Settling In…

There was a crazy tornado mood that swept through me yesterday…up and down and turned all around and settled somewhere in the middle by nighttime, which I guess is better than where I started. It’s strange to sit there and watch the hormones blow through, feel what they do to your brain and body, all the while watching the video you’re showing to your students about PMS and nodding your head quite vigorously along with the goofy chick who’s on there (Lilly Singh, aka iiSuperwomanii…gotta love her…and my students do). When the mood was finally gone, I had finished grading the last major project (still have other stuff though), dinner was made and eaten, and I’d watched two more episodes of Elementary, another version of Sherlock.

It was officially time to sew. So I did.

I stitched stuff down for over two hours and got a goodly portion of it done. I’m hoping to do some more this morning before I have to leave for prom preparations, but we’ll see. It means getting my butt out of this chair and into the shower (waiting for the hot water to return, since girlchild probably just used it all). Today’s kinda weird, but I’m looking forward to some relaxing time in the evening at least…trying to ignore the 17 thousand things I’m supposed to be doing as well. Shhh. Quiet. I know you’re there. That’s what I have list apps for. You’re not going anywhere. The true deadlines? Crap. There’s one I forgot about. Hold on…OK. I paid the $2.70 the boychild owed school. Really. I am not kidding. I don’t even know what he could have charged for that little…probably printing something. But I DID IT. Seriously considering how long I would have to work at my job to earn $2.70 so I can compare it to the amount of time it took me to pay that bill.

I am yes…still…a bit cranky. But I can blame that on school and all the pressures of the end of the year. I continue to be pleased by Kitten’s new explorations of the house, even as I deeply miss Babygirl’s squawky presence.

She really enjoys Voyager. She said. Actually, she used to hang out in the studio/office with me all the time. It was her special space until Babygirl commandeered it, so it’s nice to see her back in here. She climbed around in all the holes and spaces, which have probably changed around a bit in the last 2 1/2 years, and then she settled down on a big pile of fabric, happy as a clam…

Which did make me happy too. Which is good, because I think all the prom stuff today might kick my ass. I have to keep my cool for quite a few hours no matter what, and then I will collapse on the floor and draw something really angry and explosive and painful, and I will be fine. Maybe. Until then, know that the 18 months I spent doing meditation Every Single Day (which I really should start doing again…really) has definitely come in handy this year, with students, adults, and my own children. And probably my own brain as well. Yup. Should maybe start meditating right this second. (some days, you just survive.)

Stuck Down

I’m trying to stay on track. I have a list a mile long. Actually, I have multiple lists. When I wake up in the morning, my phone says alarming things like, “You have a busy day today. There are 22 items on your calendar.” What the fuck? Are any of them “eat” or “sleep?” Nope. The standard stuff isn’t even on there. That’s just the extras. And some of them are easy, like “pay the damn bills” or “enter a show.” OK, that one is not easy, and many thanks to the three varied and useful brains (plus Google) that were helping me come up with a theme/show title for a one-woman show I’m considering. Though it made me realize that a lot of the words that have to do with women just annoy me. Like “feminine.” Anyone who knows me is clear that I am sort of the anti-feminine, and yet that is the word, the adjective, that is supposed to go along with me and my parts. There’s “womanly” as well, which just means you have curvy boobs and hips, right? “She has a womanly figure.” Fuck me. I hate that stuff. “Feminine” implies pretty smells and wafting silky fabrics and a pinky raised for tea. It’s interesting what words just set my teeth on edge. “Tits”…that’s the one my male students use that just sets me off. I don’t know why. (I should probably carry warning labels…maybe I do.) Don’t call me a girl, don’t call me a lady. I’m not either.

Anyway. My brain is on overload with that, and I have about a week to figure it out…surely from the list I typed into my phone as the other three threw stuff out at me, I will be able to find something semi-appropriate.

Meanwhile, I finally made it home and tried to focus. I’ve been so tired, and I’ve been going to bed early, but then I don’t sleep, so it’s fucking pointless. I am going to buy a gun just to go find that fucking mockingbird on my street and blow its perky, loud feathers away (moody much?). Then I will sell it back (the gun).

I wanted to iron everything to the background on Wednesday night, but that was exhaustion level tired. Last night, I had a cup of tea and some food and started to revive. I cut a background piece…luckily it didn’t need to be pieced, because this quilt isn’t actually that big, and then I started ironing…

The tree leaves tried to be fussy little assholes, but I ironed them into submission. This was actually pretty easy to iron down, because it was all one piece and only the tree was fussy.

It took me less than an hour…

So that’s a little over 10 hours in ironing, more than I thought, but not unreasonable. Notice in the bottom right corner that Kitten is venturing out into the house again. She’s still really nervous about being out, and keeps looking around for Babygirl, and Midnight is being kind of a pissy bitch about her being out too, so there’s some growling going on, but I think they’ll adjust.

ANYWAY. Hopefully tonight I’ll start stitching it down, which shouldn’t take long. My Saturday is kind of a mess at the moment, though, so I do have to grade papers tonight. I wanted to pinbaste it on Sunday, but I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ll see. Probably not an option.

But I’m two weeks ahead again. So that’s good. Anyway. Stuck down to the fabric. Ten days of school left. Then I have to get my head above water and try to figure out how to get some extra money this summer. I have three things going…I just need enough time and space to get them moving. Right now, it’s a lost cause, but it will get better soon.

Last night, I did sew some feet…

Although it feels like I should have been able to do more than that in an hour and a half. Whatever. Thirty-nine bullion knots in 90 minutes. OK, see it doesn’t sound so bad when I say it THAT way. That’s 2.3 minutes per bullion. OK then. I’m not going for the world record in bullion stitching. I think. Is there money in it?

How to Get Nothing Done…

Be a parent. Seriously. You can even be an animal parent and get nothing done. I got home yesterday and ate something and did one thing online for school, and then left for the senior awards ceremony…and sat through 2.5 hours of it.

The plus is that the girlchild was up there three times, and one was pretty exciting for her, because they say how much her scholarship was and where she’s going, and people are impressed by that…

So that makes her feel good, and she’s such a stress monkey at the moment that I’m OK with that.

So we sat there in an uncomfortable metal chair and I couldn’t even concentrate enough to read my book. And then we ate dinner out like a big family of crazy people (because we are) and by the time we got home, it was 10 PM and I was exhausted. Somehow I managed to feed the dog and do something while drinking a cup of tea (please don’t ask me what I was doing, because I really don’t know), and I considered trying to iron the bathtub piece to the background, but I could not find the energy AT ALL. And I was pretty sure I would fuck it up if I did.

Shocking really. So I went to bed early (for me). And then woke up at 2:36 AM and again at 5:21 AM and that damn mockingbird was mocking me (like they do), so I put a pillow over my head until the alarm went off. Actually, I checked the clock again three minutes before the alarm was supposed to go off, and in my special crazy, I tried to go back to sleep for those three minutes because they really mattered.

Can’t guarantee I’ll be able to iron tonight either…I’ll be at work until 5:30 and then a meeting after that, and if I’m still alive after all that, it’ll be a miracle. Love this time of year. Really, I do. I will be collapsing from exhaustion soon. Possibly before 1st period even starts.

Kitten still doesn’t believe Babygirl’s not here, so she’s still running around paranoid, looking around corners and racing down hallways. Who knows how long it will take for her to get used to this being a safe space again, even though Babygirl wasn’t up to her normal terrorizing self for the last two weeks. Sigh. Miss the kitty.

Babygirl and a Bathtub

Yesterday was Babygirl’s last…I’d like to say she just fell asleep and went off into kitty heaven, but we had to assist her in that. Both kids came to the vet for the first time ever (girlchild came for Ivy) and petted her and made sure she was purring at the end. We guess she was closer to 16 than 12, unlike my great aunt’s records on the cat.

(I watch Star Trek with my cats…yes)

Babygirl came to us 2 1/2 years ago when my great aunt died. She came with an attitude, being a bit of a kitty terrorist, sure she was Queen here, disrupting all three existing cats. As things worked out, there was an uneasy truce here between the three remaining cats (one died of kidney failure soon after her arrival). She had been spoiled rotten by my aunt, didn’t like other animals except humans, and for a while, we even tried to find her another home, one where she could be Queen, the only cat, because we thought everyone would be happier that way.

It didn’t work, so we kept her…and everyone adjusted. She adopted the boychild as her special caregiver, and he was happy to have her. Kitten learned to run fast or have an escort to the litter tray and food (I carried her down the hallway every morning and every afternoon), and I learned to close my bedroom door at night, so I wouldn’t have cat fights in there at 2 AM.

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That said, she did love us and we loved her cranky psychotic self…so it was hard to do, to let her go, but it was time. I hate that. You know it’s the right thing, but it still feels like shit. Babygirl is the only cat of mine that has had a quilt named after her…

A quilt that won a prize as well. She’s also the only animal of ours who has a tag on this blog, because she caused so many issues in the beginning, so I wrote about her a lot.

It was a rough time at the vet.

And then I came home and did the dishes and cooked dinner and tried to distract myself for a while…and then that stopped and I cried again. It is what it is. I am down to only two cats for the first time in about 19 years. And Kitten, who has been hiding in my room for all that time…she’s coming out. She’s in my office right now, sniffing all the things she’s been missing. She was out on the couch yesterday. I slept with my door open.

So at some point, I thought I might finish ironing last night, despite all that…

Although I was tired and felt depleted and probably should have just gone to bed, based on how I feel this morning.

As you know, I rarely listen to that part of my brain though. I ironed some knees and an arm…

And then I took a break, because it was late enough that I could have gone to sleep and I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish last night, because I knew it would be late, and I was tired. I am emotional and I have to deal with some major shit in class this week, plus all the other stuff, and I didn’t know exactly how long it would take to do all those fussy hair bits and another human body.

Then, in true Kathy fashion, I said Fuck It. And ironed.

I knew if I put it off until tonight that I would just do this little bit tonight and not get it ironed onto fabric, and I want to speed this up a bit, so I did it, and yeah, it was after midnight when I went to bed, but it’s often after midnight and that explains why I look so tired when you see me.

It’s hard to see, I know. It will be better when it’s on the background and I can hang it up. I have 8 hours into the ironing and still there’s another hour or so to get it down on the background. It is all in one piece, though, which is nice. Much less fussy than some quilts I’ve had to iron down. The gingko tree will be the worst part of it; getting all those branches and leaves laid out right will be a pain in the ass, honestly.

So the first bathtub quilt is that much closer to done. And I have sent yet another kitty into that giant meadow in the sky where they chase bugs and lie in the sun and eat endless tuna from human plates. Or in the case of Babygirl, drink my cold tea from the teacup. Where there was people food, there was her little face, meowing incessantly at you. (Thanks, Aunt Betty, for teaching her that.) Sweet crazy animal…

It’s a heavy morning…we miss you Babygirl.

Problem-Solving the Fussy Bits…

I was sitting here a minute ago with a dying cat in my lap, trying to type and failing, until she decided she didn’t want to be in my lap any more. We’ve been trying to keep Babygirl comfortable and happy, best we can, vying for the right to make her purr. She’s still doing that. It’s hard to know when is the right time to end a pet’s life. I know that I could have done that last night, and so could the boychild, but the girlchild wasn’t there yet. And she spent half the night apparently getting up and checking on Babygirl, because the cat kept coming in her room and meowing at her and she thought she was dying. So maybe tonight she’ll be ready to admit the cat isn’t getting better. Last night, she didn’t think that. Yesterday Babygirl let me hand feed her. This morning? She wouldn’t touch food. So there we are. On death watch.

The prom dress is finally finished and done and paid for. We commissioned the dress from a picture, and the woman who created it is pretty amazing. I’m sure pictures will be allowed once hair and makeup are done…which is Saturday. But that took quite a bit of time yesterday. We had dinners (pizzas, handmade except for the dough) ready and some cooked or cooking and had to go back for the dress’ final fitting. So dinner was late. And then I had to hold a cat and pet it until it was tired of me…in the old days, I wouldn’t have made 30 seconds. Last night, she lasted 20 minutes. Proof she’s not well.

So ironing started late too…and it was the hard stuff…body parts…

I had things overlapping that had to be out of the way until the stuff underneath was ironed. It was fussy ironing.

In fact, I think I spent most of the hour and a half just on the body torso and knees.

Finally ironing it to the head from the previous night. Then I started on the water…

Which honestly is just a pain in the butt. So when I got to about 11:30, I quit. I was tired, and the next step was yet another fussy body part and I couldn’t even see the numbers, because I’m trying to iron it all down together at the same time, so I have two layers of ironing sheet under the middle and I can’t see the numbers through both layers. Aargh. I’ll try again tonight or tomorrow night.

I’m in the 400s though…almost 8 hours of ironing done. I could finish in a couple of hours, I think…at least ironing pieces together. Then there’s the ironing onto the background. I’m thinking I could be stitching down by Friday. Maybe sandwiching Sunday? Is that wishful thinking? And quilting it next week? (Because grades aren’t due and you don’t have to print like 60 awards and and and…)

Because I have another quilt in line behind it already…and yes, I’m buried in grading, but I’m really trying to NOT bring a lot of that home. Honestly, I get home and once I’m done dealing with all the crap to deal with here, there isn’t any brain power left to grade papers. I’m spending a lot of brain power on problem-solving at the moment. How is that different than the rest of the time? No idea.

OK, parent meeting number one is in 40 minutes and I’m still home (problem), I need to write a chore note for the boychild, who is doing what I ask at least (someone is!), I need to pack a lunch and pet a dying kitty again. Some days it feels like I’m doing it all wrong. I know I’m not, but it just feels that way.

Nothing Is Ever Easy…Except Making a Mess…

I started ironing Saturday morning. I was sitting around waiting for my car to be finished so I could pick it up, and that ended up taking all day, but I did some other stuff too. I really should have been grading, but I did about 4 hours the night before, so I felt OK about quitting. I also input all of what I graded on Saturday morning…more unpaid teacher work. As we get closer to vacation and I hear more “You’re so lucky” about having the whole summer off, while my gut’s in knots because I don’t get paid, I get snarkier and snarkier about all the unpaid work we do. When you consider doing a professional development course over the summer just so you will get some extra money, you know it’s bad.

And it’s bad. Whatever.

So I ironed. Because ironing isn’t bad. It just makes things flat and forces them to stick together. First I lay out the first 100 pieces…

They’re in groups of 10…makes it easier to find what I need. Then I start ironing…

For some reason, and I’m not sure it was a good one, I numbered all the things outside the bathtub first, counterclockwise. Then I numbered the outside of the bathtub, then the figure at the top, then the water, then the figure at the bottom. The reason I’m telling you this is because I think it was a bad plan to try ironing everything outside in.

That said, that’s what I’m doing. So much for good judgment.

This is Kitten, obviously…

She has her paw over the side of the bathtub…which she would never do in real life. Midnight would, but a black cat is hard to see on a dark background.

There’s a gingko tree behind the bath…you know, like there is in YOUR bathroom. OK, maybe these are all wishful-thinking bathrooms.

There is no way I’m pulling this tree off the ironing sheet until I have to…

That’s where I quit Saturday and went and bought two real not-gingko trees and drew some more (where is that drawing? I thought I photographed it? You might have to wait for that). And watched Interstellar, which I really liked.

Then Sunday was full of crap and doing things and running around. Because it always is except during vacations. And around 8:30 or so, I started ironing again…a pile of clothes…

Hey now, that’s realistic. Except I don’t own any white bras…or white shoes…

Me and white clothing just don’t get along. I’m a spiller…a klutz…and then I started ironing bathtub pieces down…which took up most of the ironing space…

And it’s hard to see because it’s all white on a white background at the moment. The real background fabric is a dark blue. It’ll pop.

I worked on the first face…

And realized it was almost midnight. The time. Not the cat.

And I was 340 pieces in…and just over 5 hours. Only 250 pieces to go, I think. Of course, they are all human figures, which are fussy, and big blobs of water, which can be fussy. But I made significant progress. So that’s good.

The rest of the life shit, well, I’m working on it. School stuff…there never seems to be a way to catch up, but I’m working on it. Did I tell you I made a puberty powerpoint last night? It kind of sucked, but at least I don’t have to write it 5 times today. I can let them write it instead. Maybe I’ll update it for next year. Home stuff is a mess…Babygirl was crying this morning, so I held her, and here’s how I know how close she is to dying: she let me hold her for a good 5 minutes. No way she’d do that if she were her normal feisty self. I got her to purr, though, and I cried. Because having to decide if now is the time, if she is hurting or in pain, that’s the part I hate most. You always second-guess yourself. I wish she would just fall asleep and then not wake up, and take that decision out of my hands, because I’m sitting here looking at a 2-hour staff meeting and the vet closing, and not being able to check on her until almost 5 PM…I even considered taking her with me, but too many students are allergic to cats for me to do that. So I will tell the kids to hold her and pet her a lot while I’m gone and I’ll see where she’s at when I get home. Nothing is ever easy. Except making a mess. That’s easy.

Off to school. Today we learn about puberty…exciting stuff.

Vacation Calls…

At this point of the school year, Friday afternoons come with a giant sigh of relief. Even though I was just going to come home and grade papers, I could sit on the couch and get caught up on Orphan Black and The Daily Show and maybe even grading stuff (it could happen). And then I might be able to sleep more than 5 or 6 hours at night, and perhaps drink my cup of tea in the morning before I have to deal with people. I need this down time, as my dreams (nightmares?) of school ending and my grades being incomplete confirm.

I have no voice this morning. Four days of frog dissections, microscopes, and starting to teach sex ed (or NOT sex ed, as I call it, because I’m not teaching them how to have sex. I’m teaching the scary shit that happens if you DO have sex. It’s more like Consequence Ed) and my voice is shot. I can’t sing along to my favorite songs or even talk to the dog without it cracking. The parent shadowing their student yesterday blessed me after she sat through the class (I personally don’t find it difficult to teach this unit…).

Grading papers last night…

Three episodes of Orphan Black, plus I cooked and ate dinner with boychild, because girlchild blew us off again (as he says, “less conflict” and with him there, I’ll actually cook, instead of loll around on the couch and wish I had a replicator). I finished all the science journals though (hallelujah). I have two weeks of warmups, one homework assignment, and about 20 trifolds on Google Classroom. I can do that all this weekend, right? (ha ha haha hahahaha dissolves into hysterical laughter). I could do that. But that would be crazy. What I also could do is empty the dishwasher, pick up my car finally, get the kids’ checks from the UK into their accounts, clean something, wash something, run some errand. I’ll grade more Sunday night. I’m on a break. I will input the stupid journal grades though, before the last two periods hyperventilate themselves to death. There are not enough hours in the day. If I read another article about how teachers have to give meaningful and immediate feedback on assignments when there is no way to do that unless you STOP SLEEPING COMPLETELY, I will scream. The little ones? Sure. All the time. The big stuff? Yeah. You don’t pay me for all that overtime I do already. Shut the fuck up.

Rant. Sigh. Fourteen days.

I was really tired when I finished all that stuff, but I managed to find the energy to sort the pieces out…

It only took 39 minutes. There were a lot of teensy weensy pieces. Cuz I’m crazy.

I am now ready to iron. Well, the fabric is ready. I’m really tired at the moment, so I’m not ready. I would need at least one more infusion of seriously strong British tea.

I have a strong desire to turn the music up really loud and dance in the hallways. Tea must be working. Vacation must be tickling my brain. Ha! I see you over there, beckoning me. Just start summer vacation now. Fuck the rest of the year. Just come over here (funny that, since we got an email about the end-0f-year absences and the sub shortage in California and how principals are carefully looking at the time we take off, especially Fridays and Mondays.). I have a lot of sick days. But I won’t do that. It’s OK. I take my job too seriously. Fucking workaholic.

This morning, I sent the dog out to pee. She’s a retriever. Here she is, barking at the two ducks in the pool enclosure.

The arrow? The hole she tore in the fence so she could hang out around the pool. So she could go in there and retrieve ducks. But she’s scared of them. She’s also scared of the cats. Speaking of which, Babygirl is probably not long for this world. She’s fading fast. I wake up every morning and go searching for her, expecting to find her dead. That sounds horrible, I know, but…what can I say? We give her love and food and pets, and hope she just falls asleep and doesn’t wake up, because that’s easier than some of the ends of lives we’ve dealt with in this house. And no, it’s not treatable, far as we know. She’s older than we thought she was, and we gave her 2 1/2 good years of love, so I feel OK with this. I just want her to go easily. But she does nothing easily, so she’ll probably fight this too. Right now, she’s lying in a patch of sun by the sliding glass door. Old lady contentment.

Boychild wanted to know if it was always the same two ducks in the pool, and the answer is no…

That male is way splotchier than other ones I’ve seen, and sometimes it’s two males. Never two females though. Weird. I think I have a duck time share in my yard. I’m not getting a cut, though, and that seems unfair.

Anyway. It’s Saturday. I’m playing music. I have one cup of tea in me. All the animals are fed. One kid is up and showered; the other was muttering loudly before, but has not surfaced. I just enjoy sitting here with my foot up (podiatrist appointment in July, for god’s sake) and my tea and the music on, feeling less pressure than I did before to get shit done. It’s OK. The pressure will be back tomorrow. I’m just trying to hold it off for 24 hours or so.

I think I need to draw something. Or watch a movie. Or both.

Ah Rejection

The quilt peeks its head up from the pile on the chest of drawers, those ready to be rolled up and hidden in the closet until they are called out again. “Mommy, when do I get to go somewhere?” I don’t know, pretty little quilt of mine. I just don’t know. I made you with all the crap and emotions that were deep inside me, poured gallons of salty tears on top of you when I stitched you, there’s probably even blood tacked under some piece or another. I drew your pattern while my brain wriggled around, trying to find a solution to how it felt, to make it better, and dear, sweet, little quilt (who is not so little really, with over 2000 pieces and 140 hours rolling around inside it), you DID make me feel better, and I know that was not your only goal. But it was a good one. And it worked.

As to why you don’t get to go hang on a wall somewhere? Be patient, my little friend. You have not aged out like some that fill that space in the closet, some that were shown here, there, and everywhere, and some that were rolled up years ago and never go anywhere. Like some people you know, really. Some travel all over, are gone every weekend, have no evening free…and you…you sit here most nights cutting up little pieces of fabric and ironing them back together to make pictures that beg to be seen and never leave.

So I guess that’s what the internet is for…seeing what doesn’t get in. And the thing is, as I read yet another rejection letter, very nicely penned, with a huge number of entries listed, I knew I wouldn’t get in. I’m not innovative enough. I have no desire to be innovative. Am I cutting edge? I don’t think so, unless cutting edge means not pretty, and I don’t think it does. I’m not using new materials or wildly different techniques, it’s not a new take on an old classic. None of the gimmicks apply. It is simply imagery on fabric…strange imagery at that. Sometimes painful imagery. Sometimes not. Sometimes just plain weird. Hey, it’s my brain. I can’t explain how it works. I just know that it does.

Fuck. Wait until they see the new one…the bathtub quilt. And there are how many of them in my head? Clamoring to come out? Not to mention those that are already drawn. I’ve never really done a series, and now here I am, putting naked women in bathtubs (it’s been DONE!) with all their shit spread out around them. Just like real life.

Moving on. Making more. Keep rejecting me. I don’t stop. I’m the Energizer bunny of art quilts.

The Rest Will Have to Wait…

Done. Finis. She’s all cut out.

Please don’t ask me how late I went to bed. I needed to feel like I had achieved something last night. Yes, there are some tiny pieces in the bottom right corner that I won’t cut out until I’m ironing, because I know I will lose them. I’ve learned things as I’ve aged, as I’ve progressed through the artmaking process. Seven hours and 44 minutes of cutting stuff out. And I graded stuff last night too. And cooked dinner. And did a bunch of other administrative stuff for school and other groups I’m in. After monitoring 140 kids dissecting frogs.

No wonder I have a headache this morning (or is that the late night? Hard to say.).

I get to iron things together next. That’s the part I really like. That’s the part where it’s hard to get me to stop. Plus I have another one I need to have done by mid-July and I haven’t started it. This is getting a little crazy. Or maybe crazy is my normal. Really, I’d probably be happier just making art all day, but I’m not sure I’d make any MORE art than I do now. Maybe I’d get more sleep and the dishes would be done. Or not.

There are 15 days of school left. I can do that. Panicking about getting grades done still. As well I should be. Tried to push boychild into jobhunting yesterday. Not sure how seriously he took it. Going to start sending him job-finding YouTube videos. In fact, maybe all of you should do that. It might help. SIGH. And he ate all the girlchild’s lunch food. Of course, I put a post-it note on MY lunch food explaining where the ingredients were if he wanted to make his own. Does that make me smarter than she is? No. Just more experienced. I had a dad and a brother who went after my food even if I labeled it. Then a roommate’s boyfriend as well. So I have been traumatized. Seriously…my SIL says my brother and I are way too protective of our food. We both point to Dad. Food stealer extraordinaire.

OK. Well. I have a ton of stuff to do for work this morning, including a parent meeting. I wish I could just hang out here and wax poetic about my desire to iron things, but it seems the need to pay the bills is strong today. No, I don’t have my car back! Oh well. Took meds for the headache, prepped the best I could for some portion of the day. The rest will have to wait. As always.

Making the Image Appear

I wrote this whole post in my head last night as I was falling asleep. It was freakin’ amazing. I can’t even tell you. I really can’t, because I forgot the whole thing. I can tell you that I spent the last 20 minutes on hold with one kid’s financial aid department trying to make sense of their cryptic emails, just to have them admit one of them didn’t make sense. Well alrighty then. I feel vindicated! Not really. I feel annoyed, but what can I do about that? We still have no financial aid from one school due to paperwork issues. I was hoping it would be soon, so I can plan, but it’s not.

I started frog dissections yesterday with my students. The first day is easy, just the head stuff, no real cutting…but it’s hard work and my voice is trashed today. It will be worse tonight. I’m still buried in work. I had a plan to get some done last night, but I went to the gym and then had a long and helpful conversation with my SIL. I’m not sure why her comments are easier to take…she seems to be closer to where I’m at with child-raising than others around me. I don’t have the perfect situation…hers is more ideal in some ways, with both parents around, but there are still the normal kid issues, so it felt better talking it out with her. I’m still in a mood about the whole mess. I think I need to sit the kids down and have a real-live financial conversation with them. Again. Fun stuff.

So instead of getting some stuff graded last night, I dealt with sanity. And then I came into the office and cut stuff out again while watching the last episode of Deep Space Nine, which I don’t think I ever saw. In fact, I don’t think I saw the last season. Not surprising. I think I was going back for my teaching credential at that point and watched very little TV.

I am almost done with the cutting out of pieces as well…

The pile on the right is all that’s left: some bathtub pieces and a few tree pieces, maybe some fleshy bits. I’m about 6 1/2 hours in. Then I can start ironing it together, which is the cool part. I might get to that by the weekend (or I might need to work my butt off on school stuff for a few nights). I should have graded some this weekend, but I just couldn’t. I think my brain does a pretty good job these days of realizing that I’m overworked and trying to force me to take a break. But the plus is that kids are asking me about their grades, when I will get the journals graded. Normally state testing gives me a big chunk of time to grade stuff, but with all the technology issues we had, I couldn’t get very much done, so I’m behind. So I tell the kids they can’t depend on their journal grade to save their class grade; they will need to do all their missing and makeup work to make sure they are safe. Mean, really.

Anyway. I have to spend some time grading tonight. I won’t get much done at school today, because the dissections are pretty high maintenance. I’m balancing the sense of relief I feel at the end of the year coming up with the panic that grades will be due. It’s an interesting dichotomy.

In good news, my car is supposed to be fixed today. Hopefully (don’t think about the cost). Dad’s car is similar to mine, but I like my car better. And I know he wants his car back. And my foot isn’t hurting from the gym last night…although it hurt during the day while I was doing the lab. Stupid body. I have a finger that’s bugging me too from using scissors. Weird how the body ages and joints you never heard from are screaming louder than a baby with a wet diaper. I guess that’s the future for me…painful joints. Weird bruises on my hand that seem to come from nowhere. Disrupted sleep. Mood swings from hell (hey, those should go away at some point, right?).

Sigh. Finish cutting pieces out tonight. Sort them. Move on to the fun stuff, making the image appear. I really am in survival mode. I’m glad I have art to pull me out of the muck.