Cut the AI Cord…

I think I finally slept last night…for about 6 hours. But the first time this week for that long…which is problematic, yes. The heat doesn’t help. My brain definitely doesn’t help. Worrying about shit that needs to get done…totally doesn’t help. Thanks brain. Appreciate the support. This is, of course, the same brain that pops up 30 creative ideas in 30 seconds when I need it to. So pros and cons of the creative brain. It can certainly come up with stuff.

I finally finished the outline quilting, with the last few nights starting late and not doing a full hour, or sacrificing sleep to that. This is Wednesday night’s barely did anything…

OK, I did the head, the hands, and the barn owl…and the two missiles. That was it. Like 40 minutes max. It’s all the time I had, and I needed to be up early in the morning.

Last night, I was determined to finish the outlining…

And I did, but I started late, went to bed late, ugh. I need to figure out what thread I’m using in the background and that’s all that’s left, so hopefully by early next week? I do need binding fabric, which is problematic in terms of where to shop and when, but I’ll figure it out. So hopefully she’ll be done around next weekend and I can contact the photographer. That’s the plan anyway. We know how plans go. Grades are due and I’m driving to LA tomorrow to see the Bisa Butler show. I was supposed to have an art meeting up on the way in the morning, but it got canceled…I’m still going up to see the show though. It’ll be a kamikaze trip.

Girlchild is still in Japan…

Beautiful, eh?

I’d like to say I have a plan for the next quilt, which I need for the dual show coming up in 2026, and it’s sort of in my head, but not quite. Wish me luck.

I needed ginger and my regular store didn’t have any, so I stopped in the bougie store near pilates…they spell weird.

Also, they don’t know what red seedless grapes are. Or ginger is.

I’m low key irritated by that, because grapes are more expensive than ginger.

This shit is disturbing.

I don’t like that there isn’t more information being released. I also don’t like that CK gets flags at half mast and all that crap when the Minnesotan representatives did not. CK is documented spewing so much hate speech. And yet he’s some sort of savior? Only if you’re rich and white and believe his stuff. Sigh. I don’t know where to go with all this. I don’t know how to fix it. Remember the days of Bush Sr and even Reagan, when you didn’t agree, and you thought they were idiots (we didn’t know the idiots could be worse then), but everyone existed together and people weren’t fired for having opinions and corporations didn’t cave to the government threatening them (we can do this the easy way or the hard way???!!!), and you know what, the government didn’t threaten people and corporations if they didn’t parrot the crazy shit. More importantly.

So yeah, the next quilt is fomenting in my brain. Like a bad cabbage and a can of expired beer. Which might describe a huge hunk of the current government as well.

This is part of a larger thought, but caught my eye. The ivory tower of education…I mean, you want your doctors and teachers educated, right?

Limiting cancer research? Cancer doesn’t give a fuck what your politics are. These people are shooting off their feet by canceling research. Mind boggling. Do we want to be Argentina? No…who wants that? Well, obviously someone. But yeah, almost all those rich white guys went to Ivy League schools. And IDK what the women who are in politics and support their agenda are thinking…their agenda is to send you home to have babies and then care for your grandchildren while knitting and baking. It’s like they (the women on the right) ignore that. You won’t be a rep any more. You’ll be at home. No one will listen to you any more. Is that what you want?

Sigh. So yeah. The world is messy and ugly and often anxiety-inducing and sometimes depressing. Although there are still beautiful teahouses out there. And books…I came home yesterday after driving 75 minutes down to San Ysidro and back to pick up my quilts (love having them shown; don’t love the drive) and sat on the couch and just read. And then fell asleep. And then read some more. Instead of grading, which is what I should have done. I was tired and just kind of done. I woke up once in the middle of the night, and my fuzzy brain was desperately trying to persuade me that it was gonna be Saturday morning (nuh uh). So today I’m giving a test. And no computers are allowed. None. Put them the fuck away. You may use anything in your science folder. Will it be hard? Yes. Will it be a challenge to read their handwriting? Oh god yes. But do we need to cut the AI/copy/paste cord? Fuck yes.

After that, I’m hoping to feel up for ceramics, because I didn’t get there all week. More quilting tonight. Tons of (ugh) driving tomorrow. But for a good thing. Something I’m looking forward to. Then home to quilt and finish progress report grades. Gonna need a lot of caffeine.

Looking for Balance…

Yesterday was tiring…our first real hands-on lab with kids and chemicals and hot water and other dangerous things. Today, we do it again, times two. We only got through one station yesterday; today we will force them to get through two. Reading the instructions is apparently hard, even though I review them ahead of time. You never know what they’ll do that makes no sense, so you’re constantly pivoting (hate that word), relabeling, adding materials to the bins to make it easier, and then reviewing all the safety rules AGAIN because someone thought it was funny to taste something. Sigh. Easy to get your steps in at least. Meanwhile, my co-teacher and I are desperately trying to plan next week (it’s happening)…I need to be further ahead than we are. Not happening. And it’s stressful. And neither of us needs more stress at the moment. Ah well.

I’m still quilting. It’s an hour a night, so it takes forever. Not really, but it feels that way. At the end of the night, I’ll have quilted a 10″ square and that’s it. Because there’s a lot of tiny little things in it…so it takes a long time. Here’s Monday night’s progress…

The graveyard…I finished the swamp on the other side too and did some legs and stuff to get to this side. Last night, I finished that side and most of the torso…

I need to finish the left knee and then I can do the head and move up into space. I might finish the outlining tonight. We’ll see. Then on to the background. That pin in the explosion is because I keep finding little pieces I forgot to stitch down, so I mark them for when I run out of bobbin thread. It’s the easiest time to switch the top thread to the invisible stuff I use for stitchdown. Although I think I redid the bobbin thread last night and forgot to fix the two pinned areas. Ah well. It will happen eventually.

Yesterday, I had a kid/parent meeting after school, had to call a parent (see lab info above), then worked on an assignment for next Tuesday (yup…that’s where we’re at), then went to an art opening of a friend at a new cheese shop in La Mesa…

Then came back and graded an assignment (grades are due Tuesday) around eating dinner, washed dishes, and came in here and quilted. Then slept really badly until my blood sugar alarm went off (adjusting insulin AGAIN) and now I’m up to do it all again. Well, minus the kid meeting and the art opening, insert pilates, emptying the dishwasher, and cooking dinner…and taking the trash out. I get help with the last one, and I preempted the crazy by doing some of the composted food stuff on Sunday so today would be less nuts. It will still be nuts. The next four days are all nuts.

You know, I knew Charlie Kirk’s name, but I mostly ignore the extreme right-wing crazies (and he is one of those)…this just solidifies my feelings about him…

‘A teaching experience for children.’ WHAT. THE. FUCK. Because my students aren’t traumatized enough? Because when untreated traumatized people grow up, they don’t cause issues in society? Like shooting people? Yeah, no thanks. As more and more quotes from this man come out, the more glad I am that I never really listened to him. It would have increased my blood pressure. I know those people are out there…and I’m extremely concerned about how our government is swinging wildly in the wind at the moment…but I didn’t need those quotes or clips in my brain all the time. No one does. As someone who works with kids for my job, this is sick and twisted. Disturbing. And it’s even scarier that the politicians of the right don’t call that out. Terrifying. But hey, that’s where we’ve been for the last few years, and for some groups, they’ve been there forever. I wish I had an easy solution, an empathy injection that would flip the board, but I haven’t figured it out yet.

In lighter news…

Mine are probably Papyrus instead of Comic Sans. Ah well. I do love fonts. I spent 30 minutes the other day loading more fonts into my Google suite so I’d have more choices. Really, just for the titles…our kids have a hard time reading, so everything else needs to be in a chill font.

OK. Much as I dread today, it’ll probably be fine. They’ll be engaged and busy at least. It’s just on my end, boiling water, answering questions, making sure no one tastes anything or puts something up their nose…fun times. I’ll collapse back into this chair around 9:30 PM and start quilting again. Maybe get a better night’s sleep? Ugh. Looking for balance, y’all…always looking for balance.

I’ll Be Quilting at the End of It…

It’s pajama day at school today. It’s also supposed to be 90 degrees. Not sure those two things go together. But I am in pajamas. Flannel. Yup. With pockets though. I have a lighter pair, but they don’t have pockets. Yes, I know how to sew…clothing even…I could easily add pockets. In my spare time. I got none of that. In good news, the parentals are home, safe, not ill, and their lovely aged very deaf dog is back to their responsibility. In bad news, the day job continues to give me acne, bad sleep, and canker sores. I’m sure it will get better. Someday. Not this week though. This week is our first real lab and IDK how that will roll…this is where we can really see what last year’s teachers wrought upon us…that and the first long writing assignment. My hopes are not high. I realized (we realized?) last week that this group is not particularly independent, even when assignments are. I couldn’t grade anything, prep anything, even sit and help a kid I know needs it and won’t ask for it, because of all the kids requiring help who just didn’t listen to directions or quashing attempts to be social when supposed to be working. It was exhausting. Yes, there’s always some of that, but this was too much. So I brought home all the grading I’d been trying to do all week and did it at home…much faster. But eating up my time. Not OK.

Quiltwise, I knew I needed to do some embroidery on a couple of ICE vests that were too small to cut out words for…so I did that Friday night.

I was exhausted; I went to ceramics also and then my parents for the mail, so even though I had mostly prepared the night before to sandwich and pinbaste that night, I figured I wouldn’t have the energy. The boychild went to bed, then the Man, and Art Brain persuaded me to mop the floor, iron the backing, pin it to the floor, finish drying the batting (someone pulled it out of the dryer not dry…yes, I know who), iron the front, and then pinbaste the whole thing around 11:30 pm.

Absolutely some level of fucking nuts.

But honestly, much easier to do with everyone in bed. Dogs, cats, people out of my way.

Saturday night, I started quilting…

Made it through a healthy chunk of the dirt…

Then last night, I did the little people and most of the ICE agents dragging children through the swamp.

I’m sure I’ll be doing this most if not all of the week. And then I realized, how the fuck am I gonna buy binding? The store I usually shop at is open stupid hours and I’m going to LA on Saturday for basically the whole day. I’m not sure how I’m solving that problem yet. I’ll figure it out. Shop somewhere else, probably. Fewer choices in fabric unfortunately. Oh well. If you’re never open when working people can come in? Then they won’t come in.

This was the bed when I tried to get in it on Friday night. Eventually some moving happened.

Cute though. The Man is in there and those are all his babies.

I’ve been hiking every Saturday, late afternoon, about 3 miles, so I can eat a dinner I choose, instead of one my body allows.

It’s also relaxing, mostly. There were a lot of people this last Saturday. Less relaxing. There’s a fine line between hiking safely as a woman and being annoyed by all the people on the trail.

I drew at dinner…this was a two-dinner drawing.

The faster they serve the food, the more dinners it takes to draw.

Speaking of drawing, some of my students are truly amusing.

The arm gestures of Josh. So cute. Yes, I realize they drew a dead person, but it’s also a stick figure.

Girlchild is in Japan…I’m so jealous.

I asked what was going on in this photo, and apparently it’s joy.

This is not very iconically Japan…

But she looked more cool. So we get daily photos and videos of cool things in Japan. I’m very jealous. It wasn’t really on my bucket list (I was last there in 1967 at the age of nine months. OK it might have been 1968.), but maybe it should be?

And in political news…

Yeah maybe I should start saying that. What is your problem?

This is too true.

Sadly so. Also so much disinformation about this. I’m sad for his kids and wife; I’m also sad for the family of the shooter. I’m sure this isn’t what they wanted for him. But hey y’all…it was a white, religious, right wing extremist. Not the democrats. Not a trans kid. Not a woman. Not a person of color. Can we focus on the bullshit coming out of all those politicians’ mouths? And the guns…can we ever say the guns are the problem? I’m boggled by the about-shifts in social media with some of these people.

And this…with teachers and professors being fired over statements about Kirk. My partner says the world is a better place now. Is that a fire-able offense? Dowd is divisive? Seriously? I’m boggled by the rhetoric and the bullshit. Maybe I shouldn’t be. But I am. And the ignorance of history. That too.

OK. Well, all that aside, I do still have to teach middle school today. Energy! Still. Transformations of energy. Writing about energy. Using more than one vocabulary word in a sentence. Writing complex sentences. Things most science teachers don’t teach. Welcome to a literacy school. And two teachers who are readers. Then two different meetings after school. I’d like to go to ceramics, but I’m also trying to go to my quilt guild meeting, because Lea McComas is speaking there. It’s on Zoom, but it’s not the same thing. So IDK how the rest of the day will go; I just know I’ll be quilting at the end of it.

Something Something.

Hey all, somehow Friday snuck up on me. I’m not mad. I’m still running marathons because of work and feel consistently overwhelmed, and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night needing to put things in my calendar (mostly art stuff that I don’t want to forget about because of the art job). Yesterday afternoon, I answered one complicated email about art stuff (complicated because I had to make decisions before I sent it) and figured out where my computer was hiding scans when the printer sent them, and emailed a contract for another show I got into. All good stuff, but it sometimes gets sidelined by the grading and lesson planning. I have a to-do list today for the day job that is physically impossible; no way can I get it all done. So I don’t know what the weekend looks like because of that. Not ideal.

Artwise, I finished stitchdown on Wednesday night, finally. It took 4 hours and 42 minutes. Not bad.

Then last night, I found a fabric that worked and was big enough for a backing, ironed and pieced that, cut the batting, washed it, drying it this morning. I’ll need to clean the floor tonight…wait, I need to embroider some words on the ICE agents and that’s probably easier when it’s a top and not a quilt. So I’ll do that tonight and see how much energy I have for the next step. But sometime this weekend, I’ll be sandwiching this and pinbasting it.

There’s the post-it to remind me to do the embroidery.

I met with stitching friends last night and finished the two leaves, but not a lot else.

This is the July block from Sue Spargo’s Rooted block of the month. I’m almost done with it.

And this.

My students wanted to talk about Kirk, but I reminded them that is a family conversation and they should also consider the two high-school kids who got shot in California (and then the shooter killed themselves) and the drones over Poland. I do think the world is a better place without Kirk, although I don’t think anyone should be murdered. And I feel for his wife and kids. But he advocated for guns and hate. So there we are.

I think that’s a turkey vulture.

It was huge flying in, whatever it is.

OK, the electric company is headed over to turn off my electricity for some solar-related reason I don’t really understand (probably so they can charge me for electric stuff even though I make more than I need). So I need to be off the computer. Fun times. He has all day to come, and he comes while I’m still here. Ugh.

School today, teaching something, planning something, fixing something, grading something. Then hopefully clay and some art this weekend. We’ll see.

Iterations.

Tuesdays have gotten so much harder lately. Not sure why. I feel like I’ve run a marathon in only two days of work, and then there’s a slow slide into the weekend. Sometimes that slide upends me into a pile of steaming compost before the weekend, but it feels like the hump, getting over that, is now Tuesday. I mean, the work doesn’t stop after Tuesday? There just seems to be an inordinate amount of it in the first two days…well, include Sunday, because I work then too. Maybe that’s why? Nah, I’ve always had to do that…well, always in the last 5 or 6 years? I didn’t always have to put in so much weekend time. Not sure why. So far, I haven’t managed to grade anything in class. Like the kids won’t chill out enough to allow it. That will hopefully change today. We’ll see. Some groups do well, some are incredibly needy (some for good reasons, lack of English skills and all), and some can’t stay on task to save their lives. I’m looking forward to October, when things seem to chill out a bit (weather and school)…but it’s still an awfully long way away.

The stitchdown is coming along slowly. I’m not getting a full hour at night…I’m coming home later and eating dinner later and then it’s 10 PM and I know I have to go to bed around 10:30. So I made it up to the sun and planets last night, and that’s all that’s left. I should be able to get that done tonight, but I have a union meeting after school and pilates late, so maybe not. Trying to fit in all the things I want to do with all the things I have to do and then the things I should do…ugh. But here’s Monday night’s stitching…

I got through one arm and most of the left side of the torso. I don’t remember where I was before that though. Last night, I finished the torso and the head and the hair, the hands on top of her head, and the barn owl…

And I found this in my yard…

There’s two great horned owls nearby, but I still hear the nightly screech of one of the barn owls, plus the occasional feather. Nice that they’re hanging around. They can all have the rats and gophers. Please.

This piece, Portrait of One Self, got into Quilts=Art=Quilts, so I’ll be shipping her later this month.

She’s got a lot going on too, much like me. Not often you see a fox sleeping with missiles. Or bunnies on body bags. Kitten is in there too…apparently I knew she was near the end, because she’s got angel wings. I miss her lots still. The Man says I can borrow his cats, and sometimes I am a good substitute for them, but mostly, they choose their daddy (of course). So I miss the kitty time. I don’t have the time or energy for a new kitty right now, though; the two dogs are enough. Katie is here! My parents’ dog has been visiting for over a week. She’s pretty chill these days, as long as you give her what she wants. She misses her people too, I’m sure. They’ll be back Sunday.

I have been having a hard time finding the time and energy to make it to ceramics, which sucks, because it’s very meditative when I’m there. I mean, the piece that needs to go in the kiln stresses me out, because I’m not even sure I can lift in into the kiln without breaking it…but the freeform head piece has been loads of fun.

I just keep adding weird shit to it. I actually need to go in when the owner is there so I can put the base back in the bisque fire and then try to get the torso in as well. Then I can just focus on the head, which is now going to have a tree coming out of it? I don’t know how that’s going to work. Shhh.

It was great being there yesterday…one other woman was there who I see on a regular basis, and about three other people just stopped by to drop off or pick stuff up, and then it was just me. Unfortunately, I only had about 90 minutes and then needed to pick up mail at my parents and then go home and cook dinner and do schoolwork and eventually get to stitch stuff down. Busy fucking days. I feel like I wake up running and don’t stop until late at night. And then the CGM has been off again. I’m wondering if my body is fighting this one even longer before it settles, and if that is the new thing. The numbers are still completely off and the alarm kept going off last night but it was like 50 points off. And I don’t have time to call them and go through all the phone call shit again today. Ugh. Why can’t things just work? Why does my body need to make it so fucking difficult. This thing has been really helpful for keeping my blood sugar in the right place. I’d really like it to keep working.

Sweet boy. Needs attention. I reread the same page like 5 times while he kept flipping around and smiling at me. Dork.

This is too true. Also, I think the Man is the caterpillar in Alice. At least right now. Maybe he’ll be the White Knight later on.

OK. Teaching energy while lacking it. Actually transformations today, which is different than transfer. Gotta make that distinction today as well. Then they get an INDEPENDENT assignment, for some definition of independent, right? Then union meeting and pilates and dinner and schoolwork and stitching, then sleep. Repeat some iteration of that. Ugh. September. Double ugh.

Where I Really Want to Be

I think I just ran around all weekend. I don’t feel particularly rested. Well, there were two late nights. I can blame one on Art Brain…I would have gone to bed. The other one, I blame Delta for flying the boychild in 90 minutes late on an already late flight. It’s fine. And last night, the new glucose sensor is off by 40 points again so the alarm kept going off…which is when I silenced it (it still buzzes) and put it on the floor. It’s still off this morning, so it gets 24 hours. Last time, that worked. Annoying though.

I did get the top ironed together on Friday night. I was exhausted (long short week), and was just going to piece the background, but once I had it all laid out, I’m like, it’ll be fine. How long will it take? That’s art brain talking, because the answer is 90 minutes past bedtime.

Awesome sauce. Looks good on that background, which is always nice. I pick those out when I start ironing all the pieces to fabric, so I’m never really sure what it will all look like in the end.

I started stitchdown on Saturday night.

Going about 100 mph, while singing along (probably quite badly) to whatever my phone was playing. Good thing the Man was also on headphones. Then I left at midnight to go pick up the boychild from the airport; he’d been hiking part of the PCT up in Washington.

And last night, further on in the stitchdown. Lots of details takes a bunch of time.

It’ll look better with outlining when I quilt it. That skeletal middle finger will be obvious.

I did a lot of school work this weekend (ugh). I remember now how trying to do the house stuff, run errands, go to meetings, but still have some time for art, reading, and relaxation…it feels like you’re constantly running.

I took a little time to sew stuff down on this during dinner TV time.

I also worked on one of the Rooted blocks during my quilt guild meeting, probably the first one I’ve been to in 6 months. First Saturdays are hard. I’m gone for the next one; I know that. A lot of the people I like to hang out with weren’t there.

I finished a cover page in science…a miracle for the first month of school!

Yet another roller coaster.

This show, with two of my pieces (one in the bottom right corner), opens this Friday.

I unfortunately won’t be there…and will never see this show, because it’s at Coastline College in Newport Beach and they are only open part of the week, certainly not the weekend. Ah well. It isn’t the first show I haven’t been able to attend. If you go, send me pics.

I also hiked 3 miles on Saturday…

It’s been hot still, so I didn’t leave until like 5:30 PM. The Man’s back still bugs him too much to join me, but hopefully in the future. It was still warm, but there was a cooler breeze in the second half.

I met one human and her massive (unleashed) dog…who saw me, stopped, and then started loping toward me. Kind of nerve-wracking. She’s searching through her pack for the leash and calling the dog, who isn’t listening at all. Sigh. I don’t care if he’s the gentlest giant around; if I’d had Simba with me, there would have been a problem. Leash your fucking dogs, especially in wildlife preserves, where it’s required. Humans are annoying.

Seriously, he was huge.

I saw this while driving home.

I chose to read it as What Would Jesus Do? Get rid of those two buffoons. Also badly centered ‘Vance’, which might be a metaphor.

Back to teaching, this is part of my regular job apparently.

The kid typed the stuff on the left. I mean, it’s probably true, and I did tell two kids that Spanish was OK, but Turkish is out of my knowledge realm. How to get these kids to write in English! I mean, I could have them write in their native language, then use Google Translate, then have them read it to me in English, then write it in English, but that would mean the other 32 kids in the class are just sitting there while I do that for 10 minutes (there’s multiple language kids in one class). This kid, legit writes in English most of the time, so I’m OK with it, but the three Spanish speakers have been in US schools for over 2 years and won’t even try in English. Sigh. I can’t do all the things. There isn’t enough time for all of it.

And for those thinking Chatgpt is teaching for us, we had it read through a set of stations we did in the past and consolidate it into 3 stations, instead of 6. It produced a ‘worksheet’, for some loose definition of such, and I spent over an hour turning it into something usable. I’m not saying it wasn’t helpful; it was definitely a shortcut, but don’t tell me it produces stuff I can use right away. Because it doesn’t. It probably saved us an hour of trying to decide which ones to do and what to cut, and then formatting it slightly differently so it all fits on four pages instead of 20. Still needs a ton of work and planning brain.

OK. It’s Monday. Another full week. Trying to fit exercise and ceramics in…not sure how that’s gonna go, honestly. Today? I’m teaching forms of energy. Mostly notes…a couple of demos. We built in some independent time this week (we’ll see how independent they really are), so we could NOT be direct teaching (which is exhausting for us and the kids) all week. Also maybe we could grade some stuff at school instead of bringing it all home. We have a two-hour (torture) literacy meeting after school today, ugh, with lesson and all. Not fun. Hopefully useful. They haven’t been, really…just been performative, which is annoying. They did let us plan our own learning this year, individually (although me and my co-teacher are doing the same lessons). For once, we get to decide what our kids need. What a concept. Then home to deal with a broken blind and the guy fixing it, with two dogs in the house. Then book club. And some stuff in and around all that. I think I read the book. I don’t remember. Oh yes! I did. It was nice. Not amazing, but nice. Then more stitchdown! Which is where I really want to be.

By the Skin of My Pants…

Ugh. Head. Under. Pillow. Alarm. OK, I’m up. I swear. I’m mobile. Although the first thing I saw was yet another baby gecko who needed saving but was being stupid about it. I mean, we have a houseful of cats, and honestly, a small dog who loves to chase geckos and lizards. This baby has to be smart or it’s dead. It’s definitely not being smart and letting me rescue it…so I guess that’s fate. I saved one last night. Does that make up for the one in the window who won’t come out? Probably not.

Honestly, it’s more thinking than I can deal with this morning. I was at school for about 11 hours yesterday, minus the kamikaze drive right after school to come home and pee the old lady dog. My blood sugar was a disaster due to food and stress and exhaustion and trying to eat before people showed up and then once I got home and whatever. I can’t have all good days, right? Which reminds me…pause to take insulin. I forgot yesterday. I mean, I remembered when I was about 1/2 a mile down the road. So I came back. Then I did what I used to do…wrote INSULIN in big letters on a piece of paper and taped it to the inside of the front door. Six weeks to train yourself…and when I forget? It’s because I’m tired. I’m up too early, my routine is off, and I fuck up. It’s fine. I’m getting better at it.

OK. So the ironing together/down of the quilt got delayed by exhaustion. I had the rest of the planets done on Wednesday night…

The whole thing, which is pretty cool.

So I started teaching space…three or four years ago? And I’ve put the sun in SO MANY quilts, but none of the other planets, until I did the sort of mythological piece for the Fierce Planets exhibit…but never the whole batch of our solar system. This was cool. It symbolizes hope to me…the solar system is still out there doing its thing and will (but not forever, because you know, science…this one will destroy itself and another one will take its place) continue to do so. For a long time anyway.

I made a video of my decisionmaking process last night…

Because I almost just gave up and sat on the couch to read my book (my book is really good and I was really tired). But I didn’t. I did the video. And then I put the parts of the quilt on the background and decided, Yah, that’ll work, and then I ironed the background and trimmed the selvedges so I can sew it together tonight and then iron the whole thing down. And then tomorrow, which is Saturday, thank fucking goddess because I am so done (after a four-day week, y’all)…I can finally start the stitchdown. Which is relaxing and meditative and blissful.

Speaking of hope, there’s my baby barn owl and her olive branch.

I do think of all the baby barn owls we’ve had as girls. I know they’re not. I just like it better. One of them is hanging around…either the baby or mom. I hear them every night in the tree outside my studio, and I talk to them (her). Hi owl. Nice to hear you. Thanks for hanging around and eating gophers. Appreciate it. Thanks for all the owl pellets and the random feathers. Also, thanks for finally being quiet. Ha! Oh that last baby squawked for so long.

OK, yesterday morning, this piece of honeycomb was floating in the pool.

No bees. So weird. There is a tree above the pool? Still weird.

And when I was leaving school last night, the teacher who tends our tiny garden calls me over to identify the caterpillars on the apple tree, who are decimating the leaves.

It’s a moth. It’s not even a very exciting moth, like that Sphinx one I found…but the caterpillars are amazing. And he’s knocking them onto the ground. Meanwhile, one of my students, a girl, runs over and says she LOVES bugs and caterpillars and is trying to take one home (OK then)…weird world, y’all. (one of us…one of us…)

Today I am teaching. Like direct instruction and demos. Like an idiot. I mean, yesterday was bliss because we did cover pages (I forgot to take a picture of mine…which I did finish for once), and today is all gonna be talk all day (ugh). Next week was gonna be all on as well, until I said no, reminded us that we need breaks, and put in a day of independent work. Good times. We’re planned out about a week at the moment. By the skin of our pants…chins?…seat of our pants…but what is the skin one then? My kids always give me crap for not getting these right. By the skin of my TEETH (it’s biblical…)…no wonder I didn’t remember it. It makes no sense. Might as well say skin of my pants. I’d like to say I’m going to ceramics after school, and I will take my stuff, but I’m exhausted now, I have a meeting before school and duty after…and I need to check my parents’ mailbox…so maybe not. Maybe tonight I read my book and shit. I need to go make my lunch. Ugh tired. Art this weekend. Also school stuff. It is what it is. Peach out and plenty of sleep to all.

Maybe Not Even Then…

Oh my. I love a good school night when I don’t sleep until like 2 AM. Fun times. It was hot, there were way too many animals breathing and radiating heat and touching me, I had a bunch of mosquito bites that were distracting and itchy and oh my god get out of bed and put cortisone on like right now before I scratch my skin off the bones. And 2 AM brain, which remembered that one kid who was sitting outside the classroom yesterday morning, late, eating his breakfast instead of telling me he was present, 2 AM brain remembered that 10 minutes earlier, the Chromebook hospital kid tried to deliver his new Chromebook FINALLY (2+ weeks after starting school) but he wasn’t there yet, and yesterday morning’s brain forgot immediately instead of trying to send him to pick it up, so then he didn’t have one in Period 3, and I didn’t remember ANY OF THIS UNTIL 2 AM. Please, if there is a goddess in charge of postmenopausal brain power (if there is, she’s probably forgotten it), remind me at an appropriate time. Yes, I could put it in my phone, but I regularly ignore those notifications. Like a boss.

Aargh. Trying to teach when you’re tired sucks. I’m debating switching my Thursday and Friday plans so Friday is all chill and cover page instead of stressful demos. It’ll be fine. Yes, Back-to-School-Hell Night is Thursday. Yes, you will be dead on your feet. You already are…what’s the diff? I mean, you’ve taught one whole day this week. It’ll be fine.

Sigh. Ironing is going well at least…I finished the swamp trees on Monday night…

And did two rockets…or missiles…and two hands…

Last night, I did the barn owl as the real life one screeched outside my window.

There’s so much dark and depressing in the bottom of the quilt, so much terrifying stuff, that I had to have hope in the top. She’s carrying an olive branch for peace. Let’s hope someone sees it. And then I started the solar system in the sky…

I didn’t finish the right side (the left in this picture, which shows an upside down view). I have about 50 pieces left to do, and then I need to piece a background and iron all these down…hopefully tonight. Here’s a video of what’s left…

I really do have extra pieces. Not sure how. Or why. Whatever. Maybe there’s a fingernail missing somewhere. That’s the test…finding the missing pieces. Or not. I’m looking forward to (1) seeing the whole thing together and (2) doing the stitchdown with TWO fans pointed at me, instead of just one. I can point one at my FACE. Can’t do that while ironing because pieces will fly everywhere. It just won’t cool down in this room at night…it’s finally down to 79 degrees now, at 7:30 AM, but it was in the high 80s last night. Ugh. No breeze. Delightfully cool outside…can’t move it inside. It’s supposed to cool down a bit each day, so it won’t be so bad by the end of the week. Anyway, ironing tonight and hopefully stitching down tomorrow night. Oh wait. Tomorrow night, I’ll be dead on a couch somewhere after talking to the parents of 20 children (because that is all who will show up), which is still exhausting.

I’m not feeling particularly positive about the day job at the moment. It’s a bit of a panic across the board. It’ll get better. Hopefully soon. Right now, it’s chaos. Which I’m apparently good at, but tired of.

This is remarkably true.

OK. Today we finish a unit…if it kills me. And it might. Vocab plus put it all in order and hand the damn thing in. Which means I need to grade it. It’ll be fine. I think. I was sort of caught up. Until today. Now I will be incredibly behind. I don’t have pilates today…yet. I’m on the wait list. Figure if I get in, I’ll kamikaze home, pee the old lady dog so she doesn’t pee in the house, and go. But probably, I’m going to the gym instead, which is fine. I need to fit that back into the schedule anyway. I don’t have to cook tonight, hallelujah…then iron this whole thing together. Oh wait, also do seating charts for tomorrow. Ugh. Then fucking SLEEP. Please. Thank you. And to all those perimenopausal people thinking, oh, when I get to postmenopause, I can finally sleep, OMG Fuck That No Way Will You Ever Sleep Well Again. Until Thursday night, when you have hit exhaustion level. And maybe not even then.

Hot and Ironing…

There is a delightful breeze coming through the window of my office right now, unlike the last three nights, when it has been hot as fucking hell in here and I remember again why I consider putting a room air conditioner in here every year around this time. And it was only in the 90s yesterday…last year, it hit 109 degrees during September (knock on wood; it’s only September 1, so it’s still possible). This room holds heat like crazy and the sliding glass door is a combo of unusable and unreachable, which is silly. Need to remodel this room with A/C and a slider on a remote. I guess one or the other. It does cool down at night…outside…but not in here. Bad design and/or no insulation in the walls. Certainly we didn’t see any when we did all the fixes to the rain damage. Houses built in the 1970s…they still didn’t build them well. So enjoy the breeze (and the day off of work!) because it’ll be gone and/or hot as hell in a few hours.

So it’s really hard to iron when it’s hot, y’all. I don’t even try until 8 PM and then I sit in here and sweat anyway because the fan can only be pointed below the level of the ironing board, or I’d have pieces flying everywhere. Plus the iron is putting off heat in a room that is already warm. Just since I started writing this, the room temperature has gone up 2 degrees. Anyway, on Friday, I came home after ceramics and ironed for 3 hours.

I was working on all the body pieces and the stuff around or attached to the main figure.

When I went to bed, I was missing some hair pieces, but I found them in the trash bin (which is why I don’t throw that out until the quilt is finished). Then Saturday night, I did the head and some other stuff around it.

I did an explosion and one of the Starlink things and part of the swamp. Here’s a better view of the head…

So many of Musk’s things blow up. All the pencil cups and the stapler and tape are there to keep the weight of the fabric from pulling the teflon sheets onto the ground. As it gets heavier with more pieces, this gets to be a harder balance and I need more weights.

Last night, I worked on the swamp and got all the base parts done; just the trees are left on that.

There’s some embroidery of the police/ICE badges to go on later. This puts me in the 1000s, so about 300 pieces left to go. Two or three nights? We’ll see. I mean, I could finish it today if it weren’t supposed to be 95 degrees in here and I didn’t have a thousand other things to do. Next up? Input grades. I think I finished most of the school stuff yesterday though. Besides inputting them. Oh wait, and advisory. Fuck. Forgot about that. Ugh. I have not fully found my routine yet. It takes me about 6 weeks usually. And Friday was super stressful for trying to get all the things done. This week is back-to-school night, plus two morning meetings, plus 7 new kids (ugh) and 3 kids moving classes and whoa…just found the fly yesterday that was buzzing everyone in the house. Either it died or Bowie killed it and didn’t eat it. Mmmm. Dead fly.

I need to try to get to ceramics today (oh my, it’ll be warm)…I got things attached and underglazed and felt really positive about this project that is more than a little stressful at the moment.

Not even sure how I’m going to get it in the kiln without breaking it…again. Ah well. Hope survives. I need to underglaze the flesh, fix more cracks, and fix the one piece of the flag that keeps popping off, which is better than the entire flag popping off, which is what happened last week. So frustrated with this right now. Remind me to do some smaller, less complicated things next. Really. OK, still need to finish the head. Ha!

I crazily hiked on Saturday, by myself, at like 5:15 PM (still 90 degrees, I think, but there was a breeze).

Three miles. Then I can eat things that might kick my blood sugar up…because they are less likely to have that jump. Well, they should be, but I ate too many fries and blew that. Ah well. Still working on it. Definitely more under control than it was three months ago, but the blood sugar still crashes kind of randomly at times, like last night. No reason. Definitely think my Saturday night glass of wine does it, but I didn’t have any last night and was still awakened at 4:30 in the morning with a low. Ugh. Sometimes if I get up (to pee and check my blood sugar with a finger prick), it’ll pop back up, like it thinks I’m getting up (no fucking way I’m getting up at 4:30 AM; you’d think my body would know that), but then it crashed again an hour later. Fuck me. I’m sure eating skittles at 5:30 AM is not a good life choice, but I don’t have another solution at the moment. And when I asked the diabetes nurse about it, she didn’t either. She wanted me to get up and have a real snack, and I’m like, no, not doing that unless it’s really bad and continuing to crash. I’m TIRED. I work during the day…with KIDS. I need a full night’s sleep. And I already reduced my insulin…so if it happens again this week, I’ll reduce it again. Supposed to be contacting doctor about that stuff, but I haven’t yet…maybe this time.

So the baby owl finally got chased off by mom…well, or did she? She has finally stopped hungry squawking though…but the other night, I hear noises on the slope and then a screech, so I look out there and two owls are in the tree outside my office window.

The lower one is looking up at the other one…and is smaller. Might be baby? This was the same night but I think that’s one of the parents, probably mom.

They were staring intently down on the slope, where this opossum was digging around…

I’m totally OK with the owls prowling the slope. I’ve got gophers and they’re tearing it up. Annoyingly.

I mentioned it was hot, yeah?

Cat evidence of temperatures.

And there’s this…

Also, let’s talk about how many of them are white men. But sure, y’all will pick on the one thing you think made them do it. We could just take the guns away from the mentally ill (well, honestly, mostly everybody), and that might help.

OK. I don’t have to work today! Well, I do, but not all day in a classroom. This is a short but painful week; I will be mostly dead by Friday. Good times! It will also be cooler by Friday, which will help. It’s September! A fun month for school…where things change daily for no apparent reason sometimes. Also we think our A/C at school might be out. They’ll have to fix it quickly because there’s a new state law about maximum temperatures in classrooms. But the rest of the day, I can read, iron, plant things (I did some of that already), anything I can stand in the heat. Working on a wool quilt has been out (ha!). I keep thinking I’ll start the embroidery on the border flowers on Homegrown, but I’d have to have the whole quilt on my lap, so that is not happening. I’ll just keep sewing little things down on blocks I can hold in one hand. I have a huge to-do list in my bullet journal, but I won’t get most of it done; let’s be real. It is nice to have a day off…thank you unions! And no, I didn’t make it to the protest march today because I didn’t know about it until too late, but yes! Protest the bullshit! Also the Zoom yesterday…I’m so glad that the closing ceremonies for my dual show at the Virginia Quilt Museum will be during Spring Break, so I’m planning on going out there and meeting my co-exhibitor, Lena Meszaros. Should be an awesome show, opening in January…come see us in the last week of March!

RE-explaining…

Why are all the apps and tech thingies being so annoying this morning? Why do they need passwords all of a sudden when it’s the same device and I’ve been using the app on that device since the beginning of time? I was grading last night and my school computer was like NOPE. You don’t have internet. I’m like, every other device disagrees with you. I can imagine my senior years spent arguing with robots and phones as they assume they are smarter than I am, but they require a precise order of things being done that seems to change every time. Mind-boggling.

In good news, today is the last day of diagnostic testing at school, so the last day the kids will have an hour of testing, staring at a computer, before then having all of their classes and flailing massively at times. It’s funny how hard it is for them to stare at a computer for any sustained amount of time, considering they do it to play games and/or text friends for hours. I guess those things hurt their brains less?

So speaking of their brains, we spent three days teaching about appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in the classroom, trying to head off the stupidity in the future, and sure enough, at least four kids copied and pasted from AI (granted, English is not their first language and may be the bigger concern), but here’s one of their answers…

Sigh. So there’s some work still to be done. Not surprisingly. Welcome to my world.

OK, ironing is slow because it’s all still tiny people and things…

Although maybe all my quilts are tiny people and things. This is Wednesday night; I finished the graveyard except for one tiny bit on the other side of an arm that wasn’t ironed yet.

Then last night, I ironed the rest of the graveyard, an arm, a bunch of people, and the Statue of Liberty being born in blood…

Not symbolic at all. I thought I ironed the ICE swamp next, but it’s the main figure next, so that’ll be some bigger pieces tonight. I’m really hoping I can clear some time this weekend to finish the ironing…but it’s also gonna be hot and ironing when it’s hot sucks.

In other news, sigh. Because I’ve seen people say it’s because the shooter was trans or blaming depression meds and maybe sometimes we should provide more mental health services and reduce access to guns.

Maybe those are the things that we need to worry about. As I spent yesterday in a meeting about a kid who is potentially dangerous. Y’all aren’t protecting students and teachers enough. In case you were wondering about that.

I’m sure there’s a lot of uneducated people out there who think this is accurate.

And I’m ready to see a pregnant man, because that rectum is a fucking penis. So many things wrong with this picture.

Ending with hope for the school year. It says Love Nida, then a heart and science.

Yes, someone also crossed it off. I think today I deal with all the desk writing. I mean, I doodle all the time when I have to listen. Yesterday, I needed to explain how to NOT email me 78 times a day about your late work and how to actually turn in late work and notify me and how many emails I was gonna ignore. Because literally a kid left school early, turned in their warmup (which I grade on Sunday; already told them that) at 9 PM, then emailed me and asked me to grade it right then. Like WTF you little weasel. No. Anyway, I will spend the rest of the year RE-explaining how to submit late and regraded work.

Today I am still teaching about AI, but how to use it to research information or find websites that will help. Not to copy. Teaching citations (really simple ones). I’d like to think last year taught them that, but am starting to doubt that. We’ll see. Kids forget things in a really random way. Things that drive me nuts like: trying to hand in one page of your unit packet at a time. They did packets last year and it doesn’t seem to matter; they have forgotten everything. After school, I’m going to ceramics, then coming home and eating a solo dinner (it’s OK; I have a good book) and probably grading some shit, and then ironing. I have to be up at a reasonable hour tomorrow to do a Zoom with a quilt museum and another artist about a dual solo show (I know, weird) next year…and I’m going to try to go to the opening. Hopefully it works with school. Also looking forward to a three-day weekend so I can do something besides work. That’s a joy.