Clover…

OK. It’s official. My Spring Break to-do list is taking over the world and there’s no stopping it. It just gets worse every time I try to cross things off of it. I mean, right now, I’m staring out the window at a beautiful blue spring sky and the yellow clover flowers (are they clover? I don’t know. The bunnies like it whatever the fuck it is…it’s definitely a weed, but it dies off pretty easily, so I only pull it when it’s in the way of something else that’s trying desperately to grow) are covering the slope, and all I see are the new growth suckers that need to be trimmed off the ashes, and that one branch that seems to be broken and hanging toward the ground. UGH. So much yard work.

Last night, I sorted the Wonder Under pieces finally (didn’t have the brainpower on Saturday night)…it took a whopping 14 minutes, y’all. So I could have done it at any time.

And here’s why I put it off…I then needed to spend 90 minutes cleaning the office so I could pick the next quilt’s fabrics. I folded, I ironed, I cleaned up. Mostly. So tonight, I can iron. Sigh. I want my sewing machine back dammit.

Saturday night’s opening was busy and overstimulating. Here’s my piece, Damaging Earth’s Fabric in the Allied Craftsmen show at the Oceanside Museum of Art.

And me in front of a piece by William Leslie and Alessandra Colfi…

That was about all the energy I had for the night. It rained all day until we left (well, and then rained on the way up). I was tired. I didn’t make it to the ceramics studio in the morning like I’d wanted to. I ended up going after we got home from the opening. I was tired and irritable, and wanted to get to the next stage on this thing…there’s a fine line between too hard and not hard enough to support stuff. So I went in at 8 PM for about 90 minutes and got some more coiling done…

Made a cat butt…

And then added it to the thing…whatever it is. OK, it’s human, mostly female. I think. Think about my drawings made 3D in clay and that’s kinda where I’m at right now.

IDK if the boobs will stay put…everything was a little soft. Ha! Not really. We’ll see later today hopefully. I need to find out how tall I can go. The head might need to be separate. I also just signed up for an sgraffito class. So there’s that. Yes, I still love fabric. Yes, I’m still making quilts. I’m just side-obsessed. It’ll be fine.

Yeah that. Constantly. Mostly I’m OK with the awkward. Sometimes it’s awkward.

That’s not entirely true. I’m still grading things and trying to lesson plan. There was a cat in the way this morning though and the chair was in the sun, so I let her have it. I’ll do some later.

Here’s cat TV…

That moth was still wriggling.

OK, doc appointment (lots of those this week), then I need to do some of the to-do list, then go to the gym, then go to ceramics. Those are all good things. I can read my book at the gym. It’s a nice day out too. So some yardwork is called for. It’s a Monday but not a school day. I can enjoy that.

NOT Being a Teacher…

(groans) What is this early morning hell? How much tea can I get into me before I start to teach? I didn’t even finish posting things for class yesterday. Why? Because I tried to spend a chunk of my weekend NOT being a teacher. Mis. Take. Well, not. But sheesh, this job. Last week. Deep breaths. I think I can get through the next two weeks. I’m gonna hafta.

Friday night, the Man had a show at the Music Box. Before that, I had made it home and was slumped on the couch, trying to decide what dinner might look like. Glad to say the boychild is a good cook, because he fed me…

Also luckily, the singer in the band, his wife had a table and let me sit at it, which is good, because I was exhausted. And they were the openers, so they only played for an hour. Much nicer than the four-hour show that’s coming up this Saturday.

Saturday morning, I crazily got up kind of early and took an online class from Nicholas Ball, who was in Wales…

At some point, he said, OK hold up your fish, and I had been diligently taking notes, NOT sewing. So I only did two and one has its fins in totally the wrong place (oops) and some people made like ten and I feel like a fish loser, but I will survive. Then I drove to Oceanside to drop off my piece for this show…

I’ll be at the opening on March 30. Hoping it’ll be a cool show.

Came back and persuaded the Man to go for a short birthday hike…

Three miles. But it was beautiful out. Spring has sprung.

And I love being able to make it outside like this.

Then boychild had the suggestion of San Diego Restaurant Week for dinner, so we picked a restaurant and navigated shitty parking…

That was in the bathroom. The food was good, different, which was nice. I drew a little, but the food came out too fast to finish.

Then we came back and I trimmed fabric pieces.

Sunday was full of all the normal get-ready-for-school-week things, but we ended the day going out to dinner with my parents…

And then I finished trimming everything.

On to the next step. I also shipped a quilt off to this show, opening March 24.

The Man is delivering another today for a local show. I have that announcement somewhere too. Sigh. I’m discombobulated. And buried. Two weeks until Spring Break…

I will have to speak to people unfortunately. Need to get the house fixed. And this will be the next two weeks…

Maybe not die…just internally die. I have books to read, though, and art to make. I should commit to making a fabric fish a night, and then I’d have 10. Except I can’t commit to that this week…3 out of the 5 worknights are going to be late and doubled up. Whoops. Oh well. No plans. Just wish teachers luck today. You know how tired YOU are? Imagine a bunch of 13-year-olds. Yup. It’s gonna be crap.

I Worry As Much As I Hope…

It’s the middle of the week. I think this week was supposed to be easier than last week. I may have been clueless about that. I got home yesterday with a plan to go to the gym, but with a headache and level of exhaustion that said no. It was a relatively easy teaching day, but I felt like I was running around all day. I didn’t have my prep period and I fed three classes nachos…by the way, some middle-school kids are so entitled. Drives me bonkers. Say thank you for the food. Understand that I need to feed two classes after you. No you can’t have seconds. Leave enough for the kids after you. Sigh. I should know better on that one. It’s OK. It’s done. It’s cleaned up. Let’s move on. Try for no more absences from class until…the next literacy one. Or the MRI I need to have. Odds are I’m just dealing with osteoarthritis in the knees though. Which sucks, because my left knee hurt like crazy yesterday for no apparent reason. It’s part of why I didn’t go to the gym, but really it was the headache and tiredness. Ah well. Pilates today.

I had my pre-evaluation meeting yesterday, which went OK. Boss wanted to know what day to observe me, and I was like, whatever day, sure that works, I have no clue what I’m teaching that day, but it’ll be fine. No worries. Seriously, it won’t matter. It’ll be fine. Although I’m going to feel better if I get the next few weeks planned out. I’m working on it. I needed to get grades done. Now I can focus on planning. This feels a lot like last year.

Artwise, it’s a struggle some nights to get an hour to iron. Monday was OK; I finished grades at 7 PM and refused to do any schoolwork after that. Oh wait. I did work after that. Had to create a writing assignment for the end of the stations I’m starting Friday. So it was kind of necessary. I had an idea, anyway, and it’s better to go with it than forget what I was thinking.

I got in an hour that night…did Kavanaugh’s pedestal…

Oh yeah, and the snakes. I did OK that night. Last night, though. Ugh. I finished my book club book, but needed a nap in the middle of it (headache), then had to make dinner, plus more school stuff, got on a roll, but then distracted by details. So many details. The literacy program is a challenge…how do I fit this in with everything else we’re doing? I need paragraphs that are science-related, so I spent too long on a skate park paragraph with these specific suffixes, and then word counts, and how many words in a minute, and in reality, I’m not sure what I’m doing.

So I gave up (it was almost 10 PM by then) and went and ironed for a whopping 32 minutes. I didn’t finish Thomas’ column, but I got a healthy start on it.

Chained slaves. I wonder if Thomas thinks he is doing what is best for those he serves. I don’t think he thinks about it at all. I’m sure Coney Barrett thinks she is. I don’t know what Kavanaugh thinks at all except about how he likes beer. So there’s that. I realize we don’t really know the personal thoughts of these people who are our justices, but when I was drawing this, I read a lot of their statements and opinions on issues. So that’s where these drawings came from.

Anyway, I have pilates AND book club tonight. Not sure how much ironing will get done, but hopefully more than last night. It’s frustrating to come home from working all day and not feel up to doing the thing you love. There are things I love about work too…but the not-loved parts are heavy duty at the moment. It’s getting better. Slowly.

This is where I’m at right now…maybe this is my retirement goal.

Hey watching politics lately? WTF with Matt Gaetz. Who let him be in charge of anything? Man is a nut. I guess we have a lot of nuts in charge. I hope more for next year’s elections. But I worry as much as I hope.

The Man and I feel the same way about the engine revvers…

Although we usually diss penis size. There’s a lot of fancy sportscars around here that somebody’s daddy bought them.

Also, the Allied Craftsmen show at the library is only up through this week, closing the 14th. Vallo Riberto wrote an article about it and mentioned my piece, Doctor’s Orders.

He said nice things about it. Much appreciated. I did make this piece especially for the show, Waiting Room. I’ve got another deadline for Allied Craftsmen coming up in January, so it’ll be the next one I do after this one. Probably have to let my brain rest a bit on slave ships and missing indigenous women. But those are in my head. I need to be reading about space so I can plan a better space unit this year. Too much, y’all. Too many things in my head.

OK it’s supposed to be 90 degrees today, so we’re doing an outdoors lab with balloons that I’ve never done before. I’m probably going to be really tired, huh. Then pilates, then home, then book club, then ironing. Maybe collapsing will happen too. Hopefully yesterday’s headache will stay away. Losing my prep to another meeting. It’s fine. It furthers something useful. Hopefully I’ll get what I need out of it too. More time for art? Probably not, but I can hope.

New Babies…

OK. Mondays. They are just hard. I’m awake. The alarm took care of that. And the shower. And the first half of a cup of tea. Plus it is daylight. Some neighbor is already making gardening noises, so if I weren’t back to work, I’d be irritated by how early it was. But it’s supposed to be hot today and right now it is overcast and cool, so I get it. I’m an evening gardener as opposed to a morning gardener. It’s just my thing. I’ve been planting cuttings from a few succulents that have gotten too large and fallen over in the last week. One yielded about 15 large cuttings; the other, only 4. Plus I think there are two more floating around somewhere. I love succulents for their ability to regrow, to just lie around for a while and then find the dirt. Some I had just lying on the ground, ready for transplanting, but I waited too long and they rooted there. Whoops. Makes it easy for those like me who are not GREAT gardeners. I water. Sometimes I fertilize. Sometimes I forget to water, although I find it meditative to wander around the yard, checking on plant status, looking for caterpillars or new growth.

Like this one…broken off the main cactus, which was grown after I carried a piece back during COVID, filled my hand with stickers because it LOOKED smooth. I put this little piece in a pot months ago and it curled over and broke and I’m like, well that’s it, it’s going to rot away now, but NO. The joy of new babies.

Check them out. That’s exciting. One of my weird old lady habits now.

So. I know, I just posted, but I wrote that Friday morning. Then somehow walked away from the computer (probably panicking about time) and didn’t post it. It was missing a title and a photo and that was it. So here’s Friday and the weekend.

A 3-hour staff meeting…but I forgot my sketchbook. I meant to drop it in my bag, but no. And they logically made us put our computer lids down. So we could answer questions and talk to each other. OK. Well I don’t function well under those circumstances, so I drew all over the question paper.

With the only color I could find in my bag.

These would make cool little quilts. I don’t have time for that right now, but someone remind me later, eh? Because I don’t have a million little drawings lying around. Ha! Here’s the one from Saturday night, which I started last week somewhere…

It’s still not done. I don’t draw fast enough or they bring the food too fast. No, I don’t know if they’re being shot out of cannons or planted in toilet paper tubes. Hard to say. Is that grass or fire on the right? Unknown.

Friday night, I finished cutting all the Wonder Under.

It took 11 hours and 38 minutes. I stayed up too late to do it, because I had an opening to go to before. Then Saturday night, I sorted all the pieces…

That was 2 hours and 11 minutes. And 21 boxes. Significant.

Then last night, I picked my background (luckily I had enough of something that worked, because I forgot to go to the quilt store) and cleaned the studio, putting all the fabric away from the last quilt. I laid out the first 100 pieces and started with the volcano.

I hang the drawing up so I can see it. Yes there’s some chaos going on below the drawing. I don’t know what to say about that except I need more storage or to clean up what I have, but time for that takes away from time for this.

And I have limited patience for that. Barely a start there, but a start. Looking forward to the next probably 25 hours of ironing these…hopefully more than an hour a night, or it will take me until September. Ugh.

Friday night’s opening was at the San Diego Downtown Library, in their 9th-floor exhibition space, which is very nice. My crooked photo of the blurb.

And there’s my piece, Doctor’s Orders…

Plus me! After a very frustrating day at work managing a lot of other people’s stuff instead of my own. I came home, showered, changed, and left again. With more tea in me. This show was mostly Allied Craftsmen, but a few other people added in.

I made an Instagram reel of this video of me rolling around my very undone room. It might be better with the music.

Many people were like, it looks great! Good enough! The only thing I had done was open/unlock cupboards and move the tables and chairs. Literally nothing in the eyes of what needed to be done. All those boxes needed to get OUT of the prep room so we can use it.

It’s OK. This was after three hours on Saturday…

I also went in Sunday and mopped the prep room floor because it was disgusting. Plus made a bunch of copies because they needed to be made. Today, I have two meetings and hopefully I’ll get a big chunk done. Hoping. Saturday, I was feeling very stressed about all of it. I’m still having issues. Also, the A/C isn’t working. So it’s warm. Not great. Supposed to be in the 90s this week.

And I also did a reel of this, so you could see what 2 hours of sorting pieces looks like. The plus of the reel is not listening to whatever I was watching I guess.

For each one, I’m looking at the number and finding the box with that number. Sometimes with the little pieces, I put them in my hand and pile them up by number, which is a little faster.

Sunday, I also cut out pieces for a revision of a tattoo quilt I’m doing.

We did a short hike.

The Man’s back is bothering him.

Plus it’s hot. But check out that thundercloud! It did not make its way to us, unfortunately.

And Kitten this morning. 15 years old. Definitely slowed down. Poor old lady.

Yes, she has taken over that drawer of blue fabric.

Anyway, that’s it. And I have to be at school in 30 minutes. Need meds, brush teeth, etc. More tea! Totally more tea. One meeting this morning, then one this afternoon. Hopefully my room will be presentable by 1 PM for that one. Or not! Then home after a couple of errands, to maybe go to the gym with my book, definitely ironing to fabric tonight. Definitely.

Warm Socks…

I’m loving this cooler weather. I actually wore warm socks to pad around the house, albeit with shorts on, because it’s not flannel pajama weather yet. Quite. It won’t last, of course, but it was nice this weekend to go out hiking with a bit of a chill in the air. Hell, it was just nice to go out hiking, even if it was only 3 miles. I’m fighting for work/life balance (and mostly losing). Here’s the hike view, though, so I don’t forget…

That was Saturday evening, around 5:30 PM.

Friday, after work, after entering a show, I got in the car and drove to Carlsbad, to the PHES Gallery opening of the Allied Craftsmen show. It’s a nice show in a nice space. My two pieces are here…

I lurked behind people and listened to them talk about the pieces. That’s always fun. Although I didn’t get home until after 10 PM, so that was also exhausting. I also got news Friday that two of my quilts at The Studio Door sold, so that was cool…not enough for a new sewing machine or to trim the trees, but it’s a start. It’s always a good thing.

Saturday, I got up early, because my brain knew how much work was on my plate and wouldn’t let me sleep in. I started by cleaning up, ironing, and packing up the quilt to go to the photographer at noon. Then I pieced the two blocks I owed for the community quilt my guild is doing for Quilt Con…they were due at noon to someone’s house, so I dropped them at 11:45 (I was early, c’mon), and then dropped the quilt at the photographer’s. Here’s the blocks…

They had given us some extra fabric to deal with the long pieces in the center, but I fucked that up and ended up having to do some improv piecing, which wasn’t hard and will probably add to the final design…I’ll post it when we have it.

I graded after piecing and before driving to drop things…and then I came home and graded until my sourdough dough was ready for the bulk stage. Then I went to school to deal with the stuff I’d left there…all the late Unit 1s that I had to rip out of kids’ hands (just a little more time! Dude, I need to do progress reports now, not later) and then all the stuffed animal drawings.

Guys, grading art is so hard. Sometime Friday night/Saturday morning, when I wasn’t sleeping, I figured out the best way to handle it…lay them out based on the rubric…who hit all 4 points, who hit most of them, who hit a few of them, and who wasn’t hitting much of anything. Yeah. It worked. I printed the rubrics and graded the obvious As first…they had all the things I asked for. I can’t say the middle lows were easy to grade…they weren’t. But I wrote suggestions, and with some, offered that if they kept going at home and improved it (like actually finished it), their grade would improve.

I know some would just give everyone an A, but this is an academic class and my kids feed into the REAL art teacher (I just play one on TV), and she will hold them to these high standards. Plus this is probably the hardest project we will do. So hopefully the next one will go better. We’ll see.

After 2 1/2 hours at school, I had what I needed, and that’s when I came home and hiked (what I REALLY needed). At dinner, I drew before the food came…

This is the beginning of an idea for the next quilt.

Sunday was more grading, lots more. But Sunday night, I got a chunk more done on this…

It’s taking me forever because of the other deadlines I have. It’s almost done, though, and should be on its way to the Social Justice Sewing Academy this week sometime, assuming I can get to the post office before it closes. I wanted all the things done before I started drawing the next quilt.

Cats are weird, y’all.

I’m gonna shove my face and use the wall as a pillow.

Am I done with grades? Nope. Wearing my Nope shirt today too. Had one kid constantly emailing me all weekend. I stopped answering. I’ll get through the last bit of it today and post grades. Hopefully some of them will learn not to do stuff last minute…luckily it’s a progress report and not a final report card. Then I will have my first chiropractic adjustment in forever, hallelujah. And maybe I’ll get to do something besides school tonight…maybe. I’m still two weeks behind on assignments, so that’s a thing I’ll be doing all week. Plus making videos for this week…kids are still out on COVID contracts. Ugh. Yeah. It’s been too much school lately. Need to get to work on changing that. Again. Still.

Shutting Down Randomly

I don’t know what you do when you come home from work, especially after a long frustrating day where you had planned specific work tasks after the kids went home and then your loaner computer (because yours is hopefully getting fixed as it keeps shutting down randomly) shuts down randomly (wait, I think I heard that already) about six times in a row, trying so hard to restart like a good computer would, and then giving up the ghost and popping up that message again about how it can’t possibly restart, there’s something very wrong with it (no duh asshole). So after getting it to start and working on grades and contracts for kids out on COVID or pandemic concerns, and finally coming home around 6 PM, and then getting dinner (that was the best part, away from the house, although it was dark, hard to see the food, one of the issues with always eating outside, you know, it gets dark and all), then mopping a floor, sewing a backing together, ironing all the parts, taping them to the floor, and then getting down on hands and knees at 9:45 PM, wondering if this is the year you buy knee pads, like you’re really an old person now, and pinbasting a quilt together.

Sometimes I wonder about the amount of power my art brain has to get my tired old teacher ass off the couch and doing all that shit after 8 PM on a day when I had no prep period. On a day when the 6th graders decided to sharpen the metal end of a pencil in my new $92 sharpener that can handle colored pencils, and yes, I think I know who did it and hopefully I scared the shit out of him. Certainly if there are any other issues, that thing is sitting on my desk and they can pay me to use it. Yeah. It was a day. I’m kind of on the verge of tears constantly again, and I hate that. So part of this weekend will be quilting instead of thinking about work. A large part of it will also be grading, let’s be honest; grades are due soon for progress reports, so I can’t blow it off.

But here we go. Book club got rescheduled on Wednesday. Luckily I checked the app right before I left, so I didn’t actually leave. I worked instead and fed myself with leftovers from Saturday (probably a mistake to go that extra day, says my 2 AM stomach), and then finished the stitchdown…

That’s 5 1/2 hours worth of stitching.

I can see the figures on the back…

On the front, they are hard to see. Hopefully the quilting will help with that. That starts tonight. Here’s all taped down on a clean floor…

The backing is some fabric I found in my stash, quite a lot of it actually.

It seemed right for a quilt about hiking etc. The etc. is kind of a big part of this quilt.

So far, Mom’s machine is rocking it. Much appreciated.

I also did the stitchdown on my Patreon reward, which is really late now…

That only took 13 minutes though. Much easier. I’ll pinbaste her this weekend too. But my goal is to finish quilting and get the binding on this weekend. I don’t know if I can do that. But I will try. We’ll see.

I have an opening a week from today…two pieces in the show…

PHES Gallery is in Carlsbad, California. It’ll be a bit of a drive. No COVID test that day. With 1-2 positive cases in my classes every week, I’m still getting tested every week. Two new ones this week. Woo hoo!

These are drawings I did at dinner while waiting for the food to come. I can’t remember if I’ve posted any of these.

My pen died, so this is ballpoint…

It works. It’s just not fun.

I don’t think when I do these. I just draw.

Sometimes it will turn into something else in a larger piece…mostly not.

I think I will actually get limes and lemons this fall…they seem to be sticking.

Certainly they’re bigger than they have been…

And there’s more to come.

OK, today shouldn’t be too hard (ha!), at least the school part, except I need to get everything posted for school. My co-teacher is out of town, so I’ve been making lab materials for next week. The copier ran out of staples, so I need to staple 290 packets before Tuesday. I’m hoping to find some classroom helpers today who are done with shit to do that. Work after school, bring a ton of work home, get my COVID test for the week, do some grading, possibly do a quilt Zoom, then quilt until I fall asleep, hopefully in a bed and not on the machine. Tomorrow, repeat. Plus some other stuff. I’ll be glad to get the quilting started…I didn’t think I’d be able to finish this one on time, and now there’s a chance of it…I’m going for it.

Not Hard. Just Time.

Hello Friday! It seems like it was just Tuesday. I guess that’s a good thing. I have a ton of stuff to get done today, on Friday, and hopefully that will actually happen so I don’t have to do all of it in the middle of the night. I’m supposed to deliver 7 quilts tomorrow to a gallery…awesome thing that! Opening is this coming Thursday.

Good thing I’m reminding myself of that, because I thought I had another week. All seven quilts need to be ironed and dehaired and readied for exhibit. Luckily they are smaller and not particularly wrinkled, but it needs to happen before tomorrow afternoon. So there’s that. I think one needs a label and slats too. Not hard. Just time.

That’s the mantra right now. Plants need watering. Not hard. Just time. I really need to draw a stethoscope for this Social Justice Sewing Academy block. Not hard. Just time…plus getting the cat off the bag it’s in. That’s harder. She has sharp pointy bits. School…need a doc done, some posts done, papers copied, grading warmups and some other stuff. Not hard. Just time.

As far as the art stuff is going, really what I need is energy. I did a little stitching after dinner on Wednesday night on the SJSA block (got it out from under the cat for once)…

Then I managed to iron down all the fabrics for the Patreon reward piece…

It took about an hour and a half. I borrowed some fabrics from the one I just finished cutting out and then added more. It’s actually mostly blue in area…I think it’ll be cool. We’ll see though. I need to cut those pieces out. I was going to do that last night, but mostly I laid down on the couch and tried to keep my eyes open while the man talked. Then I went to bed.

Why? Usually I can do the things. Yeah no. I was at school early, then stayed late to plan science…trying to do it all in one day is hard. I’ll get used to it again, but it’s hard. We can’t get everything done and we don’t have the same prep periods, so I just don’t have the rhythm of it yet. I’ll get there. Maybe on Week 3? Maybe by then we’ll be shut down. So many kids out on quarantine or pandemic concerns (they have symptoms but haven’t been tested or if they were tested, parents didn’t tell the school the results…so they’re just out for 10 days)…trying to keep track of those and my head. Ha! Then after all that, I drove 45 minutes to the California Center for the Arts for the closing reception of the Allied Craftsmen show Crafting Memories…

There’s my piece. Hopefully I’ll be back here in January with California Fibers and more pieces. I did meet people and pretended to network. Not really. They all came and talked to me and that was OK. Then I Zoomed with my stitching group on the way home, picked up a burger, came home, ate it, and collapsed.

Not my best moment. Today will be better. Today I will do ALL the things and finish them all and then go get tested for COVID because I’m just gonna do that every week or two to make sure I’m not infecting the world…and then clean up and pack up all those quilts and maybe cut some things out or maybe go watch the man’s band (outside…I think this is probably outside of my exhaustion level). And sleep. Because I have to be up early for the annual boob squeeze. Do it! Breast cancer doesn’t care that there’s a pandemic or that I’m exhausted.

Damn zebrafish. Yeah. Going to school now. Doing all the things. Caffeine is also my friend today.

Looks Like a Pillow Fort

The first thing I did this morning was talk to a very nice customer-service rep who was in South Carolina, at which point I realized that there is still a hurricane or stormlike thing (seriously, I don’t watch the news much so I had forgotten and she was asking if it was raining here and I was like heck no, it doesn’t rain in July here like ever almost never and then she told me where she was and I’m sitting there trying to remember about a hurricane or tropical storm and I felt really out of it. Good news…the customer service rep is FINE) or maybe it’s not a hurricane any more, but yeah, so removed from all of that, but really appreciate nice and helpful reps. It’s a shit job and I’m glad we were able to make each other smile today. Even though her company totally fucked up my order. Because she fixed it. And some poor woman somewhere is looking at my offbeat purple bras in her package and wondering why her perfectly normal old-lady white Playtex bras did not arrive. Me too, lady, me too; hopefully you got a nice customer-service person too.

I started not writing this yesterday, like normal. But then I did things yesterday and then the day was over and I hadn’t written. It happens. It will probably happen again some time. It is not the end of the world. I still made art, even SAW art yesterday (WTH?!) and I will write today instead.

Quilt progress! It’s happening. Tuesday I kept ironing…

And more on Tuesday night…

Finished the bottom, more complicated square…and started the top, the sky…

Last night, I ironed the rest of the sky together…

And ironed the whole thing down.

It’s not large. It’s just complicated. Hopefully I’ll start stitchdown today or tomorrow, although there’s lots of stuff on my calendar at the moment. People apparently want to see me. Not sure why.

On Tuesday, I went back to Torrey Pines and hiked with the niece…

I might have damaged her. It wasn’t a super short hike…

I didn’t make her limp, so that’s good. Or she’s faking it.

And then yesterday, we went to the California Center for the Arts in Escondido to see the Allied Craftsmen show there, Crafting Memory.

There’s my piece, Sediment, which was in Visions some years back. This is one of those venues that needs to be ‘family friendly’ but can’t really define what that means. Another art group I’m in is having a show there with a different theme, but I don’t have much that doesn’t have nudity in it, so I’m considering what to do…don’t enter? Enter what I have, which is mostly nudity and let them decide? Or make a new piece? Ugh. It’s a nice space…go see the shows that are there. Definitely worth it. There’s a teacher discount and a senior discount and a student discount. Probably military too.

We’ve been dining at the parents’ house while the niece is here…I walked two dogs with dad last night for the first time in a long time.

I’m tired. Always tired. My hip hurts and it’s hard to find a comfortable sleeping position. This sweet baby wanted to knead my arm with her claws last night…

Really not conducive to sleeping. I think I need some sort of cocoon for sleeping that keeps pokey cats out and cushions all the painful old parts of the body and blocks the sounds of dogs panting and mockingbirds chirping and neighbors dragging trashcans around and isn’t really hot or cold…I’m building this thing in my head and it’s got noise-canceling powers and looks like a pillow fort. Seriously.

OK. Not sure all that’s happening today. It’s the man’s birthday, so dinner out at least, and the niece leaves, so IDK whether we will see her today, and maybe I should shower and have more tea and that would help with the sleepy part. And maybe the brain-working part. Hard to say.

Turkeys…

Day 9…of the blog challenge. Day 271 of COVID shutdown then not shutdown then shutdown again. I heard someone (an ER nurse who deals with COVID patients) that if the shutdown is significantly affecting you, then you were doing everything wrong going into it. It’s true that it doesn’t affect me much. I’d like to be able to go to the gym, but Zoom Pilates with dog and cat assistance will do. We were occasionally eating outside at restaurants. I could do that at home too, although I might need some type of heater at some point. Otherwise, not much has changed.

Day 9 of the blog challenge is supposed to be my favorite tip. I’m a smartass and keep coming up with punny ways to answer that, some appropriate and some not. Well. Some would say I’m never appropriate, what with the body-part quilts and all, slinging the F-bomb like I just don’t care (I don’t. Although I know when NOT to use it…and often use it in my HEAD instead of out loud.). So my favorite tip about quilting? So many of those. Always close your rotary cutter before you put it down so you don’t have blood all over your quilt. That’s from my first quilt teacher. Never forgotten that one. You know, it’s funny…an hour or two ago, when I was dealing with hour IDK-how-many of being on Zoom, I had about 15 ideas for favorite tips, and now, that’s the only one I can think of. Ironic, that, because I hardly ever use the rotary cutter. Hardly ever cut straight lines. Only when I’m cutting binding and sleeves and straightening up the edges. Every other ‘tip’ I have is to keep trying, keep doing it, keep messing with it until it works. Persevere. And that tip works for a shitload of things…COVID shutdowns, distance learning (for kids OR teachers), making art, getting a good night’s sleep, staying healthy, exercising…

Persevere. Hard word to spell, y’all, and I’m generally a good speller.

I have seven days of school until Winter Break. I’m not sleeping enough or well. I’m buried by work. I often think that if I stopped grading or contacting the parents of kids who don’t show up or don’t do anything or who turn everything in blank, then I would have less work to do. You know? And then the teacher brain kicks in and tells me how that isn’t gonna roll. And tries to find something I can simplify or ignore or do more efficiently so that I don’t go insane with the workload.

Working on the next Applique Story block. Another woman. Made her head smaller than the last two…

Barely started. But definitely going to happen.

Also, these are all the fabrics I used to make a Great Horned owl that is maybe 4″ tall.

Sometimes I go a bit overboard. But I did finally manage to iron down all the foreground, plus the tree and its bits…so now I really AM ready for sky. I know I keep saying that, but now I am. I’m in the 600s, with some of them taken up by that owl, so I think I might be halfway? If not, I’m close. It’s about time. An hour or so a night is all I’ve had, and some nights, not even that. Honestly, it’s less about my making time and more about my head not being in the right place. I keep thinking everything is going to be OK, the world will continue to spin on its axis, the birds will keep flying, and then not so much. More exercise, more art, more sleep, more…? More hope, but even that is a cautious and dangerous thing. You hope that everything will be OK, will work out, and you take the risk that it will go wrong again and then that place that makes hope gets a little more damaged.

Ah life. You are such a dick.

Here’s where we’re at before the sky.

Tea last night. Some nights, it’s apple cider. Some nights, chai latte. Some nights, it’s wine. One glass. More than that would be a mistake on a school night.

Two of my quilts are at the Sparks Gallery in downtown San Diego through February.

They are open, allowing a limited number of people in at a time. This is an Allied Craftsmen exhibit.

This is after school, before the union meeting. Cat took over my chair.

It’s OK…I needed to stand for a while.

Puppy love.

He looks like such an old man when he sleeps. I think he’s 5 now, so not really old.

OK. I’m a moody bastard tonight, but you got your tip. Oh, I’ve got another one, but it’s not quilt-related. Today is the first day for the rest of your life. Except it’s 10 PM, so there isn’t much left of it (that last part is mine, the first is one of the things my dad always said when we were growing up…followed by Don’t let the turkeys get you down.). Fucking turkeys.

Just So Braindead…

Ah brain. You have had a day or so off. How do you feel? What do you mean you feel overwhelmed still (probably because I haven’t done anything school-related in two days)? What do you mean the eye twitch is still there (probably because the things that cause the eye twitch have not gone away or been managed)? And other personal stuff just popped up, so I’m sitting here and worrying instead of doing something. Although I did finally (after 6 months or so?) finish hemming all the fabric napkins I cut out in April or May to replace paper napkins in the house. I figured 8 sets of 2 would be OK for most of the time, with just 2 of us using them, but then the dog chewed up 1 pair (they smelled like tacos), so I was down 1, and so I had 3 sets left to sew and I did that in the last 24 hours. I might need another set, but I doubt it, because we’ve been surviving on 4 sets for a long time. But it’s not like there’s a shortage of fabric with which to make more if I need to.

Talk about brainless activity…hemming napkins is high on that list.

Friday, after work, I managed to drag the man out for a walk/hike before gaming.

It’s not a new hike. It’s one we do all the time…close to home but mostly people free.

It gets dark early these days, so we have to get out earlier.

Clouds were coming in and it got a little chilly.

And we definitely had dusk, plus a coyote crying out for a while. Three miles. Not bad.

We’re planning a longer one for Tuesday and maybe another on Friday. That may help with the eye twitch. And the grinding teeth. Did I mention those? Also grading and planning a bunch of shit will help, that’s for sure.

I traced some on Friday night and a bunch Saturday night. I’ve got about 200 pieces to go…

I’m hoping to get those done tonight, if I can get my head into it.

Almost done.

Had an art opening last night…on Zoom. With Luna assist. I was on the panel talking about my work…

Always interesting. The two pieces are at Sparks Gallery in downtown San Diego for a while (February) as part of a show with Allied Craftsmen. You can also see the whole show online at that link. I embroidered stuff I’m not allowed to show you during the opening. It’s Sue Spargo stuff that’s not released yet. By the time it’s released, I might be done with it.

You can see Calli and her ball here…

And Kitten is hogging the phone charger cord (I think it’s warm)…

I’m trying to get my head around things that are more complicated than hemming napkins. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully everything else will chill out a bit this week (not so far, but a woman can dream)…

Here’s the three projects I have in progress for my two levels of art.

I think we’re almost done with stuffed animals. We’ve barely started the faces (the kids are allowed to do up to 2/3ds creatively, but 1/3 has to be realistic using the grid). The top one is the warmup…starting in pencil, then moving to pen and colored pencils. I might have to find my colored pencils at some point. By next Monday, I need a plan for the early finishers of stuffed animals and portraits, plus a digital project for the 6th graders for the last two weeks of December. I also need to finish posting all the stuff for science the week we come back. I got a chunk of it done Friday night, but not all of it. And then the grading begins.

OK, well tracing Wonder Under tonight. I’d like to finish those 200 or so pieces. Then I can maybe sit on the couch and binge watch something while cutting them all out. We’ll see. I’ll grade shit tomorrow. Plus yardwork. I haven’t even started that either. Just so braindead. Ugh. I want to draw too. There’s a few in my head. OK. There are threads of things to do…I just need to follow some of them. Pick the easiest one and just do it.