Lemonade Afternoon

You know that quote, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade?” Well yesterday I had CPR/First Aid training. And it was boring. It could have been worse, but I’m easily amused by bad video. Like when the worker goes “Hi, little buddy” to the small furry animal you can’t see and gets bit. I laugh. Because my lord. Seriously. The trainer promises there will be a better set of videos in two years when we have to take this again.

The plus was that we were so quiet and asked so few questions that we got out way early. And I came home and quilted. When life gives you a free afternoon because you did CPR training so you could take your students on a field trip next month, use it to make art. I should have graded all afternoon, and to my credit, I did try to grade at the gym, but first the wifi wasn’t working and then the damn app wasn’t functioning correctly. So I gave up. And then came home and kept quilting. Because I have a deadline and my photographer is flexible, but hell, I have to get started on the next quilt too.

And grading. Sucks. Yeah. I did monitor my students on their computers all day. That was fun. We can see what tabs they have open and send them messages, like “Get off Facebook and get to work.” A couple kids just didn’t get it. I kept shutting them down and finally shut down every tab they had open as soon as they opened it. It didn’t take more than about 5 minutes of monitoring per class before they were all in the folder they were supposed to be in. Ha! Bastards. Big Teacher is watching you. My co-teacher in crime (also in CPR) was doing the same thing, so I think by the end of the day, the kids all knew they had two teachers watching everything they were doing. Sometimes being a teacher means being an evil villain character.

So I quilted for 5 hours yesterday. I know. Wow. Cool.

There’s lots of eyeballs in this quilt. Twelve to be exact. Well. There’s two on the cat, but they’re closed. And the little figures, there’s four there too. So 18 eyes. No snake on this quilt though. My imagery is shifting maybe? No Christmas lights, no bird…no bird is weird. Most of my quilts have a bird.

Anyway, I think it’s turning out well…

And at some point in the afternoon yesterday, I went and got two possible binding fabrics for it. Not sure which one is best. I was in a hurry. They’re in the dryer and when I get home from school tonight, I’m going to try to get the binding on, because I have quilt class tonight and I can do the hand-sewing there. I don’t want to lug the machine along and do the whole thing there though, so I have to quick! Come home, iron it, trim it, and bind it! No problem.

The animals were confused by my presence all afternoon…

I have five blurry-faced photos of the cat. She wouldn’t stay put. Same with the dog. Ten hours almost total quilting. Half of what I had estimated…although I knew my estimate was too high.

I feel much better about things today. I got taxes and FAFSA started, I got the quilting done, I got a quilt packed up and ready to ship. I still have a ton of stuff to get done, but it’s less looming and more manageable-looking. I will be so glad when the kids are done with college and I don’t have to deal with all the financial aid hoops any more. They are really stressful. Especially in a divorce situation. I’m really worried about how I’m going to pay for any of it next year. I don’t have any more cushions, no more college accounts to cover my portion of the fees. It’s scary.

But I’m going to try not to think about that right now. Because I’m finishing a quilt, and that’s a cool thing (although now she needs a name…aack!). And I can start thinking about the next one, which will be smallish. In fact, a difficult size for me…not super small, like 8-12″ squares really challenge me, but at least they don’t take long, but this is a size I never do…16×24 I think. Totally off for me. Remember not to do a lot of tiny pieces! Yeah. Like I listen to myself. Oh well…at least it will be a challenge.

Responsible Adult…

Adjustments made. Taxes started instead of quilting all night like I wanted. Have to be a responsible adult, dontcha know? Up early today to retrain on CPR and that heart device that I will hopefully never have to use. I had two students one year where we had to drag that thing with us on every field trip. I don’t envy my sub today…my kids are getting increasingly antsy and boisterous. We have one teacher out and the guest teacher is…eh. She’s eh. Four and a 1/2 more weeks until Spring Break. Then the math teacher will come back. I hopefully won’t kill them all in 4 1/2 weeks. Definitely in burnout. But it’s not just school. Life itself is wearing on me. Too many tasks. Want to run free in a meadow or something. But that would probably cost money I don’t have.

Really I’d be happy if I could remember to find the time to fold the towels and put them away. Plus whatever else has been living in that laundry basket for the last two months.

Quilting is so peaceful, so meditative, while I’m actually in front of the machine.

I don’t think about school or stress about people or money or college or taxes. I just quilt. Move the sandwich around and around. Listen to the music or the thing on Netflix. Don’t think too hard about it. Just draw the line, careful around the teeth and the eyes, draw around the tiny little words, thread breaks, tie it off, start up again. Bobbin runs out, fill it up. So simple. So linear. So peaceful. Don’t watch the clock. Don’t stop until you’re ready. Just go.

Sometimes I think I should just do this stuff every night and not be a grownup. But then reality kicks in. I graded. I did taxes. All very grownup. No one told me how much shit would end up on my plate though. I teach 12-year-olds. I spend all school year with kids who mostly have no idea how much work it is to be a grownup. They’re testing the boundaries of being a kid, growing up into teenagers, but not quite ready to take on the world. Last year’s failures just got lectured about not graduating. Some of them come to me and talk about their grades improving, but there they are, on the failing list. Some are just still failing, almost proud about it, beating their chests like it’s a plus.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the parent yesterday who said there were no consequences at home if he fails. None. No one taught her how to raise her child. He doesn’t have to be awesome. He just needs parents who give a shit about his future. Then he can too.

I think I need more walks on the beach and in the mountains. I need more hours on the elliptical. I need more time with my sketchbook. I need more time with needle and thread, fabric too. Having the kids gone gives me very little room for moods and stress. There’s nothing for them to bounce off of…they just reverberate in my own head.

Sigh. Off to learn how to save the world. Again. Damn hormones. They really fuck with you.

Burnout and Screaming Feminism

Yeah. I had a 3-day weekend. But the list of things to do was too long and frustrating. I kept staring at it and picking up this or that, staring at things, trying to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic really. And finally, instead of being responsible and checking off one of the more onerous tasks on my list, I quilted last night. Seriously. I know I have some stuff I need to get under control here, lots of stuff on the list, but I couldn’t get my head around any of it last night, so…well…I didn’t. I played hooky. Except I still did stuff. Quilting is on my list.

I’m about 4 hours into the quilting and I’ve finished most of the torso and all but one hand/arm. Then all that’s left are the heads and the background. It’s quilting pretty fast.

While I was doing the actual quilting, it didn’t seem fast though. Lots of tiny little details that took forever. Except not forever, because 4 hours isn’t very long for quilting. Not that I’m done yet. But the outline quilting will take the most time on this quilt I think. I quilted for almost 3 hours last night. I kept trying to find a good place to quit, and finally the clock made me quit. I look at it and think about having to work the next day, and I already knew today would be frustrating because kids didn’t turn in their assignments and I needed those assignments last night so I could make folders last night, and now I can’t. In fact, in one class, I have no idea what they’re doing today because the kids all blew off the assignment. Well, two out of ten groups didn’t. Sigh. Giant sigh. Sigh so big a blue whale could fall into it.

I am bordering on work burnout. I know that. I’m trying to manage it best I can.

I guess we’ll know in a few days how much quilting is left. Meanwhile, I have a quilt to ship to a show this week, plus I need to draw the next small one, which has to relate to a big one that already exists and is available to show in May. No small feat there. Plus Spring Break is coming and I like to have a big quilt to do over break, but I’m thinking I will just have this smallish one and one other not-so-big one I want to do, and THEN I will think about something crazy big. Maybe. I can’t even think that far out at the moment.

Speaking of trying to manage my burnout, I finally saw the new Star Wars movie yesterday. It had some plot issues, but I liked it. After hearing all the hype for months, I really liked that Leia had aged appropriately and wasn’t still a hot chick. It made sense. I thought Carrie Fisher looked great…as great as her male counterparts. And leaving Rey out of the merchandise? Y’all are assholes. She’s by far the main character in the episode, a great strong female who overcomes shit left and right, is smart and creative and a wonderful role model for girls, unlike what all we 40-year-olds had growing up in the sci fi movies. Early Star Trek and Star Wars didn’t give us women a lot of good characters to hold on to, and Rey is awesome. Although whoever designed her first desert costume…it certainly wasn’t made for running at top speed to get away from the bad guys. Normal people woulda tripped over all that long stuff. I noticed at the end she had dumped the scarf-like thing and went for a much more simple, non-run-impeding vest. Anyway. Kudos to the Star Wars writers for making Rey awesome…major face slaps to the merchandisers for leaving her out without fans having to yell. My nephews need to see strong women who matter in the stuff they watch…so does my niece. When are the dumbasses gonna realize that?

No idea. Why do women need to be screaming feminists these days? Because no one is listening and if we stop yelling, the dumbasses will put everything back the way it was in the Dark Ages. See Trump and Cruz for more information.

All right. Back to our regularly scheduled work day.

A Wash…

So Friday was a wash for artwork. See! I do take days off. But it was sort of a mental day off. I spent all day with kids working on group assignments and me laughing at their arguments. The table that voted for the background color…democracy in action! The table with the bossy Arabic boy who when the other two wouldn’t listen to him, he just deleted everything they typed while they yelled at him. The two high-level girls who stated loudly that they couldn’t work with these people. I just about lost it. The two tables who sat there and stared at each other, waiting for someone else to do all the work. It was like a tiny little microcosm of all the work situations I’ve ever been in during my entire life. The table where one girl took over, designed the whole thing, and pointed at the other kids: You do this, you do that. She had already made the boxes with the titles in them. And then she critiqued their font choices because they didn’t “go” with the rest of the doc. The table where one kid was reading the text aloud while another kid typed. And the one kid who has been begging for groupwork? He’s absent. Of course. The 6 kids who were absent on a Friday before a three-day weekend? We emailed them their assignment. The one who was on his Chromebook but not in my classroom because a parent signed him out early? Sent him a message on our system. Why aren’t you here? Here’s your assignment. Yeah, I can see what he’s working on even though he’s not here. Creepy stalker, eh?

But I walked away from it in a fairly good mood, because I dumped everything on them. You deal. This is your team. You have to work with them. Think about how you’re behaving. Why are they mad at you? Why do you think you get to choose who’s on your team? Fun stuff. Plus everyone in the class is dependent on your information to do well on the test. So get on with it. That’s real world right there. Ask me about it next year when we’re trying to design science curriculum from scratch because California doesn’t have any. Why pay for that shit when you can make your teachers do it for free?

Wish I could walk out every day with that much lightness in my head. So it was OK to go out and have fun instead of coming home to work. Even artmaking needs to take a break, although I did go shopping after work. I needed batting and thread.

In fact, right now, the batting is soaking in hot water so I can sandwich later today. Same bathtub my Christmas card photo came from. Still dirty. Might be permanently dirty.

Couldn’t turn down a twofer on scissors for $7. Plus 20% off the whole ticket.

And there she sits…waiting for me. In a minute sweetie. Getting there…

Forgot to put in the link for the article about my show…in case you aren’t on Facebook with me…

Quilt Artist Depicts Stories of Women’s Bodies and Lives

It’s our local paper, which I don’t actually get in real life. No mention of my grandmother, so that’s a good thing. The writer did interview me and read most of my blog, I think, so she did a good job.

OK, so I need to get on with it and do quilt stuff and other stuff and making art stuff (holy crap, I need another new piece by the end of March. Yikes!). Plus art openings tonight. So that’s cool.

Head in a Hole

I didn’t get any art done yesterday. It happens. I’m pretty good about doing something most days, but I didn’t have the energy to stand and iron at 10 last night. Strangely. And this morning…this morning, I’ve written out the weekend post-it note and it’s a bit ugly. Why oh why. And it’s supposed to be 90 degrees tomorrow. A stark contrast to the girlchild’s photos from Friday morning…

Meanwhile, I’m considering putting my pale winter legs in shorts. I haven’t been outside yet. I’m in hermit mode. My post-it note sent my brain into an overwhelmed frenzy. And I have a 3-day weekend to deal with all of it. What does it mean that the only thing I really want to do is iron the damn quilt together? Oh yeah. It means I’m an artist and an overworked teacher. Fucking A.

We did decide that it’s my fault my co-teacher hasn’t given birth yet. I haven’t finished the binding. I got side-tracked and never finished. So that’s what I did when I got home late last night…worked on that.

But did I finish? No I did not. So she still can’t give birth. Bad Kathy.

And then I walk in the studio this morning and there’s the next batch of 100 pieces laid out with the bins on top that keep the cats from lying on the pieces and messing them up and walking off with piece number 117 stuck to their tail. This has happened. Most of the weird shit I do is because of experience.

So I really just want to ignore the post-it. But I can’t. Too responsible. Maybe. Certainly some of the things on the post-it make me want to put my head in a hole. None of it is easy. It’s all a pain in the butt. I didn’t even put the standard stuff on there, like laundry or groceries. Or sleep. I did put grade stuff on there. Ugh. So tired of that. Taking a break this week from tutorial and detention at school. I’m burnt out. Funny because school admin was just talking about how my team goes above and beyond to deal with parents and support our kids, and I’m going to totally blow it off this week. Maybe the next as well. I’m going to blow it off until I can stand to do it again. Just to clarify, I don’t get paid to stay after school. And it’s not in my contract. So I’m just going to work to contract (sort of…because you know I’ll come home and work) until I can be a better teacher again.

I can’t even think straight this morning…can’t pick one of the things on the post-it and do it. Too much fluff in my head. Alphabetical order maybe. Or just crumple that bastard up and start ironing.

Not Going to Stop…

I don’t know how to explain to my students that even though I took all their tests home last night and was planning on grading them, the staff meeting that took up an hour an a half of my life and was mostly full of whiny adults sent me home with a school headache and forced me to go to the gym, and then when I got back and made dinner and my daughter called me and then I ate (really late, by the way), I didn’t have the mental energy to grade anything. Nor did I care about the grading at all, because the meeting was that irritating. And it wasn’t irritating because the thing we were discussing was so onerous…it was just because people are whiners and think if they whine loud enough and hard enough and demand shit that they will in fact get their way. Although it was the commentary on All I Have to Do Is Expect Work from my students and it will magically happen that kind of set me off as well. Because duh. I do that. And I chunk it. And I say, if you have done this, then I need you to do this. And still, there is a brainfart that happens between start-the-work and turn-it-in that I don’t understand. True that I’m not 12, but apparently parents allow the brainfart, because they think tutorial will help. Tutorial doesn’t help kids turn work in…most of them. And even with 10 kids in there, I can’t possibly help all 10 at the level they need, which sometimes means standing over them and saying “Keep working. Stop talking. Stop distracting yourself. Finish the work. Turn it in.” I usually leave tutorial with a monstrously bad mood, and that’s every Tuesday, which fucking sucks. Last year, at some point, we quit doing tutorial. Just plain quit. Because it was driving us nuts.

Let me be clear. I do not get paid to do tutorial. I do it out of a sense of duty to my students. So if I choose NOT to do it, I still don’t get paid. I’m a little irritated though that counselors and admin kind of expect us to do tutorial without pay. And detention. I don’t get paid for that time either. And it kinda punishes me too.

So that’s where my brain was when I got home and even after going to the gym, where there are still too many wannabes on the treadmills walking slower than I do going uphill on a hot day. Get off my machines people. I adjusted my workout. I listened to music and read my book. I came home and made dinner and talked to the girl. Miss her. Miss the boy. Miss all the things.

And then I sat down and did this instead of grading all those tests.

You know, those tests didn’t deserve the time of day. At least, they don’t deserve my free time at home after 10 PM. I’ll work on them today. I have my prep. I don’t have a lot of hands-on teaching today. And I still have a ton of grading to do. It doesn’t seem to go away.

I cut stuff out for about 2 hours. I’m 8 hours in. I figured out as I was cutting things that there are 5 sets of arms, so 10 arms total, so 10 hands, and each hand has 4 fingers and a thumb, so 40 fingers that have these tiny little stripes on them where the wrinkles are, and each finger has two of those wrinkles, so that’s 80 wrinkles I cut out yesterday. And then the 10 hands have 5 fingernails (including the thumb) each, plus two feet each with 5 toenails, so I cut out most of 60 nails yesterday as well. Some were really small so I left them ironed and uncut until I actually need them so I don’t lose them.

I’m down to I think the last two or three of the flesh fabrics, so mostly larger pieces of arms and breast and knee. So nearing the end. I had thought 9 hours…will be closer to 10 I think. I might finish tonight, but it is my opening and I’m hoping that’s successful. We’ll see. That’s a nerve-wracking thing in itself. But whatever. My art’s been out there long enough that I don’t need people’s approval to DO it, but it is nice to be in a 2-person show and hope that it gets positive press. I’m not going to stop making work if it doesn’t though.

Weekends are…

Well. Yeah. Weekends…are made…not for Michelob. But for relaxing. I hear. I apparently don’t practice relaxation well. And I wanted to draw, but that didn’t happen. Long story on that one, but just so you know, if you’re out in a bar or restaurant with me, I don’t usually draw unless I know you pretty well…because you’re gonna want to watch, and then I can’t draw because you’re watching. So yeah. I didn’t draw. I wanted to. In fact, last night, I wanted to dump all the hours of work that needed doing and draw then too. But I didn’t. I feel really buried by work at the moment, and the only way to deal with that is to get some of it done in some sort of power rush of grading and organization. And then I can relax a bit again until I have to do it all over again.

So Saturday was full of work, freelance and school. I guess I am now a semi-expert at converting doc to epub…semi-expert because there are always new problems that will pop up. It’s the one thing I learned from working in publishing…no matter what you think you know how to do, the next project will bring you something you don’t know how to do. Anyway, so there was that. And then grading papers and assignments…lots of that. But sometime in the late afternoon, I finally got the binding on the baby quilt…which I’ll post below (baby hasn’t been born as of yesterday afternoon, so I’m still good…although I’m still hand-sewing the binding on).

I didn’t do any art stuff until Sunday though, when I finally pulled this out…

I’m in the endless stage of cutting stuff out. I have a lot done, but everything I pull out is a huge piece of flesh with a million pieces on it, so it feels endless. I did get a lot done last night, but there’s at least two more hours in there. I’m days behind now. Gotta catch up. Fours weeks left. Iron it together this week, stitch it down, sandwich? I do have a 3-day weekend coming up. But a shitload of grading this week and a meeting or event every night but tonight. Crazy week after last week, where I felt all this empty alone stuff weighing me down. And snot weighing me down as well. I didn’t get really sick, but I definitely have snot going on. Gotta watch it, because I ended up with pneumonia this time last year.

Here’s the baby quilt…hidden below the fold so she won’t see it…Facebook just posts the first picture on the blog.

It was a good choice to go get another binding. This one finishes the edge nicely. Ties it all together. The others didn’t. I’m fussy about my bindings.

My opening is tomorrow night…

Looking forward to seeing the whole show…it wasn’t fully installed when I left (my stuff was)…hoping people show up. There’s some new work, some old work, some never-been-shown work (well in person…everything’s on the web…well, most everything).

OK, taking my sick self to work to infect the minions who infected me. Not really. I was probably most contagious on Friday…and that kinda crept up on me during the day, so I obviously didn’t infect them on purpose. Might wanna watch who I sneeze on today though. Could be retribution of sorts…

Sleep Is Not My Superpower

I have a sleep app on my phone that tells me how long I slept (notionally…because I can be pretty still when I’m not sleeping) and how well…more movement meaning I wasn’t sleeping deeply. It also has an alarm on it, which is useful. I started using it years ago to try to figure out why I was so tired in the morning…and here’s where all the people who know me personally start cracking up, because they think I don’t sleep. I DO sleep. For about 6 hours a night…I don’t go to sleep early because I can’t fall asleep early, and there is no damn point in lying in bed, flopping around, praying for sleep. In fact, the insomnia specialists advise against it. Go to bed when you’re tired. So I do. Well, sometimes I go to bed earlier than tired because I know it will get ugly the next day. I think I had a whole year there of 4-hour nights, but that’s depression for you. But now I’m back to 6-hour nights, which works OK for me. And yes, I do exactly what I’m NOT supposed to do on the weekends…I sleep in. I like that lie in. I look forward to it, especially after 13+ years of soccer games early on Saturday or Sunday mornings, or sometimes both days. I like waking up slowly that morning, hearing the world around me but not getting up yet, reading a bit, or rolling around with a kitten cleaning herself by my head. Well, as long as it’s not at 6 AM. Sometimes she starts then, and that is not a good thing.

My sleep app last night, on a night where I went to bed early (for me…before midnight) and had a chance for a lie-in…says I slept at 50% efficiency. Now I’m normally a pretty efficient sleeper. I spend the right amount of time in light and REM sleeps. But last night was a flopping clusterfuck. And I’m glad the app backs me up on that. I am sick. That doesn’t help. But I’m not THAT sick. I wasn’t coughing or moaning or anything. So what the hell? Weirdness. I don’t usually have that bad a night ever. Oh well. Moving on. I’m used to functioning somewhat like the walking dead. No change there.

But really, even when I was a kid, I wasn’t a great sleeper. I read under my blanket with a flashlight until well after midnight when I was in elementary school. My boy is the same way. But we both know as adults that we have to sleep at some point. So we do.

I worked last night. I’m incredibly behind on grading. I finished two assignments. I figured that was enough for one night. Then I cut out little pieces of fabric…

I’ve got about 5 hours in. I’m probably not going to finish today. I have too much else to do. Because there’s probably another 4 hours in there. And I need to do other stuff.

I folded fabric and reunited the binding fabric (now clean, no chemical sizings) with the quilt. That’s on my plate for today…put the binding on.

I also have a pile of work to get through…school and other job. I got an email yesterday from a company I applied with back in early November. They apologized for the amount of time that had passed, but had me upload info on their database. I honestly don’t know if that means they’ll use me or what, but I did it. It’s science education materials…so I’m highly qualified. But I think a million other people probably are too. I don’t need a lot of extra work…there are only so many hours in the days…but I do need some. I’m short a good chunk of money for the kids’ college in the next three months. More than a month’s salary short. It is what it is. I will figure it out. Somehow.

Someone said yesterday that I’d be done with my tasks (ironing or cutting or whatever) if I didn’t write this blog. Except this blog is what keeps me doing everything at the pace I’ve adopted. It’s motivating knowing that every day I’ll be telling myself (and apparently you, but know that I rarely think about you when I write) what I got done and reviewing how that made me feel. I felt pretty good last night. I was bloody efficient and I was able to check a bunch of things off the list. I needed to be able to do that this week. The writing also clears my brain…I can dump all the shit I don’t want to think about here and then walk away from it. Also, you have to understand that I write really fast. And I don’t think very hard about it. It was painful to watch a former boyfriend edit his Facebook status over and over again, torturing himself with whether that one sentence was the best possible combination of words, editing it over and over…I don’t roll that way. There’s no time for that constipated verbal shit. It’s here in my head and I vomit it out on the screen. There. Done. Now I can move on.

I will do some art thing today. I know I’m at a show tonight for quite a long time, and my sketchbook will be my trusty companion. So expect drawings posted in the next few days. I LOVE to draw. I’m looking forward to it. I’m hoping I feel better by then too, but if not, there’s cold meds for that.

All the Things…

Aaargh. Grades are (almost) done. They will be done after I go to school, deal with a parent meeting, go on duty (I should get a pass…I’m the only teacher who showed up in my section yesterday morning), deal with a fire drill in my homeroom, take attendance, and prep for the rest of the day. THEN I can finish grades. And maybe pee. Fuck you, world.

Boychild apparently made it to school, although he forgot to tell his mom he’d actually arrived, so of course, in true momma fashion, I worried. Woke up at 5 AM and texted him again. Doofus.

I’m in a mood. Hopefully I’ll fall out of it. I barely ironed anything last night…like maybe 20 pieces…

I was tired. It was 11:30 by then and I was just doing it because I wanted to say I’d done some of it. Tonight I can do more. I wrote two tests last night and I finished grades and I don’t even remember…oh yeah I do! The dog. So the dog has been on her normal travel schedule with the kids home, but yesterday, my ex had said he didn’t think she could escape where he did all the work, so I should leave her in the yard. And I worried about her getting out all day, which was legit, because I got home, and a muddy, tangled, matted Golden Retriever was lying in front of the garage, waiting for me.

So I bathed her last night. The water was dark brown the first run through. It was loads of fun. I don’t recommend it. So then I had to partially clean the bathroom. And do laundry. Like 6 towels.

I also finished quilting this and trimmed it. She goes out on leave today and I wanted it done so she could take it, but then I looked at the binding fabric I’d picked…

And it doesn’t work. I then went searching through my stash, and I didn’t have enough of anything that would work, so I need binding fabric. I don’t suppose I could persuade her to stay one more day? Yeah. I didn’t think so. It’s OK. It’s not like she’s going anywhere.

Shitty day. Shitty mood. More art tonight. Less work. Less bullshit. Less worry. Less moodiness. All the things.

Probably Not Today…

Well the boychild finally made it out of here…knock on wood, because his plane hasn’t left yet. I’m gonna miss him and his sister. But they both made Dean’s List…so I’m proud of them. And I will figure my shit out and find a mental balance with them gone. Probably not today though. Today, honestly, I’m just gonna hold it together long enough to get through the school day. Which I am officially NOT doing right now. Holding it together that is. I do have a job that distracts me from emotional crap, so that should help.

Saturday…it was a challenge. But I finished grading the assignment from hell…and have a post-it reminding me never ever to assign that again. It’s not worth my sanity and the kids don’t take it seriously. So I’m kind of in this Fuck ‘Em mode…which may be the most healthy thing I’ve thought about school for the last two months. Grades are due tomorrow. I haven’t even started them. It’s OK. It won’t take long.

When I finished grading, I ran a million errands, and then walked in here…

This is where I wanted to be all day long. Notice it’s dark. Yeah. It was like 6 PM. I was pretty crankballs by then. Yeah. It’s a mess. I might clean it up when I finish this quilt. Depends.

I knew with the figure being most of this quilt, and with 10 arms that sit behind each other, I was going to need a larger range than normal. So I sat on the ground with the pink bins and my phone flashlight (it’s dark down there…need to install fairy lights or something) and picked a run of 13…plus lip colors off to the right and finger- and toenail color above.

I didn’t use all of them in the end. I used 11. And I added two purples. So it took me 2 hours and 40 minutes just to find each flesh piece and decide what fabric it was supposed to be. And I tried to match pairs of arms on each side, but I don’t know if I was successful.

The flesh pieces ranged from the 0-100 box to the 900 box. So I went through all of them. As I did that, I set aside the non-flesh pieces…the heart, veins, lungs, rocket ship, hair, eyebrows, etc. Two uteri even. Lots of eyeballs. So this below is what I still have left to do.

Then I started ironing all those pieces down to the fabric I’d chosen…here’s number 5 in the range.

Yup. That’s a lot of pieces. Some arms, some fingers and toes, and ribcage parts. That funny bone that sticks out on your foot that probably has a name. I went and looked it up. It’s complicated. You can Google it yourself.

Ironing it all took my Saturday art time to 4 hours plus. Ahhhh. You could hear my brain sigh from there, couldn’t you? Because I was in a dark and angry place over school. And art saved the day. Put my brain back in a decent place.

Here’s all the fabrics I’ve used so far.

And I tried to get them to fit in the box once I’d ironed them, but the flesh pieces were too big to fold into there.

I have no idea how many pieces are left. I think I’ve got 6 1/2 hours in, so maybe another 3 or 4? Just a guess really.

I was at a meeting yesterday and started cutting stuff out. It’s only an hour so far.

But it’s a start. And it’s something to do this week…less than 5 weeks to finish this quilt. Finish ironing pieces by tomorrow night? I have a baby quilt to finish tonight if I can pull it off, plus grades. I tried to finish the baby quilt last night and got everything quilted except the border. I started that and the thread kept getting caught on the spool and doing stupid things, so I quit. I’ll try again tonight. Maybe it will behave better. And if I can be a good girl and get a bunch of the grades done at school today, then I’ll be ironing later? Maybe. Maybe not. Then trim them all by the weekend? It would be nice if I could start ironing it together Saturday, because I actually have time.

Shit. I might actually finish it in time. Don’t hold your breath though.