Unfolding

Kitten bit my arm this morning. Left a mark. Why? I was grabbing her food bowl…her empty food bowl. To fill it. I don’t understand why that’s a biteable offense, but there you are. She is a calico cat. They have their own rules.

I’m supposed to be on the Quilt Visions Zoom on Sunday, if you’re interested. It’s not free, unfortunately, but I get it…they need to stay up and running and they don’t charge to get in anymore. You can find info here. I pay for the season pass so I can watch all the other ones, since most of them are during the school day. I like listening to artists talk about their work.

I had an opening last night of Allied Craftsmen: Unfolding, an exhibit at the Rose Gallery at Francis Parker School. It’s a funky show…Allied Craftsmen always has a great mix of different media and materials that makes it super interesting. I will post more later (I have to leave early today; getting a ride to school), but here are mine with others…

I absolutely sucked at getting names of things. That’s my Eyeball Tree with Judith Christenson’s piece (with a poet…like I said, I sucked at getting names).

This one I can do: Nakedman (mine), then a piece by Cheryl Tall, A Year in the Leaf, an artist’s book by Charlotte Bird, and Kathleen Mitchell’s glass Revealed in the front.

I talked for a while with three art teachers, all male, who had so many questions about quilt art and fabrics. One compared it to music and talked about how they are paintings. It was cool.

Also my BirdFoot through the fronts of Linda Litteral’s piece.

Which I again forgot to get the name of. In my excuse, I came directly from teaching all day and was only slightly functional. Functional enough to remember another pair of pants, because it was Pajama Day at school.

Here are the backs of some of Linda’s inscrutable faces though…kid drawings.

A truly beautiful piece. I’ll post more of this show when I can. It’s up through mid-December, I think.

OK. Exhausted. Must be a Friday. Must be a day, actually. I do sleep better as the week goes on…my body is like You. Will. Sleep. And then I do. All my classes are getting assessments today (quiz for 8th grade, written academic for 7th). I don’t expect excellence today. I hope for it, but it’ll probably be a little rough. I only finished planning and posting stuff for today at 9 PM last night. Done with this year. Totally.

I’m busy this weekend: dentist, grading, lesson planning, artist talk, parents are home! So dog will be gone. She’ll be happy to have them back. She’s not a bad dog…it’s just an adjustment for everyone. OK. Oh yeah…I did quilt a bit last night. Not enough. So much for being done in two days. Ha! Welcome to life.

Someday I will probably sew this cat into a quilt because she’s messing around back there. Hasn’t happened yet. Lucky cat.

Achievement Unlocked…

It’s weird. On the one hand, I seem to have missed most of the month of October. Busy as hell, not chill, no relaxation, very little down time. Pro: Time in this hellacious school year seems to be moving quite fast. Con: Time seems to be moving quite fast. I can’t get everything done. There’s probably a movie about this. Or a song. I don’t have time to look it up though. I get to the end of the day, and I realize, oh shit, I still haven’t called the vet for the cat’s retest or the sewing machine shop to get my machine cleaned, and now they are closed. Fuck. OK. Write it down for tomorrow. Do over! Except tomorrow is just as nuts. I realized yesterday that the end-of-trimester grades are due in less than 2 weeks. FUUUCK. I’m so behind. So I forced myself to grade one class of the harder assignments last night. I can do it in chunks. But either I lesson plan and kids have work to do or I grade and kids have grades. I’m having a hard time finding a place in the middle where they have both those things AND I get to exercise, eat, sleep, and (most importantly) make art. I stood at a school-board meeting last night for over an hour, listening to them bitch at each other, so we could explain to them that not offering us cost-of-living at the very least is a pay cut. They started at 2.5%. Inflation is 8.2%. We all have to pay our bills, pay for gas, food, school supplies (that’s kicking MY butt) out of our salaries. The district next door to us would pay me $12K more a year. Can’t afford to move to it, because I would lose most of my years. Such a stupid system. Of course, they do it to make us stay. So I spend valuable grading time staring at the school board and wondering why teachers have to fight so hard for a fair wage. Then I come home and grade. Unpaid. Yeah. Stupid system.

I do have some cool stuff coming up…there’s an art opening at Francis Parker School on Thursday from 5-7 PM. I’m coming straight from school, so I will need to bring extra pants to school, because it’s pajama day. It’s also bargaining, so I have to wear red. I decided to splurge ($20) on a pair of red pajamas to solve that problem. They have pockets. That’s a plus.

Meanwhile, I’m getting so close (but still not done) on the quilt. I forget that on a big quilt, the trip around the borders is LONG. It was about 10:15 last night, and I’m like, shit, I’m not even going to make it down one side. So I stayed up a little later and made it down one side. Achievement Unlocked! The night before, I did a bunch of the little bits in the center, filling spaces, and then started on the right side…

Not totally sold on the variegated thread. It will be fine from a distance. But damn, this thread is linty as shit. I feel like I need to up my thread game, but I don’t know where to start. Ah well. The rayons shred like crazy, but less lint. My local quilt stores focus more on embroidery threads than quilting threads. And everybody has their favorites. I may just go back to rayon when this is done.

So I finished half of the right side, then the bottom to there. Almost to the edge. Then around that corner, across the top, and down the rest of the right side. Feels like two nights. Then trim and bind. Got a crown that needs replacing (that’s not cheap) that will take up time on Saturday, the Man has a show (still don’t know if I can/want to crash it), plus lesson planning and grading. Neverending. Plus those two damn phone calls. I didn’t even finish my calendar bullet journal thing for this week, Sunday was that bad. Sigh.

But I got to cuddle with this guy last night…

It’s been chilly at night and in the morning. He’s warm and nice.

And the old lady is usually around somewhere…

Sometimes she’s just a little too much in my space. Funny, because this morning, I don’t know where she is. Gonna have to chase her down to give her meds.

OK, running a lab in 8th grade, cars on ramps, speed calculations. In 7th grade, plate tectonics stations. I had no aide yesterday in two high-needs classes, and I teach one station while the other two APPARENTLY work independently. Only if I glare at them. I have to get through two groups today, even if it kills me (and it might). I hate the sub shortage. They pull my SECA to help kids who need more help (I get it) and they don’t tell me, so I can’t even shift the class into a less needy situation (we have a lesson for this week that is whole group), because I don’t even know she’s not showing up until like 10 minutes into class and she’s not there. So frustrating. Odds are I will have to cover someone’s class during my prep tomorrow or Friday…lots of teachers out, few subs. I’m next on the list. So when do I grade/prep? At home. At night. On the weekends. Starting to think about the next quilt though. My brain is all over the place, mostly tired thoughts honestly. Quilts of women sleeping while chaos abounds around them. Wishful thinking.

Mostly a Blur…

Seems like last week was mostly a blur. I don’t expect much more of this week. I’ve got meetings and art openings and a shit-ton of work (that never seems to go away). I graded literally nothing this weekend, because I was planning for about 10 hours instead. TEN HOURS. Not kidding. Both days. Making labs make sense…I still have one I dreamed about and need to fix again. I had to review an entire engineering design project and backwards plan it into the calendar to realize I don’t have time to get it done before Thanksgiving Break. I should probably be panicking about grades as well. Again. Still. I just can’t get caught up. At all. Pretty sure I’ll have to sub on my prep period one day this week…too many people out, not enough subs.

I try to finish working by 8:30 PM…9:30 if it’s really bad. I’d like to go to the gym tonight, but grading. Fuuuuck. And the stuff I’ve ordered for labs is taking months to get to me. So frustrated right now. So overwhelmed. So the gym is a necessity really.

I did get quilting in every night…but man, gone are the days when I’d quilt all Saturday afternoon. It was even cold and cloudy…perfect weather for that. Instead, I redesigned labs and made sure I had all the materials and that everything made sense.

Friday night’s quilting.

More words. Then Saturday night, onto the body below…

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Dickhead.

Then last night, I finished up the outline quilting…

Which always takes the longest…

NOT a small piece. And started the background quilting…

I usually quilt with a rayon thread. I don’t know why…I’ve been doing it long enough that I’ve forgotten why. It has a bit of shine which makes it stand out better than a cotton? But I didn’t feel like driving all the way to JoAnns on Saturday (I hate Joanns…or JoAnn, as it is now), and my local quilt store only had cotton, so I got one solid and one variegated. I don’t usually use a variegated thread in the art quilts. Too much distraction from the image, but I think it’ll be fine. Just a little bit of light in some areas. Totally unpredictable areas. I got a chunk of the center part quilted, in between body parts.

Need to do all around the edges. Maybe done tonight? Probably tomorrow night. Then trim and bind. I did buy the binding on Saturday, because all the quilt stores close too freakin’ early during the work week. Such a pain. But it’s pretty close to done. Finally. Seriously. Two months later than I had hoped. This job is kicking my ass this year. Worse than last year. Makes me wanna cry sometimes. OK, more than sometimes. A lot. Science co-teacher is back the 7th of November. IDK what he’s gonna start with, though…probably won’t be on the same page as me, because his sub has been working with the other 8th-grade teacher. Oh well. It’s someone. A warm body (BRAIN!) who might be able and willing to help.

This is what I taught Friday…

OK, not really, and certainly the density explanation is a little weak, but I they were writing and I was trying to get them to see the difference between the two words. The destiny of the blocks is to be dumped over and over into the water. Their density was something totally different.

Simba gets it.

He’s so cute for a middle-aged man.

I updated my Current Shows tab up there for all the crazy stuff that’s happening right now. Shows here and there, shows everywhere! I think there are 9 pieces out? Maybe more. Two openings this week, another next week. Then three maybe four more pieces going out for next year. Need to make more. Need to go to work first. Dammit.

All Through It and Beyond

Oh my. Hello Friday. Bless you for your existence. Although school has been OK this week. Busy as shit and still buried in lesson planning, but the kids have been (knock on fucking wood) OK. It’s been a decent week. Engaged in labs, doing things. It’s exhausting on my end, but they learn, so that’s good. My 15,000-step days aside…and I have no clue what I’m teaching in 8th grade next week. MINOR ISSUE.

I’ve gotten a lot of quilting done this week, mostly last night, when I had a stitching Zoom and stitched all through it and beyond. I’ve seen video of one exhibit going up where I have work…

Allied Craftsmen’s show Unfolding opens at the Rose Gallery at Francis Parker School on Thursday October 27 from 5-7 PM. I have three pieces in the show.

Then WE Gallery has a show, Portraits from the Anthropocene, opening at Dance Place in Liberty Station on Friday, November 4, starting at 5:30 PM. I have two in that show.

There’s one of mine on the left. So lots of chances to see my work locally at the moment.

Meanwhile, I’m still quilting…although almost done with the outlining (by almost, I mean I have another 2 hours probably)…

Up the body…

To the little head and the big head…

Looking good…and on to the other big head…

Need to buy thread for the background today; I have nothing that will work. Also need to get a shit ton of work done this weekend, but hopefully also finish quilting this and get a binding on it. Shit. Probably need to buy binding fabric. Pretty sure I don’t have anything big enough. Hmmm. Maybe that fabric I used for the lettering? I probably don’t have enough of it. OK. Plans.

Yesterday morning was nice. This morning is foggy/cloudy. Or something.

OK. To school. Manage the stuff and things. Try not to react to the stupid stuff. Get through the other stuff. Get it done. Get thread. Water the parents’ house and get their mail. Still haven’t heard from them. Ah well. I feel like the tour operator would tell me if something happened, yeah? Maybe not. And start thinking about the next quilt! It’s gonna be smaller, I swear. I have one small piece that I keep putting together in my head as I fall asleep, totally different style. Maybe should do that.

This Feeling of Sinking…

Oh my. Yesterday was lab lab lab lab lab. Three labs with bowling balls and 2-liter bottles of water (bowling for physics)…

The kids did really well and mostly understood the concepts of inertia and force that were part of it. Plus we got to be outside and moving around. And I made it a competition and paid the top 2 teams with food. If you are a middle-school teacher, you bribe. Constantly. And reward. I’m sure there’s a clear line between bribe and reward (or is there…). Here’s what needs to be put away today…

The other two classes were measuring volume, so I made them do math and they did it! Plus measuring things. All good. It was strangely a good (but exhausting) day. There were very few behavior issues. I was kinda floored. Because my co-teacher? Not so much next door. Some crazy going on there. I guess knock on wood and accept that today will not be better. It’s a rough year for behaviors…I feel like it should be better than last year, but I don’t think it is. At all. Then again, I didn’t have the absolutely sucky group last year. My boss thinks we’ve got 5 years of maladjusted behavior coming because of the pandemic. I feel like the littles will probably be OK…and I’m getting pretty close to retirement in 5 years. I probably won’t notice how they suddenly become amazing. My current 8th graders are actually OK…it’s just the curriculum that’s a problem.

By the time I was done for the day and had to head to the dentist, I was exhausted though. Had the teeth cleaned, got the news that yet another crown/filling thing is failing and will need replacing ($300-500 a pop…already got one scheduled for two weeks from now). That’s not fun. It’s just expensive. Came home, watered some plants, then graded an assignment. Including translation from Swahili. Which I think she copied from somewhere. English to Swahili to English. Only got two classes done. Got stopped by the Swahili for a bit, then finished that class (because the kids in there freak the fuck out if I have it half done for any period of time). I’ll get the other class done today. Trying to get caught up. I hate this feeling of sinking that I’m getting. I sort of know what I’m teaching today in 8th grade. But not tomorrow. I should figure that out. And next week is a total disaster. I need head space to consider things and process. I never get it.

I have managed an hour of quilting each night, which has been nice.

It’s not fast, but it’s meditative. I had book club Monday night, so I stitched during that…

Sue Spargo’s Homegrown quilt. I’m not moving very fast on it.

Then last night, more quilting…

I still have a ton left to do…the top part of the torso and her head, the two big heads, and the three figures on the bottom. Then the background. Not gonna be done any time soon. But I think I have time tonight? I don’t even know what day it is. Problematic. Today is independent and dependent variables, then speed and velocity (not a lab yet…that’s Friday) plus triple-beam balances for mass in the 7th grade. That’s gonna be a challenge.

OK, well gotta go to school to find out about the threat someone made to our campus yesterday. Fun stuff. Welcome to teaching! You are never done, no one gives you money to buy materials, the district sits on your orders for over a month instead of delivering them promptly, and people threaten to destroy the school and/or the people on a regular basis. Gotta love it.

Art-Filled Weekend…

It was an art-filled weekend…and somehow I managed to get a healthy chunk of grading done too. I’m only planned for one grade through Wednesday, maybe, though, so something fell through the cracks. Or I just don’t know how much I can get done in the next two days, so I need to play it by ear. Scary when you’re doing labs though. I need those planned ahead of time. But the lab I was going to do Tuesday, I need to be able to prep before school or after the day before, and I can’t do that for Tuesday…staff meetings and parent meeting. So it got pushed to Wednesday and the thing before it takes up an unknown amount of time. So there’s that. Scrambling a bit.

Quilt Visions opened this weekend. I made it to Friday night’s preview, Saturday morning’s opening and my ‘stand-in-front-of-my-quilt’ time (which was really a long, interesting conversation with one of the other artists), and the dinner on Saturday night. The best part of any of these events is talking to other artists; I really enjoyed that.

I especially enjoyed hanging out with Sheila Frampton Cooper; hadn’t seen much of her since she moved to France, but now she’s back.

I tried to take photos of the space more than the quilts…really, seeing them in person is always better.

Niraja Lorenz won Best of Show with this fascinating piece; I enjoyed talking to her about it (although forgot to get a photo of her)…

Visions is not a huge space…

But they managed the show well…here is Dianne Firth’s piece, always cool to see the shadows her work makes…

And Irene Roderick drew on hers! I loved that bit…

The wall with my piece and two other interesting pieces…

Phil Jones’ heart…

Another view…

A closeup of Libby Williamson’s piece…

And look! I actually took a picture of a piece with the artist.

Sometimes my brain works.

I had a cool conversation with Susan Lapham of the second quilt from the left.

There are a couple of sections I just didn’t remember to photograph…

I tried!

Meanwhile, I did come home on Saturday and pinbasted the current quilt…

After finishing stitchdown on Friday night with Kitten’s interference…

The last time this will be seen…

Before it’s sewn into the quilt…

Pinbasting on my knees is never really fun, but this was quick…

Mostly because I had a deadline to be back at Visions for dinner…

I raided the stash of another quilter who left me a bunch of fabric when she moved…found two full yards of fabric to piece for the backing…

I was playing with all these pieces when I realized I only needed the purple and the green. Good use of them.

The dogs have been playing a bit. Sort of. Mostly Simba trying to play and Katie yelling about it.

Poor Simba…

Last night, I started quilting finally…only about 6 weeks after my original plan.

Still with Kitten in the way…

This week is a little chaotic, so I’m hoping to get an hour done a night, maybe a little more. But we’ll see. I do need to get to school, though, even though I have a few more photos of the show that need resizing, and normally I would add all the names and links. I’ll try to add those later. But for now, need to get to school and do a lab and I don’t remember what else. Yikes. I wish I had a better handle on it. But I don’t.

Aspirational Batting

Quilt Visions opens tonight…looking forward to seeing the whole show. Looking forward to my abortion-rights piece being out in the world. I started it about a year ago in reaction to Texas tightening up abortion laws. I really wasn’t thinking Roe v Wade would be a memory by the time I got it into a show.

My Body. My Choice. Lots of yelling in this quilt. It was a traumatic, stressful quilt to make. So much so that the next piece is all just pretty. That one got into Quilt National. Not bad for two quilts made in a year when I didn’t make much.

I will be at the preview opening tonight, the members’ opening tomorrow, my art time from 10:30-11, and then the show is open through January. Check it out! It’s always an honor to get into these shows…one I didn’t think I could attain 25-30 years ago. So that’s cool.

On average, I finish about 6 good-sized quilts a year. COVID has kicked my ass on that number. Well, COVID was the initial cause, but now it’s just my teaching job that does it. In 2020, I did make 6 pieces, but two were 12″ square or less. So 4 good-sized quilts. There were 8 in 2021, but two were small (12″ square or less) and one was a final finish on a quilt from 2001 or so. Two of the other 5 were relatively small pieces for me. This year? This year is fucked up for some reason. I’m on the 4th quilt of the year, but they have all been big, hefty beasts. That said, I finished the first one in January (it’s the one in Visions), and then the next one took me 6 freaking months to get out (the one in Quilt National)…then one over the summer, finished by the end of July, and this one, which I don’t even think is that big, is taking for-freakin-ever. I started it the end of July, early August, and I’m still not done. It’s the piddly I-can’t-even-work-for-an-hour shit that’s killing me. I did get exactly an hour last night, because I went to bed later. But I’m so frustrated. I so need more art time. I don’t know what is going to give (probably my sanity), because it’s not like I can just wing the day job. There is no useful curriculum that makes sense. So completely frustrated.

Sigh. The plus is that I’m getting closer to done on the stitchdown. Here’s Wednesday night…

I made it to the last head! I basically went in a big circle. And last night, I got one arm and her upper torso half done.

I’m pretty sure the other arm is half done? Maybe? Or not. So finish the torso and the left arm, and then I can sandwich it and start quilting. I bought batting on Monday. Let’s call it aspirational batting, because I thought I would be sandwiching earlier this week. Maybe not. I have a shit ton of work to do this weekend in between all the Visions things (which I’m really excited about!), but next weekend is pretty wide open. I’m hoping to finish stitchdown in the next couple of days, then sandwich is an hour or so, then get quilting this week. Stitchdown is taking longer than I thought it would (all those letters!)…I’m well into the 7th hour and have at least another hour, possibly two to go. So I am getting there…but I’m also evaluating the upcoming shows and seeing what I have that can be in those shows so I don’t have to make new work. I WANT to make new work, but let’s talk reality…I need to (1) make smaller work, (2) stop sleeping, or (3) quit the day job (can’t afford to do that yet). So that. Yes.

OK. School. Be efficient. Be be efficient. Don’t let the 7th graders get you down. Deal with the parents’ stuff this afternoon (was supposed to do it yesterday; didn’t happen). Enjoy the art time with other people this weekend…it doesn’t happen as often as I need or want, so enjoy. Get as caught up as possible this weekend. Keep making art.

Instantaneous Velocity…

I don’t know what I’m teaching tomorrow in three of my classes. I made some things, found some things, but I can’t get my head around the sense of it, and last night, was trying to figure out what instantaneous velocity is (it’s not what I thought, but now I know) and whether my kids need to know what it is (I still don’t know the answer to that), all of this while sitting at a school-board meeting because our board seems to think cost-of-living and inflation don’t matter, we will work our asses off no matter what, and staring at their faces as I’m WORKING THROUGH THEIR MEETING WHERE THEY VOTED TO PAY BOARD MEMBERS WHO DIDN’T SHOW UP LAST MONTH (seriously, can I get paid to not show up?), I’m more than a little irritated with them. There’s one I can stand. The others? Not so much. So there’s that fun stuff going on. By this afternoon, I will have a plan for tomorrow’s classes. I hope.

A bunch of high flyers in 7th grade were gone yesterday, and the classes worked amazingly well, even without an aide (for the 2nd day running). Good to know they are teachable when certain people are gone. Frustrating too, but hey. It was a good day for teaching, lots of labs in 8th grade that worked well…this one!

That’s a kid who doesn’t do much of anything in class. So I’m glad I got him to do something. Job skillz? Who knows. (We’re learning about inertia.)

I didn’t start sewing last night until 9:45…the night before, I got a bigger chunk of time, almost an hour and a half. Because I stopped grading things.

I finished one of the heads and the entire earth…then last night, I got a goodly chunk of the other head done…

I’m pretty stressed about not getting more art time right now. I’m having to work weekends for school just to keep my head above water and mostly ahead of the game. I delivered art yesterday after school for an upcoming show, which is cool, but I need to MAKE more art, and it’s just taking me so long to finish a quilt because of the day job. I can’t get far enough ahead…this weekend is problematic because of all the Visions things happening, which I’m excited about, but also stressed, because I still need to grade and plan for next week, and I’m having a hard time with it. I think I need to post a bunch of stuff for school this morning too, but I have a morning meeting and a union meeting after school, so I’m not sure how all this will get done. OK. Well here’s a picture of the dog who wouldn’t move so I could make the bed this morning.

His boy is home today, so hopefully that will help with his mopeyness. Who knows. I’m going to do some school stuff now. For quite a few hours. Then hopefully sew some more.

Raising a Caterpillar

How to distract yourself from work: try to raise a caterpillar. First of all, I had to bring it home because it was eating so much that I was afraid it would starve over the weekend…

They ate through everything I had, so I offered them my own tomato plants, but they were a different subspecies and the caterpillar didn’t appear to want to eat them…

So I went to school Sunday morning, after watching the caterpillar pace around the edge of the container Saturday night and Sunday morning, and got the right kind of plant…no go! So finally I Googled some more details on the caterpillar and figured out…it wanted dirt! Well, that’s easy. I got dirt…

Oh, it was so happy. So was I. As soon as I put it back in, it started digging…

So in two weeks, hopefully we’ll see a moth. Things I will do to avoid grading and lesson planning, y’all. Totally. Although I did a bunch of that too. It felt like a lot until I got up this morning and realized all the shit I still need to do for this week. Whoops!

I delivered two pieces to a gallery curator/owner on Saturday, and she recorded me talking about them…

Apparently this post is mostly videos. I also packed up three more quilts for delivery tomorrow. I’d like to make art, but I’m spending a lot of time delivering and picking up instead. It’s a good problem to have.

I’ve done a little stitching over the last few days…

All letters really…well some stuff coming up to the letters on Friday, I think.

Last night, I managed to stitch the edge into the stitching, so I got to rip and restitch a bit…

Stitching down the letters is not a fast process. Nothing about those letters is fast.

Lots of video. Like I said.

Saturday night, the Man sang with another band, Sonic Moonshine.

I hung out and drew a bit…

This is Simba’s face after I got home…I was playing elk mating calls (don’t ask why…just know he was perturbed by it)…

This is remarkably true…

And this just made me laugh (as a non-church person)…

Well I’m going to take my container of dirt (and liquefying caterpillar) back to school, hope I survive the day (I’m just tired, still), and get to stitch some more tonight. This coming weekend is the Visions opening, which is nice…I think it’s also Quilt National 2021 with my sold quilt up at the San Jose Museum of Quilts, if you’re up there. I’ve got a busy week and I’ve only planned 8th-grade science completely about halfway through Wednesday. Minor issue. Ah well. I will get there. Somehow. I have three assignments, all in different stages of preparedness. One is typed up but needs slides and a video. One is barely started and only half a thought in my head (gotta navigate the stupid curriculum they provide us with). And the last one exists on paper in 5 different versions, so I have to make something out of that. So the first one needs about an hour, the second probably an hour, maybe more, and the third, at least an hour. Do you wanna know how much prep time I get at school? Not enough to deal with that and everything else, that’s for sure. So it will happen, but probably after hours. Along with the four meetings I have before and after school this week. This year is a challenge…and not in a good way.

I Did Not Buy This

This Friday kinda snuck up on me. Not bad. Appreciating its presence. Would appreciate it more if I knew what I was teaching next week in 8th grade. Spent a few hours last night Frankensteining a variety of labs together into stations and then searching through the house for materials to use…one of which was fabric…I know, I know, this shouldn’t be a problem, but it has to be two 24″ squares of fabric I don’t CARE about, and I care about a lot of my fabric. I did however find this…

I did not buy this. It came to me. I don’t know from where. But two chunks of it are going to school for science labs. Along with 9 plastic Easter eggs, which I had put out in the pile for the thrift shop, and 2 bowling balls that I liberated (with help from an employee) from a local bowling alley. THIS NEVER HAPPENED (he said, as he helped me put them in a bag). I’m waiting for 40 lids to 2-liter bottles (please don’t ask why I have bottles with no lids; I agree that it’s stupid, and it’s not MY stupid).

So yeah, work is complicated and requires a lot of work. Beyond my working hours. A lot more than last year. Probably equivalent to the Zoom COVID year. Although even then, there was already curriculum we had done; I just had to convert it to something they could do online. This year, the curriculum is mostly useless and boring, so I’m having to scramble. I have planned through Wednesday of next week, almost. Ha! Wait, not even all the way through Wednesday. Nope. FUCK ME.

So this may explain my slow status of the stitchdown. I’m not starting until after 9:30 PM most nights, and I need to go to bed at 10:30 or I don’t get enough sleep, so last night, as I was stitching and looked up and it was 10:38, you can imagine how this is going.

Wednesday night, I think I only got about 30 minutes in…

That said, it was a pretty good 30 minutes. No flags in uteri…

The thread is not happy though…it’s having spool issues and loopy issues. It keeps getting itself caught under the spool and then pulling every which way, or it loops up (just one loop) down below and catches on the foot. I’m not sure how to stop either of those things. I love that after a million years doing this, I still don’t know how to fix anything.

Last night, I started on an arm and the three young humans in the bottom corner, my titular folx…

I’m hoping to get a ton done this weekend, but please remember the science planning and wonder with me how that will be happening. Because I can do a little planning at school, but literally nothing NOTHING gets graded or done at all during the 2 7th-grade classes because they cannot self-start, self-maintain, or self-anything but yelling and drama. It’s really only about 6-10 kids per class, but that is enough to make me crazy.

Meanwhile, I got to school yesterday and the caterpillar had eaten everything and was (blurrily, sorry) waiting for me to get more food.

Which I did. Immediately. Also, I took pictures of their poop…

So you could see it. It’s actually sort of star-shaped. AND do you see the other caterpillar? I did NOT see it, which means it is currently in my trash. Ah well. Can’t save all the parasites.

Anyway. Fatso is hopefully going to be going to be liquifying themselves soon.

What else is going on? Sigh. Trying to figure out how to insure two pieces in a show that doesn’t have insurance. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. Home insurance is not covering much. Also Katie is here.

She’s been good, but all the animals are a bit on edge with the newbie. Including her.

OK, going to work to feed the caterpillar, survive the last day of a unit with some classes, research day with some other classes, being super efficient with my time (ha! What a joke…I’m sure something will come up that fucks that over), getting a massage (short) and back pop later, plus need to water and pick up mail, plus finish all the planning for 8th grade for next week and grade all the stuff from last week that got subsumed under grades being due. LOSE MY MIND somewhere in there and maybe read my book. That would be good.