Be Prepared

Pro: I finished a quilt. Con: Now I have to do all the other things I wasn’t doing because I was finishing a quilt. Friday night I finished the sleeves…

Still needed to be ironed and cleaned up, but that was the plan for Saturday morning…

And while I was trying to fall asleep, I remembered a set of mushrooms that needed embroidery…

So that was Saturday morning…

I dropped the quilt off with the photographer and then ran some errands. I came back and started to get some of the home and school to-do lists done, never enough. After dinner out, I remembered I decided to color the background of this. I’m using Inktense pencils, so after you color, you have to paint. But I think it’s OK. I might do another layer.

This is very small, but not small enough for an upcoming show I need to enter. It’s a drawing I did summer of 2025, then colored summer of 2026. Still not done.

Then last night (yesterday was crazy busy), I got about 15 minutes to work on this.

Mostly this piece is fine as is…or at least, it’s ready for the next stage. But the yellow person is still yellow. I got through the coloring part with the pencils but not the painting part, so I’m expecting (hoping) the yellow becomes less yellow and the purple hair gets darker. But we’ll see tonight. As of tonight, I have a ton of grading to do. We’ll see how that goes. I’m also hoping to finally make it back to ceramics, to deal with the broken arm. Sigh. We’ll see how that goes.

Another school shooting.

Tough one. Kid with a gun going back to his elementary school. Special needs kid, special needs classroom. We don’t teach kids to deal with trauma. As a classroom teacher, we see a lot of it, and the resources don’t exist in schools to deal with that and teach content and teach them to read and all the things we’re supposed to do. But this is not a solution. Guns are never a solution. Little kids. All of them. And this…

That.

My pilates studio has these skellys all around in pilates poses. For something a little goofy.

And this is too true.

Microsoft does some weird shit on my computer and I don’t really understand it all.

I do love this woman.

It’s definitely something to think about, maybe more now than later. Vote. A pedophile/rapist is in charge. Him not being in charge won’t solve all the problems, but if we can get more people against him in the government, it might start to reverse the crazy. Because it is crazy.

OK. Grade lots of things. Although I think not today…I think today is a lot of demos and stuff. Things where I have to be directly involved all day. Sounds exhausting. Then a staff meeting. And a grade-level meeting that is not relevant, I think, but I just don’t have the energy to argue about it. Grade-level matters when we get closer to promotion. Less now. Then ceramics, home and grade a bunch of stuff, then paint that stuff. Maybe color more on the other one. Somehow get the book I’m reading on my iPad to sync up with the same book on my phone. Usually it does; not sure why it’s being idiotic. It’s cooler today. Maybe. This fall has been ugh. I need to go buy some flood control stuff before the next storm shows up. That would be Wednesday, I think. Try to be prepared. For everything. Can’t possibly be prepared for someone jumping a fence and killing little kids. Not ever.

Losing My Body…

My blood sugar device alarm went off at 4:56 AM. Not because I was high or low but because the phone (under my pillow) couldn’t find the signal in the device (on my arm, next to my pillow). Usually that resolves pretty quickly, but no. Not last night. After about three alarms, my sleep self turns the alarm to silent, which means it vibrates instead of sending a loud tone. I put it on the floor, because I can’t sleep through the vibrations either, but I can still hear it vibrating on the floor. Because I was half asleep, I turned them off for an hour, and that usually solves it, but no. At 6:04 AM, the alarm was blaring again. My fucking god. Please stop. I haven’t slept well all week. I got up at 6:30 and the damn thing had found my sensor. On my arm. Where it had been all night. Technology good? Well, yes, it’s helped me bring my A1C down to prediabetic levels, so that’s great. The part where I want to throw my phone across the room at 5 AM? Not so much. Of course it’s fine now. Now I have to get up and go to work and be functional and not cranky (I’ve been cranky all week).

We’ve got Santa Ana winds again, so it’s also hot and dry and migrainey. It’s fine. Really. I’m going to sleep some day. When I’m dead.

Meanwhile, my quilt is due to the photographer tomorrow afternoon, so it has to be done, ironed, and clean. Wednesday, I sewed all the binding and sleeves together and onto the quilt and then pinned it all…

Cue artistic photo of a pile of pins ready to stab me.

Then last night, I started on the binding.

I did most of one long side, then all of a shorter side, then about 2/3s of the other long side. Tonight I need to do the rest and the two sleeves. Plus grade stuff. I did that last night too.

Still hot, still windy, still dry. Some big fire up in Camp Pendleton closed Interstate 5 last night for a bit. The boychild is at that fire today.

This is Simba tolerating Scribble.

He was there first, but he’s scared of her (she has whacked him when he is too inquisitive).

Bowie is still curling up next to me most nights…

I made him a little sleep spot. He seems to need it.

And Simba the other night, after I picked him up from the other house (with the other dog), was exhausted.

Mostly from barking at people, apparently.

Sigh. We’re camping next weekend, so hopefully the Santa Anas are done by then. I think they are. And no rain please. The Man is working again this weekend, so I’m going to finish my quilt and then pull camping gear. And then work on the next batch of quilts. I’m excited about working on them…dye paintings from the summer. Different stuff. Don’t get me wrong; I love a good big quilt in the way I normally make them, but doing different stuff is also fun. I have the next big quilt as a rough idea in my head. It’s a start.

School today…finishing experiments on force and motion. Then (possibly mistakenly) giving kids time to catch up on work. Depending on them, of course, and they are notoriously lazy about that. I make them check for what’s missing. I’m not doing it for them. I need to write a makeup test for the thing I gave them last week. The surprise thing. And I need to grade a bunch more stuff…grades are due in two weeks for the trimester. I’m powering through, but very slowly. Everyone in the house is cranky. Dogs, cats, people. I could do without that. Hoping camping will help. But for now, I’m pretty sure I can sleep in a bit tomorrow morning. A delight. Really. Maybe. Unless the alarm loses my body again. You’d think if we could design AI that can hack into major companies and have conversations, then we could design a sensor that doesn’t lose the body that is right next to it. Happy Friday y’all.

Weird Wiggly Space

I’m still in a weird wiggly space, although this is more about relearning the routines I forgot on purpose over the summer. Remembering that school controls everything, however much you try to control it back. Ultimately, if you don’t do the work, you’re not ready to teach, and that’s a problem. Your problem. So sure, you can say, oh I’m going to take this weekend off, but if you didn’t do the work Friday for Monday, then you just fucked yourself over. That said, I’m not ready. I did some work but not all of it, because I didn’t have time to do all of it. Hoping to do some of it actually AT work today (what a concept). We’ll see how that goes. Two-hour staff meeting at the end of it. Could do without that. Apparently not an option.

I did do art things this weekend though. I finished two quilts, went to an opening, delivered the two quilts to my photographer, and started another one. Not a bad progress report.

I finished the binding and sleeves on this big one…

And then took a really crappy night photo of it…

Saturday, I ironed it and dehaired it and packed it up for the photographer, who will do a much better job. On Saturday, I did the last little bit of embroidery on this, on the phone…

Had to add the mail app. And then I quilted the background with the machine…

I did most of this embroidery at the residency.

Smaller, but not less time-consuming when you do this to it. So I also ironed it, dehaired it, and packed it up for the photographer. Two in two days sounds impressive, but the other one was almost done before I left. I just didn’t take it with me.

And now on to the next one…which I started as a drawing at the residency, after listening to/watching a bunch of videos about fungi and mycelial networks…

I enlarged what I’d drawn so far…there will be more. So there’s the next one.

I also put this together, Rooted by Sue Spargo…

I’d finished the embroidery a while ago. I also put the borders on, but there is some stitching on the borders, so I’ll need to prep that. Didn’t get to that last night…I was doing other artsy stuff instead.

Saturday night was the FIG Master Glitch opening at the Techne Art Center in Oceanside.

It’s a big space and we have a lot of work in it.

I have 6 pieces in the show, mostly big pieces, and they’re all upstairs.

Some of them are older and haven’t been out for a while. But if you’re one of those weirdos who is always looking for the penis in my quilts, that’s a legit penis in that one. Meant to do it. Not hiding it.

My work is surrounded by the ceramics of Linda Litteral.

There’s lots of reasons to go to this show, even if you didn’t make it to the opening.

There’s a lot of art.

There’s some great burger joints in Vista, which is pretty close.

And I will be there Saturday, August 29, from 1-6 PM. It’ll probably be less crowded then.

The Man did an admirable job of trying to get photos of me with my work…which is hard when it’s spread out along a balcony basically. That guy wouldn’t move. So he’s in my photos.

And you get a good idea of how big some of my work is.

There’s a small one! Anyway, check it out, open Tuesday-Saturday, 1-6 PM, through September 30.

Busy weekend. Busy upcoming week. I’d like to make it to ceramics today after a month of being away. Not sure what I will be looking at. I know the glazes I ordered came in, but I don’t remember what I was doing before I left. Should take better notes. Glazing, yes. Be more specific. I’m hoping I’m not completely knackered by the end of the 2-hour meeting. What are the odds? But otherwise I won’t be able to get there until Friday. And I’ll be tired then too. Gotta get up, despite the tired part. I don’t have to cook tonight, but I suspect I have to empty the dishwasher. I think there should be a rock, paper, scissors thing for that, because I didn’t have a dishwasher where I was…I just had to wash them all myself. So I think there are some assumptions that might need blasting.

Speaking of blasting, is it true that the dumbass government I didn’t vote for is thinking about using nuclear weapons on Iran? Like WTF? Are they idiots? I mean, I guess I know the answer to that.

So much incompetency. So many bad decisions. Not even sure where to start.

Except I need to go to work and (ironically) teach about safety in the lab (don’t set off a bomb, any kind, especially a nuclear one). Then sit through two hours of yammering. Then hopefully go to ceramics. Then come back and discuss the dishwasher. And hopefully get to drawing at some point. That’s the plan anyway.

Hard Reset

I knew it would be a hard return, coming straight back into school from the residency. All of a sudden, life is full of stuff you need to or have to do, and yesterday, I talked for almost 6 hours straight. Today I have no voice. And I was exhausted after Period 1 yesterday. So much interaction, so many moving parts. Kids already testing the boundaries (nothing new there). So many names. So many things on the to-do list. And after school is already full. Although today, I’m just coming home and sewing, because I need to finish two quilts by Sunday afternoon and there are a ton of things already on the calendar. I can go to ceramics on Monday…once these are at the photographer. No pressure.

Kids started at school yesterday. There are a lot of them, more than last year. Some of them are truly a joy and some are already a challenge. The biggest challenge is figuring them all out though…so more of that happens today. I make today easier so I can rest my voice, but also walk around and take every kid’s photo (they love that…or they don’t). This weekend already has work attached to it, depending on how much I can get done during prep. No matter what, there’s always Sunday work. That’s the joy of summer…no Sunday work. No stressing out because you didn’t do all the things you need for Monday. Yesterday afterschool me was exhausted, but I remembered to pull the papers for today, which is good, because I didn’t holepunch one set back in June. Whoops. It’s fine.

Here’s the team photo as of yesterday. We’ll retake it when the missing member returns in two weeks.

Tuesday night, I finished the quilting on the big piece I was working on before I left. Wednesday night, I cleaned the floor, trimmed the edges…

With Scribble’s help…

And got the binding machine-stitched on.

Last night, I put the sleeves on, drove to my stitching meeting, finished eyebrows and fingernails and did most of the phone.

Need at least one more icon, maybe two, then some background quilting (tonight?) and it’s going to the photographer on Sunday. Then I came home and started the handstitching on the binding…

I’m coming home today and finishing that. Hopefully. So it can go to the photographer. I gots deadlines. Sigh. It was nice not having some of those for a while.

I already have a pre-drawing for the next one…which has a deadline. And I dye painted two for the next deadline. So I’ll be doing a final washout on the dye paintings coming up and then I’ll start finishing those into things that may or may not need/want embroidery. All the while continuing to go to work and not letting that take so much time. Wish me luck on that one. Already looking at residencies for next summer.

I brought home some dried plant material that I really liked…but had to put it up high because cats.

But I need that residency because…

It’s harder to do that when you can only make for an hour a day. So many people say it’s a gift to have the hour, but really, the balance should be better. My kids don’t need me like they did when they were little. My job is something I’ve been doing for years…I know what I’m doing. Why can’t I spend more time on art? The demands on a teacher these days are insane. Over the top.

So I bought a new lunchbox this year. I was fighting it because I’m like, I only have three more years…I don’t want to buy a new one now. I’ve only had two lunchboxes the entire time I’ve been teaching…the first one was my son’s old astronaut one, when he went to middle school? And when that finally ripped, I bought one of those freezable ones…and that’s been going for 15 years? It’s no longer going. When you shake it, it sounds like rocks inside. So I bought a new one, the same damn brand. I guess just because I retire from teaching doesn’t mean I won’t need a lunchbox, that I won’t need a job where I have to take my lunch. So I got another astronaut one. Think big. Think far away. Think artist residency in space! Oh yeah.

OK, I have errands after school. I am doing a cover page for Unit 1 today. Calm and coloring hopefully. I need to set up the pencils and find last year’s cover page for an example. I need to watch the two-minute video I’m showing. I need to set up the class for next week, so it’s not so stressful. It’s gonna be stressful no matter what, but it can be less so. Then come home and stitch. That part is good, meditative. I’m actually kind of looking forward to that…some people try to design so they never have to do hand stitching, but it’s a good place to sit for a while.

Hopefully Well

Racing into Monday. A full weekend. But I got nothing done. Fun times.

Quilt stuff…OK, I got bindings done, but not quilts and not sleeves, because I’m leaving the sleeves unstitched until I finish the embroidery on these. Finished this one Friday night…

Got embroidery ideas for it. Then I started another one, with Scribble’s help.

Although she is definitely tracking a bug. A flying bug. In case that isn’t clear.

Saturday night, I kept working on that binding, with Scribble’s help.

Looks the same. Scribble likes it when I sit still.

I finished that one Saturday night…

Then Sunday night, I finished the small one…

One more to go and then I start embroidery. Or applique on that last one…got the fabric I needed for the speech bubble. Apparently profanity is out for this show as well as nudity. Ugh.

And then my local SAQA group had an opening of their new exhibit, Beyond the Canvas, at the Poway Performing Arts Center. I have two pieces in the show…

Lost in the Trees…

I was apparently done with smiling…Nowhere Else to Go. The show is up for a while…

OK, not a super long while…through April 5. Check it out. I have more pictures, but don’t have time to resize or post anything this morning. Morning meetings for 3 out of the 5 days this week, plus some demanding school issues.

I did make time to hike on Saturday…and I took Simba this time.

I can’t hike as far with him because he is an old man now…

He may argue against that.

But he can’t do 4+ miles anymore. It was warm but not horrible, unlike the rest of the week.

Here’s where I’m at politically…

And on the daily…

OK. Today is a test. Fun times for the kids who were absent last week. They won’t have a clue what to do. Oh well. I will have to figure that out for them. Meeting this morning, meeting this afternoon, then ceramics hopefully. Then grading (always) and the last binding. Then I have to start thinking about embroidery. OK, realistically, I’ve been thinking about it for at least a month, but now it will be real and I’ll have to make decisions. Possibly a bad choice right before Spring Break. Limited brain power. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully well.

What Is Normal?

Oof. It’s Friday, yes, short week, yes, but holy crap, these short weeks have packed a punch. It’s almost a relief to go back to a normal week (except next week is so not normal). What is normal anyway? Not sure. It’s rained on and off all week and been cold (hey it’s Southern California, but it was 40 degrees here when I woke up…yes that’s warm for a lot of the country, but I don’t have the clothing for that…well, I do, but not to leave the house). I busted out my Ugg boots last night. I got home in the rain, pulled the trashcans in, in the rain, got really wet, in the rain, peed the dog, still raining, and totally damp, I wanted to just put my pjs on and curl up on the couch. But no! A friend I haven’t seen in person for 22 years was in town, so I gladly drove through (guess what, the rain) not-so-bad traffic actually (considering the rain) to hang out with her, another friend, and another on Zoom for a few hours. I got some raccoon done…

These are super relaxing to work on.

So is binding. It’s just the same stitch around and around.

I got the binding done on Wednesday night and then both sleeves on last night…

Not really helpful cat.

Great image, yeah? Well it goes to the photographer tomorrow…

Also a great photo. With my hand in it and a pile of trimmed ends of the threads from the stitching. But it’s done! The first quilt of 2026. With the next ones ready to go…a departure from what I normally do, but I’m excited about that. We’ll see how it goes, how long the excitement lasts before I want to do something different. Or the same. It’s hard when I’m teaching to find the brainpower to branch out into different techniques and processes. I spend so much of my creative energy at school trying to plan and solve problems, that sometimes I come home and there isn’t much left. There are things I can do without a lot of conscious thought, like trace, cut things out, even pick fabrics…but the original creation, the drawing, that requires more thought. And these next ones, however many I do (I have four ready to go) will be completely different…well, not the first stages. Those will be rote…stuff I know how to do…but the later stages will be very different from what I’ve been doing. Excitement? And anxiety. Woo! I don’t know that I need more anxiety at the moment, but it’s creation anxiety, and that’s not always a bad thing. I guess watch this space?

Here’s Nova giving me a judgy look because I yelled at her for eating the kitten’s food.

I did call her chonky. Rightly so.

Well no ceramics tonight unfortunately; this is my normal day though. I have a meeting during my prep (silly parents) and then I have a long meeting after school that will require brain power (make more tea) and will probably go for a couple of hours or longer (hopefully not longer). Then clean up that quilt tonight, iron it flat, get all the damn cat hair off of it. If there’s time, I’ll start the next thing, although I may just fix my pants. I’m hoping to go to a bunch of art shows tomorrow…I have three on my list; two while I’m delivering to the photographer (already almost there…might as well keep going) and one in the evening that I will drag the Man to…it’s fine. We’ll do dinner after. Plus I need to grade a million things again. We’re almost at the end of the trimester, which is stressful. And next week is a shitshow ending with eyeball dissections. Woo! But hopefully sleeping in tomorrow a little and doing some fun things to make up for all the work? That would be nice. And I’ll have some grading time on Wednesday and planning time on Monday to make up for the LACK of it at all other times. Yeah. It’s Friday. Let’s do this.

Light Waves…

I know, I forgot to write on Monday. It was a holiday, the septic tank guy showed up early, I graded almost all day, there was no realization of what I normally do on Mondays. So I did all this stuff Friday and Saturday that isn’t going to get on here today. Maybe later. Ha! If I remember.

So the quilt is almost done though. I quilted Saturday…

I finished quilting on Sunday…broke a foot.

This is a cheap, badly designed foot. I tried to get an official spring bouncy open toe foot like that for the machine, but it was not available, so I don’t think these are really designed for this machine, even though they say they are. They are also cheap. So that arm eventually gives way. I buy like four at a time. They last about 8 months, depending on how much I’m sewing…and honestly, how fast.

This was almost 10 hours of quilting.

I trimmed on Monday…had to move the boychild’s fire equipment and four pairs of boots out of the way. He went back to work this week.

There is a Scribble kitten in this photo. She’s playing with boot laces, but also spent some time sitting in the middle of the quilt, staring at me. I got the binding sewn on too…

And Monday night, started the handsewing.

Last night, Scribble kept flicking her tail into what I was sewing.

Almost sewed her tail into the binding about 5 times. She took off for a while and then came back…

Not the easiest sewing angle, but we made it work. Seconds before, she was reaching out to the needle with her paw. No sense of safety. I’ve made it around 2 1/2 sides. Got 1 1/2 to go, plus two sleeves. Photographer is getting it Saturday. Ready to ship to Massachusetts in March, then to Birmingham, England, then Houston.

I also made it to ceramics on Monday, in between rain bursts. Definitely heard those on the metal roof. I did some shaping on these…

And then added to them.

I was trying to make something that would fit on my shelf. Ha! Not happening. I am going to need to consider how to attach the owl, when I get to that point. I also put the bowl in for bisque fire. Finally! Can’t remember when I started it. Ah well. That’s what apps are for. I started the bowl December 8 and it has 10 hours of work in it. TEN HOURS. Can’t sell that for the time it took. And it will still need glaze after this. I haven’t decided what glaze yet. Something smooth on the inside. Hope there’s no cracks. I’m finding it hard to get to ceramics…the timing sucks right now. I’d normally go this Friday, but have to do a union thing. If it’s quick and I’m not exhausted, I’ll go over there, but I don’t think it’ll be quick, based on the last one.

I did walk on Saturday. I was going to hike, but the ex came over to help find the second lid on the septic (I didn’t realize/remember a second lid, but found the original drawing). So I had limited time before sunset. I drove down my hill, so I wouldn’t have to walk the scary busy road with no sidewalk in the dark, and took off from there, neighborhood hike.

I did this daily during COVID, and was always fascinated by all the different plants my neighbors had.

Valentine’s Day kitties…Luna and Scribble. Not quite curled up together.

I saw this. And then started Googling. And this is what everyone needs to do these days. Because if he said it, it’s not documented anywhere.

Also, the comment amuses me. Yeah, I’m not sure the bodycam footage would show you what you want to see…and I don’t really see the purpose unless it’s to show the parents of THOSE children what their sweethearts are really like in the classroom. Fun times. Research, people. Don’t assume the stuff is correct.

That said, that damn SAVE Act is totally fucked up.

Poll tax anyone? But only for married women. And trans folx. And a few others? People who changed their names to escape abuse? Yeah, it seems fair. WTF it does not. Seriously. What assholes in the House voted for this? ID? Sure. Fine. Make them free and easy to get. Or we’re back to where this country was in the early days, when only rich white guys could vote. I guess that’s what they want? Fucking assholes. The Man says the Senate won’t pass it. Sigh. It never should have been considered at all. So prejudiced. So misogynist. So unAmerican.

OK. Sigh. Where we at today? Ah yes, the effects of light waves on materials. Lab and simulation that takes two days to get through with my full-on support. Then pilates. Then handsewing binding. I can look forward to that for sure.

Another Hole in My Finger…

No matter what I do, I’m always sitting on the couch on Sunday night, wondering why I didn’t get more done over the weekend. Like I shouldn’t have gone to ceramics yesterday, despite not being able to get there all week, because I should have graded more. I should have finished that one assignment (I have a class and a half left to grade…at least an hour, probably closer to two). I should have finished grading the homework from two weeks ago (I have two classes left, maybe three? Can’t remember). I’m two weeks behind in grading advisory assignments. Ah well. And I’m going camping this coming weekend, so I won’t be grading then. Unless I can get the Man to drive (then I might get sick…hmmm) so I can grade homework on the way up. Meanwhile, I’m trying to not waste my ceramics studio membership by not going, I haven’t made it to the gym in weeks, and I have a quilt I’m trying to finish so I can start the one that has to be done by mid-December. Minor panic. I did manage to pick a binding from the three and get it sewn on…

Although Friday night, all I did was trim it. It was all I could handle. I graded a lot Friday night. On Saturday, I had more mental energy…so I got the binding sewn on and pinned down, and found a cat to sit on it.

Thank you, Nova. Then last night, I started the stitching and ritual poking a hole in my finger until I give in and find the sticky thimble things.

So I’ll be here a few more nights, then contact the photographer, and start the next one, which has been simmering on the Art Brain stove for a few weeks.

Ceramics has been frustrating lately; I can’t get there (I don’t have the energy or the time) and then when I get there, someone has bumped the big piece shoving stuff next to it, and it’s broken again. This is the head, though…and it’s almost underglazed…

Still some work to do on the hair…

And I think I did the teeth too? Maybe? I can’t remember when I took the photo. The mid-torso piece is hopefully ready to bisque fire, but that takes coordination with the person in charge of the kilns, and I haven’t been able to show up during her work time for weeks. I could just text her, I guess. I’m hesitant to commit to putting it into the kiln. I’m afraid it’s all going to fall apart, honestly, and if it does, I’m gluing it all together. There is a piece that goes on top of this, and the base needs to be bisque fired again, so there’s a lot going on…I just haven’t been able to get there enough.

When we go out on Saturdays, I draw until they bring us the food. I don’t always get much time (some places are super fast).

But it helps my drawing hand remember the things.

And sometimes people comment…this one got some random guy telling me it was good. Thanks random guy.

This one was two restaurants, two date nights.

The first one served way too fast.

This one too.

But it seemed mostly finished.

And yet, here is what I get from students…

I could just about read his writing. There were a couple that I really couldn’t read. This is the con to putting stuff on paper. The pro is that they can’t copy and paste from Google. The con is my brain explodes. This is what I didn’t finish. It’s not hard to grade, really…just time-consuming. What is that, you say? A person falling out of a moving car. If you stare at it long enough, you might see it. I only know that because the horrendously mostly illegible writing to the right explained it.

So more of that.

While I was grading, I was watching stuff, as you do…and this amused me. ALMOST?

So you have 26 pairs? Or you have part of a pair? Also, yeah, so do I, at least.

This after a conversation on Thursday with two staff members who admitted to originally being afraid of me.

It’s OK. This was found on Saturday’s hike before dinner…

Also the sun is going down earlier. I forgot that would happen.

Same cat (Nova) on another quilt.

It must be fall, the cat-sitting-on-quilt season.

This after the Man went out with man friends. Although they did actually ask some questions this time.

I ask stuff when he gets back, and he’s like, “We didn’t talk about that” over and over again until I’m like, WTF did you talk about?! I’m not invited anymore (it’s all just guy stuff, no gaming mostly), and I just wanna know how everyone is doing. And I can’t ask them.

Let’s finish up with my favorite disappeared female aviator…

Go Amelia!

OK. It’s a short week because our school board has set these idiotic 3-day weekends (the next one isn’t even a 3-day…it’s entirely stupid) because they say parents want them. It’s true that a bunch of our kids are absent on Fridays or Mondays…but it makes it harder to teach. I’ll take this one though…we’re going camping up in the local mountains. It’s a full week though…three Zoom calls at night (none are work-related), plus at least three meetings? Four? Not sure. I give up on keeping track. Teaching something today…ah, reviewing potential and kinetic energy for roller coasters, which they’ll start designing on Thursday. Fun times. Then two meetings or three, not sure (principal says one thing then says something different in the weekly email that comes whenever he feels like it…I miss the principal that scheduled them for the same time every week). Then I’m either going to ceramics or coming home and grading, because I have book club tonight. Good book for that one. And then stitching a hole in my finger. NO! Finding the sticky thimble pad, so I DON’T stitch a hole in my finger. That’s the plan.

Progress on 1700 Fronts…

It’s delightfully overcast this morning. I will take this July gloom (which will probably not last) and do nothing with it. I really should do something…yardwork when it’s cooler is smart. But NO. I have a ton of art stuff I need to do today. I’ve been putting off the bugs and the ironing of the new quilt, and I can’t put it off anymore. I’m spending three days doing that (and some other stuff, no worries). I’ll do some yardwork, but probably in the evening. I’m not awake enough yet. I have a friend who gets up at 6 AM on a Saturday to do yardwork, and I’m like, um no? Not. I must have had a look of absolute horror on my face, because she laughed. Yes, I’m a night owl. She is not.

So progress here is slow because it’s progress on 1700 fronts. Today will include a trip to the garage to check if I have any roller painting equipment that is in decent condition…if not, I need to go to Home Depot (AGAIN). I did write the final check to all the contractors for all the work they’ve done. Just a reminder, it flooded here in January, and because it came from the ground (I am up on a hill, y’all) and not the roof, insurance covered none of it. Total was just over $22K to fix everything and replace carpet and put in gutters so it wouldn’t happen again. I only had that money because I started saving to remodel my circa 1980 bathrooms and kitchen about 5 years ago. I’m back to saving for those…things I wanted done before I retired. It’s OK…we’ll see how it goes. So now all the remaining work falls on me, because I didn’t have 3K for painting, so I’m doing it myself, and I’m not doing it all this summer, because I hate painting. And there’s a ton of digging in the entryway that still needs to happen. I’ll get to it. I have many ideas and not a lot of time to make them happen, because I’m also trying to recover from the school year, read 40 books, and do a bunch of art. Like you do. And then put the house back together. Yesterday, I emptied 6 boxes of books and organized them and culled a little and put them all away…

This was when I still had two more boxes to open. I was on a Zoom call during this and then a phone call at the same time. Took about 2 1/2 hours. I have two more boxes in the girlchild’s room to do today. Then all those boxes can go in the garage for whenever someone might need them. Oh, I also have a box and three bags of clothes to put away in the bedroom…I did one bag last night because I needed a bag to go to my stitching meeting. None of it is hard…it just takes time and energy. I also want to paint the closet this weekend and buy the paint for the hallway. Because that’s next week. After the boychild moves all his shit. Which hopefully he’ll be home next week to do. Ha! He sends us beautiful pictures…although scary, because fire…

We get daily (or so) reports. It’s hot, there’s a lot of firefighters up there.

So far, most structures have survived, so they’re doing a great job. This is the Lake Fire in Santa Barbara County.

I finally made it to ceramics yesterday…kept getting sidelined by moving stuff. I got these out of the bisque kiln fire…

The red clay fired so pale! I was surprised. It’s our studio reclaim clay and the little bit of red clay really colors the white, which is mostly porcelain I think. So weird. It’s an OK clay to work with…very sticky, but carving works well. So I dipped the two coil pots in glaze…and then I glazed the inside of the two outside pots, with a thin, watered-down layer of clear on the outside. Clear is problematic…it gets cloudy, sometimes it burns out some of the colors. So this is a test. I didn’t clear glaze the big one until the test is done. I like it too much.

I added a cloud of hair to the world figure, and of course, forgot to take a picture. I think it’s pretty much done for adding clay…I just need to underglaze everything.

And then our studio is making some garden stake totem things. I hesitate to call them totems, because I think of that as belonging to specific cultures. But I made a ball with holes in it, underglazed, and carved some yesterday.

Here’s a video so you can see the arms.

Fun stuff. I used some clay someone left out for free (I’m a clay slut apparently)…it’s a Longhorn with grog, I think. It’s definitely sturdier than the other clay I’ve been using. I appreciate that. On the one hand, I really like carving like I draw…but I also like the meditation of building things. So I guess I’ll keep doing both at the same time? If I can go in tomorrow or Sunday and finish underglazing the base of the world figure, it can go on the greenware shelf, and then that’ll clear a little space on my shelf…it’s packed right now with three boards of stuff. I’m an overachiever sometimes.

Speaking of, I got binding and sleeves machine-stitched on both smaller quilts and started handsewing one of them.

It’ll take me a few nights of sitting and watching stuff to finish them. That darker blue one is hard at night. It would be smarter to do it during the day. Oh well.

So yeah, kitten still is unnamed. We are trying names out. Earlier, I heard a lot of “ouch no ouch no” coming from the living room.

Kitten is sharp and pointy. He does sleep a lot.

That pic seems to have some Siamese inclinations. We’re pretty sure dad cat was at least part Siamese. Sisters are both orange, mom is calico. His face and ears and coloring are all different from them.

This is legit…

OK. Plan for today. It’s already 10 AM. Love the summer for that. Gonna eat something, then start ironing bugs (need them done by Monday, or at least some of them). I’m also going to start working on ironing the crones quilt together. I saw the deadline I’m aiming for and it’s closer than I thought. Summer does that…contracts in weird ways. Too much work, never enough time. I have a book I’m reading, I want to draw tonight. Will I? Don’t know. Maybe sometime this weekend. I have three days with not a lot of outside influences, which I appreciate. I’m hoping for maybe some relaxation with the Man in the next few days? We’ll see. But definitely art.

Trying to Do the Things…

Already exhausted enough to sleep deeply until the alarm. There are pros and cons to that. Two days of coming to school and trying to do the things and leaving school feeling like I got none of the things done. I crossed one whole thing off the to-do list yesterday. Spent two periods trying to teach over two boys who really need parents sitting next to them so they know how their kids behave. I’ve stopped contacting them, because nothing changes. Frustrating, but it’s the end of the year and I don’t have the energy for it. Or the time. Too many other things I need to do. If there were paper in the copier, that would help, but that’s been none of the three times I tried to copy stuff. I have stuff I need for today, but who knows what I will see when I get to school. Paper? Paper out? Red light flashing? Yeah that. I need assignments for next week, most of which need some tweaking or full-on editing. Not sure when that will happen, because the scramble for 7th-grade curriculum is also happening, thanks to our idiotic school board.

What will make me quit teaching? The god-damned adults who don’t have a clue what we do. Or why. And get in the fucking way.

Actually I can’t afford to quit. So there’s that. Yet. And when I do, we’ll call it retirement.

In good news, I finished the binding and sleeves in two nights…Monday night, I watched Maria Shell’s lecture on Zoom about community quilts…interesting stuff.

She gave me a few more artist residencies to follow…although I know I want to be out in nature, not in a city, and somewhere different from where I live. There are residencies here that are just glorified rental properties, and I could do that, but I want two weeks somewhere totally different, new views, space, I don’t know what, and I’m overwhelmed by the thought of what I would do, or the ones that want community involvement, I never know what to do with that. But it’s on my list for the future; has been for years. YEARS.

Nova was remarkably unhelpful. She likes my lap when I am trapped by a quilt.

She is a sweet boo.

So yeah, it’s done…

Goes to the photographer tomorrow, then gets entered into the show that forced itself upon me. Long story. Curators. What can you do? Ignore them? Don’t enter? Yeah, well, it might not get in because of the boobs. We’ll see. No uterus! Trying to keep it simple. Also I didn’t realize the quilt I made for another show would get accepted and then rejected (sigh), so it would have worked for this show as well. Oh well.

But now I can go back to the other one, which has a later due date…first I have to deal with this pile. Mostly it’s the fabrics I used for the last two quilts. I keep them out until I’m done in case I need to recut something, which happens at the ironing down stage usually.

But then Kitten made a disaster of fabric as well, so that’s in there. It’s just a mess. I did sort through it all; can’t put them away yet, but I think I can start sorting and maybe ironing together tonight. Although at some point, I need to grade a bunch of redoes and late work, plus plan/create a bunch of stuff, and IDK how I’m supposed to do that during the day when so much other crap gets thrown at me. I had a plan for after school yesterday and it didn’t happen. I did, however, go to the gym and read my book. So there’s that. Fantasy!

The tent the girlchild got the cats is still popular.

Nova looks particularly thoughtful.

Doves are back, trying to nest somewhere in this area. We’ll probably figure out where at some point.

The freesias are happily blooming still, although looking pretty beat up. Mostly because Simba stands on them.

We officially have one baby owl? I heard it for the first time on Monday night. Last night, I was in the living room, on the other side of the house, and heard the adults screeching like crazy. Usually we might hear one screech occasionally, but this was attack level. I went out there and both mom and dad were screeching nonstop, and I scared something away, large and fast (probably coyote) in the bushes. Baby was screeching away but mom and dad were quiet. I found one of them (video has already been labeled as ‘Blair Witch Project’, which it is, shitty and all, night time with flashlight, but one parent is in the pine tree, never found the other one, you can hear the baby in the box)…

And about 10 minutes later, the owl cam we have showed mom going back into the box, threat removed.

I’m invested in these babies dammit.

OK. School. Sex trafficking assembly for two periods (can I take my computer and work?), plus a prep period for 7th grade, I’m thinking, and Pilates after school, get the quilt cleaned up and ironed and ready for photography. Then sort 1500+ pieces and start ironing. Probably should grade some shit before that happens. Ugh. OK. I just want to read my book somewhere quiet.