God Forbid You Ever Had to Wake Up to Hear the News*

January 2018. Thinking about politics and shithole nations (oh man. Racist much? Does he not know that in general, Norwegians don’t wanna move here? Are people that clueless about race and socioeconomics and why people immigrate?) and upcoming taxes (is there any point in saving receipts for deductions any more?) and the upcoming 1 year anniversary of the women’s march. How to change my pussy hat up to make it more intersectional. It did have a vulva on it last year. Yeah, I’m marching again. Same group of three that did the science march too. We’re still here. We’re still pissed off. We’re still being marginalized, less so as a white woman than as a woman of color or a nonbinary or a trans woman or all the other permutations. But still listening to white male politicians tell us our place is not at the table. I actually had a conversation with my 7th graders this last week about white privilege and male privilege. There’s a piece of my art brain that’s bulging with ideas about this, but needing to know exactly what I’m saying and am I saying it out of privilege? Or what? I can’t tell other people’s stories. Although I often tell a general story; not all my art is personal narrative. So there’s that. Brain is stirring all these ideas around.

Shithole nations…seriously. I’m so offended by my own race at the moment. Honestly, the vast majority of my white friends are just as offended, but there’s a few acquaintances who are missing some connections. I’m sure there’s a few who never voice their opinions, but think it. Sigh.

I’m exhausted this morning. I have a spike embedded in my forehead above my left eye (I just had to close my eye to try to figure out if it was my left or right eye…I’ve never been good at left and right). The day is warm and I have 7 thousand things that need doing. Now there’s a vise squeezing my temples…and my neck is frozen in place. When is the next chiropractor visit? I’m thinking it’s a long way out.

And yet, here’s Kitten. She really is better at life than I am.

My gradebook calls. I have shit to do in there. I did some last night when I got home from work, before I went to gaming. I think there are 39 emails left.

Late work. I’ll get there. Really, Calli, I’ll get there. I was awakened this morning by the squealing of the girlchild, who is now asleep again. Ugh. Then Calli crying. I know girlchild let the dogs out to pee, but they want food at some point. So I did that. And once I’m up, I’m up. I don’t go back to sleep. I know the boychild is up, because he came in with Simba, but the other two dead bodies are still snoring away, wrapped up in blanket cocoons. Must be nice.

No, I’m not bitter at all. Laughing. I get to sleep in tomorrow, when the dogs are all gone. And so are the kids (not that the boychild is noisy…he’s not).

A herd of balloons. Don’t even ask. It’s my prep room at work.

Gaming. That’s a lot of stress and fatigue I’m collecting over there. I worked on the tree the whole time. If I don’t stitch, I fall asleep. I gave up the comfy chair so the two guys with fucked up ribs and backs could be comfortable. Sigh. I guess I’m never comfortable sitting at a table anyway. True. I’m not.

It’s still not done…needs brown things around and in it. But that’s a nice trellis stitch hole in the tree, isn’t it? I think so.

I have a huge list of stuff I wanna do this weekend. I love that I have these three days after the first week of school. I might almost feel human by the end of it.

I’m going to finish the drawing I’ve been working on, I’m going to sew bindings on those two little quilts I had lying around, I’m going to do the stitch down on the other quilt top and hopefully get it sandwiched for quilting. I’m going to set up my composters. It’s possible I’m going to fire my pool guy for never showing up and find a new one (that’s a pain in the ass). I’m going to some art openings. I’m going to read and exercise and eat decent food and get some sleep (maybe…that one I can’t guarantee).

But right now, I’m going to get more tea in me and take some meds for the headache. It’s probably weather related, but I certainly don’t need to carry it around with me.

*Everlast, What’s It Like

I Know You Better Than You Fake It to See*

It’s Friday. Maybe you’ve noticed. Short weeks aren’t necessarily easier weeks (and the only short part was the part with the kids in it). And I’ve been blowing off schoolwork all week, so I’ll actually have to grade something this weekend. It’s three days. I guess I can do that.

My students are trying to figure out the difference between solids, liquids, and gases. Yesterday, I sat and listened to one class argue about whether liquids were wet or not…I like to just let them go sometimes. And this is where they went.

I love that stuff. Chemistry is not my favorite subject to teach…I’m a life science person. But the new standards mean I don’t teach much of that. Chemistry is good for labs though and for making them question everything they know. Today we’ll continue with that. Fun stuff.

Still doing herringbone. Closer to done.

So I enlarged the drawing I’ve been working on…I did it at 200% and 250%, because I wasn’t sure how big to make it. I generally do the larger, but I need to stay within a cost constraint on this one, so bigger becomes a time and cost issue. So I taped the 200% enlargement together, because it looked doable. Sometimes the pieces are way too small. I added space on the top and will need to add a little on the left side to center it…but even with that, I’m still looking at an image size of about 35″ x 43″…which is right where I want to be. So that’s good. Lots of water in the bottom of the piece…

I still think I’m replacing that head. We’ll see. It’s not quite right.

I have cut off and replaced heads more than once in the past.

I have to admit that I didn’t get much done last night. I was tired and did some cleaning, put the wrapping paper away, which meant reorganizing the whole damn closet (not a 5-minute project). And I tried to go to bed a little earlier. So I could have done more drawing, but more standing? Probably not. Long day. Another bunch of errands after school. Too much.

So when I went to bed, Kitten was on Calli’s bed. And Calli is too scared to lie down with her.

Mommy. That thing has sharp points. So Calli lies down on the floor. Now I know Kitten will end up curled in bed next to me, so I tell Calli that. Sad face Calli.

Kitten looks over at her even. She wouldn’t mind sharing the bed, but Calli won’t do it.

Big Golden Retriever scared of a chubby little cat. Funny stuff.

So weekend plans: art openings and maybe the Star Wars movie and some gaming tonight and some sewing stuff down and finishing the drawing and maybe getting started on that quilt and hanging out with the kids and probably desperate crazy shopping for the girlchild’s trip. And grading. It’s a good thing I have three days, eh?

*Smashing Pumpkins, 1979

She’s Got a Carburetor Tied to the Moon*

Ah patience…I have so little of it at the moment. Probably related to sleep too. Each night it’s easier to fall asleep and stay there…mostly from exhaustion, I think. Better than the insomnia of earlier this week…or the crazy nightmares. Although watching Stranger Things and Fortitude before bed might not be the best choices. They definitely show up in the night.

Yesterday’s professional development could have been done on our own…seriously. Did not need help with that. Annoying. Plus I spent 20 minutes on our spy program (we can watch what the kids are doing on their computers) trying to get one class back on task. The class that had a guest teacher in there. A teacher who was supposed to be keeping them on task, off games and YouTube videos. So we’re gonna have a discussion today of job skills. How is what you did yesterday with the guest teacher in here gonna look on your resume? How will you explain your behavior to your boss? We’ll see how that goes. Sigh. Double sigh. Don’t pull me out of my class for stuff I can do on my own. I’m still irritated by the conversations we were having. I think people who aren’t in the classroom have no idea what some of us talk about all the time to our students.

ANYWAY. It’s not a shocker that certain parts of my job annoy me. I loved Tuesday when kids were first googling things like plasma and chemical reaction. I had interest then. Hopefully that will continue through all the labs etc. Enough for them to question what’s happening and try to figure out answers to problems.

I’m back in a routine of coming home, petting all the furry things, reading for a bit if there’s time (I’m trying to make time. I like to read.) or racing to exercise. Then dinner, whether I’m the cook or recipient…a bit of stitching after eating…and then art of some sort. I realize I will soon have to do some actual schoolwork during that time. I’m avoiding it this week. Seriously avoiding it. For as long as possible.

Routines are good for some things…they’re how I get art made almost every night. My brain is trained for that after-dinner thought…what am I gonna work on tonight? Now because I’m getting a little more tired every night, that gets harder as the week goes on. Last night, I was zoning out way too much…I didn’t start art until pretty late. But I started.

I did work on this after dinner…finished Want and started that giant J.

More subtle herringbone. This one is so much easier to sew. I wish I’d started with it…I wouldn’t have procrastinated so much.

I had couch companions…

That kept changing…that one really wanted to be ON me, but 20 minutes of gentle persuasion put him over there. After he scared off all the dogs. Smallest animal in the house. Mostly benign, unless you’re prepping food in the kitchen. Then he’s like a food-seeking missile. Annoying.

More slow drawing. I’m at the need-to-enlarge stage. Guess I’ll toss it in the car and see if I can find time for that after school.

I’m having fun with the background I think. The non-human parts. There will be more…not a lot more…but a bit on either side, I think, and more up top. Enough to fit in a quote and some space stuff. Have you seen the new pictures of Jupiter? Pretty awesome stuff. Maybe this needs a Jupiter. A new discovery of something that’s been there all along. Definitely a sun and some stars. Yes, it’s a quilt about a kid who had scoliosis surgery, about all the metal in her spine now…but it’s also just about being in the world, being a part of it. The mom made a comment to me early on about how 100 years ago, her daughter would probably have been in a wheelchair…and this surgery allows her to do more of what she wants. Plus she got taller! I should figure out how to add that. I would love to get taller all of a sudden. I’d probably bump into things even more than I already do. Anyway…I wanted there to be a lot of joy in existence in this piece. Not heavy…but joy. Trying to get there. I’m actually considering redoing the head on the right. We’ll see. It’s bugging me, so I will probably have to do that.

Anyway, I can’t do that until I go to school for an early meeting today and then get through all the discovery stuff in classes and who knows what else is on my to-do list. I’m back to 4 or 5 reminder lists and calendars to make sure everything gets done daily. I just typed “enlarge dwg” on my calendar and it autocorrected to “enlarge dog”. I don’t need to enlarge the freakin’ dog. Then the kids come back tonight, although I won’t see them until tomorrow. Hopefully they had fun. One leaves next week and one the following week. I do miss them this week, even though the stress levels go up and at least one is cranky on a regular basis. Sometimes it’s me!

OK, early meeting. Prep for lab. School brain in place. Art brain go sit in a corner and ruminate for a while. You can come out later.

*Beck, The New Pollution

Well, You Don’t Know Me, But I Know You*

I think the puppy must be about to burst. He’s been refusing to pee since the rain started. On Monday. I carry him out and even put him under a tree, but no. He’s wide-eyed, trying to escape back to dry parts (aka the house). I think he must be voiding himself somewhere unknown, like while I wasn’t watching, he’s learned how to use the toilet and is just badmouthing me in his head as I put on his leash and try to persuade him out into the bushes. Luckily, the rain is supposed to stop today. It’s not like we didn’t need it…we just didn’t need it in such large amounts in a short period of time, as the mudslides north of here attest. Timing is everything.

So really, Simba’s problems are minor in the bigger picture. He’ll poop somewhere, sometime. That part is guaranteed.

Yesterday was the first day back with students. They were pretty zoned out by the end of the day. So were the teachers. We started a new unit, so I got to draw and color with them. It was probably all any of us could handle.

I had tutorial after school, so I had exactly zero brain by the time I fought the weather home. I read for a bit even…the book club book for February is kinda big, so I started early for once. I don’t always make it to book club, but I always read the book.

Then I made dinner and did the stitching I usually do afterwards…just a little a night. This is a closeup of what I finished the night before…

And last night. Not sure I have the right variegated thread for the last word. Maybe I’ll go balls out with a teal or pink. Who knows.

Then I really wanted to finish ironing this smaller piece that’s been rolling around my art spaces for months now.

It only took another hour or so…ironed everything down…

Pulled a leftover piece of background I had lying around (that’s the plus with doing smaller pieces)…and ironed the whole thing down. Easy peasy.

Now she’s ready to be stitched down…sometime later this week? Maybe.

Then back to the drawing board. A little slower last night…brainpower reduced by day job.

Land…water…there’s going to be space above, but I need to enlarge the whole thing to do that…or maybe just copy the top and tape it to the next page? But with this one, I think I need to see the whole thing. We’ll see. More tonight. The work day will be shorter…so that should help. We have to sit through some professional development (again), so that’s annoying.

Anyway. I see progress, even if it’s small.

All the animals are missing my kids…who are visiting cousins in Seattle. They are so in my face this morning too, because they had company yesterday, but today, will be left again all day. I feel bad for them…wish I could take them to school, but that can’t happen…too many kids with allergies. Plus Calli would pee on them in her excitement. And Simba might bite someone, because he’s an antisocial dick sometimes. And the cats are pretty unpredictable with humans.

OK. This headache and I need to go to school now.

*Laurie Anderson, O Superman

Be My Very Own Constellation*

Well. I tried sleeping with the pillow over my head to shut the rain up (seriously, it’s not white noise to some of us) and then the wind picked up at 3 AM, so I’m not sure how much sleep I actually got around all that natural shit that we need to fall from the sky because drought. Always the drought. We’ve only had an inch of rain total (including last night) since July, so it really is a dry year…or a normal year, with last year as the crazy outlier. Half our students won’t show up today because of the weather, although a few little guys showed up yesterday…this is the first year we’ve started with kids on Tuesday instead of Monday. The district just wants us to have more and more professional development, and this is one of the ways they try to make it happen. It was good, because we got a lot of choice time instead of enforced crap…my coteacher and I did some planning and hopefully will get caught up. By June. Maybe.

And remember how I told you that school makes me more artistically efficient? I wonder if it’s because the non-art part of my brain is exhausted and dead when I get home, so the art part can run rampant. It really is about shutting that part up sometimes (just like I have to shut the art part up at school)…so I do think that is a factor. It’s OK…I’ll never be able to afford to retire, so I won’t have to worry about how I will make art when I’m old without the work distraction.

It was already starting to rain when I got home, but I knew the dogs needed exercise, so I leashed them up and literally dragged them out there. Well, the little one needed some significant persuasion. He kept looking back where he thought the dry car might be, and broke into a run at the end. The old lady does what she’s told. She gives me a look when it starts raining really hard, but otherwise, she’s just happy to be out there…

It wasn’t too bad most of the way, but they were pretty wet when I got back…

We did a short version, because it was raining pretty hard on the back end.

Puppy needed comfort from someone besides me when we got back.

Mean old lady makes me go outside in this weather.

After that, I did a little ironing on this piece…there’s really no excuse for not getting it done. It’s small and easy. Nice filler when my brain isn’t quite ready for drawing.

We’re watching one episode of Stranger Things a night with dinner…so when I finish eating, I’m working on the SJSA blocks until the episode finishes…this herringbone is going much faster than the buttonhole was…honestly, it’s not the stitch; this glue isn’t as hard to stitch through.

This is what I finished the night before on whatever this is. Some bovine. I worked on it at my parents’…briefly.

Then I went back to ironing after dinner.

That’s where I quit…because I wanted to work on the drawing too…

A totally different direction…there’s a world under them. I think I’m going to have to expand it a little at the top. But I think this is going to work. It was much easier to draw this…I don’t know why. Anyway.

I’m hoping this one works out. I’ll finish drawing tonight, or as much as I can without extending it. I have a lot more stuff to put in it…of course! I like to fill space. You may have noticed that.

Anyway, let’s hope parents get their kids to school today, plus I survive it, so I can come home and iron a bit and draw a lot and sleep better than last night. I can do one shitty night, but two might hurt.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication

Wear Your Insides Out*

So yeah, I’m a teacher. I have to go back to school today, albeit without the students (here’s where I admit that I often like the students more than some of the other people I work with, although I do have an awesome team)…I had weird-ass nightmares all night, just freaky unrealistic stuff where I was running away, always trying to escape and save all the others (oh hey, like my job? Where saving is something we never CAN do, but always wish were in our toolbox…). All the nightmares were in this weird army green color and smelled strange and everything was damp and the car was never where you’d left it. I know there was a middle-of-the-night panic attack in there somewhere, and I finally got up and took something for the headache I developed in the middle of the crazy nightmare phase. It’s no wonder I feel a little beat up and out of it this morning. Plus I haven’t been up this early on purpose for the last three weeks. Ah, night owls…how the normal job world kicks your ass.

Yesterday was like all the Sundays from here until summer, honestly…get up, start doing shit, do shit until the end of the day, maybe collapse on the couch at some point after 9 PM, and then go to bed way too late, feeling like you got nothing done. Maybe it’s good to have this buffer day before we have the kids come back to school? I’m kinda cranky about it, but maybe it’s best.

Meanwhile, we’re supposed to get like an inch and a half of rain in the next two days…I turned the sprinklers off, but it could get bad…that’s more rain than I think we’ve had all season. Since July. Weird weather. (I looked it up. Since July 1, we’ve had 0.37″ of rain. So yeah…we’re supposed to get 4 or 5 times that before Wednesday.)

Anyway, the dyed fabric is still being washed out, so I can’t show you any of that yet, although I’m pretty excited about the two pieces of clothing I just tossed in there…I dyed the bottoms with blues and greens and then put the whole thing in a black bath, hoping the color would strike first and then the black would fill in…and it seems to have worked! Very cool looking. Plus I had some old linens that I dyed for stitching backgrounds. Or something. My hand is still a bit speckled…certainly my fingernails look like I’ve been dipping them in blood…always a nice look.

We made it to the parentals for dinner finally…first time since Christmas. Their dog loves all of us, but especially my kids…

After I got everything put away when we got home (we bring all the foods), I sat down to draw…took what I did the other night and just let my brain go. This isn’t what I want, but it’s getting closer. At some point, I was just filling space, and I need to be a little more mindful. I have some stuff to go read and review before I try again. But it’s going where I need it to go now, more so than it was all last week. See? That’s what school stress does…allows me to focus.

Sad but true. I had my trusty drawing companions…Satchemo on the left, where I put him, because he kept trying to sit on Calli’s face, and she’s kind of a grumpy old lady.

Calli with her nose tucked behind my back…guess it was cold.

I did some stitching, but no photos…I mostly helped cook at my parents, so a whole lot of standing yesterday. Practice for school, I guess.

My kids are taking a short trip to Seattle this week to see their cousins, so the dogs will go back to their boring existence of waiting for someone to come home to pet them and walk them. I’m hoping the rain holds off enough for that to happen today, because I suspect I’m gonna need it (the walk, not the rain) as much as they will.

Kudos to Oprah for her Golden Globes speech last night. She is such a good speaker…it brings tears to my eyes to think about what women have had to go through, especially those with no voice in a culture that often can’t even see that it’s being racist or sexist. Or both. Compounded isms. There is no excuse for some of the things humans have done to each other in the name of those isms, or religion, or whatever excuse we use to make one group better than another.

Anyway. With all that in my head, I’m going to go to work and attempt to be sociable (as much as I ever am) and get some shit ready for the kids who show up tomorrow. I’m going to walk the dogs, unless it’s pouring and there’s lightning. I’m going to draw again…this time getting it right? I hope. I’m ready to get it right.

*Peter Gabriel, Mercy Street

That’s the Hard Part

In 2003, I started writing an art journal to myself, just documenting where I was with certain pieces and shows. I sucked at it for the first two years. I think there’s two entries in 2003 and maybe three in 2004. Then about halfway through 2005, I calendared it. And then started writing weekly because my computer told me to. Occasionally outside stuff slips in, personal life stuff, stuff that doesn’t even make it on the blog. The journal is where I document all the time on any given quilt, plus all the shows I enter and whether I get in or not. I write almost every week…with a few lost weeks due to computer glitches and a few lost weeks due to brain glitches. I started teaching full time in 2003 as well, so there’s documentation of the effect that work has had on my other work. I can search through the main document for mention of the old quilts I just pulled out of the pile to finish…I can find BirdFoot, but not the other one…mostly because (a) if it has a name, I don’t know what it is, and (b) I think it’s older than 2003. Then on top of all that, I’ve been writing the blog since 2004…although again, I didn’t start a regular schedule until 2006 I think.

I’m reminded of all this because this week is the first week of the new year. I used to just keep one huge document, but every time I opened it, it took forever to load, so now I write one year in a document and then add that to the main journal at the end of the year and start a new one. An 11-page document is easier to handle than a 150-page document. I also download a copy of it onto the computer about once a year, just in case the Google Doc (which is where I write now, because I can access it from multiple devices, even if I’m traveling) has some issue and disappears. There’s something important to me about the documentation. I use it a lot to remind myself of how things went, what I was thinking, where I was going.

So where am I at right now, the day before school starts up again? Well my right hand is still speckled orange and red, which will freak my students out (I’m OK with that). The left hand is barely green. I ironed a bit yesterday. I drew a bit yesterday, but more for fun than for an artistic goal. I had a meeting. I’m not ready (I’m never ready…this shouldn’t surprise anyone who hangs out with teachers. We never feel ready. We don’t sleep the night before school starts…sometimes every Sunday night is troubled.). We’ll get some planning time tomorrow, because we’re starting the week with more professional development, so that means we can figure out what the hell we were thinking before break (probably not very coherent thoughts, honestly). I looked at the calendar and my head hurt, so I stopped reading. I need to run some errands today, write warmups for the week, send the parent email, grocery shop, prep lunches for the week, and get my teacher brain out of storage. I can do all of that.

I ironed for a little bit yesterday. The tree leg is horrendously complicated. It’s not hard to do…just time-consuming.

I went to an art group meeting…so far, being in this group has gotten me into two shows, so I feel good about it. I stitched during the meeting, because I don’t know how to sit still.

Strangely, now I’m wondering if the face was supposed to be back stitch or running stitch. I finished the Palestrina knots around the body and then started the running stitches.

The meeting was at the Mingei Museum, which is one of my favorite museums in Balboa Park. They’ll be remodeling in 2018 though…so fewer shows. Too bad. They have a great kantha exhibit in there right now, plus a Navaho rug exhibit.

I had seen this show already, but Arline Fisch is in our group and talked about her work in the museum, which was cool.

Her wirework is fascinating.

Then I had to hang around for a while in Balboa Park, so I drew in the Sculpture Garden bar area…

No sunset…too many clouds.

I started working with that skelly back and a front-facing figure, seriously trying to work stuff out, but it quickly devolved into whatever I felt like drawing. Hence the antenna I guess…

I didn’t really finish, because I had to go wait for my ride. We were going to an opening downtown, so we didn’t want two cars down there (parking is awful) and there was no point in my coming all the way home.

The exhibit was Seeing Is Believing at Sparks Gallery (you can see most of the show at the link) and had some cool work in it…Larry Caveney’s Wonder Woman…

Polly Jacobs Giacchina’s Spiral Progression…

Cheryl Tall’s Couple from Madrid…

and her Horseman.

Christopher Polentz’s William.

David Cuzick’s Stop Yelling at Me #2…

Marissa Quinn’s Connection In-Between…

And Alexander Arshansky’s Life of Pi…

Perry Vasquez’s Florbeza dominates the front window of the gallery…

It was an interesting show. I went because of the surrealism aspect, although honestly, I’m not sure how surrealist it really was. Lenore Simon’s show is still there, so that was nice. We had a good dinner at the same place we keep ending up at when we’re in that area and then hightailed it back here for an early night. Sleep has been the mantra this break…which should tell me something. But trying to fill weekends with art seeing and making seems like a good goal for the next few months. The stress of work is always there…being able to mentally escape it for a few weeks is a relief. Now to continue that mindset throughout the rest of the school year. That’s the hard part.

I Have No Struggle*

Evaluate the three weeks you had off from work. You got one major quilt done. You could have done another smaller one, but your brain stopped working some time last week. You trimmed and cut bindings and sleeves for two other unfinished projects from a million (aka 10+) years ago. You graded 4 of the 6 assignments for school, leaving one for your TA and one because you didn’t feel like doing it over the last three weeks. You didn’t grade any of the late work. You planned and booked most of your Spring Break vacation. You ate many meals with other people, you washed a lot of dishes, you moved all the crap from the driveway up onto the deck, where it belongs. You read about 6 books. You dyed a bunch of stuff that’s been lying around for years (not 10 this time). You hiked 4 or 5 times, one good long one and a bunch of shorter ones. You did some hand embroidery and some drawing, but not a lot of either.

Well I always figure I must need the braindead time if it happens. It means I was using up too much of the brainpower before break and was probably really stressed out (I was…). So I guess it’s a necessary thing. There’s no point in looking at the break and thinking, ah shit, I did it all wrong. I did what I needed to do. So that’s the way it goes.

I spent most of yesterday wishing I was still in my pajamas but instead I was driving around with the girlchild, trying to figure out what she needs for Madagascar…around 3:30, I finally set up for the fabric dyeing that I meant to do in the morning. No, not beer pong. Not the cup game…

I have no in-progress pictures, because I didn’t want dye all over my phone and besides, it got dark. Seriously…I did the last two big pieces in the dark. Oh well. I’m not a precise dyer by any stretch of the word. I did a whole pile of underwear in black, then 6 pairs of socks to replace all my holey ones, plus hair things, because mine are all stretched out, and then there were two t-shirts in there that I forgot I had, plus two or three pieces of old embroidered linens that I was going to do something arty with, and at the last minute, I tossed in a pair of leggings I got in a sale box of stuff you don’t see beforehand because they were a color I’m not really fond of, so I just overdyed them colors I actually like. They have to sit for 24 hours and I’m out tonight, so I’ll wash them out tomorrow morning probably.

I need to buy new gloves though, because the right one leaked massively…it doesn’t actually look as bad in the photo as it does in real life…in real life, I have leprosy obviously.

I’ve washed twice with Reduran with some change in color. I find shampoo is also good. My other hand is tinged green and so is one toe. Going back to school with discolored hands is always fun. The kids freak out. I’m looking forward to that. That’s fun.

So I finished the first of the SJSA blocks finally…that was a lot of glue. The next one doesn’t have as much glue. I don’t want to do buttonhole again though, even though it’s the most obvious…so I’ll think that through I guess.

I combined the back of the skeleton with the metal…that is a lot of detail. But I like it.

And it will be enlarged. Need to draw more today if I can. I don’t know that I need the pelvic girdle…I just drew it so I’d have a basis for the coccyx. Which I then didn’t draw. Duh. I was braindead.

I’ve been working on scheduling stuff a bit more logically…I do keep multiple calendars and schedulers, both online and paper and whiteboard…but I like paper because I have to think about it more. Like what CAN I actually get done. It might not last, but it’s working for now. Next week is a bit messy. Welcome back to school. (OK, it’s not messy on paper…just in my head. I haven’t filled in the paper yet. You should see last week.)

I watched some Madagascar documentary stuff with the girlchild. There’s some wacky beasts living there. It’s nice to see what everything looks like, even though they’ve only shown nature and a little bit of humanity. It was animal sleepy time though.

That was the last official sleep in of Winter Break, I guess. Up not early this morning. Ordered meds…and damn, I am glad I have decent insurance…usually I only pay $10 for three months worth, so this one and one other are more expensive (no generics). I seriously think American insurance and pharmaceutical companies need to figure their shit out though…because if I had to pay full price for the whole year, that would be $3600 and I just wouldn’t be able to take it…and I have another one like that too.

The system is jacked up. This is not a new medication…I’ve been on it off and on for 10 years. Why the heck does it still cost so much? The other one, my insurance company keeps sending me notices that there’s a generic and suggests I take it. I did…for 5 years…it doesn’t work any more. But they don’t care about that part.

Anyway. Like I said, good insurance. Makes me scared to retire ever though.

So today, I have a meeting and an opening to go to, plus some other stuff I gotta get done; I actually drew more on that page last night. Tomorrow I get ready to go back to school…at least physically. Mentally, we’re never ready. Ready for all the noise and decisionmaking and headaches and meetings and trying to get kids to do stuff they don’t wanna do. At least we have a few 3-day weekends in the next two months…those help. I really do feel totally unprepared. Sigh. Oh well. Gotta do it anyway. (It would probably help if I looked at the school calendar to see what’s happening next week…but I promised myself I wouldn’t do that until tomorrow. Brain needs time. Give it time.)

*Zion I, Coastin’

Maybe We Could Find New Ways to Fall Apart*

No post yesterday due to hiking activity. This is not a bad thing. In typical Kathy fashion, though (and it wasn’t my fault…the book had the wrong mileage), we went further than I had planned. The plus is that my heel, which has bugging me on and off the last few weeks, did not hurt too much on the hike, and it’s fine this morning…meaning it’s probably due to one of the pairs of shoes I wear on a regular basis. Not the hiking boots though I think, or it would hurt today. Anyway. More shit to worry about, right? Foot pain sucks. I was in a boot cast for 6 months once and had multiple really long needles inserted in my heel. Don’t wanna do that EVER again.

So yeah, dragged the kids out to Santa Ysabel to hike the loop on the east end. The Coast to Cactus book claimed the larger loop was 4.8 miles. Which it is…as long as you don’t hike BACK to the car. Minor issue guys. So that was 7.6 miles or so instead. Which was fine…we’d been considering going further along the trail anyway…so we just didn’t do that.

There were a lot of cows out there; it was a gorgeous day, warmish but not hot.

There are apparently wildflowers in spring, so hopefully my other hiking companion will agree to the lower part of the hike in April or May. We’ll see.

We did see deer from afar…they saw us as well…

And a coyote up on a hillside (not this one)…

Beautiful oak and pine trees, some climbing up up and up (and then back down seemed much steeper than up, strangely)…

Lots of long vistas…

And cows. Apparently the trail headed north through these guys and we missed it. So we went off road for a bit, following something that we thought was a trail. Hallelujah for hiking apps that show you where YOU are and where the TRAIL is. Yeah.

Wait. There’s the coyote. Bonus points if you can see it.

So it made sense to traipse across this hill toward the trail…easy to do on these cow-trimmed meadows. Not so easy through forest.

And back past majestic trees that survived the fires.

Hikes are awesome, but they kick your butt for the rest of the night…although I did go to my stitching meeting.

Girlchild and I went to get our hairs cut (and hers dyed) for the new year on Wednesday. I always stitch while I’m waiting for hers…I finished this block…I just had a little to do on the sheep.

So this whole 4-square is now done…

In fact, all of this is done…although I don’t think this is how they fit together…

And there’s another batch of blocks I have stitched together that has some finished stuff on it too. I’m not even halfway though. So there’s that. I have one more block for April, I’ve already done May, and June is all stitched down…just needs embroidery. I think I’m stitching the wool down on July too. This is what I do at meetings (that aren’t at school…because apparently that’s not appropriate) and places where I know I have a long wait. So yeah, if I needed to take you to the emergency room, I’d be grabbing my stitching bag. I hate being bored. I need stuff in my hands.

So Wednesday night, I worked on drawing things for this new piece, which is a commission for a woman whose daughter had surgery to correct scoliosis.

I’m not ready for a real drawing yet, but it’s weird…I like drawing things that I know how to draw…so if I’ve never drawn it, I draw it a few times to get it under my hat, or something like that. So I need to put the metal in a scoliosis surgery into the piece, but the metal is on the back of the skeleton, on the back of the person. So I’ve never drawn the BACK of a skeleton. I do aim to be sort of accurate (I’m not totally nuts, so completely accurate is not happening)…so I started with that. Then I was looking at all these surgical pictures (oh yeah, that was interesting, but kinda terrifying), so I was drawing the metal bits, what I could see from X-rays and other pictures. Then I was trying to figure out how I was going to put a human figure into this…and I’m still debating this, because I like the organs and innards, but if it’s from the back, the face is difficult and you can’t really see organs very well, and if it’s from the front, you can’t see the metal. So I’m still struggling with ways to portray what I want.

So there will be more of these. I was gonna draw last night, but life got in the way. It does that. It’s OK. Tonight…totally. Really. Some attempt. Or maybe this afternoon on the deck…because today is my last official day of vacation (ugh!) and I refuse to do schoolwork.

Crazy dogs…

I’m still working on these…I’m not particularly fast. And now I’m going backwards…doing all the dark purple letters with a hot pink buttonhole stitch.

I still have two more blocks…gotta get going on that. Make myself do that every night instead of the stitch-a-day thing.

I had my stitching meeting last night and worked on this guy…Palestrina knots all the way around him. I’m supposed to fill in his whole body with running stitches too. He’s cute though.

However much I want to stay in my pjs all day today, I have a couple of places I need to go, plus I’m doing a dye day…I have underwear and socks that need dying. All my old dyed socks have holes in them. I dye the underwear because the stuff I like comes in these packages with some heinous underwear colors. So I just overdye them to colors I can stand. The blanks have been sitting around the house for at least a year, probably two, so this is crazy. Just DO it! Plus I have some plain white fabric I can dye for quilts…so I’m gonna do that too. It’s a great day for it. And it’s harder to do once I go back to school.

I’m gonna miss being on vacation. Even though I’ve spent most of it flailing around like an idiot. I am way more artistically efficient when I’m teaching. Sad but true.

*Fun., We Are Young

Leaving in 2 Minutes…

Well I have a whopping 14 minutes here to publish something. Today is sorta crazy busy, compared to all the other days over break. I really did dump everything into one day. Easier to deal with? Who knows. My computer is charged, my bag has at least one sketchbook and writing-in notebook and more than 5 pens. Because you never know. You need all the kinds.

Ready to go back? Fuck no. Not even.

Yesterday was kind of a mental mess…I made the boychild his birthday cake…because he is supposed to be coming back today and he likes cake.

While Satchemo got quietly stoned on catnip in the kitchen window.

Yup. I decorated it. I am awesome that way. Seriously, one year I did a dragon and it was really cool. This batch of frosting was kinda old, though, so it didn’t work well.

He just showed up by the way. So he’s alive.

I trimmed this and cut binding and sleeves for it…

Same with this one.

It was brainless work. All I could handle apparently.

This is the other quilt I’ve been haphazardly working on the last week. I drew it last year, did Wonder Under in June, fabric in? I don’t remember when…in between one and the other.

Yesterday I started ironing it together. It won’t take long and this part is pretty painless.

First almost-hundred pieces. Next section is that tree trunk…that will be a pain in the ass. Hope it’s worth it.

I went to the gym, finished a book (Andy Weir’s new book Artemis…it was pretty good, but not as good as The Martian...too much unbelievable stuff, I guess.), cooked dinner, ate it, and then spent like 2 hours talking. I guess I needed that. A mostly nonproductive day. Oh well. It happens. I’m not even making any goals for today. I can’t think that hard yet. And I need to leave in 2 minutes.