A Wednesday Miracle…

I’m going somewhere this weekend, to Joshua Tree. It’s a 3-day weekend for me, so we’re leaving Friday and coming back Monday. Boychild will hold down the animal fort. All of them are staying behind. We’re going to hike and hang out and go see some art and eat some food. I’m bringing my sketchbook, although it might be more important to bring the artist book pages I’m working on…depends on if I can get another one done before Friday. I think I can. I’m also bringing tiny little fabric pieces to cut out and my work computer…because the reality is that when the man takes a nap, I need to work.

Last night, I came home from work and I worked some more. I finished grading packets and input all of those. Tonight I’ll try to grade the last bit of makeup work that’s floating around, and then I’ll start on the projects. It looks like less than half the kids have turned them in…always the problem with these things. We alternate between things that have to be handed back to me during THIS PERIOD and things that take more time and require a kid to hit Turn In on the computer. Apparently that’s hard. I also need to enter some shows and submit some stuff for a new website tonight, so it’ll be busy. That’ll be after I go to the doctor so she can make some attempt to figure out what happened to my blood sugar a month ago. Apparently you need to be seen in person for that. It’s some sort of doctoring magic.

Busy day. Too busy. Looking forward to hiking through a desert landscape to clear some of these cobwebs.

Oh yeah, I forgot…I finished the current unit cover page…

Fun stuff. The kids only have to do 3 vocab words…I try to do as many as I can. It’s a challenge.

I did tutoring yesterday. It’s always exhausting, although there were fewer kids than normal. Because basketball started? Hard to say.

After eating, the speech from our orange dictator was still on, so I worked on the artist book…you can see that Luna is still trying to sit in or on everything.

I’m not really sure what I’m doing with these. I’m just doing them. Sometimes I think too hard.

But I finished one and then glued it together. Went through three glues before I found one that worked.

I can’t have nudity or challenging subjects. I’m not entirely sure what that means, so I just drew.

Covered nudity up with nature. I need to do at least one more of these…the original plan was for three, though, so we’ll see how I feel about that.

The man as a cat couch. They are lovey beasts.

But then you have to get up and do the dishes.

We had all three of them on the couch for a while…

There is still a bunch of play going on…

Apparently it is safer to do this between my feet than out in the open.

I made it in to iron around 9:30 PM. Early! Kitten curled up in here (it’s cold right now) and I worked for a couple of hours.

There’s not much color yet. That will change soon. This is mostly clouds and buildings and roads and tornadoes and nuclear power plants. Lots of gray. I’m 200 pieces in, almost. Tonight there should be more of this…moving into the Earth, I think. Or maybe space comes first. Can’t remember what order I numbered. I always try to be logical and mostly fail. Mostly because my logic changes from day to day.

OK, today is the third and last day of teaching these stations, where I’ve taught the same lesson 10 times now and am heading into 15 turns today. Woo hoo! Ugh. It’s necessary, but the groups are still too large. To do it well, I would need groups of 5 sometimes, and that means 7 days per class. Not happening, unless we get way more efficient. Or two groups during a period. If the rest could work independently and bring their computers charged or at least the charger itself, well that…that would be a miracle. Let’s hope for a Wednesday miracle. Miracle or not, tonight will find me making art like…well, like an artist. Looking forward to it.

Absolutely Weird…

Last night, approaching midnight, boychild and I are on my phone, playing owl calls, trying to figure out what has moved into one of our trees. We assumed barn owl, and sure, there’s one nearby…I’ve heard it. But this isn’t that. It’s a Great Western Horned owl. The typical hoot-hoot-hoot instead of the screech. Yes, I stand outside in the dark and listen to owls. Why do you ask?

Busy weekend; how about you? It’s just busy until sometime in late February, I think, maybe later, depending on how things roll. We did grocery shopping early and then walked the dogs.

We tried one of our normal hikes, but someone was throwing another wedding there or something (heart-shaped balloons and a million cars), so we headed to Mt. McGinty…realizing we weren’t gonna do the whole 4.5 miles with the dogs.

Way too much climbing (our car is way the freak down there and we’re not even at the top of the first hill)…there is a an old mine at the top of the first hill…no, not going in there.

Check out Calli’s tongue. She was tired.

We went out about a mile and a half and came back. It was getting toward dusk, and coyotes are always an issue.

The fog was creeping around too, so it was pretty. And there were only a few other people out there when we started…not the crowded chaos that is sometimes the other trail. People with dogs off leash and racing around on bikes. Assholes really. But this was peaceful. My quads are still complaining, but that could have been the new Pilates class as well. Because both in one day…

It was nice. I need hikes. I need outdoors.

After dinner, I made a pattern finally for the book box thing I’m thinking of for an upcoming exhibit. I don’t really make artist books, and this is more of an artist sculpture that is book like than anything else.

Once I had the pattern, I made and cut out three of them. That’s the plan. Draw three. I might stop with two though.

Drawing tonight? We’ll see. I’m drawing flat and then putting them together.

Sunday was an art meeting up north, so it took a good chunk of the day. I came back and graded stuff, then cooked dinner, then graded more stuff, and got some Luna love.

She’s sweet when she wants to be. Especially asleep. They’ve really grown lately…here’s Nova looking slightly cross-eyed. She’s definitely the smaller cat still…

Luna tries to push Nova off her food so she can have it.

Then there’s Kitten…she’s missing a bunch of teeth, like 11. She has a weird genetic issue that attacks her teeth.

Makes for some goofy faces.

At this point, I was cutting out Wonder Under. I didn’t photograph any of that. I honestly didn’t get that much done. It was late, owls were out.

I wanted to pop this in here…wait, need to find the link. Here it is

I’m troubled by all of it. You feel badly for family for the loss of a father and a child. It’s a horrible tragedy, for the other families involved as well. But there was that rape thing…and we shouldn’t shove that under a rug.

OK, off to school and National Park week…I’m wearing my Bryce Canyon Got Oxygen? shirt…which reminds me…I need some earthquake/volcano shirts for the next unit. I know, weird teachers, yeah? Absolutely weird.