Because I’ve Forgotten…

I was so ready to be in bed by midnight last night, and then the girlchild texted that she heard someone in her house. She’s subletting and she’s been the only person there for the last week or so. There are supposed to be other people in there this summer, but she wasn’t expecting them this early or at 3 AM. So she’s freaking out, and now I’m freaking out. I almost called the cops for her, but some frantic texting later finds that it really is the kid who is supposed to show up 4 days from now. Oh good. Sigh. So that made my brain hit overdrive. The plus is that I got my laundry folded in the meantime, during said texting. She was worried that she would call the cops and it would sound crazy. I tried to tell her there’s nothing crazy about a woman by herself in a house hearing a noise at 3 in the morning. Hell, I called the sheriff on a raccoon. To my credit, it was a freakishly huge raccoon and it was making people sounds. Long story. Plus I had three dogs going bazonkers at the time. I’ve spent a large part of my adult life living alone, and I get what she’s saying. It’s why I like dogs. Anyway, I’m glad she now has a housemate, although an incommunicative one apparently.

I took on a copyediting job for “August sometime”. It’s an author I’ve worked with before, so I’m pretty clear on what the tasks will be, but the timing is not ideal. Early August? OK. Late August? Yikes. But I need the money to pay off the kids’ college portion for which I am responsible. And I’d rather have that done sooner than later. As it is, I’m supposed to be paying some of the boychild’s off, and I haven’t had the money. Maybe once I get into the summer and see how much cash I have, I can pay off part of it. Most of it will come from the sale of an art quilt the end of the summer. Unless some other disaster happens that I don’t know about. I need to sell my car this summer too, which is going to mean a loan for a newer one. Fun stuff.

So where am I at on the quilt? Not as far as I’d liked. It is what it is…yesterday was inordinately busy.

I’m about halfway through the outlining. It’s not taking long, but I haven’t had long either. I needed to finish grading an assignment last night so I could calculate awards and input grades and get stuff out of my hair. So I did that. I went to a bonfire in the middle of all that where we burned the question box cards from the sex ed unit…it was a little early for this year’s cards, but my co-teacher had all her cards from last year. We read them out loud and it’s amusing.

I did quilt eventually…it was just almost 11 PM.

Even though I’m not done, I pulled it off the machine because I need binding fabric and this week is a clusterfuck for getting out of work at a reasonable time. The store closes at 5 and that isn’t going to happen on Tuesday-Thursday. There is supposed to be a 2-hour staff meeting today, but I’m hoping he releases us early, so I can kamikaze over to the quilt shop. I’m pretty sure I can finish the quilting well before Friday, and that’s the next available time to go to the quilt store. If not, there’s a store closer to me that is open until 5:30, but they don’t have as many fabrics…it’ll do if it has to, but I prefer the other place.

In other news, I have a random water leak under the sink that I can’t locate. It might be the tea kettle leaking, so I replaced that. It might be the garbage disposal or a pipe, but I haven’t been able to locate the actual leak. I can’t really call a plumber if it’s just water dripping past the sink because the tile is all gone. I don’t really know what to do about that. I replaced it all once, but couldn’t get it to stay permanently…it’s a very wet part of the kitchen and eventually everything decayed away again. I can’t really afford to replace it all…but maybe I will just have to do that, even though my whole kitchen is a 1977-era disaster and needs major work. I’ve been piecemeal replacing things for years…the oven is on its last legs. The microwave is at ankle height. It’s just a shit storm. I figure once I get college paid off, I can start on the house. Anyway. Maybe I need to just learn how to make a concrete counter from some DIY YouTube video and that’ll be the solution. Who knows. My summer is already a mess.

Here’s a cat though…

She was watching me quilt. This is why there are two chairs in my office. One for me and one for a cat. Sometimes. Sometimes she wants to be in the same chair I’m in.

And here’s a sleepy puppy. Who is not a puppy at all. He’ll be 3? in September. I think he’s 3.

His adorable face is what keeps us from killing him when he barks at 3 AM. Which he’s been better at lately.

Anyway, today I start videos about pregnancy (fun stuff), then we have testing for two days, and then I teach about birth control. In my personal world, I need to put together my first Patreon video for June (it’s in parts right now), plus do some drawing, and finish this quilt. I’m sure there are other things on my calendar that I’ve forgotten about right now (post office, sharps disposal, library book, exercise, dog walking, grading)…but hopefully I’ll remember them before too late. If you asked me to do something and I didn’t, feel free to remind me. Because I’ve forgotten.

More Chock Full…

This weekend is even more chock full than I thought. I’m getting some stuff done, though…but probably not all of it. Today will be a little crazier than I thought. This week might be a little crazier than I thought. Oh well. Roll with it.

I have one class left to grade of the big huge assignment. I need to get it done like now. I also need to calendar the week, so I can get a hold of the minutiae. I need to quilt. I need to write the warmup for the week. I’m sure there’s other crap I haven’t even thought of…laundry, team email, groceries. OK, I’ve thought of those.

Yesterday, I had a school thing to go to, repping for the team. I live closest to school, so it’s easy enough to show up for the girls in science. I got to see one of my kids from 4 years ago too, and she’s still interested in science, so that’s cool. Planning on going to college in a science career too. All good. Although not necessary. I just want them to find their happy, their passion. My kid from this year, who is normally so self-assured and confident, was terrified. She’ll be fine. She’s awesome. She doesn’t know it yet though. School is the safe place. She fits in a slot there. This is bigger and different. I hope she rocks it.

I did quilt yesterday…I was right…this is quilting really fast. I’ll be fine with the deadline…

Although getting binding…not sure when that is happening. That’s the problem with my job and the open hours of the quilt store. So I’ll have to figure that out. They used to be open later one day a week, and they stopped that. It makes it difficult. If today weren’t so crazy (I keep using that word), I might go today. Thinking about it.

Yesterday also meant a trip to Campland to watch the man play…I stitched…

If you don’t face the kickball game, you will get hit in the head.

Chair turned around toward the stage (kickball was over). At this point, it was starting to get too dark to stitch, so I quit…

But I got a bunch done first.

I also tried to draw…

It was a little too dark for it. Lights from the stage got in the way of a successful draw. I was trying to record it too. We’ll see how that looks later. I’m constantly trying to think of what I could record for the Patreon. I have one video that’s done; I just can’t show it until after June 30. So there’s that.

Friday night, we went to the opening of Bhavna Mehta’s new exhibit at Art Produce…The Body Is a Home…

As always, her work is beautiful and different…

I’m taking a class from her in July about papercutting and embroidery. I just want to try new things. I think it’s important to consider how to branch out from the work we always do. It’s easy for me to make art quilts. I like my women’s art group because it makes me do different things than what might be easy. So we’ll see how that goes.

Kitten is often frustrated by the geckos…

And yet fascinated. Me too, Kitten. Me too.

OK, so many things to do. I should start with shower and food, and then try to make sense of the world after that.

I Don’t Need a Huge Piece of It

Wow. So May is a long month, but it has whipped by, leaving me in the dust. I close the gradebook for the last time this school year next Friday. Holy crap. That means I have to finish grading stuff. And a bunch of other things need to happen. Like magically. I had hoped to get a lot of grading done yesterday while the kids worked on vocab, but there was a lot of behavior stuff going on. So I didn’t get much done, unfortunately. I finished one class of the big assignment by staying a little bit after work, before going to my friend’s retirement party. And then, I brought one class home with me. I only have two left. But they have to be done by Monday. And this weekend is a mess. So there’s that. OK. Well. I’m going to have to figure it out. I’m not quite at the point where I can see a light at the end of the grading tunnel. Ah the sweet respite of summer, where no lesson planning or grading has to happen every damn night.

I was supposed to go to the gym last night, but by the time I got home from the party, I was exhausted. Not too exhausted, though…because I pinbasted the quilt.

The backing is this fabric I’ve had for years and never used…

It’s way too busy to be a background, but it was just too amazing not to buy. Plus it was on sale. But I’m trying to use stuff up. If I have a small piece of it in my stash, I can use it for images…I don’t need a huge piece of it.

I think that’s my life lesson for the day. True for cake and wealth and responsibility. Responsibility especially right now. I’m wondering if either of the people I live with will realize the fridge is dirty and even just wipe off the shelf. Or is that just me. Sure, it’s my fridge. It’s my house. But we all live here. And that doesn’t even touch on school stuff. Sigh. There’s been a lot of this lately…

This is from the Noom app. Some of the articles are good. And it’s not that I didn’t know this. Trust me. I know this. I suck at it, but I know it. As my friend Julie tells me, Be Brave. And I also think because I am older and (maybe) wiser that I just don’t give a fuck about some things any more. I don’t have a lot of tolerance for people who are teachers and don’t get kids. Or people on teams who don’t pull their weight or work cooperatively with others. I’m a lone wolf at a lot of things, but I do know the power of teaming when working this job on so many fronts, and it’s been a joy to have some really good team members in the last few years. I think I pull my weight. I could probably be nicer about it. Maybe.

On that note, my quilter friend of (holy crap) 29 years is moving to Portland in a few weeks for good. We’re going to attempt online meetings, but it’s not the same. So I reached out to SAQA to see what’s going on with meetings locally. I need to branch out a bit. I’m hoping there’s meetings that are not just during the work day. In a city/region this full of people, there have to be like-minded artists who just want to hang out once a month and stitch. Hopefully. This as I listen to the girlchild, who is in the Boston area jobhunting and currently subletting in a house where no one is living at the moment, plus all her friends have disappeared for the summer (or forever) and she has nothing to do but clean and run errands…which will eventually get expensive. She’s like me…needs to have shit to do…and NOT like me…in that she is an extrovert and gets energy from her interactions with people. So hopefully all that will get worked out soon.

Me? I need to go teach pregnancy today, do a lot of other things, go to a friend’s opening, and then figure out whether I can start quilting tonight. This thing is going to quilt quickly, but I actually need time to DO it for that to happen. And the next week is a mess. I want it done by next weekend, if I can pull it off. We’ll see. At least it’s Friday again. I’m totally in survival mode.

They Spun a Web for Me*

Sorry I am so light on pictures right now. I have this finished quilt top, all ironed down and stitched down. Close your eyes and imagine it, although I can’t tell you anything about it. So there’s that. There’s no nudity in it! I can tell you that. I know you’re shocked, but I only use nudity when it makes sense to me. The problem is that other people don’t have the same sense as I do. Tonight I will be pinbasting it and hopefully starting the quilting, although I have some stuff to do after school and I want to go to the gym and finish my book. So there’s that.

Last night, I was on the stationary bike, grading Venn diagrams about the pros and cons of plastics, while looking up temperatures in New Orleans in December, and texting a high-school friend about National Parks I’d been to. There’s no picture of that either.

I took one picture of the stitch down. I tried to make it really artsy so you couldn’t see what I was stitching down, because I can’t show you that yet, and it was not artsy enough and you can totally see it. I’m gonna have a ton of pictures in July. Not now.

The plus is that I’m close to done (well, at least a week out), and then I will have pictures galore of the next quilt, whatever the heck it’s gonna be. I have three or four smaller drawings that are already numbered. I’m going to toss them up on my Patreon and let them vote. I don’t have the brain power to decide for myself. One minute I’m all about one of them. The next minute, my brain is reneging and picking another one. Indecisiveness! Actually, it’s just decision fatigue. Totally. I need a team to decide for me.

I did get to 11:55 PM last night and I only had like 3 inches left to stitch down and this happened.

Well, first the bobbin thread tied itself in a knot around the holder on the machine that probably has some official name like Bobbin Stick Thing, and then I couldn’t get it to unwind appropriately, so I took a seam ripper to it. Then I refilled the damn thing and sewed that three inches, but it all took some time. And profanity.

No I have not had enough sleep. Why do you ask?

But it’s done. So I can go on to the next step. Which is good. This weekend is somewhat of a clusterfuck, so I’m going to need all the head start I can get.

Here’s Kitten hiding behind a quilt.

Not a very artsy photo.

OK, I have a headache and I need to eat and find a new chiropractor. Maybe not right this second. I also have some art exhibits to enter. I might do one now. Time is short.

Oh yeah, another article that includes info about my solo show in Pittsburgh…Fiberart International opens this weekend and they are advertising my show along with it, which is cool. Because I didn’t get into Fiberart International, but entering there was how I got this show. Which is cool.

OK. Food. Entries. Teaching. All that.

*Coldplay, Trouble

Progress…

Progress on all fronts! I finished grading one assignment (of the 3,000 I have left. Not really. It just feels that way). I made it to the post office after tutoring with 3 minutes to spare to mail the embroidered piece off to the buyer. I laid around on the couch feeling half dead (that’s the part that stayed up too late) for a while. I finished my book! For May’s book club meeting, which already happened and which I didn’t go to, and I really didn’t like the book, so there’s that. But It’s Done. I like done sometimes.

I forgot to say that Womanscape won an award at Form Not Function, the Inspired by Nature award given or funded by Juanita Yeager. I used to read her blog all the time…I was fascinated by her flower quilts. That was a million years ago, I think. I’m not as good at reading blogs any more. The piece was also featured in this article from Insider Louisville about the show…that’s it in the middle.

She looks good. I really like that a quilt about women’s rights won an Inspired by Nature award. It seems right to me.

Anyway, here’s an artsy photo of me getting ready to iron down the image of the current quilt onto the background. You should be able to see it sometime in July. I think. It may not even get in. I think it’s cool, but that’s just me.

I did get it ironed down and started stitching down last night. It’s not huge, so it shouldn’t take long. I’m hoping to get it fully stitched down tonight and then maybe get it pinbasted? We’ll see.

I’ve been having a hard time getting my brain to shut down late at night, so I’ve been trying to draw a little. This is for my Patreon…it’ll hopefully be scanned and emailed out to them tonight…

I may have to stare at it more and decide if it needs more. Well art brain will tell you it always needs more. But does it really?

After that, I think I’m going to put it up to the Patreon as to which smaller quilt I work on next…since I can’t decide and I have end-of-the-year brain. Maybe. I like to have control of things, so that might throw me. Or not. Delegate decisions! I should do more of that. Anyway, I have a bunch of drawings ready to go, so I think I’ll do that.

Awww. What a sweetheart. He was upset because the boychild bopped him for biting while the boychild was trying to pull those nasty twirly twigs out of his butt fur. This is his sad face. He got pets later, so he was fine.

OK, off to work…today is menstruation and sperm production. Oh yeah! And gender. It’s a fun day. Really. It is. Just tiring is all. It’s getting near to the end. That’s a good thing. I’m looking forward to some artmaking time. Seriously.

Up All Night…

Much as I appreciated the long weekend…this morning hurts. Probably that is mostly my fault because I stayed up too late last night to finish ironing all the pieces together on the secret quilt. But I did get that done…and tonight, I’ll iron it to the backing and start stitchdown. So that’s a good thing.

I definitely think I will be doing a smaller quilt next, just because I have some smaller ones that want to be quilts and I have some braindead time coming up with the end of school. I could start drawing the next one, but I have so many things on my mind (and to-do list) right now that I think I would do a better job thinking through a drawing if I can get past the month of June. I still have another couple of weeks on this one, I’m guessing.

I got a lot done yesterday…a bunch of grading and yardwork for one, and a nice dog walk for another…

It was a beautiful day…

Still lots of flowers out there…

Lots of overgrown paths…

Lots of tick checks afterwards…

I think we tired them out…

That’s always the goal. See all the sticks in Simba’s chest fur? He tries to bite them out. Then he bites you as you’re getting them out. Fun stuff.

My basil flowered while I wasn’t looking. Whoops.

So many things you have to pay attention to in this world. May everyone be healthy today. And safe. Girlchild is flying back to Boston today from Portugal. I’m up early for a parent meeting…because with 18 days of school left, THAT’S when you start paying attention to your kid’s grades. Still teaching puberty…although also teaching sexual harassment today, because apparently that’s confusing.

Sigh. I drew a little last night…trying to get my brain to shut down after finishing ironing…

Still working on it. It will be sent to my Patreon subscribers later this week as a jpg. They can print it out, color it, embroider it, or just stare at it. I should finish it first…decide whether that’s an Earth or something else (a giant eyeball?). Off to school now…

That Is Not a Short List

Happy Memorial Day y’all. May those who need this time to remember the fighters and the fallen take that time in peace. As I try to figure out why we might be invading Venezuela. I should avoid the living room on weekend/holiday mornings, because someone is out there watching the newsy talking heads and it inevitably gives me panic attacks. The only reason I can see for invading Venezuela is because their “leader” is a dick, and if we’re gonna invade countries where THAT’S an issue, we should start here.

So I’m back in my studio, where the news is hard to hear? Well. Maybe. I am glad I have today off, because as of yesterday, I was still exhausted. I’m still tired today, and I have 17 thousand things to do, but it’s a day I wouldn’t normally have free, so that’s a plus.

So I’m still working on the 6th Earth Mother embroidery…

I got confirmation yesterday that I will be doing 6 more of these over the summer…I have to think about what I want them to look like. I washed and ironed all of them. I call this one Woman with a Future, but she’s Earth Mother 6 on Global Artisans…

I’m realizing I need another page on my website for these…I’ll be sending a few to hang out in the booth where they’re selling the patterns and kits. This is Nursing Mother, aka Earth Mother 3.

I have a more complicated drawing of this that I might want to be a small quilt at some point. This is one of two Mother Time pieces…this is actually the 2nd one (I didn’t stitch in any particular order), but is Earth Mother 1 on the GA website.

And she’s sold. I really like the thread for the hair. You can purchase the threads on their website as well…they’re nice to use. I find DMC floss to be a pain in the ass…so I appreciate the thicker threads with some variegation for pieces like this.

So look for 6 more over the summer. I still need to finish what I have here though.

Mostly on Saturday, I ironed the current very secret quilt together. And I’m still doing that. It seemed like I was close to done, because I only had 3 sections left, but those three sections have the TINIEST pieces in them. I recorded myself putting a tiny face together for my Patreon, but I think I will have to wait until after the jurying on this piece to post it. Maybe. We’ll see.

The Patreon crew is slowly building…I’m excited to be doing different things for them, like the videos and drawings. I did have to order a new tripod for my phone, because I had this one from way back and the iPhone 4 weighs WAY less than an X, so it kept falling over. I ended up using a box of fabric to hold the phone in the right place. It worked, but it was in my way. My goal is to finish all the ironing today, but I have a lot of other stuff to do too, so we know how that goes.

I did finish grading all 110 videos for the current project…I did a bunch while riding the stationary bike. Now that’s multi-tasking! But people always ask me, “How do you do it?” Well that’s one of the ways I do it. Plus I was embroidering while watching some of them as well. It’s one of the easier things during which to multi-task…the videos don’t require me to scroll or type much usually.

Although maybe these kids need a lesson in non-creepy lighting. Or not. Perhaps this was on purpose. I did laugh my ass off at two kids who did Nida News. They even had a logo and sound effects. Awesome.

This is where I quit with the ironing last night. I’m missing a tiny little leg. I’ll probably find it in another box. That’s where the missing eyelid from Saturday was. In the wrong box.

I stayed up until almost 1 AM, so yeah. I did about 3 1/2 hours yesterday and 5 hours the day before. It’s close. Not super close, but close. Pain in the ass tiny piece day. Yup.

There will be time today to walk these beasts…

I need to get out and move around…too much rain this year…

I’m sure I’ll be wishing for rain in about a month, but yesterday was cold and I’m still in a sweater today. Weird for Southern California.

OK, food, shower, grade makeup work, iron pieces, walk the dogs, pack the sold piece, buy hoops for two to go to shows, cook dinner, prep breakfasts, trim the bougainvillea. That is not a short list. I should get going.

It’s About the Fact That They Go

I have a piece in Form Not Function, which opened last night…Womanscape…

I got a couple of comments last night from people who had seen the show and loved this piece, which I appreciate. I loved making it. It started as a drawing way back in 2010 or so, then turned into what I thought would be a really long triptych (in my head), and then last summer, I redrew the parts into this. And it didn’t get into a variety of shows I entered it into (as always), and then it got in here. And that was good. Really, it’s not about where they go…it’s about the fact that they go.

So I’m staring at this piece and the comments and trying to figure out what the big piece of summer 2019 will be. Summer 2018 was remarkably unproductive on the art front. Having jury duty for an entire month hanging over your head does not help you make work. Or me at least. I’m thinking I will do a smaller piece when I finish what I’m working on, because I don’t have a drawing for a larger piece yet. I have a bunch of smaller ones. Plus it’s good to have some smaller pieces on hand. It’s also good to have some smaller pieces with no nudity in them, but I don’t think I care about that right now.

First though…I need to finish this one. So last night, I cut the last of the pieces out.

Here they all are, with the trash I save until I’m done ironing it together…

And then I found a bunch of boxes for sorting…

And I sorted them…

Total cutting time was 10 hours and 10 minutes. Sorting took a whopping 40 minutes. It always feels longer.

I want it all ironed together by the end of the weekend…maybe even into the stitch down. I do have to grade stuff. But I already did one thing last night…

That’s me grading 51 videos with furry assist. I actually stitched and cut stuff out while watching these. I don’t think I can iron and watch though. I have another 50 to go.

I need to finish that drawing for my Patreon, plus a bunch of other stuff. I need to wash and iron the finish embroideries and send photos to the official peeps. I need to grade more stuff and clean up around the pool and clean floors. I need to buy some frames and some art supplies.

School was rough this week. We did reproductive anatomy and puberty, plus two days of testing, all on very little rest and relaxation. So this card in my box after school on Friday was needed and appreciated.

I love you too, guys…even when you’re being jerks. You’ll grow out of some of that. Next week is more puberty, plus menstruation and ejaculation and pregnancy. Woo! Oh my. Right now, I’m going to take my shower and then make another cup of tea and come in here and start ironing things together. I want to do that. So I’m gonna.

Before We Get Too Old*

It’s Friday before a 3-day weekend. Today I teach about puberty…an exciting time in our lives that we’re eternally glad has ended. We had two days of testing, which is exhausting for our kids, but tiring for us as well.

I feel what she’s feeling. And this one…

Well, that’s a skill that will help her in her future (don’t worry…she was done with the test by then). We have a week off before the next batch…so that’s a good thing. Meanwhile, I’m trying (but apparently not very hard) to get grading done. And so many other things done. Nothing is done.

My co-teacher and I mapped out the plan for next year. We’re still piloting new curriculum, which fucks everything up. But we have a rough idea now, which makes me feel better. This will be our 4th year of trying to revise for NGSS, and it’s hard. Not the content part…but the flow and the curriculum…

We think pretty damn hard about what we teach…sometimes probably too hard. Anyway, this thing will come out again. And get revised. And made electronic. Not yet.

After school, my chiropractor told me he’s not accepting my insurance any more, because they suck. So I can pay more and go less often, or go find the 4th chiropractor in as many years. Sigh. I can’t deal with that right now. Put on to-do list. Moving on. Came home and exercised. It seemed to be the right thing to do.

Then I edited the 2nd Patreon video…it went up this morning. I am doing two a month…I might do a short third video, another public one, for the beginning of June, to try to persuade more people to be patrons. I started the drawing for the patrons as well…but didn’t finish it. I had the idea while driving to the chiropractor. It’s going well. It should be done by the end of the weekend, easily.

Then I stitched for a little while…

And after I cleaned the dishes and sat back down, I started cutting. I wanted to finish last night, but I’ve been so tired…I went to bed early instead.

The top box is all that’s left to cut out. Tonight I’ll finish and hopefully sort the pieces. Then I can start ironing…probably not tonight though. I won’t be able to show the ironing process yet…it’ll have to wait until July. Although I will probably record some of it for the Patreon…since it’s private, it doesn’t have the same rules of not showing things.

I’m really looking forward to putting it together, but on here, I guess you’ll be watching me embroider and draw. I’ll try to do more of that. Or there will just be lots of pictures of the furry beasts.

That one looks cranky.

*Snow Patrol, Chasing Cars

There’s Always Time Until There’s Not

Apparently Pinterest thinks I like bread and cheap date ideas. I’m not sure what to think about that. I mean, I do like bread. It’s true. But I don’t think I’ve searched for cheap date ideas. We’re pretty good at coming up with those on our own. Some not so cheap. I’m sure Pinterest has some sort of formula for trying to engage with me. It mostly fails…because it just gives me “pins that are like yours”…well, there’s only so many recipes for that one thing I wanted that one actually needs. So fail.

I am still jet-lagged or tired from life in general or I went into this trip exhausted…why did I think I would get LESS exhausted? Yeah. This weekend is looking pretty sweet. The sleeping part anyway, which I still suck at…I went to bed early last night and then couldn’t fall asleep anyway, despite the exhaustion on the couch. I should have napped there…like father, like daughter? I think he sleeps in chairs more than in beds.

I had all this stuff I was going to do after school yesterday, but I got poured on leaving school (without a jacket, because it’s May in Southern California for goddsake why is it still raining?), so I went home and changed into pajamas instead. It’ll all happen today, I guess. We have another day of testing today. Yesterday was OK. Long. Tiring I guess. I’m trying to get stuff graded and put away. My co-teacher and I tackled the prep room and got it mostly handled. My room is still an issue, but there’s time for that. Of course, there’s always time until there’s not.

The rainbow later in the evening from my house.

It was bright and beautiful.

I came home and cleaned and labeled and ironed and packed up a quilt for a show opening June 8, Indoor/Outdoor at the Athenaeum Arts Center in Barrio Logan. It’s a cool space and looks to be a very interesting show.

Then I dealt with email and online stuff, graded some stuff, talked to the SIL, embroidered a little on the new one…

Which is probably the strangest of the 6…and then cut stuff out for a while.

There is progress, but I’m not done. I want to be done by Friday, so I can start ironing together.

I say I don’t know what I’m going to work on after this, and that’s true, but I have some smaller drawings that are ready to go, all enlarged and numbered and begging to be quilts. So that’s probably the best way to go. And then I’ll have some mental space to draw an abortion quilt. Because I think that’s next. I like to pick really popular topics that everyone can get behind. Rolls eyes. I pick what pisses me off the most. Or makes me cry the most. Or worry the most. Or all of the above.

So there’s that.

I have some pictures from the trip that didn’t make it into the blog before, because WordPress on the iPad is a cranky bitch, that’s why. (Much like me? I heard that. I own that.) We had breakfast at a nice little place with an outside-by-the-river seating area, and this was my tea. That cup fascinated everyone. That is not a cheap cup.

But it is fascinating.

This is the house we stayed in. I just realized they had solar. Huh. I didn’t see the front much.

I did hang out in the backyard…

In fact, I did a drawing MOSTLY out there and documented it (sort of) in a series of videos that will be the next Patreon video…here’s the drawing itself…

So I talk about my sketchbook and how I decide what to draw and all that. It’s about 4 or 5 short videos that I will edit into one. Hopefully tonight. I’m really hoping the jetlag backs off a bit by tonight.

A picture from moving the girlchild’s stuff…this is the lovely elevator that only things can go in…

And these are Canadian geese and babies from Walden Pond.

I realize if you live back east, you see these guys all the time. I don’t. They are very cool. Plus babies. And the water reflections are fascinating too. Yeah. Art brain is whining about wanting to draw. She’ll get to do that this weekend, if not sooner. My patrons will also be getting a drawing from me by the end of the month. Which is like next week.

OK, so another day of testing and at least getting to have lunch from off campus and to hang out with the teachers I never see because we don’t have the same lunch, but the first 4 hours are a pain and you’re not able to pee until an adult shows up to cover your class (somewhat awkward). I don’t know what the hand signal for that is…but seriously. I’m looking forward to summer for many reasons, but mostly for being able to pee when I want to. The wondrous world of teaching…

Tonight? Work on video, finish cutting stuff out. Or get closer to it anyway.