Rolling…

This week is rolling by. I guess that’s good? Except I’m supposed to make some phone calls today and all my potential times when I could do that have been sucked up by other people’s needs and meetings. That I didn’t have on my calendar previously, and I get it, because like my last informal observation probably would have happened when I had COVID, so that’s not my fault, but that’s the reason, so coming in yesterday and trashing my prep today is understandable. And part of it is because I gave the long-term sub COVID (probably my fault) and she needed stuff, also fine, she did it for me, I’m good with that. And then I’m a union rep so I have to do union rep things, but when other teachers don’t get that you can’t meet with them while you’re teaching? WTF. I don’t get that at all. On top of all that, I was lucky to get a biopsy appointment for Friday (cancellation) instead of having to wait two weeks, which will help my brain with shit, so all of a sudden, I have to finish everything in two days for next week. With meetings after school both days. So. Well. I might have to go BACK to school on Thursday after the sex-ed meeting just to set up? We’ll see if someone trashes my prep tomorrow too. Not a fan, y’all. This week is a shit show. Happy V Day! If you’re into it.

Quiltwise, I need to pivot this week into some other things, just to get them done and out of the way. I’ve been quilting that friend’s quilt; I’m almost done with that. I’m on Zoom potentially with her and other friends tomorrow night, so I’m hoping to get the binding on then. I couldn’t bring myself to quilt last night. I was too tired. I needed cat petting and book and chai tea time. So I took it. And then worked. I did get this quilt to a decent pausing point: This is Monday night, with just a head, a head, and an arm to go.

So last night, I finished those…they were fussy and had to be ironed separately. Lots of little pieces.

But everything mostly fit. I had to stretch the arm a bit to cover things. It works with fabric though. It’s stretchy.

Then I ironed it all down to a background.

Looks good; needs stitching lines for definition, but I like it. Relationship quilt for V Day, eh?

Anyway, I need to start the baby quilt tonight. The baby shower is in two weeks…faster than I’d thought, but that’s normal. I still need to start the FIG drawing. I was mentally drawing it last night instead of drawing. And I need to finish that friend’s quilt. All the things.

My monthly stitching meeting was also Monday night. These are part of Sue Spargo’s Homegrown block-of-the-month. I’ve been working on it for ages, but I’m almost done with the houses. I finished the left one and started the right one.

I think with that one, there’s three more houses, and then a giant block for the middle and borders, so that’s a 2029 finish if I’ve ever seen one. Mostly because I don’t work on it regularly enough. It’s fun, but I don’t have time. Which sucks. This relaxes me; I should do more of it. In my spare time. After making phone calls. Which brings me to this…

I’m not close enough. This year though. This year. Is not when I’m retiring.

I’m trying to figure out how to use this when teaching space. I suspect the word ‘melons’ will mean no. I’m pretty sure this is an XKCD graphic.

My kids won’t get this anyway. But it amused me.

And so many of them would end the year with no sword.

Trying to get them to do anything right now is just torture. I’m up to 9 kids in my advisory at risk of not graduating. And they’re either not motivated or just assholes about it. Fun times.

Anyway. Yeah, I’m not having fun at the moment with my job. It’s just been a hard year…after a hard year…after a…you get it. I hope next trimester gets easier as high school looms for these kids. I hope it gets easier for me and my workload. It could potentially get worse and I’m trying not to think about that. I do know I need to get off this computer in 2 minutes (ah time, you fuck me over so much). And go do the meetings that weren’t planned and try to make a phone call in the middle of all that. Yup. After tonight’s meeting, which they promise will be done by 5 pm, I’m hoping to quilt and read and start cutting things out. We’ll see how that goes, because I also have to grade things. In the way of the teacher. Ugh.

Brain Is Tired…

Oy. Well, it’s a Monday I’m not at work. I do appreciate these longer weekends, an extra day to try to get stuff done. That said, I’ve got two doctors’ appointments today and they’re not in the same place or at logical times, so it’s just drive a long way, do the thing, drive back. Wait 45 minutes, then drive again. Do the other thing. Drive back. Fun times. I think the afternoon is shot. And I’m moving pretty slowly this morning. Brain is tired. Brain is done. Brain can’t be done…I tried to explain, it doesn’t care, it wants me to sit on the couch with the fluffy kitty and read the book. Sigh. I’ll try. Maybe later.

Lots of what I have to do is art related, which is cool. A bunch of shows are coming up, so there are shipments and contracts and deliveries and headshots and all that crap. I’ve done a chunk of it, but just found a decent headshot requested by one, and still need to fill out, scan, and send two forms.

And I still need to be digging up the outside planter area so we can progress on fixing what happened with the water. I have a rough idea of the order of things, but coordinating that with my schedule and contractors gives me hives. Or breathing anxiety. Yeah.

Anyway, let’s start with art progress. I finished cutting things out on Friday night…spent about 2 1/2 hours doing that (it was a rough day).

Nova was very helpful. It wasn’t too late, so I sorted them too…

It’s super fast when there aren’t very many pieces. I think it took about 18 minutes. Boom!

Then Saturday night, I started ironing them together…

I got most of the sky stuff done. Then last night, I got most of the male figure done…

It’s kind of a pain to try to iron bits on the sky like this; I can’t see the parts that are covered by the sky fabrics, so sometimes I iron them elsewhere and then put them on top. I will have to do that with his left hand and his face, so that’s why I paused there. Also it was late and I was tired. It happens. I might finish tonight? We’ll see. Maybe Tuesday night.

I do have an idea for the next big quilt though. I’ve been listening to The Power of the Crone by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; I loved her Women Who Run With the Wolves book in college, and had seen ads for this, which is all audio, so I started listening. She makes me laugh and her language fills my head with images, which is cool. It’s all stories of the crone and the wise woman. I do have a quilt I made with the crone, maiden, and mother–Awakening the Crone; it sold. So I made that in 2014…I think it’s time for a crone/wise woman update. Something with the world how it is now. I don’t seem to be able to separate my art from politics and people suffering. Anyway, it’s percolating. Always good.

Other fiber stuff that’s happening…I finally got my act in gear and started quilting this again…it’s for a friend who doesn’t quilt. I finished all the white squares, which just needed some additional stitches to hold them together, and now I’m doing the sashing and borders.

This stuff takes longer than people think, though. It probably took me a little over 2 hours to do the 9 white blocks, and I’ve put in at least an hour on the borders/sashing. It’ll be more than an hour to finish; I didn’t get quite halfway. Then put the binding on and stitch it down. So if you ask me to do something and I say no thank you, you will know why. I have little time. Just how long it’s taken me to get to this one shows that. I should be done this week, though. That’s my goal. Get it off my plate! I still need to draw the piece for the upcoming FIG show. Didn’t get to that this weekend yet either.

I went fabric shopping for a friend’s baby quilt. She wants cactus and she loves purple, although she said the green, so we’re doing both.

This is definitely a labor of love. I use the same pattern from 2000 for all my baby quilts (haven’t made one in 8 years, y’all…). This one is manifesting good baby health. So this is next on the list. It’s not hard or complicated.

Then a pair of jeans had an issue last week, and I’m not willing to toss jeans that fit and are comfortable otherwise.

No one will ever see this part…

Manifesting some cactus too.

Hiked on Saturday…FINALLY. Although the Man didn’t want to hike in mud, so we did the mostly boring lake walk on pavement.

Geese though. Beautiful and terrifying.

We’ve had no more water come in the house, which is good, so I mopped the concrete (it was really dirty, even after multiple sweepings) and put down these cheap temporary rugs to keep feet warmer until June/July when I can get to carpet.

These were on mega sale. I thought I would dislike them more, but they actually kinda work with the concrete and walls that need painting. Desperately. Yeah. And people want to come visit my ‘studio’. Sigh. It’s my house, y’all…and it’s in disrepair.

I draw at dinner; we hadn’t been out for a few weeks due to things, stuff, band things, whatever. I started this one on January 20, but food came so fast, and then Saturday night, I kept going, but food came really fast.

It’s not that I want the food to be super slow or anything…I think I used to be able to draw faster? I don’t know. Anyway, it’ll take a third dinner to finish this. And since the Man is having dental surgery this week, it might be a while before I have that opportunity again.

The boob thing though. She has a star on her left breast. I sat through a 3D mammogram, which hurt like a bitch, but the tech was fast (she said she was fast) and then the ultrasound didn’t find something that matched the mammogram, so that makes them nervous. Family history and all. So I get to have a biopsy. No appointment yet. Have to wait for them to call me (what are the odds they’ll call today when I can actually take a call? LOW low low low low), then they’re scheduling about 2 weeks out because it’s not an emergency (except in my head, which the radiologist acknowledged during her very perky speech), then 3-5 days for results. Doc already called to find out my preference for notification (call me ASAP, as long as it’s after school; she already knew that bit). So I guess my birthday present will be news of some sort; odds are it will be fine. Knowing me, it’ll be a watch and wait thing, and I’ll get to scan multiple times. They’ll place a marker during the biopsy so it’ll be easy to find. It’s an architectural distortion. Which is a great name for a new quilt, if you ask me. Anyway. I did have a repeat mammogram once before, not for this, and made a quilt for it…also 2014. Bitchy year, if you ask me. 2024 is starting rough…hopefully it will chill out at some point.

We’re reading The Maze Runner in my advisory class…

I’m with her on this, but there has been action. Maybe not before she wrote this comment. It’s hard to read just one chapter a day.

This is me always. I’m not a morning person.

I do have to get my act together though. Gonna shower and make more tea and eat something and do some work and fill out these two forms and scan and email them and then drive off to the dermatologist and then the knee doctor, and at the end of all of it, go to my rescheduled stitching meeting with friends. My stomach just chimed in about the eating something. I think I’m ready to teach tomorrow; I moved stuff around because kids are stupidly not finishing work, and my being gone Friday afternoon didn’t help with that. Oh well. What am I gonna do? Not go to the doctor? Well no. So there will be at least one more (and hopefully no more) appointment that makes me miss school. They should figure out how to be self motivated. Surely it’s time for that. Ha.

Read a Damn Book…

Where we at, y’all? We are FRIDAY. Before a 3-day weekend. I’m right here, ready for it. Although my extra day has 2 doctors’ appointments. Nothing bad. That’s today. I had to take a half day today to get the boob rescanned and twisted (you ever had one of those mammograms? We gonna take your boob and twist it, and then put it between two pieces of plastic and make it flat as a pancake. You OK? You’re breathing funny.). So sure, it’s nice to skip the last three classes of the day, but not to sit in radiology and do all the things, and then do them again because the radiologist can’t see what they need, and last time, they actually came in and directed the tech…directly…so I was there for about 2 painful hours. Not looking forward to it. The odds are that it’s nothing, that everything is happily benign, but the mental prep is still a challenge at the moment.

So there’s that. But I might actually get to HIKE this weekend (it’s been so long) and make some art and read my books and not think about work (I’m gonna have to think about work…I’m only fully planned for next week…then it turns into a clusterfuck). I’ve been slowly cutting out pieces…

Slowly because I’m not getting much time in because there are too many other things I’m doing. I copyedited all of the slide presentations and student worksheets for the sex-ed curriculum because I couldn’t stand to see all those errors. It took me about 3 hours and I know it will make ME feel better to have done it, but other people are telling me I’m stupid for working for free. Yeah maybe. But it’s for my own sanity. ‘testicals’ was one example. Nope. Uh uh.

I also entered two art shows in the last two days and that takes time, so that’s part of not having enough of it to do things, plus book club.

Nova is a sweetheart. Also it’s cold. I did finish my book for book club literally one minute before the Zoom started. It was good. The book. And the meeting. So yeah. A mystery starring 60-year-old women…Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. Definitely recommend. Fun. But murdery.

So more trimming of the fabrics will happen this weekend, plus I need to start the one for that other show. I have some shows coming up…one at Oceanside Museum of Art that opens March 30, with Allied Craftsmen. And one pop-up show at Art Produce on February 24…one day only!

Come see a non-quilt piece of art from me, dating back to the early 90s. Crazy!

Have you seen Nova upside down? She is still cute.

OK. Today. Will be short for school and kind of painful.

This is from that book…and it’s interesting, because I get this all the time, not that I want to hurl myself off a cliff, but it just pops into my head…mostly when I’m driving over big bridges. It’s terrifying. Now I know there’s a word for it.

I guess I want to survive. Well, I know that. I’d just like it to be less about getting through one day at a time for a while. I could use some of that. There’s 126 days until I get to the end of this school year. Not short.

This one is probably a better plan.

Thanks y’all! But no thanks. I’m done. It’s been a week. The chemistry unit for 7th grade started and it’s a bitch and a half to prep and clean up, but I’m buried in it, fucking BURIED, and I’m not even teaching 7th grade.

Anyway, with any luck, I’ll be home early…maybe I’ll even treat myself with a cookie or something after the big squeezy. Once I deal with Friday traffic from Mira Mesa. Yeah. That’s not fun. I am taking my book with me. For when I’m lying there half naked, waiting for the radiologist’s proclamation, or for the time after the one thing before the next thing (can’t remember if ultrasound is first or mammogram is). I can READ A DAMN BOOK. Yeah. Then tonight, cut some stuff out with that adorable kitty and probably a puppy. Do some drawing this weekend. Go outside. Those are good times, y’all, good times.

Loose Wheel

Hey. I sorta feel like I’m on a skateboard going down a steep hill with no helmet on, and a wheel is loose. Every once in a while, I’ll feel like I’m stable and everything is mostly under control, and then some crazy thing will happen (it actually WASN’T the tornado warning during school yesterday that made me feel that way, the thing that put us on Secure Campus Lockdown…it’s OK, it was my prep period, so I used it wisely to get ahead on lab prep and cleanup), and I’ll feel that wheel wobble like a crazy bastard and my knees try to manage the wobble and maybe I should just sit down over here and read a book for a while.

I actually did that yesterday. Part of that is because I have book club tonight and I read the wrong book and now I’m reading the right one and I’m only 51% finished. I need an hour and 20 minutes. I don’t HAVE an hour and 20 minutes. What I have is a walking tour of the local high school, with rain predicted (more rain, y’all? Really?), plus an ultrasound of a weird arm lump after school that is miles away (the ultrasound, not the lump), so I’m going to have to be packed and ready to run by the time the bell rings at the end of the day to get there. Plus a meeting this morning. Pro is that there is no more water in the house (that we know of)…the boychild and I rigged a draining thing Monday night to deal with part of the issue…

Rain falls from roof into bin, goes out PVC pipe toward driveway. We need another one, but I’d have to sacrifice another bin to it. We’ve been using buckets so far in the other space. Trying to keep water from building up close to the house. I dug out a bunch of dirt, about 4 wheelbarrows worth, but probably won’t be able to do anymore until the weekend. Interestingly, at night, we can see where the previous owners probably had to deal with this before…different wood…so we’re going to try for a better, permanent fix once the rain stops. Not cheap. Not easy. Sigh. I guess I should be glad that I had some money saved up to the one of the bathrooms this summer. Hopefully it’s enough. Or maybe the state/feds will come up with some assistance that I can tap into. Because insurance won’t cover any of it. Fun times.

Meanwhile, I do have another quilt I’m working on. It’s small, it’s a little strange; I’m not sure what the topic is, although if pushed, I would say relationships. It’s not a drawing that planned to be a quilt, which I think is maybe the fun part of doing it. I have been thinking about the next big piece, but my brain hasn’t settled on anything yet. So I’m waiting it out. I’d like to have something big to work on over Spring Break since we aren’t going anywhere. Ugh.

Anyway, I finished ironing pieces down on Monday night…

There are 71 fabrics, which is kind of amazing, since there’s only 392 pieces total. But why use one yellow when you can use eight? That’s my theory anyway. I’m seriously in love with some of the fabrics in this quilt. One of them has maybe a 6×8″ rectangle left of it. Sad. I will miss it when it’s gone.

Wanna see the whole pile close up? Well apparently I did…

Some tiny shit in there.

Last night, I started cutting them out, but I started late because…well…brain. I left school after spending two days trying to find the paper I ordered last week that the office manager substitute claimed had been delivered to my room by TAs (liars). I tracked down the LID to the box after school (no kidding), then made some deductive reasoning based on where the lid was and what it was doing, ransacked a school paper cupboard, and found all my shit (those TAs are on crack). Then went to Pilates, which was the next level up and almost killed me. I’m serious. I’m sure my quads will be talking to me soon about the shakies they got yesterday. Then drove to the photographer’s to pick up my quilt, but I’m waiting on another show to notify, which they should have on February 2, then delayed to yesterday, then yesterday, another email. FUCK people. You know we actually use your deadlines to plan for other entries? I have two shows, no three, to enter, and I don’t even have a name for the new quilt (working on it), but I need an answer from the other show ASA fucking P. Hopefully today. Then had to make dinner and try to revise lesson plans for the rest of the week based on the tornado warning’s effect on yesterday’s teaching, plus not being there Friday afternoon. FUCKING NUTS.

All this to say, I did not cut out much. Mostly because I was staring at a computer and trying to make shit work.

Thanks Nova. I still need to redo my sub plans. Not sure when that’s happening, because I’m fairly sure I’m losing my prep period today to the walking trip (rain means buses, and they’ve only found one bus, and there are probably 350 of us, only 60 fit on a bus on a good day). Fun times. I say that a lot this year. It’s ironic. They’re not really fun.

This is so true. And I say the second part almost as many times a year as I say something about your mom’s egg and your dad’s sperm (I’m teaching genetics right now).

OK. Meeting that will go long and be yuck. Then walking tour. Then hopefully a prep period so I can copy some papers, because I couldn’t do that yesterday due to a possible tornado. Then teaching more genetics, which is going over about as well as a possible tornado. Kamikaze to ultrasound, hope for no rain, take ten years to drive home in traffic. Then book club. On Zoom, thank goodness. And entering two-three art shows. Maybe cutting stuff out at the end of it. Finish sub plans. Sleep.

Sewn Chaos…

And We’re BAACK. OK. I’m back. Tested negative. Going back to school. Already couldn’t sleep last night because brain was in overdrive. I don’t know how your brain works, but when I haven’t done something before, my brain does it for me, like hundreds of times, with variations, until it thinks it has the right way. It’s really annoying sometimes. Can’t make it stop. Pretty sure I do it in my sleep too. It’s useful, I guess, to figure stuff out, but I wish it would turn off sometimes.

Am I ready? No. I went to school yesterday but the colored paper I needed for tomorrow’s lab was not in my room. It was supposed to be delivered there, but no. Not. Uh uh. Sigh. So I copied what I could; it will either show up today or I will borrow from my team. I texted them yesterday afternoon, so I’d know whether to go to Staples for more paper or not. The three different subs in my room were semi-competent. Not much I can do about that. Reteach today and hope we make it through the week with some knowledge. This was all review from 6th grade anyway (not that any of them remember it…sigh).

Soldier on! So I did work on the quilt each night for a bit. I even made it to an exercise class yesterday, which might be proof of either insanity or wellness (I tested negative before I went).

I sorted pieces Friday afternoon…

I think it took a whopping 18 minutes. Love small quilts for that…much as I love the big ones for taking longer.

I had to clean up and put away from the last quilt…

Kitten assist.

Then started ironing the sky…

All blues and yellows to start.

Saturday, I started on the flesh…

There are two bodies in the quilt, so each was out of a separate run of fabrics.

I finished ironing the male figure Saturday night (bottom run of fabrics)…

And the female Sunday night…

I actually don’t have much left to do…

That’s it. Some eyes, some fingernails, not sure what the rest of it is…lips. I see lips.

So assuming I’m still upright when I get home from school and I don’t have to dig out more ditches to move the water, I’ll be finishing the ironing tonight and starting to cut it out. All good.

Luna and Kitten have been sharing the bed…

This is almost the same position they’re in at night, which pretty much traps me. Getting out to pee is a gymnastic event.

This is from one of the books I just finished reading, Crownchasers (which was good)…but I liked “sewn chaos”, even though I think they meant “sown chaos”?

But from a quilter’s perspective, I should definitely sew some more chaos. Ironically, the way I make my quilts is pretty massively organized chaos, but whatever.

OK. Go to school, find pink and blue paper, copy things, reteach, try to figure out WTF they did for three days, make them finish it, go to two-hour staff meeting about a program I don’t use (not because I don’t want to, but because it’s math and reading, not science). Then come home and rest a bit, iron the last bits. Whatever. Read. I have to finish a book by Wednesday…what are the odds of that happening? Not good, y’all, not good.

Can’t Always Be Productive…

Hmmm. It’s Friday. Kinda forgot to write. I got up and posted stuff for school and worked for a while. Then rested and read. And worked some more. School. Sheesh. I am better, though. I’ll be back at school on Monday, hopefully testing negative so I don’t have to rock the mask, but whatever. I’m going to have to reteach all the stuff they didn’t do for the last three days. Sigh. Could do without that. Ah well. Can’t do anything about it.

I’ve been reading a lot. It happens on a couch in a mostly prone position, which I hear is good for recovery. Yeah, I also graded and planned a lot, but that’s still easier than standing and talking all day.

Wednesday night, I finished tracing all the pieces…

And last night, I sat quite happily on the couch with a cat and cut them all out…

392 pieces is like nothing. I need to sort them and then see if I have the energy to stand long enough to start ironing to fabric. I haven’t done a ton of standing. So yeah. But that’s the next step.

I also need to draw the one I’m doing with a partner, plus quilt that thing for a friend without getting COVID on it. According to the internets, the virus shouldn’t live on fabric for more than a day. I think I’m good. I do have to go to school this weekend to copy stuff for Tuesday and cut it out. Hardly any of my students completed work online; hopefully they did the paper stuff, but since the online stuff was to help them with that, it’s unlikely. Ah well. Three lost days.

So this is the bedroom wall, minus the drywall that was wet. Those lovely golden bits in the black are sunlight…SUNLIGHT…where it’s shining through the exterior wall.

Problematic.

This is my increasingly older Kitten in her grumpy nighttime phase.

This is a incredibly blurry and pixelated picture of a bird taking a bath in a birdbath.

And last but not least, a hawk perched on the heavily trimmed eucalyptus, probably wondering where its perch went. Better view now? Hmmm.

So my weekend plans are somewhat squashed. Still not sure if I can exercise Sunday. I do know I have lots of work left to do on all fronts, and the Surface Design Association conference continues tomorrow, which is cool. I forgot about it all week until yesterday at 4 PM, when I remembered to log in for a social hour. That was cool. I appreciate hanging out with other artists.

Still raining on and off here. We dug out enough of the front area that the water didn’t make it inside, but the stoop outside the door slants backwards to the house, which isn’t helping. And we need gutters and drainage and to get rid of that damn stoop. Plus actual walls would be good. Otherwise, things are fine, not stressful at all. Uh huh. Gonna go read for a while longer before doing something else that seems useful. I can’t always be productive.

Petri-Dish Life

You know, I teach in a petri dish of diseases. I’m lucky when I don’t get sick (knock on wood…oh wait…too late). Seriously, I was just thinking how I hadn’t been sick this year, that my immune system was rocking! And then we got info last night that one of the Man’s bandmates tested positive for COVID…he tests, he’s positive, I’m like get away from me, I can’t be sick right now, went to bed, laid there trying to meditate, contemplating my nose that started running around 10 PM and my throat that started scratching right after, fuckity fuck fuck. So I didn’t even get sick from my students. FFS. Well. I got up and tested positive, requested a sub for the next three days, then wrote sub plans (at midnight), emailed about a thousand people who were affected either by my being sick or by my being out, wrote a post-it note of what needed to happen in the morning, and tried to sleep. Fun times.

Got up at 6:30, printed some stuff, drove to school, masked, set up my classroom, grabbed the two assignments I needed to grade (I still need to copy shit for next week; Sunday plans?), made a video of materials for a teacher who needs them today, copied seating charts, left it all and was home by 7:15. Sat down, posted all the assignments, and then tried to record a video for tomorrow (trying to teach Punnett squares by video is hard), fucked it up, did it again. I’m waiting for it to process now so I can make an Edpuzzle out of it so kids will have to write stuff down to get credit (many will still blow it off). Oh hey, Edpuzzle emailed me that my video was ready. Nice. Talked to the nurse about paxlovid. Still need to write lesson plans for tomorrow and Friday and do a video for Friday. I don’t feel too bad at the moment, but I’m listening to the Man and I’m not sure I’m going to feel better tomorrow. Which sucks. Canceled pilates, need to notify sex-ed committee (shit, I sneezed. I remember that), texted kid who lives here part time (he got clothes and food and left again, until he tests positive and then he’ll be back), texted parents (saw dad Saturday, think I was OK, but the Man might not have been…they didn’t interact though, so we’re probably good).

Still need to dig out part of the entryway before the next big rain hits tomorrow…hoping for feeling OK to do that for 20 minutes today? But not counting on it. Spacey head for the win. No water in house? Sigh.

Plus I think I got about 4 hours of sleep. But until I have tomorrow’s lessons planned so my co-teachers can print them, I’m not ready to rest. The reality of being a teacher out sick. Last year when I had strep/scarlet fever, I was REALLY ill. So ill that the videos I made, the kids told me afterwards that I sounded awful. I’m like, I recorded one of those at like 4:30 AM because that was when I could sit up. Briefly. So knock on wood, this won’t be as bad as the last time I had COVID and I’ll be back at school Friday or Monday. No sub Friday. Yikes. We’ll see.

I love having to revise all my lesson plans at the last minute. Not.

Art progress: Monday night, I was fine. I started tracing Wonder Under for the new quilt. I did the sky, mostly. I didn’t have a full hour.

I didn’t get super far. Who the fuck thought fancy divided stars was a good plan? It was me. I did. Hmmm.

Then last night, I felt fine until I went to bed…OK, my nose started running as I was tracing, but I was in denial. I got to piece 207, which is more than halfway. Not sure how I’m going to feel today, but hoping to trace some more. We’ll see. Currently just want to lie on the couch and nap. Should do that for a while.

I could finish in a couple of hours I think.

The other two quilts I need to do…well I need fabric for one, which means shopping, which I was going to do Saturday. Let’s hope I feel better by then. I suspect I haven’t hit bottom yet because I barely had symptoms last night. It’s OK if it has to wait for a week. I have time. The other one, we’re figuring out sizes, but it’s going to be small, maybe 11×14″, so that should be relatively easy. I do want to do some handwork on it, I think. I never have the time to do that…

Anyway, sure, working on three, maybe four things at once makes sense (I actually don’t usually do that). Plus I need to finish that quilt for the friend of mine, but I was thinking, damn, how long does COVID live on fabric? Because I don’t want the quilt to give her COVID. Sigh. OK.

Also made an appointment for the followup mammogram…because they hadn’t called me and I don’t like not knowing, and not knowing for 2+ weeks is more than I can deal with right now. I’m still trying to figure out concrete drying and siding replacement and drywall replacement and maybe everything just waits until it stops raining. Luckily, it’s Southern California, so after the rain dumps this week and next, we might be in the clear. I’m a little overly stressed at the moment. House then boob then sick. That’s enough. Back the fuck off, 2024. We’re done.

Nap. I need a nap. Then finish lesson planning. Then more napping.

Almost at the End

Insanely busy weekend. Do not recommend. Also have a splinter that is not removing itself. Even with significant pokey help from me. We should genetically engineer skin that pushes out splinters. Not all foreign bodies, because piercings and pacemakers, but if it’s wood, then push it out. Maybe even if it’s carbon-based. Would that work? Not sure. Not a scientist here; just play one on TV. But please I don’t want to go to Urgent Care again over a splinter. Oh wait, the last one was a sharpness from sourdough starter, and the one before that was a bougainvillea spike. You know, there are words I can’t spell right on a regular basis, have to look up, like ‘occasionally’ (one ‘s’? two ‘s’s? how many damn ‘c’s?), but I can spell bougainvillea without a hitch. How does that make sense in the brain?

Anyway. This is a shovel handle splinter because I’m digging (very slowly) trenches around the house to divert the water so we don’t have a repeat of last week’s inundation. At this rate, I’ll be done digging in September, so yeah. Working on it. In between everything else.

Let’s start with the quilt. I sewed the binding on Friday night…after remembering at school that the fabric store closed at 5 PM, so I couldn’t clean everything up from Friday’s lab (note to Monday’s self, you will need to do that when you get to school, not my favorite way to start the week). I kamikazed over to the store I don’t normally go to…it’s fine, but the other one has way more choice in fabric…but isn’t open after 3 PM. Ever. Got the binding on and started handsewing Friday night…

I finished just after the Surface Design Association conference (well, I left early to go to Pilates, so after that)…

And it went to the photographer on Sunday. Good times.

I have two projects I need to be working on right now. One requires fabric (baby quilt) and one, I need a general size to start drawing, so I have an email in but no answer yet. I might need to wait a couple of weeks to get that info, unfortunately, because there is a deadline, but I think it’ll be OK. So what next? I’m remarkably braindead about picking a topic…there are honestly too many and nothing’s floating my boat at the moment, so I went back to that pile of drawings I copied in December and picked one that spoke to me.

And then I stayed up too late last night to number it.

My brain. Seriously. But NOT making at the moment just feels ultimately very bad, so I’m making.

I think it has 392 pieces. Maybe that’s how I start this year: just making a whole bunch of smaller pieces that keep me going until a big piece in the summer. Or maybe Spring Break, because that trip got canceled due to expenses incurred here at home (can you say water?).

One of three drywall removal areas…

The baseboard needs to come up too. Still trying to figure out next steps. Fans have been going for a week. Not sure if we need the industrial fans they want $2K for. Calling today for more info.

Here’s our ghetto moisture sensor…

Getting an official one for by the door where all the water probably came in. Seems that we will have to do the outdoor fix, because IDK even who would do it. There’s no info. Ugh. Then the drywall fix, carpet can’t happen until summer, just realistically with management and moving all three bedrooms. It doesn’t make sense to replace the hallway only and leave the 45-year old carpet in the bedrooms that matches. Anyway. It’s a thing. It’ll happen. I bought cheap runners for the hallway until then, once we know it’s dry. Whatever knowing means.

Friday’s DNA extraction lab (wheat germ)…

It went well. Some kids are assholes, but you knew that.

Saturday night, the Man’s band played for 3 hours straight.

Lots of exhaustion on both our parts. Also drama on the dance floor. Stupid adults. But they played well. The next show is four hours on a school night. Let me tell you how long I might last for that. Cough Cough.

My favorite girlchild at Cabazon, I suspect.

She was vacationing with a friend near Joshua Tree. Good dino.

OK, school. DNA read and color today. Staff meeting. Possible Urgent Care. Come home, dig, pull up (gently) carpet to check bedroom. We want it to go back for now. Then book club Zoom…not even sure which book it is. Whoops. Hopefully I’ve read it. This week is another sex-ed curriculum meeting shitshow, but ALMOST AT THE END (I thought that in December and was unpleasantly surprised). More art. Yeah.

Talking Foxes…

You know, you think you’ve got a handle on everything, including the water that fucked up the hallway, and you even came home yesterday and pulled all the carpet and underlay, and then leaned over and scraped up glue and swept 40 years of dirt up (yeah, the carpet was OLD), and the boychild (who is not a boy) says he’ll pull up all the tack strip today and do some drywall sawing. Because the restoration company wants two grand plus testing which is another 1200 and that’s not even fixing the water issue and the carpet. And you mentally figured out how to fix outside, looked at the weather reports, and figured you had two weekends to do it, cool, almost doable (this weekend is a clusterfuck btw), and then you got up this morning. Couldn’t sleep last night (fan noise is doing me in, y’all, plus my overactive brain). Looked at the weather again and the next storm with more than an inch is Thursday. So digging needs to happen this weekend. Around 3 Zoom calls, pilates, groceries, GRADING, finishing a quilt, and delivering it to the photographer. And the Man has a show. OK. All right. I can figure that out. I have a plan. And then the doc messages you, because last weekend’s routine mammogram showed something distortion-y (love that word…new quilt?) and now you get to have more tests more poking more squishing more shit. Fuck me. I’ve done this before and everything turned out fine, which is what this morning’s brain is trying to tell me, but also I almost lost my mind last night because the Man and I had started planning our Spring Break trip and now we’re canceling because of all the hallway crap. And money. And time.

So I’m not happy at the moment. I’m doing a really high-maintenance lab at school today, which is actually good, because I won’t be thinking about my boob. Damn.

I did finish quilting yesterday. After pulling up all that crap and a Zoom call with friends…I quilted for about an hour and finished. Here’s Wednesday night…

And then I cleaned the floor that we had just tracked 40 years of carpet dust across, because who else is mopping their floors at 10 PM on a school night, and I trimmed it.

And things aren’t all bad, because it’s actually prettier in person, despite all the war and crap going on in the bottom of it, and the SDA online conference is tomorrow and I’m going to get the bindings on. And grade. And dig. And finish all the things. And then somehow try to figure out when the next set of squishings will happen. They’re gonna call me. Yeah well, I’m gonna have to call back, because I can’t answer the phone at school, especially not during a high-maintenance lab. Fun times, y’all. Fun times. But I will be taking this to the photographer on Sunday. I started this when? December 30. Fast finish. I copied like 12 drawings…I might just keep going. Well, I have a couple of things I need to do first.

Probably gonna have to sweep again after the boychild pulls all the tack strips.

Maybe I’ll even kill a mophead on this.

Next book I’m reading…

“Talking foxes are a sign of fever…”. I think this paragraph is why I read so much. Other worlds. Easier to live in. This one is challenging my patience at the moment.

OK. School. Do a DNA extraction lab. Grade things. Plan things. Duty after school. Go buy binding, because you went through the stash and didn’t have enough of the right thing. Dig. Put a binding on. All that. READ. I get to read. It’s allowed. Grade things. I said that already. Fuck.

It Won’t Solve Anything…

Oomph. This week packs a punch. Even without all the meetings from last week. Let’s start with the artmaking, because it’s positive and so I like to focus on it…like HERE IS STUFF YOU DID SO STOP FREAKING OUT. By the way, grades are done. For now. I didn’t finish grading one assignment. Oh well. I will eventually.

But art! So I’m still quilting. This is a small piece and I can’t remember, but I thought I’d be done by today? Maybe? Ha ha. Yeah. I thought I’d be done last night, and if I weren’t a crazy bitch who decided she wanted to quilt a tiny squiggle everywhere, I probably would be done.

Yeah. Dumbass.

So I’m about halfway done with the background, which might mean I’m not finishing quilting until Thursday night. Problematic if I want it to go to the photographer this weekend, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m close. Maybe. Who knows if I even have enough of anything I can use for binding anyway. So yeah, another hour tonight…after pilates and cooking dinner. Did I agree to cook dinner tonight? AGREE. Ha. That’s funny. There’s no negotiation there. Much. It’s my turn. I often wish it wasn’t.

In other news, San Diego got slammed by a wet storm on Monday…my rain gauge showed over 3 inches of rain in a day. Well. Hmmm. And I came home and did grades and at about 5 PM, the boychild realized there was a lot of water on the carpet in the hallway, and yeah.

So there’s water coming in, presumably from the outside (even though part of that is an interior wall) most of the way down the hallway (there’s a dry bit in the middle), around the corners into the closet at this end and the bedroom at the other end. I’ve sort of resigned myself to the ghetto concrete floor look that I think we’re going to get to soon…although the men are convinced we can save the carpet…

I think we’re up to 6 fans at the moment. And yes, the hallway wall bears the imprints of Calli, deceased, who used to lie on her back and scrabble at the wall. Have I had time to fix that? Well probably. Have I had the time AND energy to fix that? Well fuck no. So we have a call into a restoration place just to figure out what the real problem is (probably water over the bottom plate/slab thing, don’t ask me construction terms) and figure out who can fix it and then how much that shit will cost, and then probably there will be Wayfair/Target area rugs thrown over the concrete for a while until I can afford carpet. The carpet is ancient; should have been replaced long before this, so IDK why they are trying to save it, except to save me money and reduce the ghetto look. This was not in the plan. I know. It never is. Also, I can’t sleep well with the sound of the fans…I know it’s white noise, but my brain thinks it’s a zombie attack. Anyway. Trying not to dwell on it all, but you know how that goes.

In other news, I’m sending work to Japan and Taiwan in the next few months…so that’s new and different. I’m also trying to work on a collaboration with someone in San Francisco who is part of my women’s art group. We’re flailing a bit, but here was my 2nd attempt at drawing ‘unity’…a hard word for me apparently.

Pretty happy drawing for me…And here’s Nova just before attacking that cat toy.

Yesterday was eyeball dissection day…

It was cool. All but one kid participated and he was just being a whiner in general. Ugh. It’s a regular thing for him. I could do without it.

I thought I would go to the gym after school, get some exercise in, but I was exhausted. Completely. I read a bit, talked to the SIL, then made seating charts for today while half lying on the couch. Made dinner, did that drawing, read some more, then went in and quilted. That was it. It was all I could do.

Also this one…

Trying to figure out what to do with this collaboration. Ugh. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT ANYTHING. So there we are. Seriously though. I need someone to just come in and say, blah blah blah, you need to do this, this person will do it, here’s the invoice, it’s bad but not heinous, something you can actually afford, OK, let’s do it. Probably need that for EVERYTHING right now. Oh yeah, and there’s another time/energy-intensive lab on Friday. OKAY. Good plan, Nida. Ha. I think I need to sleep from now until Spring Break. It won’t solve anything, but at least I’ll be well-rested.