This Is Not My Beautiful World…

I am so disheartened by the country I live in at the moment. Although having lived elsewhere, I know that it probably doesn’t matter where you live…there will be things that humans do that I will just be entirely incapable of understanding. I hear anger toward other…but as a teacher, I have often had students who are other (insert group name here), and I know from experience and years of teaching biology that we are all the same, just a tiny tweak of DNA. It just makes me want to weep to think of one of my kids, my students (because they ARE our kids for some short period of time, and we always continue to think of them and wonder if they are OK), being hurt or killed because of this crazy stupidity we call Protection, Right to Bear Arms, Vengeance. Whatever. It’s anger. It’s fear. And it’s not necessary. We are no longer in a predator/prey relationship, trying to survive against nature. Now we apparently have to survive against ourselves, because other humans are out to kill us, harm us. Stop trying to find a scapegoat. If you have anger toward another group or people or gender or whatever, then it is you.

And I know that most who read my blog are not. And I don’t know how to get this idea across to the angermongers. I can’t even imagine if one of them is President. How that will roll. Art is supposed to help with this, but I know none of them will all of a sudden look at a piece of art and arrive at a revelation.

This world we live in. I just don’t get it. Why people think it’s OK to act that way. I just don’t get it.

I have to work this morning. I’m trying to find the right mindset. I object to having to push all this…sadness…away into a corner of my brain so I can continue to copyedit. But I have to…to survive. At least to pay the bills. And continue to ponder how to get across to the increasingly crazy killers that they need to stop. That it would be a better world if they did. David Byrne’s song…Once in a Lifetime (OK, it’s Talking Heads…not just David)…this is not my beautiful house…this is not the world I want to live in. Not my beautiful world. I hate not being able to visualize a solution…besides get rid of the damn guns. I wish we could just do that. A start. See where that takes us. Because this is just crazy.

Back to my regular blogpost…but know all that is still in my head…running circles around any attempts I make to live a normal life.

I had my monthly stitching meeting last night, and Julie brought a thread (OK, she brought bags of thread) that she thought might work for the flower stitching…

Because here’s what 13 of them look like on the left (OK, I didn’t really count, damn you)…half of them are that magenta color, and half are purple. Half have the silk velvet center and half have a cotton center that is a similar color. And I think there are two different colors in the body of the flower. But I had no more of the pink thread. As it was, I had to pick a near color for the flower and the center…so in the whole quilt? I don’t think anyone will notice…

And if they do, it was on purpose…to let the evil spirits out…right? Fact is I finished stitching everything and there was an empty space that bugged me. So I filled it.

Now I can back it and quilt it and bind it (well, except I have no working sewing machine, unless I go pull the old one out). And no time to quilt it. Minor issue. It’s still done. Ish.

Then I was working on the other birds, the last three, at the meeting…

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I had already finished all the background stitches in the beige/gray color, so I added feet and stitched around the eyeballs. I just found all the eye buttons when I was cleaning off the couch the other day. Who knows how long they’ve been there. Years. So all the decorative bird embroidery is left.

Meanwhile, I am still…STILL…cutting stuff out. I’m almost done, if by almost, I mean less than 10 hours. Because I did 3 hours last night, and there’s still a chunk left to do (14 hours in so far). Here’s the trash pile…a huge amount of fleshy bits.

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See…this is what’s left. Of course, you can’t see how big any of the pieces are that need cutting when they’re upside down…I do know that top two are all crane feathers, so not huge, but not tiny.

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This is everything that’s cut out…the box fills…slowly.

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Side by side…the to-be-cut on the left, the already-cut-out on the right…you can see progress.

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So yeah. I have to work. And run some errands. Stuff that guarantees my paycheck. And let the part of my brain that is always trying to solve problems wander around up there and attempt to find peace. For all of us. Wish I could see that.

Turning the Music Up…

Oh my. The jackhammer is back. Of course. I took 4 days off working (not art…although I did take a bit of a break on that too) because I NEEDED it. I was hitting that braindead stage where I just get irritable and don’t want to do anything but sleep, and I suck at that. So I ignored copyediting for four days. Today was my planned return to the Sitting-in-Front-of-the Computer crazy. But there’s jackhammering. Sigh. So I turn the music up loud. But it doesn’t make me feel particularly friendly toward this neighbor, I must say. He’s also the one who wants to trim my trees so he can “reclaim his view.” The view you never had, dude. (Kathy goes to buy new trees to plant…seriously…so I don’t have to see or hear you.)

Yeah. I’m in a mood. Whatever. I did relax a bit…but you know, one of the things I do to relax is read, and my book took a particularly dark dive last night while I was reading (in the dark, on a blanket, waiting for the fireworks to start). I’m sad about that too. So maybe I just need to work my brain into the hole and then climb out again.

I’m still cutting out tiny pieces of fabric. No change there. I just didn’t do as much as I’d planned over the weekend. Oh well.

I was trying to organize the wool projects I do for “fun” (no really, they are pretty fun to stitch on), because during the school year, things got out of control. So I pulled everything out and tried to figure out what the hell I’d been doing.

First of all, this one has been almost done for ages…

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It’s Sue Spargo’s Earth & Twig. I decided it was missing a flower, so I had started sewing it down and never finished…

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So I stitched it down and found a center, but not the thread that I used on the others (probably because there isn’t any more). I thought about buying another skein of it, but shipping is almost as much as the skein. So I’m still considering a solution to that. I did wash the backing and binding that she had sent as well, so I could get to that stage. Maybe.

It’s a fun little quilt…

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Then I found all the Bird Dance blocks (I’ve been calling this Bird Crazy since I started it).

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I’m working on the last three right now. Well. Not right this second. But anywhere I have to wait. But then I realized the borders are a bitch and a half. So yeah. Not gonna be done with that for a while.

I then tried to organize the rest of it. Went through and labeled boxes and consolidated stuff so there were only two places I could find any block: in a master box for that project or in a travel box for working on stuff. OK. Three places, because the ones I’m doing embroidery on are in these zip bags I got from the Container Store.

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I also cleared off most of the piano and the chair, trying to get stuff organized for when school starts, and then organized the stuff that lives on and near the couch. And continued cleaning off the table (desk?) in the office. I really want to achieve organization. REALLY.

Then we hiked…

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It was a little warm, but not too bad, compared to last week. The dogs can’t do more than 3 miles really, so that was it…beautiful day for it though.

Saw this…mostly everything else is dead and dried out by now. But this wasn’t.

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The dogs even ran for a bit. So did we. Possibly a mistake. But it felt good.

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The family hike is set for Wednesday. That means I need to copyedit today and tomorrow before the hike. Ugh. I will still cut stuff out, but I probably won’t get done. It’s OK. Stuff gets done when I can deal with it. Honestly, trying to concentrate with the jackhammer is challenging enough. Turning the music up even louder.

Conehead

Well so this is morning. Apparently. After being up after 1:30 AM, trying to settle cone-wearing Frankenstein cat (now baby, that’s a scar…), then a 4 AM wakeup for meds (for the cat) plus something puking, and the dog going ballistic before 9…I feel semi-drugged, definitely not rested, just half awake, if that. Ugh. Reminds me of the baby years.

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The poodle trimming of her legs is also nice. Especially since they told me to take off the bandage when I got home, and then there was blood everywhere. I wanna see you hold a pissed-off and drugged cat with a cone and blood oozing and try to one-handedly get a bandage on that. The kids had left, of course. Sigh. I’m really quite amazing in a hard place.

Last night, she was decidedly more pissed off about the cone and surgery in general (the photo above is this morning. She hid in the fabric drawer hole for a good long time.

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Yesterday, the girlchild got her hair done in a pinkish manner. I don’t have a final picture…

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I’ll have to get one.

I’ve been stuck in places where sewing on these is all I could do…so I finished these.

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I only have three left to embroider, and then I can sew them together. It’s very relaxing. Funny though…a year ago, I had nine left to embroider…so I’m really slow. I guess that’s why I’m years behind. Whatever. It’s not a race. I always tag this as Bird Crazy, but I realized its real name is Bird Dance. This is a Sue Spargo BOM from a few years back. I like her stuff…it’s got depth and fun stitching and it’s relatively easy to do. She’s released this one as a book now. In fact, she’s released all the ones I have except this year’s, so I can post about all of them now (there were issues with people copying her stuff before). Seriously though, her instructions are so amazingly good that you’re an idiot (and a jerk for stealing her ideas) if you don’t buy the book/pattern/whatever the heck it is. Plus she’s going through cancer treatments at the moment and deserves all your money. The one she just released, the Folk Tails quilt, is absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to get done with this one for real so I can start the embroidery on that one.

I did iron finally last night…I had to finish copyediting in the morning, then check out the girl’s hair, then do counseling, and pick up Kitten, and cook her shit she wouldn’t eat, and cook myself shit I would eat, and THEN…then I could iron.

I’m 26 hours in…LONG time picking stuff. This is the tiger on one breast…

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I also did the cat (aka Kitten) and flower vine on the other breast, the lungs, and the heart. So I did a lot…I’m in the 1500s now, the high 1500s I think. I have all of the torso done…just the head and an arm left to do.

I do have two more chapters to copyedit, but they’re not due for a while, so I’m taking a break. I want to get this fully ironed today…I probably only have about 300 pieces left, so that’s 3-4 hours. Then I can sit and cut pieces out for another 20 hours. While syringing water into the cat’s mouth, because I haven’t seen her drink anything yet. Plus I need a break. It’s been a lot of work lately, and that’s good, because it means I might be able to pay for the cat’s surgery AND college (ha. Well. Maybe.), but I also need to draw and sleep and relax and read books. Like a normal person does on vacation.

Up All Night

So yesterday I spent an hour going through two containers of old pens and pencils. I’m fairly sure my SIL would have just tossed all of them, but I don’t have her budget. I did toss about half of them, but a handful are going to school to supplement my stash there…and the others are going into a useful container here. Which I should consolidate with all the other useful containers and then stop buying pens for about 8 years. Seriously, when I die, my children or grandchildren will pull out their hair over the pens. After they’ve screamed over the fabric and thread. But this cleaning house thang, it just takes more than I can handle. I do a little every day. I also did a little yardwork yesterday and will head out for more today because it’s nice and cool. Plus my greenery trashcan just got emptied. I think. I hope. And then I graded. Oh my. Talk about pulling out hair. I got through three periods of the last unit by sheer willpower. Strength. Gimme it. And I input grades right as I finished them, so when those little widgets finally remember to sign on and check their grades, the shock will sit right with them like lead in their guts.

I swear I think I give up on this year. I’m gonna keep on teaching, even teaching good and cool stuff like frog dissections and brains, but I’m going to stop (I swear!) worrying about the grades, because I just can’t. I can’t take this year on and listen to admin saying I get what I give. I just can’t. Where are the parents in that equation? And why is this year so different? Some break happened between kids born in 2002 and those born in 2003. Turning work in must be controlled by a gene that was stymied by a vaccine or something.

Yeah. Stop thinking about school. Grade stuff, but don’t think about school. Laughing heartily over that one.

So after about 4 1/2 hours of grading (which puts me at an estimated 15 remaining? I might have underestimated dammit), I needed to do something else. Even though it was almost midnight. What the fuck? I’m wide awake (no idea why…haven’t slept well for nights) and it’s Spring Break. I gots nowhere to be. Literally. Nowhere.

So I stitched to music. Window closed so hopefully the neighbors weren’t too disturbed…actually, I think this photo is from Saturday, because that’s when I started.

So the thing about small quilts is that the distances are shorter, so the stitching-down part was way shorter than it would have been in a full-sized quilt with this many pieces…less than two hours and I was done.

But it wasn’t even 1 AM and I was still wide awake. I had started stitching down this ancient one (seriously I don’t know when I last worked on this…wait! I have an app for that. Well I picked fabrics for it three years ago, March 2013. I ironed it together that July. And it’s been hanging in here ever since.

Because it’s a little weird. Honestly. But it deserves to be finished. I needed to take some photos of me stitching and this was the only piece lying around I could stitch on, so I started it about a week ago for the photos and then put it aside. Now it’s ready to be sandwiched and quilted. So some pieces really do lie around and wait if they’re not compelling enough. Right now I think it’s calling out for a shitload of embroidered flowers. Or whatever.

I went to Easter dinner at the parentals and worked on these again. I could have taken grading. God knows I have enough of it. But I’m trying to finish these birds…think I’m down to 5 now.

The wool work is soothing. It’s easy to achieve something interesting quickly. Well not really quickly. But they relax me. I’ve been handling a lot of wool pieces lately. Need the calm. The distraction.

So yeah. Today I need to sandwich the two quilts and start quilting the more complicated one. Mostly finished picture due Friday (one day reprieve!). And final photos by April 15. Easy peasy. Seriously. I don’t think quilting will take as long as a full-size quilt. And then I can start on another one. Because my sanity depends on it.

Because the pile of grading is still there. The finished stuff is in the green bin. The other two periods are on the couch.

And there’s another pile on the coffee table of another project. Plus the assignment that’s online that I can’t even bear to look at. It’s just a matter of priorities right this second. What first? Yardwork? Then shower. Then groceries and pick up the poor dog. Then grade until my eyeballs bleed. Then make art. No housecleaning in that scenario. Hmmn. I need a secretary to plan out my days. But he/she would have been here at a reasonable hour, banging on my door, and when you go to bed at almost 2, then you need more sleep than I got. I can feel that behind my eyeballs. Well maybe I’ll sleep tonight then dammit. Stupid hormones.

So not up ALL night. Although definitely went to bed in the early morning. So I guess I skipped night. Yeah.

Minor Flail

Don’t you hate waking up in the morning and struggling to remember what day it is? Yeah. It’s Friday at least. That’s a plus.

I can’t say I got much done last night. I did a lot before I considered not getting much done. Like counseling and the chiropractor (yes!) and the gym and dinner and then it was really late. So I finished the last of these three birds…

I have two months left to finish (6 birds). Yeah, it’s taking forever. Here’s why I do this stuff though, because people always ask why I’m not working on my own stuff. My stuff requires brain power a goodly percentage of the time. Sometimes I don’t have brain power, but I want to stitch or handle fabric or whatever it is that lowers my blood pressure (actually, mine’s always low) and makes me less likely to yell at inanimate objects (it could be argued some of my students are inanimate objects, but usually I mean computers or the fridge or a couch). Last night I just wanted to veg out and so I watched one show and stitched on wooly birds.

Yesterday my principal said something about our classrooms being reflective of us, but the words he used were “you get what you put into it”. And wow. Did that bug me. Because I still have a massive number of Fs. And I had to walk away from how that felt, because as a teacher, you do assume that if kids are failing, it is entirely your fault. And then you try to fix it. And the trying to fix it was driving me crazy. So I stopped working so hard at the fixing it part, because then I’d meet with the parent(s) and I’d think, wow. They raised him. I can’t fix that. I can offer a variety of assists, but at some point, I can’t do a thing if the kid doesn’t want to do the work and the parent isn’t going to do anything.

I’m in the middle of a big project in class, and I’ve chunked it into smaller progress checks so the kids who flail when given big things don’t just stop working. I’m monitoring them regularly, which means I’m walking the entire room in circles. I’m physically exhausted from walking the room by the end of the day (hence the not-getting-shit-done last night). The hardest part is the kids who just sit there and try to fake working all period. Are they gonna keep doing that for four more days? Yes. Yes they are. So I get what I put into it? Yeah. Fuck you. Not even.

Another parent meeting this morning. Hopefully this one will actually show up. I’m really tired. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning (hear that cats?) and Spring Break in a week, even though it will be altogether too quiet and lonely. I do have a quilt to finish, and if I keep flailing at night, I’ll need a chunk of that time to get it done. Last night? Minor flail. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some stuff done tomorrow so I’ll feel better about this thing being due in 2 1/2 weeks.

One Done, Nine to Go…or Ten?

So I finished another quilt last night, actually this morning in the early dewy moments when you know you should be asleep, but you’re waiting for the girlchild to get home from a performance, so you can’t go to sleep anyway, so you might as well finish the binding, even though you’re tired of working on it. Yeah. It was one of those. Sometimes my brain just fights finishing (because it knows what’s next and it’s afraid, very very afraid).

OK, really just apprehensive because I’m not sure how the next step will work out and there’s a lot of other things hanging over me right now that I am trying REALLY hard to ignore. Really.

So I trimmed the quilt.

I really hate having to make quilts to a specific size. It gives me the heeby jeebies. I’m sure I’m going to fuck it up. I check the size in the paperwork or online over and over, obsessively, and then trimming it just freaks me out. I’m sure it would be OK if it were a half inch larger, but I just don’t like it.

I had gone to the fabric store before and gotten the binding (plus some others wanted to come home with me…all those pretty pastel colors and then SKULLS)…

I tried for a dark blue and it just didn’t work…couldn’t get the right shade and dark enough. And then I thought about turquoise, but I don’t know if it’s just my store (which is huge), but I haven’t seen any good turquoises for months. Something to keep in mind. I put it in the wash before I went to my quilt meeting and it was ready when I finally got done with all that and dinnermaking and cleaning the kitchen. Yes, I started after 9 PM, I’m sure…

But this really is a small quilt, so this went relatively quickly…

Binding on, two sleeves, bottom and top…and then the handsewing…

While waiting for the girlchild to get home. It’s done. Emailing the photographer this morning to do this one and the Bathtub.

I also worked on some smaller quilts for sale yesterday, because it’s an easier project to lug around outside the house…I traced all the Wonder Under for 7 projects…

Having done two of them last Friday and then not touching them all week. Here they are, all ready for trimming…

I decided to try cats this year instead of birds. But then I digressed. Because I do. But starting with the cats, here’s 1 and 2…

Both drawn from real life. Then 3 and 4…

Three is the curled-up one and that was real life, but it’s also much more complicated. Julie is shaking her head at me right now, because complicated means more time.

And Cat 5…

whose expression is my favorite. That’s Kitten’s face.

Cat 6? Well, let’s just say I can’t always be normal. I really wanted to make this one and it kept talking to me, and I realize no one will probably want to buy it because it’s weird, AND it has over a hundred pieces (Julie throws her arms up in the air and stomps away), but I like it. So there.

So that’s 6 cats…then I liked the heart in hands that I did for the FFAC donation, so I had drawn one version that was way too complicated and one simple one…

So the one on the left will inevitably be cheaper than the one on the right. Whatever. I don’t even know if these will sell, but it’s worth a try.

And then I did another owl…

I actually pulled this from one of the bathtub drawings. There’s another owl I want to draw, but I really need to stop and get these started at least, because I need to draw this giant thing this weekend and start working on it, because there’s really only 4 weeks until I have to start really thinking about school (besides all the texts and emails all over the place that have been annoying me all week). And that’s not much time. And I have to finish that commission piece too. I’m kind of freaked out about the next step with that…will have to just suck it up and DO it instead of thinking so hard about it. Like that’s possible.

But I’m really pleased that I’ve stuck with my schedule so far…in fact, I’m about a week ahead. Of course, I might be screwed later today if the job I bid on comes in…screwed timewise, but able to earn August’s mortgage payment. That would be a plus. Trade-offs…one of the things I teach in 7th-grade science. Clinical trials for medications, cancer treatments, how to get money to go to the movies…all trade-offs. Yes, I can be an artist, but I am going to be behind on everything else and sometimes my schedule will go crazy, even though it’s summer and I should be relaxing. It is relaxing to be tracing Wonder Under or picking fabrics…it’s a different kind of relaxation. The sort-of workaholic kind. Oh well. It’s obviously in my genes. I will take some time off this evening and relax a bit, and then go crazy again.

Speaking of relaxing, when I’m done sewing bindings but the girlchild isn’t actually home yet so I still have to be awake, or when I’m in a Barnes and Noble Starbucks with my stitching friends and I don’t have anything portable to work on, I do these…

This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Crazy, started three years ago? Maybe 2 1/2 years ago. I have 21 birds completely embroidered and 9 to go…here’s the 6 I’m currently working on…

They all have feet. The bottom half have all their background embroidery done. I’m working on that task on the top three. When these are done, there are only 3 left…then I can sew it together…and start on another one. Because I do need something to work on when I’m on a plane or in a waiting room or wherever, and these are easy and relaxing and don’t require a lot of thought, but the embroidery is fun to do. So yeah, I have those to work on.

OK, so I need to deal with that giant drawing now. Or breakfast. Whichever seems less traumatic…

Stuck Down

I’m trying to stay on track. I have a list a mile long. Actually, I have multiple lists. When I wake up in the morning, my phone says alarming things like, “You have a busy day today. There are 22 items on your calendar.” What the fuck? Are any of them “eat” or “sleep?” Nope. The standard stuff isn’t even on there. That’s just the extras. And some of them are easy, like “pay the damn bills” or “enter a show.” OK, that one is not easy, and many thanks to the three varied and useful brains (plus Google) that were helping me come up with a theme/show title for a one-woman show I’m considering. Though it made me realize that a lot of the words that have to do with women just annoy me. Like “feminine.” Anyone who knows me is clear that I am sort of the anti-feminine, and yet that is the word, the adjective, that is supposed to go along with me and my parts. There’s “womanly” as well, which just means you have curvy boobs and hips, right? “She has a womanly figure.” Fuck me. I hate that stuff. “Feminine” implies pretty smells and wafting silky fabrics and a pinky raised for tea. It’s interesting what words just set my teeth on edge. “Tits”…that’s the one my male students use that just sets me off. I don’t know why. (I should probably carry warning labels…maybe I do.) Don’t call me a girl, don’t call me a lady. I’m not either.

Anyway. My brain is on overload with that, and I have about a week to figure it out…surely from the list I typed into my phone as the other three threw stuff out at me, I will be able to find something semi-appropriate.

Meanwhile, I finally made it home and tried to focus. I’ve been so tired, and I’ve been going to bed early, but then I don’t sleep, so it’s fucking pointless. I am going to buy a gun just to go find that fucking mockingbird on my street and blow its perky, loud feathers away (moody much?). Then I will sell it back (the gun).

I wanted to iron everything to the background on Wednesday night, but that was exhaustion level tired. Last night, I had a cup of tea and some food and started to revive. I cut a background piece…luckily it didn’t need to be pieced, because this quilt isn’t actually that big, and then I started ironing…

The tree leaves tried to be fussy little assholes, but I ironed them into submission. This was actually pretty easy to iron down, because it was all one piece and only the tree was fussy.

It took me less than an hour…

So that’s a little over 10 hours in ironing, more than I thought, but not unreasonable. Notice in the bottom right corner that Kitten is venturing out into the house again. She’s still really nervous about being out, and keeps looking around for Babygirl, and Midnight is being kind of a pissy bitch about her being out too, so there’s some growling going on, but I think they’ll adjust.

ANYWAY. Hopefully tonight I’ll start stitching it down, which shouldn’t take long. My Saturday is kind of a mess at the moment, though, so I do have to grade papers tonight. I wanted to pinbaste it on Sunday, but I don’t know how realistic that is. We’ll see. Probably not an option.

But I’m two weeks ahead again. So that’s good. Anyway. Stuck down to the fabric. Ten days of school left. Then I have to get my head above water and try to figure out how to get some extra money this summer. I have three things going…I just need enough time and space to get them moving. Right now, it’s a lost cause, but it will get better soon.

Last night, I did sew some feet…

Although it feels like I should have been able to do more than that in an hour and a half. Whatever. Thirty-nine bullion knots in 90 minutes. OK, see it doesn’t sound so bad when I say it THAT way. That’s 2.3 minutes per bullion. OK then. I’m not going for the world record in bullion stitching. I think. Is there money in it?

Please Don’t Call Freud

Pouring rain. Heaven to California. Won’t be enough. Never is. But I can turn my water off for a week (to the plants…not the showers). I’m going to save water next year by sending the second kid to another state, a state with no apparent water issues…a state that makes its own water. Who thought greening the desert made any sense?

I have the end in my sights…which end? Lots of them. The end to tracing Wonder Under on this piece, which is strangely making my hand sore. I wake in the morning and it’s stiff and swollen. Probably this is more getting old or menopausal effects…because I never had issues before and I’ve traced for much more than an hour at a time. I’m up to 6 hours…

There are too many large, long, and convoluted pieces in this quilt. It makes tracing difficult…I hate wasting Wonder Under. It will make ironing difficult too.

This was the worst piece…

Crazy. Totally should have cut that up into smaller pieces. Oh well. So I’m at about 450 pieces done…didn’t do many pieces last night, even though I worked for over an hour. Of course, it probably took longer than normal because of pieces like that one above. So I need to think about the background for this one and whether or not I want to get more water or bathtub fabrics. Because that piece alone is a significant chunk of a half yard…and I don’t always have that sitting around…certainly not in water color. Whatever water color is.

I keep meaning to go to sleep earlier. I’m tired. My body protests the mornings, but some more than others. You’d think I’d be half dead this morning…stayed up later than the last few nights and it should all be catching up with me on a Friday, but I’m strangely OK. Headachy, but awake. Had headaches all week on and off. Thank you weather systems. Or students. Or financial aid. OK. So headaches could be caused by many things. They are NOT caused by donuts (don’t disabuse me of my notion please).

Totally have drawings rambling chaotically through my head. It was my monthly stitching meeting last night and they plopped a few more in there for me. It’s crazy how much stuff is piling up in there. My artist brain is rushing around, trying to record the ideas on these giant pieces of paper that she piles up in the corners, and then they all slip down and start sliding all over the place. She’s trying to keep them from getting in the way of going to school and remembering the parent meeting I have and that I have duty and it’s currently pouring rain and that I’m giving a test today and there’s that kid who can’t sign into the state testing but we think we figured out why so I have to check that today. All that’s being covered up by these giant slips of paper with intricate drawings of exploding uteri and fetuses reaching towards overloaded pregnant women and crones being pushed aside by perky-breasted skinny beasts with not a creative thought in their brains.

Yes. It’s on overload. Need to deal with that. Please don’t call Freud in on all that. I know exactly from whence it all came.

But it’s always good to just sit and stitch and talk out all your worries and amusements and giggle about stupid stuff, even though I’m old and wrinkly and decrepit and that’s not what society likes.

All I did was stitch feet.

OK. That’s not true. I stitched around eyes too. Two hours of feet though…basically.

Sometimes that’s the best kind of stitching, because it’s just kind of brainless. I can do bullion knots in my sleep now. And we talked about how to make phones do things and I’m trying to figure out how Siri can make dinner or lunch for me, because shit, I don’t have time for that, and she seems to have endless amounts of time. And then we talked about how Kathy can make money and the Other Kathy reminded me that I used to be an editor (crap, I forgot about that…no, I really did), so I’m looking at that possibility for extra work, plus they both voted for small cat quilts this summer for sale. So I need to go pull drawings with cats in them and start reinventing that wheel. Which is stressful, but not as stressful as trying to find hours in the day where I could drive to a job location and work there after being on my feet all day at school. Because my foot is killing me, despite the attempts to rest (ha!) and elevate it (double ha!) and wear an ankle brace, which a student thought was an ankle bracelet and I was on home arrest. At school. Trust me, sometimes that job totally feels like that, like now, with only six weeks to go and the hardest test of the year today and two weeks of state testing looming over us.

Big fucking sigh. I’m good. I can do this.

Thunder and pouring rain. Kids will be absent today because of that. Stupid.

Redraw…

Sunday Night: Drawings are in my head, crying to be let out, much like the Golden Retriever who then stands at the doorway, staring at me as if I have asked her to sacrifice her dinner. “I don’t really want to go out, mom. I just want attention.” I carry my sketchbooks around, two of them, for two days straight, thinking that will help me, but I can’t draw around people. The drawings are shy; they don’t want attention like that. Just mine, like needy two-year-olds, clinging to mom. Fuckers.

I had an art meeting yesterday afternoon, so I didn’t have a chance to work on art stuff all day Saturday or Sunday until about 9:30 PM. And then this happened.

And I’m negotiating with a cat. Look, Midnight, it’s bad enough that I have to have Friends on while I’m trying to do this, when I really need something dark and evil like Orphan Black or Helix, but when you repeatedly claw at the paper when I’m trying to get it out from under you? More attention-seekers.

I finally got everything out from under the cat and pulled this drawing from a few months back…

Which was a redraw of this drawing…

and which I liked, but…ran out of paper. Whoops. And wasn’t sure about the tree. Or the drumstick. (The top drawing, which is the second one. The first one? Has some things going for it…but…I don’t know.) So I have a deadline coming up with this idea of oasis, and I’m sure some people go straight to palm trees or a pool of water, a place where we go to escape. So I’m working with that, but the place is mental. Because when I get my brain all tied up in knots, that is what I need…a method to get away from that crazy.

I’m working with a prescribed size though. And it doesn’t work with how the drawing was in my brain on this, the third iteration…but I thought I could start by drawing the top and then I could figure it out from there…

And oh my god, that was a clusterfuck. OK, not completely. But I needed more liquid paper than I really like to use, because I’m drawing this one to size, not enlarging it, so when I’m tracing from the back, I will still be able to see the lines I covered up, and it gets really confusing. Plus I was just fucking it up all over the place, so I walked the fuck away from it. Because the lines weren’t going where I wanted them to. The pen was fighting me.

Because if I can’t draw. Bloody hell. I thought about doing some quilting or just going to bed, but I really wanted to make this work. I didn’t want to let the drawing win. So I cut another piece of paper, measured the appropriate size, and laid it on top…

Because some parts were OK. The eyes were fucked up. The right hand was a bloody mess. I don’t even know what was going on with the neckline, but the man’s head was good. And things were in generally the right place. Do over.

You can see on the right what I thought was OK enough to copy. Then the sketchbook is what I’m drawing from…well, sort of. And then under the sketchbook was the rejected drawing.

At that point, it was 11:30 PM. I could stop. Maybe I should stop.

Fuck that. I kept going…got the face done…

And the hand that bugged me before, and the outline of the torso. Much better. Deep sigh. So I guess this is really version number 4. Fighting this one out, seriously. It’s just messing with me. I think some of that is that I’m used to drawing smaller, in a sketchbook I can hold on my lap, sitting on the couch, and this is standing at the light table and it’s big and I’m trying to reach across AND make sure the pieces aren’t too small. So I needed to persuade my hand it could do all of that.

And now, when I’d really rather stay home and draw this, I need to go to work. Sigh. Deep sigh. Art brain goes off to sulk in the corner.

Finished these yesterday at the art meeting…

They were almost done at soccer last weekend. But that’s July. Now on to August. Don’t ask what year.

Note to self: We have enough conditioner until the end of time. Don’t buy more.

Mood is better. Body is in revolution. Uterus is conducting volcanic studies. Tired. Iron depletion? Ugh.

Tip the Balance

Usually I write my blogposts in the morning. I used to write them at night. I’d meditate first and then I’d write. Often it would be 1 or 2 AM when I posted, because I wasn’t sleeping hardly at all for about a year. Now it’s easier to go to bed earlier and write in the morning. I suspect the writing is different because of that, but maybe not. Plus I get a few more hours of sleep…not a lot.

I’m writing tonight, knowing I probably won’t post it tonight. I’m kinda hoping that what I do tonight will modify my mood so that tomorrow morning sounds better, feels better, and according to all the happiness mythology, IS better.

It was a difficult day. Kids were not in the mood to do work, and I was asking them to do work. Not particularly hard work, and the ones who know how to do work and like to do it, or at least know that they have to do it, they were doing it. The others were not. My patience was incredibly thin to start the day (lack of sleep? stress? I don’t know. No art for days?), and by the end of the day, our minimum day, I was at nothing percent. Nada. Nichts. Ain’t nobody home. We had a meeting after school that was incredibly depressing…worrying even. And I know I’m not supposed to worry about future events, because there is no point. I’m not supposed to assume next year is going to suck dingdongs because maybe it won’t. I’m supposed to take one day at a time and not think about the future.

I have to tell you, it is a hard habit to break. But I’ve been telling myself that since the meeting, don’t worry, don’t think about the future (except I’m being asked to think about it, so that makes it significantly difficult), the meeting where I almost broke out in tears, and when I have to meet one-on-one later because I expressed my concerns, I will most definitely cry. Because it’s hard to explain to most people what it’s like to feel money stress hanging over you for years. To feel parenting stress solely on your shoulders. Those that have experienced it, they know. But when you then add the stress of trying to balance the parts of your life, and someone wants to add more stuff that you REALLY don’t want to do to a job that already sucks up so much energy and so many hours, and you have fought to keep your hold on the other part of your life, the art part, even just the part where you have time to do the dishes (I haven’t yet since last week), it’s like a tug-of-war game, but it’s not a game…it’s your fucking sanity, it’s your life. And I’m holding the rope and the knot is slipping over the center line, and everything on the other side of the rope (job, money, time, demands of children, demands of boss) is getting heavier and heavier, pulling harder and harder, yanking at me, pulling my shoulders out of their sockets, and I’d really just like to throw my hands up and let go of the fucking rope, let go and walk the fuck away, turn my back on ALL of it.

Yeah. So I’m meditating tonight. And I was drawing earlier. And I’m trying to at least get a tiny grip on some sort of strength to get me through most of tomorrow, because that’s all I need. And then tomorrow night, I can negotiate for Wednesday. And so on.

Tonight though. Geez. Universe. You suck. Walk the fuck away from me. I am not talking to you.

It’s the morning now. So much for my hope for today. I was apparently a horrible person this morning because I suggested watching Friends would not help learn Physics. Huh. What do I know? I love my kids, but going away to college is something they really need to do, not only for their growth and maturity, but for my sanity.

I drew this last night…

I don’t know what it is about sitting in a bathtub. It reduces stress, makes you feel calmer, but you’re naked, so there’s this vulnerability while you’re in there. You can’t get out quickly, but that’s supposed to be OK. I used to take baths all the time at the old house, prekids, predivorce, prewhatever. The bathtub in this house kinda sucks, plus it’s in the kids’ bathroom. I think if I got into a bathtub right now, I might never get out.

I liked the hand and wineglass in this bathtub drawing…

But wanted to try to make a better drawing…this was more of a quick sketch one night. So that’s where the second drawing came from (it’s actually the fifth). I don’t know if the other one is done. I have to think about it.

I did all that because my head was a mess. I meditated in the middle of it. I didn’t do anything else last night, because by the time I got home from school and did the grocery shopping that I didn’t have time to do Sunday (forgot the toothpaste, dammit), it was late. And then I was trying to pay the deposit for college and that was apparently too much stress for the girlchild, who admittedly is about to lose all her friends (try to tell her they don’t all go away, but she says I know nothing, because you know, I don’t.), because she went off. And I eventually got it paid, but decided that making dinner was not my problem. I was no longer hungry. I could eat a bowl of fucking Cheerios and I’d be OK. I had used up all my parenting dollars for the night. To her credit, she cooked dinner and fed both of us.

I went to bed and hoped that it would be better today. No comment on that. I can’t judge the whole day on the first 40 minutes. I can’t let the first 40 minutes color the entire day.

Here’s the two birds I almost finished over the weekend…

I still need to add some of the lighter green to the tailfeathers on the upper bird. I should have done that in the car on the way home on Sunday, but I don’t think I had the energy. I actually don’t remember the car ride back on Sunday. I know I was in the car, because I’m home now.

Seriously though. One of the things I hate about these moods is that I don’t feel like they are entirely situational…I think a big chunk is hormonal, and that is out of my control. My science brain wants to know what percentage is my hormones and what percentage is whatever other shit causes random sadness and depression. I need a mood pie chart. (I just spent ten minutes looking at semi-disturbing pie charts that either blamed moodiness on spilled gin or the genetics of your parents, both probably factors at some point or another.)

Fuck this. I drew. Tonight I don’t know what I will do, but it won’t be school-related. Sorry Mr. Bossman…you didn’t make me want to spend more time doing it. You just strengthened my resolve to keep the balance, perhaps tip it even further towards taking care of me. (In reality, I will find that difficult to do.)