentage. So the quicker I did stuff, the easier it would be on her.

And yeah, I guess my takeaway is to hide the thread no matter how the cat acts about it for the first 6 years, because cats do stupid shit just like humans do. And she’s gonna be fine. And I’m gonna find the money somewhere. Here she is just yesterday, schooling Simba in cat/dog interactions.

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I spent the rest of the evening trying to focus on the copyediting, once they stopped jackhammering…Simba is such a goofball.

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Realizing that my ancient keyboard really is nonfunctional if you’re trying to FIND a specific letter or whatever…

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The kids have been complaining about it for years, but whatever. I type mostly from position, not watching keys…it’s been an issue with the copyediting in the last few weeks though, so I had ordered a new one. Work expense. Which I’m now questioning, like I’m going to be questioning every damn penny for the rest of the summer. And it is probably 15 years old. They did come out in 2005…so maybe it’s only 11 years old. Anyway, I must be rough on certain keys…

Girlchild made dinner and the vet called with the post-surgery news in the middle of that. At least it was quick and there were no complications.

After I finished the first run-through on the lesson I was copyediting, I gave myself permission to iron. It was probably 10:30 by then. I did the octopus, the grassy knoll (OK, it’s not really a knoll), a giant artery (the aorta or some version of it anyway), and the cactus. There’s some cactus pieces.

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While I was working, I was listening to and watching a few of the Coursera courses I’m signed up for this summer. I’m taking two basic college chemistry classes, because I will be teaching a lot more of that this coming year, and I’m decidedly shaky on it. I haven’t had chemistry since high school and I was never great at it, which might make you worry about my teaching it, but trust me…I’ll understand it or I’ll figure it out as I go. I didn’t know anything really about light before I started teaching it, and I did OK. The new standards move the content around quite a bit, and it’s hard to go from being a life science teacher to being a middle-school, 7th-grade science teacher in the days of NGSS if your background is biology. So I’m working on it. Boychild keeps trying to answer my questions, which mostly center around WHY, proving I haven’t changed at all from high school. WHY do electrons do that? WHY do they get excited. WHY do we call it light when it’s really EM radiation? Or IS it? Fuck. I’m still in lesson 1. Let’s hope I figure it out. I have a couple of books from NSTA called Faking It…written specifically for teachers who have to teach this stuff. I might want to read them quickly.

I’m also taking a class called Sexing the Canvas, about art and gender, which not surprisingly, I know quite a bit about. So I watched some videos, did some math (ugh), and took a quiz last night. I think I’m gonna fail the chemistry quizzes, but I’m really just trying to get the concepts more than understand how to work all the equations. We don’t do a lot of equations in 7th grade. I think. I’m OK with failing my first college class (not for credit) at 49 years old.

So I’m in the low 1300s now in the pieces…coming up is a lung and a tiger and then…well…Kitten…because she’s been in a ton of my quilts.

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And I hope she’s in a ton more of them. Thread-free.

It May Take Me a Few Days…

Someone just texted me that phrase “cold hard facts are hard to ignore” as I told her the results of a particularly long and difficult email exchange with a parent (school ain’t over ’til the parent believes we can’t change any grades). But my editor brain wants to change one of the hard’s to difficult or something else, because they’re too close together. Ironically, although I’m on vacation, I just bid on a copyediting job that would start today and go hard and fast until some time next week. So much for rest and relaxation, eh? But I have to find some way to pay those college bills. At least the book is not about school (although it appears to be a textbook of sorts). I’ll know later today if I got it. That’s a tough one, because although I need the work, I really also need time OFF.

Oh well. This is how it rolls. So I had quilt class last night, after teacher last-day party and counseling, and I didn’t feel well, so we basically sat and talked, which I think teachers need to do on the last day of school, spill it all so you don’t have to take it home with you. And I got nothing done. Until I got home and felt better with a cup of tea inside me, and then managed to spend an hour or so cutting out tiny pieces of Wonder Under.

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I don’t even think I’ve cut out 2 full pieces yet of the 6. Yeah, I’m a little behind. What can I do? I’ll be a lot behind if I get the copyediting job. I just checked…I’ve been trimming Wonder Under for just under 5 hours and I barely have 2 yards done, so based on that, the estimate I made earlier of 15 hours seems pretty accurate.

I came out of the office at some point to this…

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Yes, she has two animals ON her and another very close. And she doesn’t seem to mind.

Really it’s impossible NOT to have multiple animals on you at the moment.

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He’s a very lovey dog. Here the boychild has whispered him to sleep…

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This dog is good baby experience. He’s freakin’ hyper all over the place, then gets cranky, then wants to bite all your parts, and then falls asleep because you’re rubbing his belly.

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Anyway. Today is technically my first day of summer (yay!), so I should use it wisely. Although honestly, I still need to go to school to check out and then watch the girlchild get her hair dyed and cut (thought about trying to cut out Wonder Under there, but it’s really not set up for it), then I have something to do tonight. And if I get the job, I’ll be copyediting all afternoon. Maybe I can schedule drawing breaks. Or nap breaks, because I’m still exhausted. Sitting on the deck breaks. Reading my book breaks. Holy shit I really need a break breaks.

Because I can’t even think coherently at the moment and I just posted about five puppy pictures, proof that I have no working brain. OK, off to work to figure out if my room is clean enough, bring my plants home so I can kill them with neglect here, and hand my computer over so they can try to make it work better.

It may take me a few days to feel like I’m on vacation.

One Less Problem

So you know how you hear one of the animals puking in the morning and you think, oh hell no, I don’t want to deal with that, but you also have a few dogs lying around and you know that if you don’t deal with it, they will, which sometimes is a good thing, but if I think about it at all, it grosses me out, so I have to go out there and clean up whatever it is by whomever is the puker?

Well that’s this morning.

I’m exhausted, I have all the stress signs except a twitchy eye (that’s probably coming), and luckily I only have to teach for three periods today. I hate this last week because everyone is showing movies and I’m still teaching STDs and how the hell are we supposed to do anything BUT let them do whatever they want when grades were already due and OMG was that fun, because of the two boys who only JUST realized they were failing and were not failing by much, but didn’t turn in any makeup work at all and were missing multiple warmups (easy fix, seriously).

THE DRAMA. I’m a little over it. Awards ceremony today, which is why there are 504 cookies, 10 gallons of juice, and 500 napkins in my prep room. Never let me volunteer for that shit again. Yeah. I know. I will. Someone’s got to do it. Then tomorrow is just survival.

I hate the last week of school.

I did come home and go to the gym and finish my book. Those were good things. And ate a decent meal. And then settled down on the couch with Outlander and a puppy, with a big fat dog at my feet…

I cut out one full yard and part of the next one…

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It’s slow going. Especially when I think that I have 5 more yards to cut out. The pieces are in the bin and the trash is on the lid.

Puppy slept and barked and slept and tried to bite and got distracted and slept. The kids found a tick on him today, reminding me that he’s not on any flea/tick medicine. One more thing to deal with.

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Side view…cutting on my lap, where the dog wanted to be.

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Alas, the cutting must happen, dear puppy, or I will never get to the next phase, which is one of my favorites…the ironing of fabric to the Wonder Under. I wish I could guess when I might get to that, but at the moment, I can’t imagine getting 15 hours done any time soon. I’ll probably get an hour or so done tonight. Thursday is a clusterfuck followed by a meeting. Friday is up in the air. We check out and usually it doesn’t take long, but sometimes it does. And I have stuff Friday afternoon and evening. I think at some point I will just collapse and sleep for three days. Hopefully that will wait until after school ends, though it seems questionable right now that I will make it that long.

This is the song that’s banging through my head…think on that…

The Light…

Amusing that I last posted about blurry, because now my camera won’t take anything BUT blurry pictures (it’s not me…it’s the technology). Frustrating. I kill cameras quickly. I don’t even think it’s a year old, so I’ll chase down the warranty and see what I can do. Meanwhile, the phone takes OK pictures, so I can use that.

There are four days of school left. I have 700 things left to do in four days, but I’m sure it will be OK. Most of my grades are done…which is good, because they’re due tomorrow. I finished printing all the certificates. I still have a field trip today, teaching tomorrow and most of the next day, an award ceremony, and that hellish last day when we have our kids for just over 3 hours with nothing real to do.

I worked my butt off yesterday getting stuff done because I could see the light at the end of the tunnel…the vacation light. The light of no more grading. Of no more lesson plans. Of no more trying to get all the tech to work and the kids to behave. Such a relief this year. OK. Probably every year I feel this way; I just forget it until it’s upon me.

One of my quilts is in an article in Textile Fibre Forum…

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An article by Tanya Brown on Censorship in Art…with my One Paycheck nice and big in the front…

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Of course, this picture is blurry. My fault. It’s a good article, especially for those who make abstract or less in-your-face art (although I don’t consider nudity “in your face”)…if you don’t realize this is happening because it doesn’t happen to you. Certainly the notion of ART in the quilt world is still troubled. Hopefully that will change over time.

I finished tracing Wonder Under last night for the new big quilt…

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Just over 19 hours to trace…I think I thought it would be 20 hours, so not a bad guess. There are 6 yards of Wonder Under that now need to be trimmed. The last two pieces had lots of big pieces on them from the hair and the sun. In fact, I don’t think I filled all of the last piece. So I’ll start cutting out tonight. I wanted to be done cutting out “by the time I got out of school”. Well technically my last day is Friday, but it usually only takes me about 20 minutes to check out…so we’ll see. I’m figuring 15 hours to cut the pieces out, so that’s a lot to do this week, but I am mostly done with school crap…so that will help. Being able to come home and do NOTHING that is school-related…that is bliss. Seriously. I can’t even tell you.

I started working on Owl 3.0 as well…a commission pulled from the most recent drawing. There’s an owl on the left side, under a rib and a Fallopian tube. I drew the whole thing out and numbered it.

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It’s 102 pieces, which is not bad. A lot of them will be the same color, so it won’t take long to pick fabrics and iron. I’m going to start tracing it tonight before I put the light table top back on.

Puppy was deeply asleep while I graded yesterday. I guess he got tired out on Saturday and Sunday morning.

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We are up to three dogs for the week. We were a little worried because my parents’ dog, Katie (on the right), had been bullying Simba when we visited on Sunday, but they’ve been fine…

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Calli is the alpha dog (well, behind the humans). Simba is a spaz and the older dogs school him. Katie is kind of a freak sometimes, but they’ve been doing well with three adults to entertain them.

So yeah, not the most relaxing week, but it helps to see into the future, where sleep happens and reading books and shee-it. I keep dreaming of the same stuff. No Jamaican beaches and fruity cocktails. Just don’t make me get up early and teach for a few weeks. Please.