Somewhere Better…

This day. Man. I was sort of hoping for news that the swearing in didn’t happen. I don’t even care why…like I’m voting for aliens from a distant solar system at the moment. I’m off the Meta socials this week. I considered not doing it, because my dad always told me if you want to change something, you need to do it from the inside out. And why are we letting them control where we are and why? But then someone said that there’s ad revenue and that gets them where it hurts…so I changed my mind. I’ll be here on the blog, and I’m over on Bluesky (@knida.bsky.social), posting there instead. I’m a picture/visual person, and Bluesky is more like Twitter, where I never really hung out. So yeah. We’ll see if it changes anything. I don’t trust a rich white man farther than I can throw them, and I don’t throw well at all.

Some guy is out looking at my shed right now with my dad, and I’m sort of listening. I’m not sure I care about the details of how to fix the damn roof right now. I’ve got too many things on my to-do list. I did finish grades yesterday, and then, like a crazy woman, I sent 72 emails to kids/parents about specific missing academic assignments, so when they see their grades, the kids won’t be able to lie about the teacher not letting them turn late work in. Today? I plan to not to school…except I never graded the warmups yesterday and I need to do that. Or I could just do it in class tomorrow. Maybe. We’ll see. I’m aiming for day job sanity and having a hard time getting there.

Quiltwise though, things are going better…I got the visual disturbance part done…

Those are the things I see…not all at once, but one at a time. Swirling around in my visual field.

Saturday night, it took almost 2 hours to do the words…which do fade into the background and they’re supposed to…

Like I’m yelling about these things and no one is listening. I’m a little concerned that the arm is not quite reaching where it should, but I can futz with that when I iron it down to the background.

Last night, I got a good chunk of the tree done.

Plus all three owls…

The three has all four seasons on the branches, so I have a few hundred pieces left, hopefully today.

I lost Kitten on Friday…couldn’t find her anywhere. Usually when I call for her, she comes out. She has some very specific hiding places, but the actual kitten, Bowie, has been harassing her. He doesn’t understand that she’s old and sick, so he tries to chase her. He’s really curious about her. So she’s been peeing up in her safe spaces. I finally pulled all the batting out and replaced it with pee pads…which she hasn’t used. I also carry her out to the litter tray twice a day. Hopefully that will solve the problem. Anyway, I was searching all over for her and finally had a guess and went outside…there’s a glass sliding door on one wall that is essentially not accessible because of the sewing machine table…and there she was, hunkered down behind it…

Snuggled under the quilt I’ve been working on (which she did NOT pee on, thank goodness…it now has a towel covering it). I’ve found her there twice now. I think her hearing is going. Poor baby. She’s old but not in pain. She still purrs when I pet her, snarls at Bowie for invading her space, eats a little food, and goes back to sleeping. Sigh. It’s hard to deal with elderly animals.

We’re trying to use up our stash of restaurant gift cards, so Saturday night had us in Little Italy at the Princess Pub & Grille, which had pretty decent British food…

I drew…it was really loud (football!)…

Need to remember to stay away from sports bars for a few weeks I guess. I don’t actually know if we’ll be going out at all for a while. Long story. Been here before.

Hey, there’s my quilt in the background! At Form, Not Function, where it won Honorable Mention.

It’s the only photo I could find of it in the show.

OK, I need to leave to get my hair cut, rescheduled from when I had stomach flu. I was going to go to ceramics afterwards. Not sure how I feel about that right now. I’m tired. Nothing new there. Got some art to do, some cleaning to do. Need to make lunches for the week. Hoping to still be able to retire in 2029, but who knows what the fuck that idiot is gonna do. If I can’t afford to retire, then it’s gonna be rough to stay in teaching. We’ll see where we’re at in four years…hopefully somewhere better.

Incognito Year…

I’m running on crazy time now, y’all. I was going to write on Monday, but oops, stomach flu or food poisoning…and then this morning, the rescheduled appointment from early Monday morning, and now it’s almost 10 PM. But hell, it’s still Wednesday. When I get off schedule, I get really off apparently. So yeah, how are things going? Ha! Can’t get the bees out of the owl box…all the bee peeps are on Winter Break. Can’t get the house or yard done because I spent Monday completely out of it with the remains of the whatever-the-hell-it-was, Tuesday much of the same. Today I’ve been better (food helped), but felt like I had to do EVERYTHING and that everything took FOREVER to get done. Not really of course, but days seem to go much faster over break than they do in real life. Which starts Monday. With a vengeance. A possibility of an 11-hour day. Fun times, y’all…fun times.

So Friday night, I ironed…I think that was the first leg. Nah. I straight up have no idea what I ironed, but my app says I did? No photos either. I also did a little clay, underglazing mostly. And put this this together with all the requisite borders.

No, it’s not done. There’s 16 big embellished flowers for the borders. Bowie thinks he might climb it. This is Sue Spargo’s Homegrown, a block of the month I started in March 2020. No joke. Last night, I pinned some things down to it, also with Bowie interest.

Back to the other quilt. Who the fuck knows what I did on it Friday night. On Saturday, I did nothing on it, because the Man’s band played the House of Blues and I was there from 7-11 PM.

Sunday night, I ironed the lower half of the other leg…

Monday night, I was half dead, and last night, I did the other half of the leg…

It remains to be seen whether I’ll get any of it done tonight. I’m knackered. Not sleeping well, worried about the bees and the world and fires and going back to school. Not halfway yet. And I start three days of Zoomie art classes tomorrow, so that’ll fuck with my ability to get art done. Plus my bro is in town again. So family stuff. It’s all good. It’ll get done eventually.

I did finish the binding and sleeves on the bird wool quilt today. I’ll have to take a better photo sometime and post it. That’s the 12-year finish.

Clay stuff…been glazing some small things, then working on the second level of the crazy sculpture I’m making…

I made boobs today. Although they need some forming. I needed them to solidify slightly before I started banging on them.

Also, just like in real life, they are top-heavy. So it does fine here with 12-15 pounds of clay holding it up, but on its own, that piece just falls over. Right now, it has a roll of paper towels holding it up. Hoping to get back to this on Friday or Saturday. Need to pack up four quilts first, plus take classes each day.

Here’s the day I was sick. I got up, thinking I could make it to the doc appointment, even took a shower. Crazy. Not going anywhere. Slept until noon, when I tried to drink Gatorade…

Not sure it went uphill from there. I think I managed 3 bites of rice at dinner. Anyway. I’m mostly recovered now, but my stomach still wants me to remember. So small bites and not very much of anything. But better.

These two enjoyed three weeks together, but now she is gone again and he is bereft.

Oh wait, no he’s not. He has the boychild.

This old lady has had a hard week. No one medicated her when I was sick, and her body doesn’t do well without her meds unfortunately.

She seems better today.

She does like a sunny chair. Might be a fight for it tomorrow.

Woke up after Monday with questions, lots of questions.

I don’t think that’s changing all year. In fact, I’d like to set up an incognito window for me for the entire year. Maybe I can just watch from the sidelines and pretend I don’t have a horse in the game? I realize that’s totally and completely not possible. I have thousands of horses in the game, dammit.

The current book I’m reading briefly mentions the town I lived in for a year…

Found that amusing. It was in the boonies, that’s for sure.

OK. So. I’m tired. I have lots going on tomorrow…and the next day and the next day. I do want to iron, though. Tough call. Also classes will be in here, in my studio, so stuff has to be cleared up enough for that to happen. Hmmm. There’s also some chance class will be rescheduled. Our teacher is not in a fire zone, but the wind has caused internet and electrical outages. The fires in Los Angeles, by the way…my goodness holy crapitude. I remember seeing fires up in the hills above where we lived when I grew up south of Pasadena. I know Eaton Canyon, hiked it and other areas up there. It’s hard to watch all of it burn. Damn wind. Climate change. WTF is Trump saying about letting the clean water run? Man is on crack. Maybe he needs the incognito window more than I do.

Dribble Away

The last Monday of 2024. Weird that. Why do Mondays have such strange power over us? I suspect if I had a different job, Mondays would be less ugh. I am a little over 1/3 of the way through my Winter Break. I still have a few things left to grade…a small pile of redoes that I can’t quite bear to look at…yet. I’ll get there. I’m in that weird molasses part of the year (break) where I don’t seem to get anything done. Although the boychild and I cut down part of a tree that was growing haphazardly. That was a thing. And I’m sure I checked some things off the to-do list, but as I do them, more take their place. It’s annoying. So then I check out and pull out a book and don’t get anything done in a day that seems really short anyway. I think every Winter Break is like this. I have a pile of labels to make and print, an art application to fill out, which means revising my resume with everything from this year…which sounds just like a lot of work. Good work. Work that needs to happen. But work nonetheless. I need to go trim some shit. I should just go do that. I’m tired, though. Trying a new medication to see if the visual disturbance goes away. It’s supposed to make me tired. I can concur. I am tired.

Or that’s just where I am right now. I also need to prep 5 quilts for shipping/delivery. Maybe later. Sounds like work.

I did restart quilting this, from two years ago.

It doesn’t take long. It’s lame that I haven’t finished it yet.

It’s Sue Spargo’s block of the month Bird Dance, which I started a million years ago. It took me through a lot of soccer games. I have about 1 1/2 columns left to quilt and then the border and then I can put a binding on it and it’s done. Then I can toss the other big quilt up there and quilt it too. While ironing another quilt together. It’s all doable. I just need to do it. Sounds simple. And complicated.

Thinking too hard at the end of the year.

Friday night, I was still trimming, but there wasn’t much left…

Saturday night, I finished…

A total of 18 hours and 49 minute of trimming…after 24 hours of ironing. I never documented the fabric range for this…but it was 189 fabrics…

I cleaned them all up yesterday, so I could reclaim enough boxes to sort the pieces…

No, he wasn’t helping.

It took 2 hours to do that. But I’m ready to start ironing together today. I’m ready to do a lot of things today; if only I had the energy.

The girlchild and I went to ceramics on Saturday…

She’s very intent on a few things. I’m making some random little things…

And this has been sitting around forever, waiting to be carved.

We’ll be back today. I did work on the big piece, in that I found a place on the drying shelves for the big one and the top of it is back on my shelf, waiting for me to figure out how to make the arms.

Finally made it out for a hike on Saturday afternoon.

Another energy thing.

Nice to get outside and exercise though. Even though my knees are complaining like crazy today.

It’s cold, y’all, but apparently not quite cold enough to cuddle.

Weirdos.

OK, I have a chonky to-do list still and it makes me feel better to check things off of it. Sort of obsessive in that way. Need to sort out some plant material…probably easier to do that before a shower, so do that first. Then shower and lunch and somehow the entire day will disappear and I’ll be at ceramics again. Seems fair. Nice to have days that can dribble away for once and not cause too much havoc.

What Day Is This…

Yo. What day is it? Yeah. We’re solidly in Winter Break then. My goal of finishing grades on Christmas Eve? Fucked. Well, I didn’t grade much on Christmas Eve because I realized people were coming over on Christmas and I hadn’t cleaned anything. In months. Welcome to teacher life. And the tree was still outside. I never got lights up outside. I found them. They are on the floor in the entryway. I put one whole ornament on the tree.

That tree needs to be planted after I’m done enjoying the cats playing with it in the house. It’s outgrown its pot. It was a volunteer I found in the yard years ago and I just kept upsizing its pot until it was big enough to be the Christmas tree. Not sure what I’ll do next year. I have 5 volunteer trees in pots but they won’t be big enough by next year to do anything. I’ll worry about that next year.

So I graded a tiny bit on Christmas Eve and a tiny bit on Christmas night, and then yesterday was going to be the finish day! Then I spent 3 hours with the neuro ophthalmologist so she could tell me again that they don’t know if the visual disturbance is in my brain or my retinas (because it would be in both). Did all the tests. Everything looks happily normal. Unlike me in general. So they’re going to try another migraine med to see if that solves it. It’s only really irritating at night, especially when driving. And sometimes I freak out because I don’t know what’s causing it. Aliens probably. Even the doc nodded her head at that possibility. So it’s mostly benign and not changing. She’ll see me in a year. Woo hoo. She’s nice and I like her, so it’s all good. She’s also thorough as hell; hence the 3 hours. I did finish an entire book in between all the tests and waiting. I guess that’s a good thing. The point being, my grades still aren’t done. I finished the packets (yay) last night. I have three more classes of an academic question, a pile of homework papers that need grading, and the late work and redoes. It’s probably 4 hours. Will I finish today? Maybe. I have other things I need to do, including replacing a crown. Ugh. No fun there.

I’m still making time to cut stuff out at night…which is good, because it feels like it’s taking forever. Because it is. This is Christmas Eve after the Man’s family party…

Then Wednesday night after my family’s Christmas dinner, which the boychild cooked.

My sole Xmas photo of my mom and the ex’s dog…

Then last night’s cutting…

I’m getting there. I still don’t see the bottom of the box of pieces. So maybe two more nights? Maybe three? Not sure. Same pile with Devil cat guarding.

There was some cat action last night as I was getting ready for bed. Also side view shows there’s quite a bit more in the to-be-cut box. Sigh. I need some consolidated time and I’m not getting it.

I did spend time on Christmas day finding the broken sprinkler…

I was hoping it was the riser, because that’s an easy fix. It wasn’t. It’s down in the ground. I need to trim more crap around it so I can get in there and dig further down to try to figure out how to fix it. Meanwhile, the owl box has bees, so I have to deal with that issue too…we’re supposed to be dropping the box and cleaning it out. Bees make that more complicated.

Bowie is still the most energetic living thing in the house…

Not like that’s hard. We’re all kinda tired. I want to hike, but I apparently mentally need to get past grading to get there. It doesn’t help that it’s cold and cloudy. Although yesterday was sunny and I didn’t feel it then either. This is probably why…

Maybe if I had enough caffeine? Also protein and less sugar would probably help…the post-holiday food has been a little lacking in healthy habit.

I’ve been doing some retirement stuff…mostly downloading crap and then sending it to my brother so he can tell me how fucked I am.

Although getting rid of the Windfall Elimination thingamabobby will help. I’ll actually get the social security I earned before becoming a teacher. What a concept.

I set a goal for reading last year of 95 books and I’ve read 108…with 4 days left, I should get at least 1 more done.

I’ve had some years where I hardly read at all…school just fucked me over completely (2020, I’m talking to you). But the last two years, I just didn’t let it stop me. I read in so many more places now. It makes me happy. So yeah, what goal do I set for this year?

From the most recent book, The Twisted Ones, which I really enjoyed (you gotta like horror though)…

The main character is a copyeditor, although it’s not a main part of the story…

So that part amused me. But also there’s a dog…and one of my rules is that the dog needs to survive dammit…and this one does.

Simba thinks the same thing. Throw in the pool guy.

Anyway. I need to go do some grading now. I really really really want to be done, so I don’t have to even THINK about school. So I’ll be working on that today, then reading another book while they work on my tooth (there’s so much down time when they’re waiting). And cutting more stuff out tonight. It looks the same every night…pro: it’s totally relaxing to just sit and cut while bingewatching TV. I do need to work on two quilts though…probably before I start ironing things together. But not until grading is done. I have one Spargo quilt that I started quilting two Christmases ago and I just need to finish it. And then a friend’s quilt, which was supposed to get done over Thanksgiving and then I was sick the whole time. So those will get peppered in. Plus hikes, dammit. I need more exercise. I need the outdoors. Plus that damn sprinkler and the owl/bee box and a whole host of other household and yard things that need to happen. Plus email this person about one thing and that person about another thing. Or grab the book and go hermit on the couch…tempting. January self needs me to get some shit done now though. So I’m respecting that. And I want to be drawing some too, and that hasn’t happened at all.

Until I Can Relax…

My photo editing app is updating right now. Not sure when it thinks it will be done. Much like all of my students will be today…unsure of doneness. Yikes. It’s fine. I think I really felt like yesterday could have been Friday and we all would have been fine with it. At least there’s no assembly today…I don’t have the energy for that level of teacher. Just the finish-it-all and hand-it-in level of teacher. Although by 6th period, I won’t be sane any more. It’s fine.

I started cutting out the pieces for the new quilt. I’m using the new Wonder Under and an awful lot of pieces are releasing the paper as I’m cutting them, which is problematic. So far, it’s mostly the tiny or skinny pieces, but it’s enough to be abnormal (compared to the old stuff). I haven’t had a ton of time at night to do things, due to holiday crap and stupid school board meetings, so the first night, I think this is 30 minutes worth of trimming…

Not much. Last night, I got more time in, over an hour. I had worked on school stuff from about 6-8:30 pm, so it was time to quit. Couldn’t deal with cleaning house or thinking about decorating (I have no Xmas stuff up this year).

Those letters are gonna take a while. I guess I know what I’ll be doing for the next week on this quilt. I wish I could cut for hours a day, but I want to get all my grades done before Christmas. I don’t know if I can pull that off, but I’m going to try. I’ll have one homework assignment, one large academic assignment that half the kids haven’t done, another short one, two things to record only, because some app already scored them, warmups, and a relatively short packet. It’s doable. Crazy, but doable.

Yesterday, we made electromagnets. Fun times.

It’s kind of cool actually…although the logistics of supplies is a pain. What to do with all the half-used-up batteries? Who knows.

We half-assed decorated a door. That’s my Max and a student’s ornament.

This was me on Wednesday night…

I had to cook, but I wasn’t ready. So cats helped.

I suck at both.

And this, I am very good at this…

This guy speaks to my soul sometimes.

And this…

I still think they gave way too many to the gas planets. OK, there’s a scientific reason for that. Jupiter is being nice.

OK. Today. They answer an academic question about electromagnets (easy!). They put their packets in order and hand them in. They finish all the other shit they haven’t finished. I clean my room because fucking Winter Academy will be in there in January. Assholes. Teachers steal shit. It’s annoying. I finish grading the last of last week’s homework assignments. I set up as much of January’s stuff as I can. We have the first 7 days done…just need to admit the next two days are what they are. It’s fine. REALLY. Come home, collapse, then stand up and do shit. Or sit and do shit. Because there’s a lot of shit to do before I can relax.

Ah Sleep…

Humpday this year seems to be Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Hardest day of the week. This week, they’re all hard. I am tired. I know, it feels like I’m always tired. But I’m Friday tired this morning and it’s only Wednesday. Doesn’t help that the last two days have been LOOONNNGGGG. Ah well. Yesterday was a 12-hour day for school, which is a lot. Sat through part of a school board meeting to protest their paltry 0.5% offer, when they have 8 times the necessary reserve and a chunk of money from the state that would cover our increase and more. Our health insurance costs will go up more than that, so they’re essentially giving us a pay cut. But you want me to work more, work harder. Do it for the kids! I can’t do anything for the kids if I can’t pay the bills. Don’t they always tell you to put your own oxygen on first before you put on your kids? Anyway…this is after a bunch of people left, because they kept moving when public comments were…

There were more before. Outside even. There’s been more in previous meetings…it’s the damn holidays, we’re all exhausted, and the school board needs to see that we’re listening to how much they value us. My school has lost like 4 teachers mid-year, which almost never happens. They need to see that. Plus the 6th graders who went away three years ago (they sent them back to the elementaries), half of them are now coming back to our school, which has no empty classrooms. Crazy stuff.

So that was yesterday. Student IEP at 8 AM, at school by 7:45 AM, out of the school board meeting at 7:45 PM, home, on the couch…because I stood for 3 hours.

To Nova drooling all over my shirt. She was happy.

Art stuff: I finally finished ironing everything to fabric…I stayed up a bit late because I knew there wasn’t much and I just needed to get it done.

That’s 24 hours of ironing. Now I can cut things out. Kitten was trying to help…

Not very helpful. The night before was no art, but I did get this Bowie/Simba connect…

And I did some ceramics…

Some sort of mutant cat that was too soft to fix at that point. It’s not really going in there…it’s going on a knee, but it was a good place to store it to harden up a bit. I’m running out of room on my shelf, but all the drying shelves are totally full, so I can’t move her out. Yet. Give it time.

Yesterday’s early morning…

I got to sleep in 30 minutes this morning…tomorrow is another early start though.

I love this kid’s dino drawings…

They don’t know it yet, but I’m keeping this. Which I guess leads right into this…

Yup. I’m a crow. I admit it.

And this is really where I’m at.

I have so much stuff I want to get done before break so I don’t have to do it on break, but my brain is mostly nonfunctional. I got some homework graded in class yesterday and will aim for more tomorrow, but by 6th period, all I could do is stalk kids on our tracker app and add the sentence starters to the slides for them because they weren’t even doing that. That’s what we get for trying to do actual school work this week. What kind of dumbasses are we?

OK, notes about electric motors today, then finish the academic thing, because most of them didn’t. Pilates after school. I have to cook. I already emptied the dishwasher. I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open right now. Not good. Cut things out then sleep. Sleep. Ah sleep.

Also Lovely…

Oy. Friday the 13th, you say? Full moon in two days? Middle school? You know what I should do? Be at a school-planned literacy training all day and not in the classroom. I mean, I’ve dealt with a fight this week, a kid saying the sub is a bigger bitch than me (ha! That’s funny…I think she’s the sweetest person ever), multiple meetings with adults that shouldn’t have needed to happen. Sometimes I wish I could just go to school and teach the things and never deal with all the crap (that is NOT what happens). I wrote sub plans and rewrote them, taking out the ‘good luck’ and ‘I’ll pray for you’ (I don’t pray, by the way). It’ll be fine. Next Friday, now that would be a shitty day for her. This Friday is only an unlucky number. It’s not usually a hard day for me…but there are things that will make it harder today. So I’m wearing my new super comfy sweats and bringing my book (which is really good so far, so I’d really just rather read it than do anything else). And I’m mostly hanging out with my peeps. Let’s hope it goes OK.

Artwise, it’s been a shit two days, which might be contributing to my mood, honestly. I needed to find, clean up, iron, and ship a quilt, so I did that Wednesday night…it took a while, so I got no ironing in.

I did get judged by my cat for not petting her more…

It’s getting harder to get her to come out of the batting cave for her meds and food…

I mean, I get it. Batting cave is warm. House is not.

Then last night, I stitched with friends and finished stitching down (not embellishment) of the March mushroom blocks (Sue Spargo’s Truffle Duffel or however she spells it).

They will look totally different once they are embellished, but at the moment, about all I can handle is stitching things down. Embellishment seems like a lot for my tired brain. This has a sense of doneness and achievement that helps, but is not too onerous.

These seem good goals for the day.

Probably unrealistic, but it’s a start.

Everyone still says I sound like I’m sick (I do!), but I am getting better. Antibiotics are finally kicking in. So. Yeah. Goals for today: lots of tea, getting shit done in the planning realm, NOT picking a fight about science curriculum (I’m not aiming for that…there’s someone else who might be), getting through it all so I can come home, read my book, eat leftover spaghetti, and iron fabric. SLEEP. That sounds lovely. Tomorrow is not a school day. Also lovely.

If I Had Time…

Definitely feeling the knee and the hip this morning. Cold. Worked out last night. Apparently walked a lot in class yesterday. All the things. That torn meniscus that refuses to heal and my insurance says will just heal (really? when?) is a bitch some days. Fun times. I’m rolling on exhausted. I try to go to bed early, but then dogs bark and people come to bed late and then at some point, a kitten whacked me in the face with a claw (no damage for once). So I put the blanket over my head and now my eyes are all swollen. I need to sleep for like a week. Still. It’s like I never catch up. I started this year trying to improve my sleep, and I feel like I’ve done my part, but adding a kitten to the mix didn’t help. Ah well. He is a sweetheart when he’s not whacking me in the face.

I can’t get the old lady Kitten to come out and take her meds in the morning. Too cold. Doesn’t want to come out of her cave of batting. Not sure I blame her. I talk to her and she slow blinks at me and I slow blink back and we can do that for 20 minutes…she still won’t come out. I can leave some of her meds in the cave and she’ll eat them, but the big pill isn’t going down her throat without help.

OK. I’m behind on shopping for Christmas, I need to pack and ship a quilt, I need to ship gifts north, I need time to deal with all this, plus do grades and exercise and maybe read my book, which will be returned to the library in three days. Hmmm. Prioritize all that. Book first, of course. Well. Maybe grading first.

I’m still ironing.

Lots of colors still happening. This was barbed wire and a fire around her head.

Last night, I started the visual disturbance section, which I am sort of psychotically trying to make accurate…something only I see…so like who would know?

I spent too much time trying to get my ethernet to work last night, so I didn’t get much done. I have about half of the 1000s done. It’s all visual disturbance. And I really need to pack that quilt tonight before I iron, so maybe I’m not grading tonight. Unfortunately. I’m on a roll and want to get it done. The kids are being remarkably clueless about what they need to complete to not have an F. Totally braindead. Fun times.

I did ceramics on Monday…

Getting close to having this base done and needing to figure out how to go up. Minor issue.

Normally, I’d go in on Friday, but they’re doing a potluck and really I just want to sit in the quiet and sculpt things, so I might have to do that Saturday instead, around a dental appointment. I’m sure it’s fine to go to the dentist covered in clay.

When I left ceramics, some footprints that weren’t there before appeared…

The footprints of a cat who hangs out in a ceramics studio, I think. I’ve never seen him on top of a car though.

This is how my knee is feeling.

I’m not sure if I’m the jackass or if the Man is. I feel like my pit crew should be more than just me? But maybe not.

And this…I don’t know why this is a problem.

I would be totally content in this room. OK, I’d probably straighten up a little. If I had time.

Gratuitous picture of Simba…

More magnet labs today; almost done, hallelujah. It’s been on on on for days. I need a break. I need them to just be working for once. Not a lot of that happening at the moment. Friday…but I have to sit through a training first. And I have two teacher groups I’m supposed to work with? At the same time? About different things? Yeah. That feels about right. I need a nap already. I have a meeting after school and I’m cooking dinner. Too many things. Pro! The bank figured out that I was inappropriately charged for someone else’s gym membership and actually refunded me the money. How did they figure that out? I told them. And then they told me I had to contact the vendor, so I spent too much time talking to bros in gyms. Even the boss was a bro. But it’s solved now and I don’t have to call the bros’ money launderers. Um. Whatever they are. That was a positive bit of mail yesterday. Yay! Kitten still hasn’t come out for her meds. Sigh. Maybe this is her next step of the decline. Double sigh. Heading off for school. Gonna pour a bunch of tea down my gullet and see if that helps.

Get Out of the Dirt…

Well I just finished womanhandling a raw turkey into a trussed-up state of now-you-will-be-cooked-you-bastard. Yeah, I know most people did this yesterday. It shouldn’t surprise you that I’m doing it today instead. The plus to doing Tday on the Friday (or the Wednesday; we’ve done both) is that the stores are open for when you forget the damn one ingredient you need. I’ll be going out again after this. I’m lucky…I only have two things to make. The girlchild is doing the rest, or at least most of it. Yesterday, we went to the Man’s fam’s turkey day. They have more vegetables (and more people). It was nice, but I didn’t feel fully well. Right this second? Right now (as I start coughing again), my sinuses are actually mostly clear and I feel OK. Not great…just not about to collapse on the couch. All good. Getting there. That said, there’s only three more days of antibiotics…I’m hoping this kicks it so I can be well for December. This many days (weeks) of sick is just yuck. Done with it. I can get stuff done, but not at the rate I wanted to. Ah well. Shit happens. You gotta roll with it.

So I did get the office/studio clean and started ironing Wednesday night. This is the fun part.

That’s all dirt at the bottom of the quilt. Last night, after Tday dinner, I did more dirt, but mostly the stuff IN the dirt.

I didn’t quite finish: a fox, some missiles or bullets (either works), some body bags. Got a human skull and some bunnies next. Then out of the dirt and into the main figure. Which is me, by the way. Lots of the human figures I do aren’t me, but this one is…although there’s not enough chub on her and I’m probably not that tall and I do actually have hair. Not important though.

Girlchild has calmed the wild beast we call Bowie.

Honestly, he loves everyone, but young women seem to scare him at first. He loved Grandma right off. So this was cool.

I’m reading Babel…good book. If words are your thing (with a side of fantasy and magic), I recommend it. I haven’t finished it yet, though, so maybe the last half sucks.

It’s set in the 1830s or so…

But I appreciate many of the sentiments. The author is R. F. Kuang…young (my kids’ age) and female and Asian. Born in China and raised in Dallas, Texas…she has a history background, which definitely shows up in this book. So historical fantasy fiction about words? Sounds lovely. I’m enjoying it. It’s the third(?) book I’ve started over break. I read an entire (short) book yesterday. It was weird: Hurricane Girl. Don’t recommend. If you want to read it, tell me quickly before I donate it to the library. Even ignoring the head injury, that woman needed a major assist. Not a fan.

Mine is in the oven…

Thank you, dinos.

This is us with our students on the regular.

But also, the rest of the dumbasses who think they know all the things…I don’t know all the things, fully admit it constantly, and I teach science. Doesn’t make me a fucking expert.

Absolutely…watching the bird flu do its thing and wondering about our future.

And we joke about this…

But why are we nominating people with zero experience in that field to make major decisions? Why do we not ALL see that as a controlling power asshole move? Godlike behavior does not a god make. Sigh. I just read a really good article about book banning too…that’s the next piece I need to make, need to start thinking about (I have an image in my head…it’s just the details and the ‘how’ that’s throwing me at the moment). Realistically, I’ll be working on this big one for the next month…and I’m OK with that. It’ll take me a good 20 hours to iron to fabric, so that’s probably next weekend. Then 10 hours or more to trim all the pieces…so that’s into the last week of school. Start ironing together, but Christmas is in there too, so maybe it’s ironed together just after? Stitchdown and pinbaste and quilting and binding. I’d be surprised if it’s done in 2024. Early 2025. Then the book ban piece.

I actually love a big project that is all-encompassing like this. I also love book series like that. Quick bites are just that…quick and a relief sometimes, but I like to hunker down. Don’t ask me about grading right now though. It’s been a rough week. I’ve been doing the easy stuff. Not the hard stuff. It’ll happen. Sometime. Not sure when.

OK. The turkey is in the oven. I need a shower and some breakfast. Someone bought the swiss cheese and an orange for me; presumably, they’ll be delivered later. The Man wants to mattress shop today (I’m not saying we don’t need one…I’m just not a fan of Black Friday shit). Then dinner later this afternoon at the ex’s house with my family. I will try to photograph people. I’ve been trying to remember to always photograph people. And read. I want to read a bit. And iron some more…get out of the dirt.

I Want Energy

Oh hey, Monday. I don’t have school today, so I’m not sure I recognize Monday. Although I have to do things today. And it’s the last week of November? I don’t even know what happened to November. October was the longest month ever and November is like blip. Gone. Done.

I’m still sick. I’m on the second illness now, which started out like a cold and has turned into the rest of that sinus infection, I think. I do already have a doc appointment for later today (made months ago, seriously), so hopefully there will be a solution besides, here, take those same antibiotics again that cause horrendous diarrhea. Or spray salt water into your nose, which has done nothing useful so far but to drip back out. I’ve been switching up meds, trying to find something that will bring some, any relief…spent most of Saturday asleep. Yeah. I’m up and showered today, but only because (1) a shower seems to briefly help with the congestion and (2) I have to go to the doctor later. Ugh. I’m tired of being sick. I’m just tired. So although I have a giant to-do list for break, mostly house- and yard-related, I don’t think most of it is getting done. The girlchild is here for the week, which is nice. I barely got her room cleaned up between Saturday and Sunday. I’m reading a lot. Sleeping. But not well. Too stuffed up.

So there’s all that. Hoping I can recover enough this week to survive the next three of school. I keep cancelling exercise classes because I can’t breathe well enough to go to them. Let alone exert energy. I have one set up for Wednesday, although I haven’t actually gotten into it yet (on the wait list)…hoping to be able to do that.

I did manage to finish tracing all the Wonder Under on Friday night, despite the congestion. Being upright is better than sitting or lying down.

Six approximate yards of the stuff. Two of the old, four of the new. A little over 17 hours of tracing. So then I started cutting stuff out.

Remember how I didn’t feel well Saturday? I cut things out for 4 1/2 hours in the afternoon/evening, because it was sitting on the couch and I could handle that. Once I stopped sleeping. I did some more last night…

I’ve got four of the six yards cut out…two more to go. Tonight? Maybe. We’ll see. Might take me two nights. I’m not particularly energetic at the moment and I might have to go grocery shopping again.

Our field trip Friday was to Petco Park.

Eh. Not the most exciting field trip, especially if you don’t give a crap about baseball. They didn’t even get to go on the field because some golf event was going on…

From the press box. Not sure I ever want to go there again. Not sure I get a choice in the matter, unfortunately. Ah well. We got back to school and the police followed us in: major altercation on campus. Gotta love Fridays before breaks. Dumbassery abounds.

This was part of that Saturday night rest-fest.

He didn’t hang out for very long, luckily, because I could do nothing else.

It’s been cold and cats have been almost cuddling.

Almost. Speaking of cuddling…the girlchild is here and her favorite dog likes to cuddle.

Finally remembered to take a family photo!

Did pretty well with that one.

Someone needs to make a tshirt with this for me to wear.

And this…is what I wish I had the health and energy for right now.

I swear, I haven’t been hiking or barely exercising due to all the sinus crap. I’m just so done with it. I want energy. Sigh. OK, maybe the doc can help. Hopefully. I don’t want more antibiotics, but I’ll do it if it’ll kick this thing.

OK. Doc today, plus book club. Need to turn in my library book (yes an actual book from an actual library building) and pick up cat meds. And maybe do Thanksgiving food shopping. Plus read and sleep and maybe eat. Although I haven’t had much of an appetite, that’s for sure. Ugh. I’d love to go do some clay at some point, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen. Maybe after the doc? for an hour? Maybe? Not sure I feel up to it. Haven’t been in over a week. Feel like crap does not translate into go to a place where you will have to sit on a stool and manhandle clay for an hour or so. Maybe it will later. Hopefully.