Not Ready…

And there isn’t even a major holiday for me to be not ready for…

I did not reach my goal of having the binding on the quilt yesterday. I ran out of time. Now I could have blown off all social engagements (which would have included dinner and cake with my son for his 20th birthday), but I remembered I was a human and went and did ALL the things, and now I am about to go to school for professional development, so it’s early and I’m tired and I’m not quilting. I could have quilted last night, but I got home relatively late from a stitching thing and potluck that was fun and nice, so I vegged around on the couch (yes! I do that!) and then went to bed with a cat, a dog, and a book. Maybe tonight. I hope. I really only have about an hour of quilting left, around the very edges. Then I need to trim it and bind it. I also copied the next one, but it needs more drawing. Luckily, San Diego is getting rained on for days, which just reinforces my hermitlike tendencies, so I can get stuff done. But also…baby quilt, figure out what’s going in the Grossmont show and prep all of them (iron, dehair, hardware), and grade stuff. So not a stress-free relaxing week. It’s possible that I don’t know how to do those. I admit it.

I did get my holiday photo of kids and animals…

Calli refusing to look at me, both cats pissed off, and boychild refusing to smile. Oh well. Nothing new. Actually, he used to smile in the past. Kitten being reluctantly held by boychild and Midnight looking like a black blob being held by girlchild.

And then girlchild with her dog…who just went in the pool even though it’s cold and raining…

That dog drives me nuts. Notice Midnight trying to get into the photo on the right.

So that’s done. And the tree is divested of its ornaments and just needs sawing in half, which we decided against doing in the dark at 11 PM last night (but only barely). Because once Christmas is down, you just want everything put away as quickly as possible.

Anyway. So back to the goals…because if I can keep them clear in my head, I can maybe achieve some of them. Finish bathtub quilt in the next day or so…quilt and trim tonight? Maybe get binding on depending on exhaustion/frustration level (I really should grade stuff). Tape together enlarged drawing for next quilt (which has to be done very quickly, so remember that as you’re doing the rest of the drawing). Finish drawing it. Number and start tracing onto Wonder Under…OK, here’s the problem with that. I was going to use the light table to pile quilts that were prepped for Grossmont. Rethink that plan. I can’t wait to start tracing until after I install on the 18th. Stack quilts in office until done with Wonder Under? Yikes. Keep thinking. Has to be somewhere the dog can’t lie on it. The cats are going to be a whole ‘nother management level. Start baby quilt. Baby is officially due in like um dammit, I don’t have a 2016 calendar next to my computer like I always do so I don’t have to pull up an electronic calendar (I’m a visual person…it needs to be Right There). I was using the My Owl Barn artists calendar, but they don’t seem to have done one this year, so I will need to be more creative later. Not now. I think I have 3 weeks and a bit before baby is due. Almost 4 weeks. No problem. I should start cutting this week though.

See how vacation is eaten up? Yeah. Me too. OK, off to work in the rain. Not ready. Ugh.

Bathtubs

I finally made it to the best part of making the quilt. Well, besides the drawing. I love the drawing part, but I usually make quilts a really long time after I’ve drawn them, so that’s a totally separate endeavor in my head. My favorite part of making the quilt is ironing it together. I don’t make a master colored drawing, so I never really know what it will look like until it’s all ironed together. It’s all in my head up until then. My head’s a big place, apparently, with lots of colored drawings in it. And undrawn drawings. And piles of worry. I did try drawing last night, but I’ll need a redo. It’s OK…it’s a process…especially if I haven’t drawn for a while. I can get a little rusty. It’s harder to get what’s in my head out on paper. But it’s coming. Today I think.

Anyway, so you’ll see the not-so-good drawing and then the better one…I promise you. I hide nothing. Well, almost nothing. I’ve hidden how many cookies I’ve eaten in the last five days. But who needs grocery shopping? We have cookies! Breakfast lunch and dinner, there’s cookies. Yeah. I know. Whatever.

So I started ironing yesterday, just like I planned…I didn’t get far.

OK, I got a little further than this…started on the rug on the right side. But it was a good start. A pile of books, some scissors, some embroidery thread, and a hoop. Because yes, that’s what I have hanging around my bathtub. Just to clarify, I don’t have a free-standing bathtub like this. At all. I don’t even know if I’d like one. I do love baths but don’t take them often because the kids’ bathtub is not particularly comfortable. And cats like to walk the edges. Well, not all cats…just Midnight. And she’s a big ~~fat~~ fluffy cat, and occasionally she falls in. So that frightens me. Well, and taking a bath is such a thing…I used to do it in the old house all the time, especially pregnant. Soaking in warm water. It sounds quite nice at the moment, but I don’t have time. Maybe that’s part of what this series is about…taking the time to soak in the tub with all your things around you, populating the room. Yes, I am admitting now that I didn’t think out this series before I started drawing. Yup. That’s pretty much how I always work. Just start drawing. Sometimes there’s an idea or a spark or a phrase or a theme, but the bathtubs came out of nowhere. That thing I used to do to relax. Hmn.

Anyway, I’m hoping to iron for 4 or 5 hours today. Isn’t that what I said yesterday? Can’t remember. Yup. But I also said iron a few hours yesterday and that turned into about 45 minutes, because it took longer to pack stuff up to ship, and then I finally FINALLY finished the Christmas letter (it’s OK, I titled it Holiday Letter, and it’s still the fucking holidays, so get off my back) and printed it, and now all I have to do is address all the envelopes and put stamps on them and decide if the kids should sign them, and yes, it would have been smart to sign the original before I copied it, but here’s one OTHER thing I decided…sometime between now and the start of the next school year (that’s 8 months from now-ish), I’m buying a new color printer, because mine is crap. It’s seriously older than my divorce and it won’t print color for shit…and I’m done with it. So there. Maybe even in a combo with a scanner so I can get rid of that beast as well. Maybe. I have a small space in here. Because that would be cheaper than copying the letter elsewhere, plus I print color stuff for school sometimes.

So. I did that and I moved money for college, and that’s where my head went down a giant financial rabbit hole, because that’s a whole shitload of money I need to make in the next 5 months. OK. So there it is. I need an extra 1-2 K a month. Deep breaths. I can do this. Probably not if I spend a bunch of time in a bathtub.

Really it’s much better to deal with the short-term goals for today: shower (always a good plan), grocery store (for something besides cookies), clean up a little, maybe even start pulling quilts for the exhibit before I put everything away in my room, and then iron. I’m even going to grade some shit. Seriously. I am.

Bathtubs though. I’m thinking a big deep white bathtub somewhere in the house (is the boychild coming back this summer?). Or maybe just in my head. For now.

I Got No Title…

Hope you all survived Christmas, if you celebrate it. There’s always too much food and everyone needs a nap. I did manage to finally finish cutting out all the pieces for the next Bathtub quilt…it took 10 hours to cut them all out…seems like too long. But it takes however long it takes. I sorted them yesterday afternoon…

Meanwhile, the girlchild is texting me about a missing muffin pan (pan, not man). So I had hoped to make it in the studio and start laying stuff out for ironing, but I had to deliver a table and chairs and said pan and a bunch of other stuff. So I took over my bird embroidery and sat and did that while the girlchild cooked. I’m so far behind on this one. Oh well. I’m not super-motivated at the moment. Oh well. Still brain dead from school ending.

We made a ton of cookies (this plate was fuller by the end of the day)…

Kitchen in the middle of baking chaos…there is not enough room in there.

Dad with Calli…always a ball in her mouth…

Told ya…

Calli helping to open her present…

And sleeping later on…with her mom and her grandpa…

We cooked up the rest of the cinnamon buns…so the dough wouldn’t go bad. But I think I’m freezing these.

I finally got the Seattle presents wrapped and in a box to ship today…

I did get fabric for Christmas…I like when people pick out fabrics they like for me, because it helps my stash if other people contribute. I buy the same types of stuff, really. So this is a plus…

The studio is almost ready to iron this bathtub together. I need to move the fabrics out of the way and clear part of the floor…

But I’m remarkably brain dead this morning. Last night, I just sat on the couch with a cat, a dog, and a kid and vegged out. I’m hoping my brain lets me get something done soon. Work looms in the back of my head. Need to look at what pieces will be in the Grossmont show…will have to prep all those quilts for hanging as well. I’ve booked the week after Jan 1 for that.

So I can set a goal…let’s look at how long it would take to iron this thing together…maybe 10 hours? Another 5 to stitch it down? A couple of hours to pinbaste it? About 12 hours to quilt it? Another 5 to bind it? So if I’m good and I start ironing today, maybe just a few hours…and then another 5 or so tomorrow? Then finish ironing Monday. Girlchild has a soccer game Monday night, so I will be freezing to death on metal bleachers for that. But maybe I can start stitching down Monday night…finish it Tuesday. Then maybe sandwich and pinbaste Tuesday? Start quilting (need thread…pretty sure I need thread. Might need batting as well). Quilt Wednesday and Thursday. New Year’s Eve…got plans. Won’t be quilting that night. But if I can finish Thursday during the day? Then trim and start binding on the 1st? Boychild’s birthday is the 2nd, but I don’t know what he wants to do…plus I want to hike again next week. So that’s not on the calendar yet. But let’s say I can get this thing done by next Sunday? I can do that. And then call the photographer…and get the drawing done for the next one that has to be done super quickly. And I can start it the following week, even though I’m prepping quilts for installation.

No grading this next week? I might try to do say one class one assignment per day. Just to make the following week less hellacious. We’ll see.

OK. First part of all this is get off this chair, take a shower, eat some food, and go ship that box. Then come back and start the ironing. This is how I get the quilts done. I have to make a plan and then I can go faster or slower, but at least there’s a guideline there instead of just doing it when I feel like it…sometimes I just have to get up and go because I wrote about it here and I know I’ll have to answer to that tomorrow, so that’s motivation…

Not Relaxing Yet…

At some point in all this holiday crap, you run out of time to do anything else, so you can relax. I haven’t hit that yet! Whoops. Waiting on a grocery list for the holiday meals, plus still have some wrapping to do (did a lot of it yesterday), and the tree’s not even decorated really (may give up on that), plus at least one gift in progress…maybe two.

I keep seeing all these teacher articles about burn-out and exhaustion and how we have to let ourselves forget about work for a week or so or we won’t have the emotional energy to go back. I suspect there are other jobs like that out there too. So I’m not stressing too much about the work pile over THERE (which is actually mostly on a computer, so it’s much easier to ignore).

I am almost done cutting these out…

Really couldn’t persuade myself to stay up any later to finish those. I’ve been really tired the last week or so. Trying to sleep through the night is an issue at the moment. Not sure why. So I saved those for today, I guess. Hoping to start ironing tonight, but we’ll see. I do have some other stuff I need to get done.

I went shopping for baby quilt fabric…got these (not for the baby quilt)…

I’m not sure where big raccoon eyes will be appropriate, but I got them anyway.

Here’s the baby stuff…

Not my normal color range. The darkest pink is for the binding, and I may rethink that when I get there. These were their color choices. Yup. It’s a girl.

I was cleaning stuff up in the living room and putting things away. Now that the shelves are installed, I’ll be able to put books and stuff back up there, which means opening boxes that haven’t been opened in 18 months. I found these in a bin…

I took a class from…ugh…I just had to search through all my likes on Facebook…Jude Hill! I took the class a long time ago and never got past this part, but wanted to…just don’t have time for all the things I want to do. She does beautiful work. I often wish I could just sit with bits of fabric and thread and create things like she does, but either my life or my personality don’t work that way. I want to be more spontaneous and slow about working, but if I do that, I never get anything done. The reason I can get so much work out there is because I plan for it and create in a very specific way. I’m not saying one way is better than the other, because obviously I still crave the time for the other way of doing it, but in reality, I work a million hours a week and I don’t have time to sit and stitch like that. I think. Sigh. Right now I don’t feel like I have time for it anyway. Too many deadlines I’m looking at, both art ones and life ones. Maybe when I am old and retired, I will create like this. Or maybe I just can’t because it’s not how my brain works.

So they are back in a pile. And I’m not entirely sure what the one in the top left was supposed to be or even the box-like one. There’s two obvious cats and a butterfly, and I think the column-like ones were the lion-type creatures she makes, except I don’t want to make Jude Hill work. I want to make my own. And maybe that’s why I stopped there. I learned how she put stuff together and then I stopped. I don’t remember. Because at some point, you have to make it yours…

In case you’re interested, it was her Patchwork Beasts class, which she’s now put online here, but please donate if you use it. Artists should always get paid for their efforts.

I’ve been working on other things, but you will have to wait to see them. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to have kids here and we’re supposed to be hiking like now, and then grocery shopping (hell!), but there’s no sign of them. It’s still chilly and looks like rain, although that’s supposed to have stopped until tomorrow night. I’ve declined a copyediting job because I know nothing about Blender. I need more work, dammit. I’m going to be short money for college at some point in the next few months. Maybe I’ll stress over that for a while before the kids show up. It’s on my to-do list, and then I can hike off all that stress. Good plan.

I Can Do a Day…

I’m sitting here at night (last night), on chat hold with AT&T because the upgrade for he-who-shall-not-be-named wouldn’t go through, and I really want to tell the sweet woman named Maria who is helping me that she typed a run-on sentence (because I NEVER do that), but she spelled bear correctly in the phrase bear with me, so I guess she gets brownie points for that. But as I’ve been hammering my students to capitalize I and put spaces after periods, I’m realizing this is the type of job they might do. I did it for Turbo Tax in the old days. It was a sucky job, but I was a temp in those days, and being a temp made me realize I did not want to be a temp, just like being a secretary made me realize I did not want to do that either. Please don’t ask me to make a judgement on my current job, middle-school science teacher, today…with one day left before vacation…because I might feel somewhat negative about the job at the moment. But no matter the job, y’all need to be able to spell. And use capitals. And periods. Seriously. And don’t fucking hang up on me because you cold-called me about doing work on my house and I don’t have the money for it. You’re an asshole.

There has been good news, but I also blew a fuse on the Christmas tree lights and then destroyed the fuse inside because it wouldn’t pop out like it was supposed to, plus I couldn’t find replacements for the lights that weren’t all white, and I wanted old school, but even Amazon Prime couldn’t save me tonight, let alone Target a week before Christmas. Should have shopped back in November, right? So some significant frustration, plus black enamel paint all over my hand, don’t even ask how I did that. And the boychild’s flight got canceled, but he’ll be here today…soon enough. Poor kid. Too many hours to get home. It’s morning now and I know he made it to Chicago and is on the plane to San Diego. Good stuff.

I need cookies dammit.

Nah. Gonna pour a glass of freezing wine and cut out bits of fabric for a bit and try to remember where I hid those presents. I did consider microwaving the wine last night. It’s not mulled; it’s microwaved.

One day of school before I get three weeks off. I have 7 assignments to grade. It could be worse. I got almost all the way through one assignment yesterday. I will try to do the same today. And then the girlchild comes home tonight, so it will be chaos here for a bit as we try to get Christmas handled. Ha! I am so far behind.

I did cut things out last night eventually, although only for a little over an hour. Here’s where the boxes stand at the moment…

Pretty exciting stuff. Still not halfway. OK, I just went back and looked at the other Bathtub piece, and it had 200 fewer pieces and actually took 7 1/2 hours to trim fabrics for, so I’m not feeling so bad now. I just really wanted to be further along. I need to do some serious drawing in the next week. Sit down with some Netflix and just draw for a day. I think that’s allowed. Maybe.

I just left the room to heat up my tea and worried about 17 things that need to be done. My brain is in overload. And I’m supposed to wear a Santa hat and an ugly Christmas sweater today. I own the first, but not the other.

OK. Anyway. It’s a day. I can do a day. And then I can relax a bit. You too. You should relax a bit as well. Because I said so.

There’s a Line

So apparently I was done with school last night, because I came home and made art for three hours instead of working. It’s unfortunate that I have to go back for two more days, but whatever. Certainly the headache that started yesterday morning is notice that I need some time off. Or it’s the weather. Or that crick in my neck. My chiropractor says I should get regular massages. Um. OK. But those cost money. It sounds lovely and all, but…I can pay for college or pay for massages. Suspect my kids would prefer the former. Speaking of kids, both bedrooms are clean and vacuumed and one kid comes home late tonight and the other, the girl, tomorrow. Her roomies will miss her greatly of course, because they will only be able to read her mom’s blog and not have the fun of harassing her. I’m being stalked by her roomies…it’s OK, I stalk them on Facebook and Instagram…and as soon as they send me photos, I’d be glad to make a giant-ass nude quilt of them, a la Botticelli? The Three Graces?

Or if they’ve been eating too much junk food, it might be a la Rubens? A sign of wealth, all that chub…

Or my favorite for simplicity (aka fewer drapey lacy fabric bits), Raphael’s Three Graces. The girlchild gets the butt view…y’all can fight over left or right.

Actually. That would be a cool idea. I did Crone/Mother/Maiden already. The apple thing is stupid though…are those even apples? They should be brains or heads or eyeballs. Seriously ladies, I think I’m doing this drawing. Good thing I have your photos off the web.

OK, enough crazy. I finished the fucking wine glass…it only took 11 fabrics. Here I was trying to decide about the color of wine. Red is often easier to do in fabric, but the glass is right next to the heart and I didn’t want to compete with that.

Now I don’t remember what color the wine bottle was. Oh well. The quilt doesn’t have to pass a logic test. Certainly I’ve put screwier mess-ups in my quilts before.

I used a whopping 102 fabrics…for a quilt this size, that’s a lot. Don’t know what to say about it, except that’s what happened. Some of it is because I took so long to work on it, I think…

The more stretched out the time in between picking stuff, the more I forget about what’s actually in there. When I was sorting the fabrics out by color for that photo, there were a couple that I didn’t remember using. I also had some fussy moments with the blues in the end because stuff I thought matched before didn’t seem to match now. OK then. Eleven hours and 24 minutes of ironing for only 770-some pieces. I started Dec 6 and finished on the 16. Not super fast. Eight days of actual working on it…most less than 2 hours at a time.

Bathtub 2 only took 4 hours to trim the fabrics. I’m already 4 hours into this one. I started on the 10th, but haven’t been doing it regularly.

Here was the pile I started with…

By the end of the evening, I was working slowly through it. There’s a few more hours of cutting there, to say the least.

Wish I could take it to school and just get it done, but I need to be grading stuff still. I have 8 assignments to grade, including the one due today and the three due tomorrow. Some are easier and less time-consuming than others. I’ll probably have to come by school on Sunday to clean my room up for the custodian and work crews, but also to pick up all of Unit 3. Ugh.

Looking forward to doing some drawing and ironing a quilt together, and even making a baby quilt, and a few things for Christmas, plus seeing my kids and not having to see the other kids (the ones I teach) for a while. Not looking forward to grading stuff and cleaning, which needs doing…my dad finally got the shelves up that have taken so much time and energy on all of our parts, thanking him for that, but now I have to get my act together and put stuff on them, which means going through stuff that’s been packed up for a year and a half. Obviously desperately important stuff. Not putting the CDs back up there.

I really do want to draw that three graces thing now. You can totally see me making that quilt, can’t you. Huh. Wonder what it will bump in line…because yeah, there’s a line.

Still Need to Iron Glass…

I thought I would be done with the ironing last night. I just had that relatively smallish pile of Wonder Under pieces. It looked like something I could bang out in an evening. Well, if I didn’t deal with grades first. I went through an entire assignment where fully half of the kids didn’t scroll down to the second page. It’s like not turning the page over and looking at the back. And I know I told them how many questions there were and to scroll down, but as you know, the words of adults somehow bounce around inside the brains of teenagers and fall back out without resonating.

I tried to order materials from Staples so I wouldn’t have to go in…didn’t have time, free shipping, blobbity blah, but it always took like a day to get stuff from them, until this order. It still hasn’t shown up from last Thursday, and when I track it, there seems to be no movement at all. Troublesome since I needed that stuff today…I have some I can use for the kids who are fast, but I may be at Staples tonight after all. So much for being reliable people. And now their website isn’t even coming up. Interesting.

Anyway, I did iron…I ironed hair and a heart and blood vessels and a clock and a uterus, but I forgot the ovaries (they’re there…I just need to pick a color). I used to always make uteri bright pinks with fish swimming through them, but as I age, my uteri age (the fabric ones and the one still inside me), so now they are grayed-out purples. Still pretty but not as alive, not so vibrant. The figures have cracks in them…have for a few years. Wonder where that came from. No I don’t…suspect I will carry the cracks until the end. They will get smaller and more filled in, but they’ll still be there. She’s still crying because I have to say that these perimenopausal hormones are fucking nuts. I cry at such stupid stuff…although the book I finished Monday night, it was a legit cry. The Man Called Ove…good book, by Fredrik Backman. But you will cry at the end.

Here’s the pile of stuff I still need to cut out…

It got bigger. Mostly because I didn’t cut any out recently and I keep ironing stuff.

I still need to do the ovaries, the eyes, the lungs, and that damn wineglass…this pile…

I’m over 10 hours in right now for less than 800 pieces. That’s a lot. Not sure what’s up with that. Slow ironing at the moment, I guess. The problem with the wineglass is that it’s transparent, but it fucks with what you see through it. And then the part with the wine in it, it fucks with it even more. But you can still see through it. The part with the wine is a little easier, because you pick your core wine color and then some shades past it, however many it might take, and you construct the section with the wine that way. The glass part is a little harder, because technically you know you should be able to see flesh colors etc through it, but then it gets harder to see the glass in the actual piece of art, so reality is that you have to fuck with what the eye perceives to make the glass obvious in the quilt. There are some amazing quilt artists out there who make quilts JUST of mostly transparent or reflective things, and they do a great job with it. I just have one glass here though. So it might not be amazing. I am totally leaving it to the end though, because I can’t be super tired when I do it, but basically I will be tired no matter what, because that’s the way this week is.

I did vacuum the kids’ rooms yesterday and finished washing the girlchild’s bedding. I’m ready. Well, except there isn’t enough food in the house. Can’t do much about that right now. Apparently we’re driving through In ‘N Out on the way home from picking up the girlchild. Amusing since she would barely eat it when she was home. I guess the food at Brandeis really does suck…which is sad.

Anyway, with any luck I’ll be done ironing tonight and I’ll move on to the long period of cutting stuff out. I’m hoping to be ironing down by the weekend, but who knows. Maybe Monday…no school and all. Looking forward to that.

The Disk Shouldn’t Be Full

This time of year seems to force retrospection, looking back at previous holiday seasons, nearing the end of the year, where are you at and all that. Is it where you wanted to be? Well, if it isn’t, then here’s where you look forward and try to figure out how to get there. Again. Because life seems to be a constant rewriting of expectations. Some things are better, some are worse, and some just are. Personally I’d be much happier if I could figure out how to get the new Windows to backup disk space in a manner that made sense. Because I’m fairly sure that damn disk shouldn’t be full.

So my tree is up. No, I don’t have a picture of it. It’s still crooked and has nothing on it and is much bigger than I remember it. I got home and graded last night, because I’m back to that crazy (I only took two days off). Then I predictably headed in here to iron, but got sidetracked by the kids’ rooms. The boychild’s room is now clean. Needs vacuuming, but the bedding is on the bed and everything else is straightened up. The girlchild’s room is in process…needs a serious vacuuming (she didn’t do that before she went, and no, neither did I) and all her bedding is in the wash, because the cat keeps sleeping on it and depositing hair. Her dog was quite sure I was doing all that for her, so she wanted to climb into her mom’s bed, but I wouldn’t let her.

THEN I ironed. I did well, but I should have started earlier, because once you’ve started picking flesh fabrics, you can’t stop until you are done, and done means they are all ironed down. Yeah. So that was a couple of hours…and I started too late.

It took 15 minutes of rummaging through the flesh drawers to come up with this run…

And in the end, I replaced the last one with something darker. I wasn’t sure there would be enough of fabric 2, but in the end, it was fabric 3 that was the small one. I used about 2/3 of what I had on the pieces ironed on it. Fabric 2 had plenty. You can see them all laid out below…

So that was at about 11:45 PM, and I needed to iron them all down at that point. Eh. Who needs sleep? Especially when you get cranky with not enough sleep and you’re teaching 12-year-olds, and they make you cranky anyway. It’s all good. No one will know the difference.

I didn’t cut anymore out last night, but I’m getting close to the end of the ironing…that’s all that’s left…

Eyeballs and heart and lungs and weepy bits on the face. A uterus. It looks easy, and most of it is, except there’s a wineglass in there with stuff showing through it, and that’s just about 50 pieces of pain in the ass. So I have to think about how to iron that. Maybe tonight. Except I have to grade as well. Maybe I’ll get some grading done today at school. I got none done yesterday because I had to help students make phone calls home about the F assignments they needed to get signed and had forgotten. I got through 25 of them, but there still a few to go. They get all upset about calling, tell me that they’ll bring it tomorrow, beg me. I guess I’m pretty heartless, because I gave them all last week and they forgot all week, and I don’t have faith that all of a sudden they’ll remember, unless they feel the pit of fear in their belly about calling home. Tomorrow I send packets home with all failing kids. I’m pretty cranky about all that too, but not half so cranky as I am about personally counseling all these kids and then having them turn absolutely no late work in.

The art is what I want to spend brainpower on…not all this school and stressful stuff. And the work stuff starts to eat up all the spare time and mental space. There’s a moment of reflection for you. I don’t know how I did it the last two years, but I know I spent less time and energy on school. I think. It feels like I did. Speaking of which, somehow I got roped into a meeting this morning with a student I don’t even have (special ed meetings require a general ed teacher), plus a meeting with crazy tomorrow morning…so I have to leave early two mornings in a row. Ugh. Survival week. Seriously.

Everything Might Be Late This Year…

So I had 17 things on my to-do list for each day this weekend, and I think I got through 3 or 4 each day. That’s realistic, although everything seemed to take longer than it should, which is why the Christmas tree is still leaning up in the entryway instead of installed in the living room. And dinner made it in the oven just before 8 PM. And I decided to blow off grading yesterday because I missed ironing fabrics so much. It’s not that I didn’t work yesterday…I sent the parent email and did my warmups and updated my school website and made a powerpoint for the warmups. That’s not nothing. And checked school email for more crap from the little widgets. Interesting that after Friday and Saturday’s flurry of messages stating “I turned it in! I fixed it!”, on Sunday, there were but two or three kids quietly telling me they cared about their grade…and two of them are already passing. They just don’t like their grade as it is.

I’ll grade today and tonight. I swear. Last night though…last night, I let my art flag fly…for a little while.

I’m in the 400s, finished the bathtub and moved on to the fixtures…faucet, knob…

There’s only one knob…presumably the foot is covering the other one, although that doesn’t really seem possible, but whatever. There are some baths that only have one knob, but usually they sit above the faucet. This is not one of those tubs. This is a made-up-in-Kathy’s-head tub.

I got to the water next…

Luckily, there isn’t much water in this one, because the fabrics I picked for 1 and 2 in the range had very little left of them. They’re fabrics I really like, so they get used in a lot of quilts…and there isn’t much left of either one. I love using those fabrics in all the quilts though, because then I get to see them all the time. I couldn’t get into two of the blue fabric drawers though because Midnight was sleeping in them. So I had to make do with what I could see in the other blue bins.

Here’s what I’ve used so far…

I stopped there, because flesh is next, and that’s a long time commitment to do that next. It’s easier to do it all in one go, pick all the flesh pieces at once, so I’ll try to do that tonight. I’ve gotten through most of the 400s…the body is all that’s left.

Because it wasn’t midnight yet and I wasn’t tired, plus I was in the middle of a rather interesting episode of Defiance, I cut stuff out for a little while…

Cut-out stuff is on the left. To-be cut-out stuff is on the right. I’m way behind where I wanted to be. Oh well. It will get done. All of what needs to really get done will get done eventually. Same with the next three weeks of break. The plus is the boychild’s room is almost cleared out. I never got through the rest of the crap in my studio, but maybe after he goes back to school, I’ll pile that up in his room. He’ll love that. As long as I clean it up before he gets back in May, that is. And it’s motivating to know someone needs to live in that space. Then again, he’s been threatening to get an internship and not come back at all, so there we are. Then I’ll never have to clean up.

Good attitude.

Saturday, I did make it to four openings. The other one had too many parking challenges, so I gave up. I have lots of photos that I have to resize, so maybe I’ll just post a few every day. It was dark when I finally got out of here, which isn’t saying much because it’s dark by 5 PM…I parked right by this…

And then I went to La Bodega Gallery’s Star Wars exhibit…this is by Waster One…

Probably not his real name. And yeah, I’m assuming that’s a guy…not sure why. Lots of small art about Star Wars, some of it disturbingly good. More pictures from that exhibit later. And yesterday I went to a craft fair in a brewpub, which helped with a few presents. I’m still flailing on a couple. This is a crazy time of year. Meanwhile, dad was installing my shelves…finally.

It required some level of engineering that I’m incapable of imagining. You have to understand that I repainted this room two summers ago, and since then, the shelves have been gone. So the stuff that lived on the ugly pink 80s Southwestern shelves before has been living in boxes in my bedroom mostly. So over the summer, I had the boychild stain and varnish wood for the shelves and we bought brackets that I thought would work, and then the boychild left one in the cart at Home Depot, so I had to go back to Ikea for one more, and then I asked his dad and my dad for assistance in installation, and that never happened. I might actually have shelves done this week. I’m excited by the prospect, even though it makes the room look smaller strangely by installing them. And eventually I’ll put art up on the wall next to it, but the big piece I want to install is going to be in the Grossmont show, so I’m holding off.

There’s a whole ‘nother giant ass thing I have to plan for. Anyway. I’m doing a little at a time, a little each day. The house is still the same disaster it was when the kids left…slightly changed, maybe for the worse. Hard to say. Bringing a tree in for Christmas made me put a couple of things in the garage to get them out of the way. That was good. Having shelves to put the stuff in boxes away would help too. So would being home occasionally, but this weekend, that didn’t happen. On the other hand, I can’t always be a hermit and stay home. I need the socializing and the art openings (oh yeah, and I crashed a mortgage company’s party to watch a band play…you know, like you do when you’re in your 40s) or I go crazy.

And if you’re waiting on a Christmas card from me, they’re here. I’ve written my part of the letter, and for what it’s worth (it might require you to use a dictionary), the boychild has written his part too…we’re waiting on the female stress monkey, who is telling me Friday. You know, the day she flies home. Uh huh. They might be late this year. Everything might be late this year.

It’s Time to Get Out of Here…

I made no art in the last 36 hours. I did nothing except some social stuff and grade crap. I went through three weeks of emails from students and Google Classroom, searching out all the last-minute work kids have been throwing at me. On Friday, I got through most of the F counseling, but there is very little change in grades so far. I will have to clarify that handing me stuff on Wednesday, when I have already printed out the list of special students who need additional work to prove they know what I have been teaching since August, well it will be too late.

It makes my neck and shoulders tight. It makes me grind my teeth. I’m going out to about 5 art openings tonight to make up for it. Of course, it’s dark and bloody freezing out there, and I don’t have my regular gallery companion with me tonight, so it will be a little weird. But I need to get my head out of my job for a bit. Because tomorrow I am going back to the endless grading and checking Google Classroom for their late assignments. (Dear Google…)

And hopefully I will be ironing tomorrow as well. Although my day is already looking semi-crazy. As always. The week before break just kicks my ass on a regular basis.

I don’t even have a picture for you. Hang on…

I was cleaning out the last of the stuff that was in the boychild’s room. I found some screenprinting drawings and mockups from probably the early 1990s…I think at some point I was considering making them into quilts…this one used to hang in the house somewhere…

dated 1994. Can’t remember the name…

And this one…this one started out as a Sharpie drawing on a 4×8′ piece of plywood that was partially painted in enamels (cuz that’s not crazy enough) and then I got rid of that, because it got termites. That painting was started in college. And then I drew it smaller and screenprinted it. This is the color mockup for the print…

You can see all the colors I was going to use on the left. This did get printed and hangs in my laundry room. It would make an interesting quilt. But you can see that I’ve always been a bit weird and the Christmas lights were in even then. The original was probably done in 1988 or 1989. It might even have been 1986. Actually, I just looked in the laundry room and it’s not hanging there. Not sure when that happened.

Well, and that explains the last ten years of my brain right there. Art openings it is. Now. It’s time to get out of here.