Yo ho yo ho a pirate’s life…wait. No. I’m teaching gravity today…not going to Disneyland. Seems like a questionable life decision. Computer is still not restored. The internet is intermittent. So frustrating. I just need it to finish ffs. I’m tired of trying to do things on the phone or this ancient iPad. Ah well…at least I have that option.
Artwise…I finished trimming Wonder Under…
And last night, I sorted them…
Ready to iron to fabric. Unfortunately, my studio is not ready for that. I’d like to be ironing tonight, but realistically, I will probably be cleaning and putting fabric away after a long long day, so wish me luck on actually ironing. Definitely tomorrow night though.
Someone needs to change all the clocks in the house. I don’t know why I am in charge of clock changes. I have changed two…well three if you count my school clock. I’m sure the men would argue that I’m the only one who cares about the other two…possibly true.
I started underglazing (finally!) the base to the newest piece…someone bumped it (again) and broke two things off. Community shelves sometimes suck.
Super pale at the moment with 2 coats…got one more coat and then all the details. I’ll be here a while.
The current government just needs to die. I’m done with the stupidity. The illogical bullshit that puts Teslas on the White House lawn and claims we can’t speak our minds. At least some of us have minds…
Gonna end with that. Too much in my head right now between the Orange Dumbass pissing off Canada and the crazy demands of the day job…gonna demo some gravitational force today and get through a union meeting and go to Pilates and then clean the studio so I can make art. Sleep if I’m lucky (not last night). Dream of a better world and how to get there.
I have a new computer. It’s still restoring all the stuff from before. It was at 12% when I went to bed last night and it’s still at 12% this morning, like no time has passed. Granted I feel the same way about the amount of sleep I had last night. I know I went to bed at the appropriate time for whatever time hell we’re in now, but I was still out of bed in the early dark feeling like I hadn’t slept. So maybe the computer feels the same way. It’s gonna be a rough week, for me and the kids.
This weekend was my 58th birthday, and I did my best not to work. There’s some level of having to pay for it during the week, but the week is already a shitshow, so I probably won’t notice much. What did I do? I read, I made art, I went on a short hike. All good.
Simba appreciated it. Maybe.
It was a little closer than I like to be to coyotes, but it reminds us that they are always there.
I did a little ceramics on Friday. I was tired though. There’s a bunch of stuff going on her arms.
Fun times. My glazes came in Friday as well, so that’s hopefully what I’m doing after a two-hour staff meeting after school. Ugh.
Friday night I finished tracing…
Four yards (just under) of Wonder Under. I spent almost 4 hours cutting stuff out this weekend…
And not a lot else honestly.
There are never enough hours in the day. I did a little yard work; I have bulbs to plant. but I quit when I accidentally trimmed a branch with a hummingbird nest and broke two eggs. Mom bird had lots to say about it and I felt (still feel) horrible, so I quit. It’s spring! Don’t kill baby animals. If you can. I was actually trying to avoid another thing that looked like a nest so it felt even worse that I fucked that up.
I had two dinners out, which was nice, and got a pile of books to read and my mom’s stash of silk ribbon, which is fun, so that didn’t make up for the hummingbird babies, but I also found out there’s a grove in Humboldt named after my Great Great Aunt Bertella who was an obstetrician, so we’re totally visiting that over Spring Break.
Government still sucks, if we can call it that. Our National Parks are at stake here. And people’s lives. Sigh.
I am coral. Ok, gotta teach and professionally develop and clay.
Yo Friday, I appreciate you. It’s been a long week. Eye issues, kid issues, but grades are done! So I’m not working this weekend…it’s my birthday. I’m gonna hike and read and make art and go out to dinner. And try not to think about school…although next week is not fully planned, nowhere close, so I’m freaking out a little bit. Ah well.
I’ve been tracing Wonder Under all week…I should be done tonight.
Crazy ass butterfly…did not number it well. Brain must have taken a break.
Last night, I had a stitching Zoom meeting, so I got two hours in…I’ve got about 150 pieces to go. Then trimming for a few days, ironing by next weekend? Hopefully.
Minus the pumpkin patch.
Agreed. So much stupidity going on right now. I’m having some panic moments about where to buy things I need due to The JoAnn closing down and avoiding Amazon. My free time is generally not free and online shopping is awesome. Working on a list. But with quilt stuff, the secondary issue is the politics of stores. Sigh. My local quilt store is owned by a trumper.
Working on all of it. Today is an assembly (ugh), but mostly making a little eclipse flipbook. And planning. Hopefully some ceramics, finish the tracing. There’s something I need to remember for today and it keeps flitting into my brain (paper towels!!!) and leaving again. Caught it. Good times.
Well good news, I can still see, no surgery (knock on a big piece of wood), and the odds are that in 6 weeks, I won’t have to be low-key stressed about any weirdness in the right eye…besides that bizarre swirling thing that is still there. Yeah. As a visual artist, the thought of losing any eyesight is pretty terrifying. I guess I’d still have clay, but it wouldn’t be the same if you couldn’t see it. My vitreous humor (and perhaps a hefty chunk of my sense of humor) is floating around my eye with wild abandon, occasionally panicking me with “OMG what’s that“ moments, but otherwise, I’m OK. Exhausted but what’s new. My retina is holding strong. All good.
I had to take Monday off because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get in to the doc or what might happen after. I spent a million hours grading this weekend, so I refused to grade after the doc appointments. I try to save the stuff I can do at school so I have some down time at home, so I finished the new quilt drawing, numbered it (just under 700 pieces), and started tracing.
It’s not huge, so I’m hoping I can hit the deadline. Knock on wood.
I’ve already found 7 pieces I didn’t number at all and one number I used twice. Good times.
So maybe not just under 700.
I traced for about 3 1/2 hours on Monday…such a delight.
Then another hour last night…
I’m just under halfway. Realistically I could be done tracing Friday night. Although I still need to input grades. And we don’t have next week planned for school. Minor issue. Not so minor.
I’m also reading two books and trying to decide if I can pull off another show. The proposal has to be done by the 15th, but I need to. Finish at least one of the books first to make the proposal. Some level of insanity going on here…or a reaction to the day job’s grab on my personal life. Hard to say. There’s also about 2 hours of quilting left on this (I try to do a little each night).
My self-imposed deadline is coming up and I’m not going to meet it.
I spent 100 minutes working on hands, knuckles, and fingernails. It was glorious.
I had to persuade the fingers to change shape and direction.
A rare moment of sisterly friendship. Although Nova is doing some side eye.
In case you were wondering how daylight savings might affect you.
Sometimes AI is really stupid. This can lead to sleepiness…
This is too true. Ok today is the end of lunar phases (well, not really) into eclipses, plus desperately trying to plan for next week without interruptions (ha!), then Pilates (gently) and book club. Whoa. Busy night. I finished the book Sunday? I think. I hope. Then tracing some more. Getting grades completed so I can just input Thursday and be done. That’s what I need.
God damn what a way to start a Monday! I’m rolling (roughly) on 4 hours of sleep, trying to get an eye doc appointment this morning after a lovely (really it was) ER visit at midnight last night (was it last night or was it fucking today already). Started seeing flashes yesterday , but didn’t realize that’s what I was seeing until I was turning all the lights off to go to bed. SIGH. So I have vitreous detachment, possible retina. Well. Fun times. I’ve been told to stand in the doc’s office until they can see me. I wrote sub plans at 1:30 AM, forgot to request a sub, luckily remembered to email my amazing office staff, who are covering my ass as always. I had a minor panic attack for about oh 3.7 hours before I fell asleep. I’ve messaged the doc team and will call at 8. Meanwhile practicing meditative breathing and trying not to grind my teeth out of my mouth.
This weekend…well, I graded for like 11 hours, plus went to a closing art reception, where I saw my piece, And Then There Was One.
Which I then picked up from the venue on Sunday, the crazy driving day. My bro came and we went to dinner after. It’s been nice seeing him more often. He lives far away and when we are in the same place, he’s often super stressed about having all the kids around etc. but they’re all adults now…very weird.
I did a different drawing Saturday night…
Then enlarged and added it to a drawing from last June…
Like you do. Now I just need to connect them. Long story…decided to try to enter a show, different than the banned book one. Still gonna do that one. Not sure I can pull it off…especially with the eye stuff. Whoops. Not thinking about that right now.
More art of mine in an opening at Shoebox Arts in Los Angeles this weekend…
The drawing in the top left is mine, interpreted in digital collage in top right by Moya Devine. Then her collage is in the bottom left, with my quilt version in the bottom right.
I think I have some animal pix and a meme to finish up, as I wait for the on-call doc to triage my info.
Dog sat Annie this weekend. Bought a new computer because mine went into old age almost dead stage.
Cyclops Luna. Eye on said dog.
This is me. Actually I just ate cereal even though I don’t feel hungry because that’s what you do when you’re a diabetic.
But I can’t jump around or head butt anything because I don’t wanna fuck up my eye.
I have some grading to do and a headache from not enough sleep. Just waiting for a call to go in. Stressful, but at least there’s help to be had. Gotta lot of political stuff in my head too…trying to figure out how best to deal with that. Those two dimwits in the Oval Office with Zelensky reminded me of middle-school gaslighting boys. Deep breaths. Take care of yourselves.
Still no working computer…and this iPad is ancient. I will have to deal with all that at some point, but not today. Today I will be teaching more lunar phases, going to an art opening, having dinner with my bro and the Man, and probably grading. This weekend I will be grading until I’m done. Not really looking forward to it, but it needs to be done. I want next weekend off work. Yes, I was traveling the last two weekends, but I graded. Got two weeks of homework graded across California and Arizona. Anyway, the plan is no grading. One weekend. That’s all I ask.
I’ve been drawing the last of the banned book pages…
I feel like I could do way more than 4, but time is limited. And now I think I’m going to try to fit another one in first, another quilt. Not a huge one…we’ll see.
Maybe I’ll plan out how to do the words by hand while I’m working on the other piece?
Not sure. Not a lot of brain power left at the end of the day for creative endeavors.
Too bad the current administration isn’t staffing the parks.
I did say I was retiring, assuming they didn’t fuck it up. It looks like they’re fucking things up for everyone but the rich white boys. Mind-boggling stupidity. I keep googling the crazy stuff I see my few friends who support the Cheeto post, wanting to fact check them, because they make so much shit up. It’s like middle school…if I say it’s true, it must be. Honestly I don’t know where to start protesting. Let alone how.
Such destructive tendencies. Just like middle schoolers…who by the way, are losing their minds this week. Let’s hope they can pull it together so the next 5 weeks before Spring Break don’t make us bang our collective heads on the desk. Also I need a plan for camping over break. I have two nights in Humboldt in the redwoods, but need to figure out where to stop on the way up and how to come back down. I’m hoping to get that figured out in the next week. Knock on wood.
Ok, gonna let the next possibility of a drawing percolate today. Hopefully kids will be more focused, less asleep and whiny. The art opening and dinner should be cool. I’ve got a book to finish. and the hot weather is gone. All good. Artsy thoughts. Art gets me through it…just want to make more of it.
So my computer is being nonfunctional. Aka it’s on but refusing to behave…I restarted it because every time I tried to use the mouse, it would do something whack instead of just scrolling like a normal mouse. There was a cat/keyboard interaction Monday night that might have been part of it. The boychild comes back here tonight, so maybe he can figure it out.
I feel a little nonfunctional as well. I mean all I do is work work work and try to fit art around all that. Got back to clay on Monday…
Her hand needs some work. Trying to keep everything from breaking and/or falling apart is a challenge at the moment. Never mind trying to figure out the head. I have too much going on this week so I probably won’t get back there until next Monday. Which sucks.
Quiltwise, I need to be working on my friend’s mom’s quilt but haven’t been able to clear enough time at night. Just playing catch-up from being gone two weekends. So I’ve been spending a little time (not enough) with drawing the next piece, which will have four panels. I think. I drew the first one before I went to QuiltCon, but inked it Sunday. Monday, I added the author (it came to me…).
Then I sketched the 2nd page…
And yesterday, I inked it.
And numbered the first two pages. Then stared at a blank piece of paper for a while, waiting for pages 3 and 4 to manifest. I can always start tracing these. Hard to have brain power some nights unfortunately. It all got used up for the day job.
Ok. Today is a chill day where the kids are working independently and I’m grading. Originally I was supposed to be at the District Office one day this week and that fell through, so I had a lesson plan ready for a sub. I’m going to take advantage of that today so maybe I won’t have to spend the entire weekend grading. Ha! It’s not looking good. Then Pilates…thank goodness. I missed the weekend class. Then home to grade and draw. Hopefully. And quilt maybe too. I think if I just get the quilt back under the sewing machine, it will be easier to do a little every day. Oh yeah, and fix the computer. Sigh.
My internet is out at home. I’m at school, tired (like take a nap tired), getting ready for a mandatory meeting that could be an email, trying to get my head around the to-do list…which requires my orange notebook…which has disappeared. Fate! My head has been off for over a week…getting over a virus and an infection plus the side effects of the meds…I feel mostly alive.
I started tracing…
But it’s not a fast process, and someone needs to stay out of it…
Going well…
In fact, I was super relaxed last night while tracing, feeling the meditative powers, then realized the reason I’d gone to Home Depot after school was to buy slats so I could ship a quilt today. I’d put a label on it Monday night but didn’t do the rest. So I started that at 10 PM. Might be part of why I’m tired.
So I’m hoping for more meditative tracing tonight. Also need to start to get ready for camping this weekend. I’m alternating between excited and exhausted again for that. Some part of me wants to nap in a pillow fort for days.
Feels like Hades here…and yes, I know Arizona is hotter and so are parts of the Middle East, but I choose not to live there. And yes, this happens every freakin’ September, sometimes August, sometimes October, but it never feels good when it happens. I am glad to be working because there is A/C at work, so at least I get a little respite from the heat, but then it’s crazy there, so there’s that. Actually, mostly the labs and kids have been doing OK…there’s just been some outbursts (like literally sound coming out of mouths in ways I did not need to deal with)…although my co-teacher had broken glass. Oh wait, I had that too. We’re down a radiometer. Again. Every year. I need a plastic one. Or a sturdy childproof one. Yes, these are 13-year-olds. No, they are not gentle with things. Or people. Plus it’s hot. Did I mention that? I haven’t been able to get a lot of schoolwork done at home with the heat. I suspect I will need to just take my computer somewhere airconditioned tomorrow to grade. The library? Somewhere that serves caffeine…good caffeine. Will have to think that through.
I finished ironing the piece down to the background…a light one for once.
I do like me a dark background, but there were enough dark things in this that I didn’t think it would work. Last night, I stitched the whole thing down…
Yes, I stayed up a little too late to do it.
Now she’s ready to sandwich, pinbaste, and quilt. Which I could also probably do in a night, except I need to do some embroidery too. I might do that before I sandwich it. I don’t know. I’ll decide sometime today.
The plan is to (1) survive labs today (no outbursts or demands to be reseated or to go to the bathroom when you haven’t done any work). (2) Set up classroom for next week. (3) Go to ceramics. It’s OK…it was supposed to be 105 degrees and now it will only be 102. It’ll probably be 90-something in the studio, but if no one else is there (and why the fuck would they be on such a hot day), I can find all the fans and point them at me. Then the Man and I are going out to dinner, because he has a wedding to play at tomorrow (no fucking way am I going to a wedding), so he’ll be gone from 10:30 AM to probably 1 in the morning, maybe later. I, however, have to pick up some art from Liberty Station, get my brain and neck scanned (2nd brain scan in 6 months…fun times), and go to two art openings…that part is cool except they are miles away. It’ll be fine. It will ALL be fine. I’m hoping to have an hour or two between the MRIs and the art openings to grade stuff. Because I didn’t do it yesterday or today or the day before because it was too hot and I mentally couldn’t. But realistically, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull that off. I’m also keeping an eyeball on my old kitty and this heat. She’s not a fan. She also HAS a fan…in my office, that I am keeping on at this point to try to cool this room off. She’s cranky as shit, keeps trying to bite me, but doesn’t have it in her. Because old. And hot. Poor thing. So we’ll see.
Wednesday night’s book club, I did a little stitching.
Still doing the inner borders of Homegrown. It’s not difficult, but it’s not fast. And I haven’t been doing a lot of it because school. Sucks up time.
OK. So yeah. Hot today but mostly gonna be inside. With kids who wear sweatshirts and sweatpants when it’s over 100 degrees out. Some of these kids are funny and kind and amusing and a little weird. As always. I feel like we have more of those this year, and I appreciate that. Some of them are not those things. And some suck up a lot of my energy. That was yesterday. So hopefully today is better. One can only hope. And then be pleased or disappointed. Or accepting. Because it’s like this every year, right? I also have to do some fluency/literacy thing. I recorded the kids reading, but I’m supposed to mark this form in some weird archaic way that makes sense if you were trained to teach kids to read, which I wasn’t. So it’s just more work for me. And kind of silly, really. But whatever. Looking forward to some art time and reading time (I wish I could read during an MRI…I wonder if they can put in my audiobook?). And just not being at school for a few days…although it is airconditioned. Hmmm.
Still trying to find a balance. It’s way too easy to fall into the habits of previous years, where work follows you home. I did work last night…and the night before…and the day before that. I’m not getting enough done at school; we’re setting up labs during prep and trying to figure out what we’re teaching next. There’s adjustments…plus not everyone has computers, so we still need stuff on paper, and then our building’s copier is broken (again), so we have to compete for a copier. And I’m trying to grade one academic thing because I know there’s another one coming today. It’s not hard; it’s all just time-consuming. Plus we had to meet yesterday to explain (justify?) the way we grade in science. And the teacher making the complaint didn’t even show up to the meeting. Love that. Well it’s done. And realistically, we never really hit a balance until the end of September. It’s not even the end of August. Yikes!
Art is slow too. Just getting the time and energy at the end of the day is hard. I’m almost done with this one…Monday night…ironed the main figure…
Last night, ironed a bunch of bits and pieces…
The two side heads, the eyeballs, etc. This is all I have left to do…
Some buildings, a bird, some hair, lips. I’ll be done tonight finally. Then cutting them out.
I did make it to clay yesterday…checked the boot…
I could underglaze it Friday…if I remember to bring the underglazes. I didn’t yesterday. The bag is also drying…but it will have glaze after bisque. Need to buy that glaze.
I worked on the mug…
Apparently I’m trying to make it as lumpy/bumpy and bulky as possible.
Seems that way…
It keeps me occupied at least.
Today. At least I don’t have to be at school early. Although it is unknown if the other teacher expects us to have prepped all her labs for today (I didn’t finish yesterday…we don’t start until tomorrow). I need to go fight for the copier because of the kids with no computers. I have one loaner and an iPad that I can’t figure out how to make it connect to the kids’ accounts. And more than one kid without a computer in more than one class. I have pilates after school. And I’m cooking dinner. So there are three more classes of that academic thing that need grading, and I’m not going to get to it at school today probably. Which is unfortunate. Not gonna think about that right now. Right now, I’m going to finish this cup of tea, wash my dishes, make more tea, take my meds, and head for school. The rest will figure itself out, one way or another.
Kathy Nida 