Do I Sit on the Egg?

I hiked this morning with the kids, so no early post. I don’t even have the energy to post about the hike yet…I’ll get to it tomorrow, I think. It was hot, too hot really. Out in desert world, chaparral, the sun beats mercilessly down on you out there. There was an ocean breeze that wandered in through most of it, but when it didn’t, then it felt like dying. So yeah. We’ve decided no more day hikes this summer unless it gets down into the 70s or we’re at the beach. We’ll stick to evenings I think.

Yesterday was a chaotic day. I had to go to two different doctors, and the comparison between my blood pressure between Doctor 1 and Doctor 2 was noticeable. Then again, I already knew what Doctor 1 would say and Doctor 2 was the one I’ve been waiting for since late March, the “What Do We Do with My Uterus?” doctor, plus I went to school in between the two. I guess we have a partial answer for the uterus question. We go to two more appointments, one with yet another doctor. And maybe then I will stop bleeding every two weeks. Sigh. She was good, though…she answered every single question I had, asked me a bunch of questions, and then we (together) came up with the best option for me. What a concept. She admitted her NP didn’t know what she was talking about. OK, she wouldn’t outright say that, but yeah.

Moving on. Guess there are more uterus drawings in my future. I still haven’t made it to the copy place (or the pet food place, which worries Kitten no end…she saw me use the last can today). It’s on my list for today, but today is running out (I’m supposed to be going to an art meeting tonight and presenting about blog writing: Step 1: blather. Step 2: ramble. Step 3: post some pictures. I got this.). This morning I lost 45 minutes to college financial aid again, as the service where you upload all your documents continues to do a half-assed job. I will get better at this. They are trying to scare me off actually applying for financial aid. They will not succeed.

Grandma made girlchild a graduation quilt…

This is not a great picture of it. I will have to take another one.

Then I finished tracing Wonder Under last night…

I think it took about 5 1/2 hours total. I was fast. The pieces were small. I dreamed I might cut them all out this afternoon, but that is before the hysterical laughter took over.

Kitten doesn’t laugh. She just sleeps.

The ducks in the back yard left me a gift…

I don’t know whether I’m supposed to eat it or sit on it. I left it there. My students wanted me to get a classroom duck and name it Spaghetti. Maybe this is it (I’m not doing a great job of raising it at the moment…I don’t even know how long it’s been out there.). Apparently they will lay eggs over a number of days and then sit on them. But with a dog in the yard? Not sure that’s gonna happen. I’ll wait and see if more eggs show up. Because I need ducklings? Do not answer that.

Still sewing bindings onto the other piece. Trying to decide what task to take with me tonight. What can I get done? Cutting out Wonder Under or finishing the binding? I could do either. I suspect the WU is not a good choice. There might be a fan there, because it’s hot. But I might not have enough binding for two hours. AARGH. And you wonder how I get so much done. I’m taking both. Really. I am.

And right now, I’m taking my post-hike dehydrated headache to the pet food store. And maybe the fan store. I’d like a nap. Yeah. What the hell am I supposed to do about the egg? Shaking my head. I am not a good duck parent.

Swallowed by Details…

Meditation. Lots of it. School issues. Kid issues. Insurance issues (everything costs too much and all the bills are due during the only time of year when I don’t get a paycheck.). College issues. Too many little tiny fussy details and it’s HOT here. Brain turns to mush.

All I want to do is make art and everything else keeps getting in the way. Today will be that, over and over again. Even school…I have to go to school today. That’s just wrong.

So yesterday, I traced a lot, like over 3 hours of tracing…

Kitten was absolutely no help at all. When she’d try to lie on the paper or the Wonder Under, the plus of the light table is that the glass is really slippery, so I’d just slide her over, out of my way. And sometimes she’d stand right back up and plop right back down. Bitch. No really. I love my cat. And yes, the glass is cool. I use LEDs so there’s no heat off that sucker, or I’d be dying right now of heat exhaustion. You can’t see the fan pointed at me. Actually, for some part of the time, girlchild had the fan and I was sweating. Sigh. Need another fan. I did break the one in the studio, so it’s on my list.

It was nicer to trace at night. Nice and cool. View of my neighbor’s drone over the driveway (I’m hoping he doesn’t have a camera on that thing…because I flashed it last night).

I’m getting closer to done. I think I just have the head to do…maybe one arm. I quit when I was too tired to stand any more.

Then I decided I wanted to finish watching the season finale of Orphan Black, so I sewed bindings for a while…

I got about halfway around before I was really tired. Then I went to bed and didn’t sleep. I don’t really know why. Too many of those details racing around in my head, bumping into each other. Time really gets away from me sometimes. I have a huge long list of things to do today, and so many of them are just BLAH. And I keep fighting the kids over the damn dishes. Seriously. It’s Not Mine, put your shit away. And jobs and their anxiety and stress, which doesn’t help with mine.

I should wake up and meditate. And then I should do it again right before bed.

But I don’t have time! Amusing that.

I am trying to straighten up the house and organize it and get rid of stuff too…although I tossed a bunch of papers yesterday and then had to make more to try and get all these insurance quotes straightened out. Waiting on one more, and then I can toss the whole pile.

But I finally hung the last three year’s of SAQA auction purchases…

They’ve had hanging slats for about a year now I think…the one on the right is one of my older pieces, pre-divorce, believe it or not (so fucking ancient). It’s one of my favorite pieces…Caught in the Headlights (2002). And yes, my kitchen is a disaster. I’m working on it.

Here’s Lorie McKown’s My Three Sisters II, Susan Lenz’s Death of Desire, and Helen Conway’s Transition: Brick Lane II.

I have 4 others in my bedroom, so that’s 7 years of donations to the cause. I don’t make auction quilts (they’re way too small and always due in the last trimester of school, not a good time for me), I don’t have hours to donate, and I don’t have a ton of money, but I do try to buy a small one of these every year. Last year was going to be a no-buy-year for me, and then I sold a bunch of the bird quilts and made enough to be able to breathe last summer.

Same with this Jette Clover piece, Interjection 1, purchased as part of the FFAC 100 artists donation to cancer…I donated one and bought one.

This year…this year, none of that is on the table. Deep breaths. Sighs as well.

Today? Doctor’s appointments, school shit, lots of details (apparently that cat up there on the light table? She wants food. Demanding beast.). Hopefully some more tracing will get slotted in there, so I can get that part of the project over with and move on to the next piece. I’m also trying to get my freelance copyediting business up and running, and to exercise in there as well and maybe even sleep more than 5 hours a night. Really. I feel like I should be able to sleep on vacation! Stupid brain.

Make art, support artists, buy art. Meditate regularly. Don’t get swallowed by details…

Two Peaks, Some Art, and Two Books…

No matter how much screaming and arguing seems to be happening here, we have now managed a second “family” hike. This time, they ditched me (it’s OK…I’m out of shape…and they waited at the tops of mountains, which is all I asked) and walked and talked together. I’m OK with that…

We hiked up the back way to Cowles Mountain with the million people who always do that (there actually weren’t that many last night)…

Where they beat me up by 10 minutes, but missed the rattlesnake (I didn’t stop to take a picture of it)…but then girlchild spotted a California Horned Toad (not a toad at all)…

They’re so adorable and so hard to photograph. This is on the trail past Cowles down to Pyles Peak, because we don’t do easy. We climb mountains. OK. Not big mountains…there’s a view of Cowles looking back from the saddle between the two peaks. You can see the trail we’ll have to take back UP.

Sometimes I don’t think through the suffering part of these until I’m doing them.

I’m amazed that with little rain and drought conditions, there are still flowers everywhere…

This is from the base of Pyles…with Cowles in the far distance.

And looking up at the “peak.” It’s kind of a lame peak…more of a rounded thing. But you do have to climb to get up there. Trust me.

We saw maybe 5 other people on this part of the trail…here’s the top, overlooking most of San Diego County…

We tried to time it so we would hit sunset when we got back to Cowles, so hopefully we wouldn’t need to use the headlamps. The marine layer always makes for interesting pictures into the distance.

And Cowles to the south…

Another interesting flower…

I was behind the kidlets again (they walk fast…youth plus lack of injury), so the sun started setting as I was heading back up that long trail.

Looking back towards Pyles…

Beautiful sky…

Definitely worth the pain…

When we got back to Cowles, we actually ran into someone I knew, so she came back with us. We pulled the headlamps out for the last 10 minutes (we’re blind old ladies…the kids were fine) and had a great conversation about life, art, and hiking.

I’m smart about these hikes…I made dinner (casserole) and stuck it in the fridge so it needed about 20 minutes when we got home…just long enough for a shower to wash off the worst of the sweat. Of course, then it takes me an hour to get my butt off the couch. Ah, old age. And a good workout. There’s conflicting reports on the mileage. I call it 6 miles, but it might have been more.

I eventually got up. It took a lot of willpower. I haven’t finished sewing the binding on yet, but girlchild was going to bed, and I wanted to watch Elementary, which has to be on the television in the living room…so I started tracing the next one. My ex-Cousin-in-Law (I think that’s what she is) requested a cat with a heart, so I drew an extra piece for her…

Very anatomically correct, of course. And I kept going, although standing was exhausting.

Kitten was no help (as usual). I managed about 100 of the 500+ pieces, and then I looked at the clock…

It’s a good thing it’s vacation…that was a late night. I’m feeling it this morning, because I didn’t sleep well. Trash trucks and birds chirping and sunlight and cats hurdling me and dogs whining. Ugh. I don’t do mornings well.

I finished three books in the last week…I need to write a separate post about one of them, but the other two…Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie…

which I read for book club, but then didn’t make it to the meeting (grades were due). This is actually a common occurrence for me. I don’t mind, but in this case, really wanted to discuss the whole confusing gender thing in the book. I didn’t think it added to the story at all, and although I finished the book and gave it an average rating, I don’t want to read the rest of the series because of the gender confusion. It was never really explained satisfactorily and just annoyed me. I don’t mind gender commentary. Just explain it before I’m 150 pages into the book.

The second book was recommended by a friend, The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston…

This one I liked…a current-day dragon-slayer. This is a YA novel, but I think easily reads as an adult novel. I love the connection to historical stuff and the environment. Definitely a good retelling of the dragon story. I’m reading the sequel to this one.

Yes, summer is about reading and hiking and art. Surely there’s other shit I need to do (and I will), but I’m still in recovery mode.

Snore…

It’s late in the day. I’ve gotten some stuff done, including getting the boychild interview-wear and donating (not really) 7 vials of blood to my doctor for her review. My car is in the shop and the kids just drove off in their beastmobile, so I’m trapped here, which isn’t all so bad. It’s not like I didn’t have 18 errands to run (well, actually, I did, but whatever). I finished a book today, which was nice. Having time to read and pee whenever I need to and work on things I actually care about…that’s nice. There does seem to be an awful lot of chores and errands that need doing, and there was some squawking about jobs for teens and that stuff, but whatever. I don’t think that’s going to go away until sometime around August 23. To be specific.

I was tired yesterday, and it took a long time to get a bunch of stupid stuff done, including the grocery shopping (bottomless pits they are), but eventually I started working on the binding…

It’s on. Yup. I chose green. It might be the first time ever that I’ve done a green binding. Random facts about Kathy…she doesn’t do green bindings. Well now I do. In fact, yellow might be the color I’ve never used now…so watch for that. Because now I feel like I have to use it. So now I need to sew it all down by hand, but if I sit on the couch now and try to do that, odds are I’ll fall asleep, because I still haven’t caught up on all the sleep I missed over the last 10 months minus a week at Thanksgiving, three weeks at Christmas, and two weeks at Spring Break (and honestly, I don’t get a ton of sleep then either…just more than I do when I’m teaching). So sitting down is an issue. Even sitting here and typing like this, my eyes are drooping and I’m considering just putting my head back and…snore.

So standing and tracing stuff might be a better choice. I have also considered jumping jacks and a quick swim in the pool, except the pool guy is supposed to show up today and I’m worried that he’ll die if he sees me swimming. So maybe a nap it is. A short, timed, 20-minute snooze. Seriously. I’m exhausted. My sleep app says I barely slept last night, lots of tossing and turning that I don’t remember doing.

Losing all that blood couldn’t have been good. Especially if I’m already anemic. I sense more drawings of blood cells in my future. Plus probably more drawing of my blood by a phlebotomist (it can’t be good when they remember your veins).

Or not. Maybe a quick nap followed by a concerted effort to do something useful. Vacation is all about balancing. Wait a minute. The rest of my life is all about balancing too. That can’t be right. What the fuck? Isn’t there a time when I can just loll about doing whatever I want? I’m fairly sure that’s the definition of vacation.

While I’m trying to figure all that shit out, I’m just going to close my eyes for a bit (really, I’m setting the timer. I’ve read all the nap research.). Just a tiny bit. While yeah…

The First Official Blogpost of Summer 2015

This is the first official day of summer vacation. The first day when I don’t have to go to school or think about school (although people are still texting me about school) until August 1. At least, that’s what I always try to do…get it out of my head and don’t worry about it until August. And then in August, I’m usually desperately trying to finish some major quilt and I don’t want to go back but I have to (my first professional development is on August 11). It takes a while to get all that residual stress and have-to feeling out of your system (and it is quickly replaced with other have-to’s, let me tell you), but after a week or so, I’m usually doing much better.

I’m still seeing crazy in one art group though. I hesitate to call it an art group some days, since its focus is more on quilt than art, although there have been some positive changes in the last few years…maybe. We’ll see. I am concerned though that they are choosing to censor members or seemingly move out of the leadership positions those who don’t agree with the majority. I don’t think that’s healthy behavior for any group, although I’m seeing that happening at my day job as well. The message then is that if you disagree, there will be consequences. Any minor study of history will show that doesn’t work. I’m not in leadership in this art group…I don’t have any more volunteer hours in me. They got used up in the other two groups, which are much smaller and need all members participating in some way. But it makes me mistrust the current leadership, which is not a good thing. A good Executive Board will do its job and the membership will hear from them occasionally as they make the group better, as they check in with membership, as positive changes occur. There won’t be censorship and oustings. I didn’t pay much attention to what names were on the board until all this, and now I’m watching particularly closely and comparing it to the other large fiber group I’m in, where none of this happens. So a big sigh for all that.

I finally made it out of work yesterday at 11 AM (took longer than usual). Then I came home and cleaned the kitchen, because it was disgusting, and started throwing stuff away and recycling it. The last few months of school kick my butt (and everyone else’s) and what suffers is the house. There are piles everywhere and nothing is washed or put away. So I made a healthy start on all that and then took a nap! A NAP! I know. Exciting for us old people.

Then I started quilting…

It was 100 degrees here yesterday, so my motivation to get up and move was compromised. I also read a lot. Because I could. And then I quilted for a long time until I realized I would have to cook dinner, so I did that for a while. Talked to the boychild, because girlchild was at Grad Nite, and then forced him to apply for jobs by starting the applications myself. Last thing you want is your mom filling out your application, right? Well. Whatever. I understand his hesitance and some of it is laziness but a lot is social stuff that is an inherent part of his personality. So this shit is hard. And mom is hard too. I’ve spent the last 13 years doing behavioral training on him, and apparently I’m not done.

After all that torture, just as much for me as him…who decided personality assessments with 72 questions were the best way to hire people? I’d fail if I had to fill these out too. They’re just lame. If both statements are wrong, you have to pick the one that is LESS wrong. But they’re WRONG. Sigh. Anyway, if he didn’t set off all of their serial killer alarms, maybe he will be employed soon.

So after all that, then I finished quilting…but first I sewed the bottom to the top somehow…

Whoops. Late-night quilting in the heat. Not a good plan.

She’s got 12 hours of quilting in her. But she’s done. She just needs a binding…which really means I should get my ass off this chair and go buy some fabric for that, because no, I don’t have a piece big enough. I think. I might look first. But I don’t think I do.

Katie (my parents’ dog) showed up about 20 minutes ago and is now asleep on my floor…

She’s only here for a short visit. Then in a week, she comes for a longer one…we think. All the humans but me are still lolling about in bed (well, one came out when Ms. Barkypants arrived). It is Saturday morning, yes, but apparently if you nap on Friday, you can’t sleep in on Saturday morning. I think. I know I’m still tired and probably will be for another week, but at least vacation has started, and maybe if I stay away from the art group list, my blood pressure will come down and stay down.

On to the next quilt! Deadlines abound…

Disappointed…

I spend a lot of my life dealing with organizations that are sometimes heavy-handed with their behavior. I don’t ever quit a group because I think the leadership is making bad choices. In the past, I’ve found the best way to deal with that is to become part of the leadership or to find a way into the change process, whether it’s becoming a union rep, being a reliable person ready to help the leadership, or just speaking out when necessary. It means I’m not always popular, but that’s never been a worry to me. Incompetence in leadership disturbs me. Ignoring the membership, the peons, the lower echelons of the group…that annoys me. Don’t ask for my opinion and then ignore it. Excuses are the worst: I can’t expect professional behavior from a group because they are all volunteers? I don’t get paid for the vast majority of volunteer work I do for two art groups, and I am glad to do it. It helps both groups run better and I am involved in some of the decisionmaking processes because I do that. As a teacher union rep, I don’t get paid for the hours I spend at meetings, but we are supposed to have an adjunct duty and that is mine (some people’s adjunct duties are much less time-consuming…in fact, I’m not even sure what a few people are doing except not showing up to the meetings they’re assigned). I’m a union rep because in my first year in the district, I had an issue that was a direct result of another rep not doing their job and then claiming that I never did what I was supposed to do (not true). Faced with incompetence, I ran in that year’s election, hoping to oust the incompetent (oh no…still there…because no one wants this job). I’m still there, and I hope the people I serve appreciate my work. I think they do. I do it anyway.

Another art group I’m in recently behaved badly…the people in charge. I don’t agree with what happened, not to say getting rid of someone at the top might be necessary, but it seemed that there was no attempt to remedy the problem beforehand. As a teacher, if there’s a problem with a kid in class, I have a list of interventions I have to go through in order to deal with that kid, and it’s extremely difficult to actually get a kid out of our school permanently (as it should be; we are a public school), so we learn how to work with kids and parents and admin and the district as needed to get where we need to go, ideally what’s best for the kid and all other kids in the class. In the other groups I work in, if there are personality conflicts or problems, we do try to work through them, and sometimes that means ignoring the behavior of one participant (or even anticipating it and heading it off at the pass to make sure it doesn’t happen) because there really is no change that can happen. But we would always try to mediate before kicking someone out (and I have to be honest, no one has been kicked out).

As a woman, I have noticed that we are particularly bad about this sometimes, this facing the problem head on and speaking it to the person in question. We complain and gossip to each other, behind their backs, and then we tolerate the issue until it’s almost at an explosion (we’re there at school right now, both as a whole and as a team, unfortunately). Sometimes that inertia is just a lack of energy or time, like now, at the end of the year, and sometimes it’s just easier NOT to have that conversation. But if you’re an international organization that depends on volunteer hours and you aren’t listening to your membership, and worse…volunteers can be kicked out without any attempt to mediate the situation, then those of us who tend to speak up, to dissent even, hey…we’re not likely to volunteer. Why would we? You aren’t encouraging diversity in that case, despite what’s said. You certainly aren’t working to mend the divide or figure out why there was a divide in the first place. You reward competence with firing. Granted, I don’t have all the facts…but I’m not happy with how it was handled no matter what.

Am I going to quit the group? No. That would be stupid. They have provided me with support and exhibits and opportunities. I think a large number of the people at the top have mostly my best interests at heart (and the others…well, whatever.). I don’t believe in voting with my checkbook and leaving. I believe in change from within. I wish I had the time to volunteer, because they’d probably kick me out pretty quickly too. Unfortunately. And I’m significantly disappointed.

I’m looking forward to the end of school because two of the school issues will go away for at least a little while. The art group issue? It colors my view of the leadership. But I have art to make and that has to be my focus right now. But I’m not looking at them in the same way.

Speaking of which…I quilted last night (in utter exhaustion, post-bowling)…

I only had energy for about an hour and a half; got about halfway around the outside edge. So at least another 2 hours I think (isn’t that what I said last night? Dammit). Nine hours total so far.

Ugh. Two days of school left. A heavy heart about the art group. Tired. Girlchild graduates from high school tonight (after I finish school)…It’s going to be a very long day. Hoping I have the energy at the end to keep quilting. If not? It will get done eventually.

Hiking It Off…

Ah. Grades are done. For the year. No more grades for at least 2 1/2 months. No more lesson planning for…um…a while (teachers work unpaid over the summer, in case you didn’t know that). I just have to survive a field trip to a bowling alley, one day of “teaching” (who thinks that’s a good plan?), and trying to entertain my kids during graduation because they’re not allowed out of my classroom for two hours.

Sounds fun, doesn’t it? But grades are done. That is a relief.

I planned a hike with my kids last night because one said he’d never been up Iron Mountain and because I want to test my foot out and make sure the pain isn’t coming back before my podiatry appointment. Plus I’m totally out of shape, so it makes sense to kick my physical ass when it’s 80 degrees out (I survived…tomorrow, I will be significantly sore, but I will survive). We did Iron Mountain, which claims to be 7 miles (I swear I thought it was only 5)…

I was uber-smart and made dinner the night before and put it in the fridge. I always forget how long this takes, and doing it after work is exhausting sometimes. I had a good long conversation with the boychild though…

I pissed off the girlchild (again) on the drive there, so she took off…

Whatevs. She got back in the car with us at the end, so I guess she hasn’t disowned us yet.

It was a little warm (OK, a lot warm) at the beginning, but a nice temperature by the end. And it was a relief to do it. I had two muscles cramping, and my knee is fussy, but the foot didn’t hurt. I’m planning more for next week too.

This week is more of a survival thing (I keep saying that…because it is). That said, I managed to finally get off the couch after 10 PM and head into the office…

Oh wait. That’s not an office picture. Oh well. I did quilt…

And whoever the dingbat is who thought I could do the background quickly? She forgot that I needed to go in and around all those branches and leaves of the tree. Which took me over an hour last night. Argh. I’m at 7 hours and 40 minutes. I might get some time tonight, but Wednesday night is the girlchild’s graduation and Thursday night is something else. So I’d like to be done, but it’s highly possible I won’t be. And I might run out of thread (I should deal with that, shouldn’t I? Have a plan? I always have a plan. I put the color number in my phone. There’s the plan. I put a reminder in my calendar for after school)

How is it possible that the neighborhood mockingbird never sleeps? I hear it again now and I heard it when I went to bed. I hate that thing.

Anyway, I suspect there’s another couple of hours of quilting in this (at least)…so I underestimated the time. Oh well. It’s not like I can finish it sooner just because I want to. And I will get it done.

The Last Week

The end of the school year brings lots of extra tasks, like making awards certificates and finishing grades and cleaning out the classroom. The last week is usually kind of a survival situation, much like riding a luge on a track you’ve been on a long time ago. You sort of remember how you did it last year, but you’re not sure it was successful, and maybe they’ve changed the turns a bit, or your team is slightly different, so the luge itself might be off balance. Sometimes the last week sort of sneaks up on you…I don’t really know what happened to last week. It blew by me. So many tasks juggling at one time.

Friday and Saturday left me no time (or energy) for artmaking, and I only JUST made it up off the couch last night, much later than I thought. I knew this week was equally busy, and I really wanted to be done with this quilt this week, if that’s possible (and reality says that it may not be). So I quilted…

The thing is, most of this quilt is the image, so once the outlining is done, there’s very little else to do. I knew I wanted to put some white thread in the bathtub area, but more to anchor it and give it some texture. I don’t quilt the heck out of my pieces. The background might take a small amount of time, but it’s really a small amount of space, compared to some of my quilts.

So I looked at the clock and thought about whether I was tired enough to sleep yet, because that’s always the issue. I don’t go to bed until I am.

And at some point, I was…but by then, I was almost done with the outlining (yes, I outlined all the different blues in the water). So I finished.

Now all I have left to do is the background and the bathtub.

Meanwhile, I have 100 certificates to print out at school, in color; a crazy meeting at school; a hike planned with my kids (I made tonight’s dinner last night, just to make sure I could pull this off); grades that are pretty much done, until the 15 kids who were not in my class Friday hand me their last week’s work; a class to clean; and who knows what else will show up in my inbox before it’s time to quilt again tonight. I hope I’m super-efficient and get it done, but then there’s the issue of binding fabric, and who knows when I will be able to get that, since it’s doubtful I’ll have any here that’s big enough. Worst-case, I’ll start tracing the next quilt, the one I don’t even know if I’ll be allowed to show because of the nudity (I just didn’t ask). It needs to be made no matter what. I’m not asking because they might say no, but the rules as they stand don’t say that.

Yes, I do think these things through. Anyway. I’m in overdrive. I’m really tired too, despite trying to go to sleep earlier last night than normal. See, it will all get done no matter what. There is no other option. And whatever doesn’t get done probably doesn’t matter as much as people would like to think. Because it’s the last week of school…and not the last week for everything else. And in about 9 weeks, there will be a first week of school and this starts all over again.

Less Yelling

Already there are angry voices, upraised tempers, red flags flying. I’ve had a single sip of caffeinated savings (saving my brain from?) and I’m trying to deal with it’s my fault and why don’t I and anger anger anger. Why the anger? I don’t know. Because I had an eye doctor appointment instead of time to shop for heels and a dress. Sunday it will be anger because I have to finish grades (my job) and can’t go shopping. I’ve said this to myself so many times in the last 5 years…am I just doing it all wrong? Like there’s an easier path and I didn’t take it because I just didn’t know what were the right actions and the right words? Like I got the wrong life manual when they were handing that shit out, and I took the Tread on the Hot Coals manual for ninja warriors (do they do that?) instead of the suburban mom manual? OK, I’m not a suburban mom, it’s true, but I have a lot of the right ingredients for that. Soccer mom. Conventional job (that kicks my ass at the moment). I have a house and a Subaru and a dog and some cats (OK, I have half a dog…it goes back and forth between two houses). But somewhere in all of that, I couldn’t follow instructions. I couldn’t just do that, and some people do, but I couldn’t.

Is it the artist that screws everything up? Is it the divorce that makes it harder to manage the kids and the financial crap (well, yeah, duh)? Is it my fabric hoarder tendencies? My workaholic bent? What the fuck?

I slept in. There are four days left of school. I’m still tired. I stayed up late grading things (ALL the things actually) and packing up two quilts going up to an LA show opening in two weeks. Girlchild came in and vented. I let her. I listened. That’s all anyone needs when venting is happening…listening. Acknowledging that they’ve been heard. Then it’s out and dispersing and the mind is clear. I get that. So I vent here, quite a lot. You might have noticed.

I love my daughter, but she is hell on wheels sometimes. I’m sure my mom would say I deserved that, as I wasn’t easy either, but as an adult, I realized some of the things about my relationship with my mom that I wanted to try to avoid with the girlchild, so there were things I said I would not do, and for the most part, I have succeeded in that…and yet, I still have this opinionated spitfire (shocking, I know) who wants to kick authority in the nuts. And I GET that. I still have that in me. But I’m not the enemy.

So I’m sitting here crying because I am completely overwhelmed and scared about the future, especially financially, and I’m getting yelled at for not being psychic about food needs in the house and why no one will put dishes in the dishwasher but me. I’m about to go nuclear, I guess.

Deep breaths. Grades are close to done. I have to input everything, so I canceled my book club on Sunday (not done reading it anyway…hard read). I will go to the eye doctor (probably should have scheduled it later in the month), deliver the quilts, go out to lunch with the kids’ uncle from the UK, and then deal with some scary stuff that will hopefully stop being as scary. Then plan for the last four days of school, which are survival incarnate. And hopefully get some peace of mind in all of it.

The quilt sat last night, ignored, wrapped up and over the machine so no cat could besmirch it with their hairy bottom.

I would have liked to have quilted, but the other things were louder and more…not important…but desperate in terms of timing.

Two quilts ready for delivery.

I think I can hang in there this week. I don’t really have a choice, so the thinking part is moot. And that moody beast…hell, she’s going to college in just 10 weeks. I’m sure her stress levels are through the roof, so we will have to come to some uneasy truce about how to survive the summer in the same house. And then there will be less yelling here.

Quilting Peace

I got lost in the quilting place last night for about 2 1/2 hours, making up for the lameness of the night before. It’s not a bad place to hang out, as long as you keep an eye on the clock and remember you have to go to work the next day. At some point, I looked up and thought, “Holy crap, it’s after 11 PM. When did that happen?” That’s not entirely a bad thing. Thursday nights the kids aren’t here, so I don’t have their constant noise and verbal reminders to stop and look around or even get up. The cats hang out in here with me, and my bladder makes me stand up occasionally, but mostly I’m attached to the machine and only changing position when I need to replace an empty bobbin. It’s very meditative and calming. I should probably always plan to be quilting around the last two weeks of the school year to get that benefit.

It probably helps that I had counseling last night too…where we admitted that I might be in counseling for the rest of my life. Nice. Oh well. I also read a couple articles linking artistic creativity to mental illness, though the link is still a skinny thread and not a damning rope. What came first, the illness or the art? Or are they so intricately linked as to be unseparable? (Why does WordPress not like the spelling of unseparable? It’s a word, you asshole. I mean, there’s plenty of times when I use nonexistent words on here, but this isn’t one of those times. Don’t you love that WordPress annoys me? Yeah, it’s the end of the year.)

So this is where I am, making a shitload of art, trying to balance work with that, hoping to figure out the rest of my life at some point DURING the rest of my life. I did miss a bunch of counseling appointments recently, her fault and mine, so maybe that was part of the balance issue. We admitted that my life currently feels CALAMITOUS. Great word by the way. Actually, by yesterday, I had accepted calamitous and moved on to some internal acceptance that I was living day-to-day until after June 18. That’s not that far away. Don’t notice all the calendar items piling up on June 19. I’m cleaning up my entire life on that day. Ha! Like that’s possible.

So I quilted. I mentioned that. I had made it about 2/3 of the way around the bathtub on Tuesday night, so I kept going around, stitching around things when I ran into them, like this wire soapdish…

I keep drawing some version of these, which is funny, because we don’t own one. Our bathtub sucks, honestly. I dream of a nice big deep bathtub with a wire soapdish. Strange, I know.

Once I got all the way around, I started on the smaller figure…

I got her completely outlined…

And started doing other body parts and the water down the one side of the tub, picking up some of the hair and face until I realized it was well after midnight.

Whoops. Do need to work today. And this weekend is not clean and easy. And grades are due Tuesday. I think. Maybe Monday? I should probably figure that shit out.

I have 5 1/2 hours into the quilting. I’m still outlining. I’ve been sewing pretty slowly, I guess. I am more than halfway done with the outlining, and because of the image taking up most of the background, there’s not much quilting outside of the outlining. I am going to use white thread in the bathtub area to deal with the shadowed areas, but otherwise I’m leaving the big areas alone. I am outlining the shapes in the water, but it’s pretty subtle I think.

A friend’s mom died yesterday, finally done with feeding tubes and all the other detritus of two strokes. She was my second mom in middle and high school, good friends with my family, so when my mom and I weren’t seeing eye to eye (which was often), I could hide there and Sandi would just let me be, because she had four daughters and knew what that dynamic looks like, which is why I don’t get jealous over my daughter hanging with her friend’s mom. It’s a safe place and away from DNA-related drama. I got a bunch of Sandi’s fabrics a few weeks back when they cleaned out her sewing area in the mountains, where we had Thanksgiving dinners, comingling our families for years. Some of those fabrics are in this quilt, and it seems right that I am working on it this week, as I keep losing control of the tears for a woman who accepted my crazy without question, while remaining friends with my mom. She was a good person. Hope she’s OK with my appropriating her stash.

Yeah. She is. Peace out, Sandi.