Bandwidth

So. Midweek. Full school week. Not heavy on the meetings, unlike the next two weeks. I should enjoy that while it lasts. Not a lot of normal quilt art happening, for a variety of reasons. Grades are due in less than a week. I might actually have them done with a margin for once. If kids stop trying to turn everything in late. I had to rush to grade an academic assignment so I would be able to give them two days to fix it. Of course, you give them a deadline and they ignore it and try to resubmit for days afterwards. And then they tell you it’s HAARRDD and you show them that they didn’t even read what you gave them. It’s hard because of that. Not because, like they say, I didn’t teach it to them. They literally didn’t look at the information provided. That shit is always frustrating. I refuse to dumb down all the assignments for the post-COVID laze. It’s been a rough trimester. For all of us. I’m certainly looking at being 2/3s done with the year and feeling like I just can’t do another one. Another 12 weeks? Can’t. Uh uh. I’m so tired of the planning and the adult incursions on my time. The kids don’t really bug me this year. The adults? Ugh. Too much. Admin: Here do this. And this. And you have time for this, right? I took on one thing my team asked me to do (of the many) and they didn’t tell me it involved this Portrait of a Graduate thing the district is pushing, that I really don’t get, you don’t have buy-in from me, but all of a sudden I need to write an elevator pitch for it? I don’t have a pitch. Y’all haven’t inspired me INTO a pitch. Sigh. I have homework. I get paid for it, sure, but what I’d like is time to fix my house and make art and read my book. Ugh.

Yeah. So. Good times. Make shit up. Google it! Hey, I’m just like my students sometimes. I understand it. I don’t have the bandwidth at night, when I get home, to do homework. And I do so much of it as it is. Why did I agree to add more? Sigh.

OK, so in the art stuff, I’ve traced nothing in the last two days because I need to get grades done and that baby quilt done by Saturday. So the last two nights, after grading, I quilted.

Nothing fancy, although it’s for a baby girl, so I quilted a little woman power in there.

Both the woman power that’s gonna bring her into this world, care of my good friend…

And the power that’s been sheltering her for the last 8 months or so…

On the back…

I quilted her parents’ names into it too. Going for all the good juju. Anyway, I stayed up too late last night to finish the borders, so I could start binding it tonight. I should be able to get it done in time. Baby shower is Saturday.

It’s gonna feel good to have all these have-to things done so I can do my own thing, to be honest.

I went to my second ceramics handbuilding class last night…coiling. I love coiling. Although I did not use the extruder…I think I’ll try that in two weeks, when we get to do whatever we want.

I did ceramics in college quite a bit. But honestly, I don’t really think of what I do in ceramics as art? It’s more like what I do with embroidery. It’s a creative outlet and I enjoy it, but it’s more meditative relaxing process than creating something that evokes something for me.

I’m considering a membership at the studio. It’s reasonably priced and I can go in whenever. Sounds nice.

Then I think about my time and what little of it I have at the moment. I’m sacrificing artmaking and gym time for this. And it’s totally worth it and fun and I’m loving it…

But I’m not sure what to do with it long term. I might get a membership in the summer, if there are any available…

Or…I don’t know. I’d like to think I could carve out some time, but this school year has been so bad and I don’t think it’s getting better. Certainly not if I have to fit surgery in before the end of the school year. No call yet. Damn health carrier is getting a new scheduling system, so they’ve basically shut down scheduling completely until it switches over this Friday. Sigh.

Anyway. So there’s that. That pot is gonna slump some more. One of the issues of trying to build so fast in a short period of time. Normally I’d work for an hour and then let it harden a bit. Didn’t really have that option. Ah well. Not sure what I’m doing in there anyway, except playing. Which is fine. I’ll have a lot of pot shapes at the end probably. I’m not very good at the practicality of it.

Monday night, I stitched during book club. Kitten did not help.

Just stitching things down is about my head space at the moment.

OK, so today, my kids are making pedigrees about a genetic disorder using a genealogical history we reviewed yesterday. They got to choose their groups. I’m wondering if I should have done groups of two instead of four. I’m seeing some loser behavior going on. As usual. Sigh. Well hopefully they’ll do the things today and tomorrow and I won’t have to work too hard at getting them on task. Yesterday, all I did was talk really. I need a break from that. I’m trying to plan the next unit, but I need about three hours of blank headspace to do it. Not sure when I’m gonna get that. I really did spend most of yesterday explaining inbreeding and intermarriage. Fun times.

The pool pump died yesterday. Expensive replacement. How am I supposed to pay to fix the house when shit like that keeps happening? The fridge will go next. I’m surprised it hasn’t already. It’s been going for a good long time and appliances don’t do that any more.

Pilates after school, grading again, then making dinner. Hopefully getting that binding on that quilt. Dreaming of art stuff. I’ll get there…soon. My art drive is strong, always has been. 18 school days until Spring Break…not that we have anything planned. Sigh. Except stuff here. No money except to fix shit.

Pillow Fort…

I’m realizing that on the days I don’t do anything art related, I feel shitty. I need to do the art stuff to feel OK. And right now, I have a bunch of things that I have to get done that are NOT art. I should draw this weekend. Maybe that will help. If I have the brainpower. Right now, not so much. Right now, I just want to pillow fort with a book.

It is Friday. Short week. I’m off today. Like off of work. Biopsy this morning. Not allowed to go back to work afterward. Will come home and work instead. Catch up on planning and grades. Because I’m behind again. My kids are apparently being jerks in class. I don’t have a sub; three teachers don’t have subs. I feel bad, but I didn’t want to wait three more weeks for an appointment. So I took the cancellation. I’m gonna leave in about 20 minutes, get a giant-ass needle inserted in my poor boob, wear a compression bandage for 24 hours, and hopefully get negative results in 3-5 business days. Which might not even be next week due to the holiday. It’s fine. Odds are with me.

I woke up too early, couldn’t sleep, did the work things I needed to for today. Worked on a doc with my team even though they were at school and I wasn’t. Technology is amazing. I thought I’d be able to get some grading done this morning, but the brain is not complying. Not surprising. It’s OK. I’ll get it done this weekend.

So instead of art, I’ve been trying to finish up this lap quilt for a friend. It’s taking much longer than I thought it would. Of course. I got the binding machine stitched on over the last two nights after finishing the quilting…

Then last night, I made it halfway around. I didn’t cut the binding; our other friend did, and it’s fucking tiny as hell! I only make quarter-inch binding on really small quilts, like 12×12″. This is a pain in the ass. Sigh.

Remind me not to volunteer for this stuff again. I think I was voluntold actually. But really. I’m making a baby quilt. I’ll finish my mom’s quilt because it was a gift (and it’s tiny). But that’s it. I’m done. I’m doing my own shit. I need the art time for my sanity. It’s not just the sewing or the making…it’s the sewing and making stuff that feeds my art brain.

That last one. Also Cleaning Things Without Being Asked. That’s a good one. I don’t see that one often enough.

No dress…I do need pockets in all my pajamas though. That would be cool. I notice men’s pajamas are more likely to have pockets. Like why? WTF?

Kitten is contemplating the movement of my feet under the duvet.

The duvet she vomited on at some point. So now it needs washing. I need that love language thing again. Apparently I’m the only one who knows how to strip the bed alone.

Anyway. I’m gonna go take my meds and pack up my book and get ready for the pokey shit. Happy birthday yesterday to my mom, who left me her dog (stinky) and cookies (tasty) for the weekend. May the rest of today go as well as it can. May the bruising be minor. May the compression wrap be less annoying than it sounds. May there be art in my future.

Brain Is Tired…

Oy. Well, it’s a Monday I’m not at work. I do appreciate these longer weekends, an extra day to try to get stuff done. That said, I’ve got two doctors’ appointments today and they’re not in the same place or at logical times, so it’s just drive a long way, do the thing, drive back. Wait 45 minutes, then drive again. Do the other thing. Drive back. Fun times. I think the afternoon is shot. And I’m moving pretty slowly this morning. Brain is tired. Brain is done. Brain can’t be done…I tried to explain, it doesn’t care, it wants me to sit on the couch with the fluffy kitty and read the book. Sigh. I’ll try. Maybe later.

Lots of what I have to do is art related, which is cool. A bunch of shows are coming up, so there are shipments and contracts and deliveries and headshots and all that crap. I’ve done a chunk of it, but just found a decent headshot requested by one, and still need to fill out, scan, and send two forms.

And I still need to be digging up the outside planter area so we can progress on fixing what happened with the water. I have a rough idea of the order of things, but coordinating that with my schedule and contractors gives me hives. Or breathing anxiety. Yeah.

Anyway, let’s start with art progress. I finished cutting things out on Friday night…spent about 2 1/2 hours doing that (it was a rough day).

Nova was very helpful. It wasn’t too late, so I sorted them too…

It’s super fast when there aren’t very many pieces. I think it took about 18 minutes. Boom!

Then Saturday night, I started ironing them together…

I got most of the sky stuff done. Then last night, I got most of the male figure done…

It’s kind of a pain to try to iron bits on the sky like this; I can’t see the parts that are covered by the sky fabrics, so sometimes I iron them elsewhere and then put them on top. I will have to do that with his left hand and his face, so that’s why I paused there. Also it was late and I was tired. It happens. I might finish tonight? We’ll see. Maybe Tuesday night.

I do have an idea for the next big quilt though. I’ve been listening to The Power of the Crone by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; I loved her Women Who Run With the Wolves book in college, and had seen ads for this, which is all audio, so I started listening. She makes me laugh and her language fills my head with images, which is cool. It’s all stories of the crone and the wise woman. I do have a quilt I made with the crone, maiden, and mother–Awakening the Crone; it sold. So I made that in 2014…I think it’s time for a crone/wise woman update. Something with the world how it is now. I don’t seem to be able to separate my art from politics and people suffering. Anyway, it’s percolating. Always good.

Other fiber stuff that’s happening…I finally got my act in gear and started quilting this again…it’s for a friend who doesn’t quilt. I finished all the white squares, which just needed some additional stitches to hold them together, and now I’m doing the sashing and borders.

This stuff takes longer than people think, though. It probably took me a little over 2 hours to do the 9 white blocks, and I’ve put in at least an hour on the borders/sashing. It’ll be more than an hour to finish; I didn’t get quite halfway. Then put the binding on and stitch it down. So if you ask me to do something and I say no thank you, you will know why. I have little time. Just how long it’s taken me to get to this one shows that. I should be done this week, though. That’s my goal. Get it off my plate! I still need to draw the piece for the upcoming FIG show. Didn’t get to that this weekend yet either.

I went fabric shopping for a friend’s baby quilt. She wants cactus and she loves purple, although she said the green, so we’re doing both.

This is definitely a labor of love. I use the same pattern from 2000 for all my baby quilts (haven’t made one in 8 years, y’all…). This one is manifesting good baby health. So this is next on the list. It’s not hard or complicated.

Then a pair of jeans had an issue last week, and I’m not willing to toss jeans that fit and are comfortable otherwise.

No one will ever see this part…

Manifesting some cactus too.

Hiked on Saturday…FINALLY. Although the Man didn’t want to hike in mud, so we did the mostly boring lake walk on pavement.

Geese though. Beautiful and terrifying.

We’ve had no more water come in the house, which is good, so I mopped the concrete (it was really dirty, even after multiple sweepings) and put down these cheap temporary rugs to keep feet warmer until June/July when I can get to carpet.

These were on mega sale. I thought I would dislike them more, but they actually kinda work with the concrete and walls that need painting. Desperately. Yeah. And people want to come visit my ‘studio’. Sigh. It’s my house, y’all…and it’s in disrepair.

I draw at dinner; we hadn’t been out for a few weeks due to things, stuff, band things, whatever. I started this one on January 20, but food came so fast, and then Saturday night, I kept going, but food came really fast.

It’s not that I want the food to be super slow or anything…I think I used to be able to draw faster? I don’t know. Anyway, it’ll take a third dinner to finish this. And since the Man is having dental surgery this week, it might be a while before I have that opportunity again.

The boob thing though. She has a star on her left breast. I sat through a 3D mammogram, which hurt like a bitch, but the tech was fast (she said she was fast) and then the ultrasound didn’t find something that matched the mammogram, so that makes them nervous. Family history and all. So I get to have a biopsy. No appointment yet. Have to wait for them to call me (what are the odds they’ll call today when I can actually take a call? LOW low low low low), then they’re scheduling about 2 weeks out because it’s not an emergency (except in my head, which the radiologist acknowledged during her very perky speech), then 3-5 days for results. Doc already called to find out my preference for notification (call me ASAP, as long as it’s after school; she already knew that bit). So I guess my birthday present will be news of some sort; odds are it will be fine. Knowing me, it’ll be a watch and wait thing, and I’ll get to scan multiple times. They’ll place a marker during the biopsy so it’ll be easy to find. It’s an architectural distortion. Which is a great name for a new quilt, if you ask me. Anyway. I did have a repeat mammogram once before, not for this, and made a quilt for it…also 2014. Bitchy year, if you ask me. 2024 is starting rough…hopefully it will chill out at some point.

We’re reading The Maze Runner in my advisory class…

I’m with her on this, but there has been action. Maybe not before she wrote this comment. It’s hard to read just one chapter a day.

This is me always. I’m not a morning person.

I do have to get my act together though. Gonna shower and make more tea and eat something and do some work and fill out these two forms and scan and email them and then drive off to the dermatologist and then the knee doctor, and at the end of all of it, go to my rescheduled stitching meeting with friends. My stomach just chimed in about the eating something. I think I’m ready to teach tomorrow; I moved stuff around because kids are stupidly not finishing work, and my being gone Friday afternoon didn’t help with that. Oh well. What am I gonna do? Not go to the doctor? Well no. So there will be at least one more (and hopefully no more) appointment that makes me miss school. They should figure out how to be self motivated. Surely it’s time for that. Ha.

Read a Damn Book…

Where we at, y’all? We are FRIDAY. Before a 3-day weekend. I’m right here, ready for it. Although my extra day has 2 doctors’ appointments. Nothing bad. That’s today. I had to take a half day today to get the boob rescanned and twisted (you ever had one of those mammograms? We gonna take your boob and twist it, and then put it between two pieces of plastic and make it flat as a pancake. You OK? You’re breathing funny.). So sure, it’s nice to skip the last three classes of the day, but not to sit in radiology and do all the things, and then do them again because the radiologist can’t see what they need, and last time, they actually came in and directed the tech…directly…so I was there for about 2 painful hours. Not looking forward to it. The odds are that it’s nothing, that everything is happily benign, but the mental prep is still a challenge at the moment.

So there’s that. But I might actually get to HIKE this weekend (it’s been so long) and make some art and read my books and not think about work (I’m gonna have to think about work…I’m only fully planned for next week…then it turns into a clusterfuck). I’ve been slowly cutting out pieces…

Slowly because I’m not getting much time in because there are too many other things I’m doing. I copyedited all of the slide presentations and student worksheets for the sex-ed curriculum because I couldn’t stand to see all those errors. It took me about 3 hours and I know it will make ME feel better to have done it, but other people are telling me I’m stupid for working for free. Yeah maybe. But it’s for my own sanity. ‘testicals’ was one example. Nope. Uh uh.

I also entered two art shows in the last two days and that takes time, so that’s part of not having enough of it to do things, plus book club.

Nova is a sweetheart. Also it’s cold. I did finish my book for book club literally one minute before the Zoom started. It was good. The book. And the meeting. So yeah. A mystery starring 60-year-old women…Killers of a Certain Age by Deanna Raybourn. Definitely recommend. Fun. But murdery.

So more trimming of the fabrics will happen this weekend, plus I need to start the one for that other show. I have some shows coming up…one at Oceanside Museum of Art that opens March 30, with Allied Craftsmen. And one pop-up show at Art Produce on February 24…one day only!

Come see a non-quilt piece of art from me, dating back to the early 90s. Crazy!

Have you seen Nova upside down? She is still cute.

OK. Today. Will be short for school and kind of painful.

This is from that book…and it’s interesting, because I get this all the time, not that I want to hurl myself off a cliff, but it just pops into my head…mostly when I’m driving over big bridges. It’s terrifying. Now I know there’s a word for it.

I guess I want to survive. Well, I know that. I’d just like it to be less about getting through one day at a time for a while. I could use some of that. There’s 126 days until I get to the end of this school year. Not short.

This one is probably a better plan.

Thanks y’all! But no thanks. I’m done. It’s been a week. The chemistry unit for 7th grade started and it’s a bitch and a half to prep and clean up, but I’m buried in it, fucking BURIED, and I’m not even teaching 7th grade.

Anyway, with any luck, I’ll be home early…maybe I’ll even treat myself with a cookie or something after the big squeezy. Once I deal with Friday traffic from Mira Mesa. Yeah. That’s not fun. I am taking my book with me. For when I’m lying there half naked, waiting for the radiologist’s proclamation, or for the time after the one thing before the next thing (can’t remember if ultrasound is first or mammogram is). I can READ A DAMN BOOK. Yeah. Then tonight, cut some stuff out with that adorable kitty and probably a puppy. Do some drawing this weekend. Go outside. Those are good times, y’all, good times.

Loose Wheel

Hey. I sorta feel like I’m on a skateboard going down a steep hill with no helmet on, and a wheel is loose. Every once in a while, I’ll feel like I’m stable and everything is mostly under control, and then some crazy thing will happen (it actually WASN’T the tornado warning during school yesterday that made me feel that way, the thing that put us on Secure Campus Lockdown…it’s OK, it was my prep period, so I used it wisely to get ahead on lab prep and cleanup), and I’ll feel that wheel wobble like a crazy bastard and my knees try to manage the wobble and maybe I should just sit down over here and read a book for a while.

I actually did that yesterday. Part of that is because I have book club tonight and I read the wrong book and now I’m reading the right one and I’m only 51% finished. I need an hour and 20 minutes. I don’t HAVE an hour and 20 minutes. What I have is a walking tour of the local high school, with rain predicted (more rain, y’all? Really?), plus an ultrasound of a weird arm lump after school that is miles away (the ultrasound, not the lump), so I’m going to have to be packed and ready to run by the time the bell rings at the end of the day to get there. Plus a meeting this morning. Pro is that there is no more water in the house (that we know of)…the boychild and I rigged a draining thing Monday night to deal with part of the issue…

Rain falls from roof into bin, goes out PVC pipe toward driveway. We need another one, but I’d have to sacrifice another bin to it. We’ve been using buckets so far in the other space. Trying to keep water from building up close to the house. I dug out a bunch of dirt, about 4 wheelbarrows worth, but probably won’t be able to do anymore until the weekend. Interestingly, at night, we can see where the previous owners probably had to deal with this before…different wood…so we’re going to try for a better, permanent fix once the rain stops. Not cheap. Not easy. Sigh. I guess I should be glad that I had some money saved up to the one of the bathrooms this summer. Hopefully it’s enough. Or maybe the state/feds will come up with some assistance that I can tap into. Because insurance won’t cover any of it. Fun times.

Meanwhile, I do have another quilt I’m working on. It’s small, it’s a little strange; I’m not sure what the topic is, although if pushed, I would say relationships. It’s not a drawing that planned to be a quilt, which I think is maybe the fun part of doing it. I have been thinking about the next big piece, but my brain hasn’t settled on anything yet. So I’m waiting it out. I’d like to have something big to work on over Spring Break since we aren’t going anywhere. Ugh.

Anyway, I finished ironing pieces down on Monday night…

There are 71 fabrics, which is kind of amazing, since there’s only 392 pieces total. But why use one yellow when you can use eight? That’s my theory anyway. I’m seriously in love with some of the fabrics in this quilt. One of them has maybe a 6×8″ rectangle left of it. Sad. I will miss it when it’s gone.

Wanna see the whole pile close up? Well apparently I did…

Some tiny shit in there.

Last night, I started cutting them out, but I started late because…well…brain. I left school after spending two days trying to find the paper I ordered last week that the office manager substitute claimed had been delivered to my room by TAs (liars). I tracked down the LID to the box after school (no kidding), then made some deductive reasoning based on where the lid was and what it was doing, ransacked a school paper cupboard, and found all my shit (those TAs are on crack). Then went to Pilates, which was the next level up and almost killed me. I’m serious. I’m sure my quads will be talking to me soon about the shakies they got yesterday. Then drove to the photographer’s to pick up my quilt, but I’m waiting on another show to notify, which they should have on February 2, then delayed to yesterday, then yesterday, another email. FUCK people. You know we actually use your deadlines to plan for other entries? I have two shows, no three, to enter, and I don’t even have a name for the new quilt (working on it), but I need an answer from the other show ASA fucking P. Hopefully today. Then had to make dinner and try to revise lesson plans for the rest of the week based on the tornado warning’s effect on yesterday’s teaching, plus not being there Friday afternoon. FUCKING NUTS.

All this to say, I did not cut out much. Mostly because I was staring at a computer and trying to make shit work.

Thanks Nova. I still need to redo my sub plans. Not sure when that’s happening, because I’m fairly sure I’m losing my prep period today to the walking trip (rain means buses, and they’ve only found one bus, and there are probably 350 of us, only 60 fit on a bus on a good day). Fun times. I say that a lot this year. It’s ironic. They’re not really fun.

This is so true. And I say the second part almost as many times a year as I say something about your mom’s egg and your dad’s sperm (I’m teaching genetics right now).

OK. Meeting that will go long and be yuck. Then walking tour. Then hopefully a prep period so I can copy some papers, because I couldn’t do that yesterday due to a possible tornado. Then teaching more genetics, which is going over about as well as a possible tornado. Kamikaze to ultrasound, hope for no rain, take ten years to drive home in traffic. Then book club. On Zoom, thank goodness. And entering two-three art shows. Maybe cutting stuff out at the end of it. Finish sub plans. Sleep.

Sewn Chaos…

And We’re BAACK. OK. I’m back. Tested negative. Going back to school. Already couldn’t sleep last night because brain was in overdrive. I don’t know how your brain works, but when I haven’t done something before, my brain does it for me, like hundreds of times, with variations, until it thinks it has the right way. It’s really annoying sometimes. Can’t make it stop. Pretty sure I do it in my sleep too. It’s useful, I guess, to figure stuff out, but I wish it would turn off sometimes.

Am I ready? No. I went to school yesterday but the colored paper I needed for tomorrow’s lab was not in my room. It was supposed to be delivered there, but no. Not. Uh uh. Sigh. So I copied what I could; it will either show up today or I will borrow from my team. I texted them yesterday afternoon, so I’d know whether to go to Staples for more paper or not. The three different subs in my room were semi-competent. Not much I can do about that. Reteach today and hope we make it through the week with some knowledge. This was all review from 6th grade anyway (not that any of them remember it…sigh).

Soldier on! So I did work on the quilt each night for a bit. I even made it to an exercise class yesterday, which might be proof of either insanity or wellness (I tested negative before I went).

I sorted pieces Friday afternoon…

I think it took a whopping 18 minutes. Love small quilts for that…much as I love the big ones for taking longer.

I had to clean up and put away from the last quilt…

Kitten assist.

Then started ironing the sky…

All blues and yellows to start.

Saturday, I started on the flesh…

There are two bodies in the quilt, so each was out of a separate run of fabrics.

I finished ironing the male figure Saturday night (bottom run of fabrics)…

And the female Sunday night…

I actually don’t have much left to do…

That’s it. Some eyes, some fingernails, not sure what the rest of it is…lips. I see lips.

So assuming I’m still upright when I get home from school and I don’t have to dig out more ditches to move the water, I’ll be finishing the ironing tonight and starting to cut it out. All good.

Luna and Kitten have been sharing the bed…

This is almost the same position they’re in at night, which pretty much traps me. Getting out to pee is a gymnastic event.

This is from one of the books I just finished reading, Crownchasers (which was good)…but I liked “sewn chaos”, even though I think they meant “sown chaos”?

But from a quilter’s perspective, I should definitely sew some more chaos. Ironically, the way I make my quilts is pretty massively organized chaos, but whatever.

OK. Go to school, find pink and blue paper, copy things, reteach, try to figure out WTF they did for three days, make them finish it, go to two-hour staff meeting about a program I don’t use (not because I don’t want to, but because it’s math and reading, not science). Then come home and rest a bit, iron the last bits. Whatever. Read. I have to finish a book by Wednesday…what are the odds of that happening? Not good, y’all, not good.

Can’t Always Be Productive…

Hmmm. It’s Friday. Kinda forgot to write. I got up and posted stuff for school and worked for a while. Then rested and read. And worked some more. School. Sheesh. I am better, though. I’ll be back at school on Monday, hopefully testing negative so I don’t have to rock the mask, but whatever. I’m going to have to reteach all the stuff they didn’t do for the last three days. Sigh. Could do without that. Ah well. Can’t do anything about it.

I’ve been reading a lot. It happens on a couch in a mostly prone position, which I hear is good for recovery. Yeah, I also graded and planned a lot, but that’s still easier than standing and talking all day.

Wednesday night, I finished tracing all the pieces…

And last night, I sat quite happily on the couch with a cat and cut them all out…

392 pieces is like nothing. I need to sort them and then see if I have the energy to stand long enough to start ironing to fabric. I haven’t done a ton of standing. So yeah. But that’s the next step.

I also need to draw the one I’m doing with a partner, plus quilt that thing for a friend without getting COVID on it. According to the internets, the virus shouldn’t live on fabric for more than a day. I think I’m good. I do have to go to school this weekend to copy stuff for Tuesday and cut it out. Hardly any of my students completed work online; hopefully they did the paper stuff, but since the online stuff was to help them with that, it’s unlikely. Ah well. Three lost days.

So this is the bedroom wall, minus the drywall that was wet. Those lovely golden bits in the black are sunlight…SUNLIGHT…where it’s shining through the exterior wall.

Problematic.

This is my increasingly older Kitten in her grumpy nighttime phase.

This is a incredibly blurry and pixelated picture of a bird taking a bath in a birdbath.

And last but not least, a hawk perched on the heavily trimmed eucalyptus, probably wondering where its perch went. Better view now? Hmmm.

So my weekend plans are somewhat squashed. Still not sure if I can exercise Sunday. I do know I have lots of work left to do on all fronts, and the Surface Design Association conference continues tomorrow, which is cool. I forgot about it all week until yesterday at 4 PM, when I remembered to log in for a social hour. That was cool. I appreciate hanging out with other artists.

Still raining on and off here. We dug out enough of the front area that the water didn’t make it inside, but the stoop outside the door slants backwards to the house, which isn’t helping. And we need gutters and drainage and to get rid of that damn stoop. Plus actual walls would be good. Otherwise, things are fine, not stressful at all. Uh huh. Gonna go read for a while longer before doing something else that seems useful. I can’t always be productive.

It Won’t Solve Anything…

Oomph. This week packs a punch. Even without all the meetings from last week. Let’s start with the artmaking, because it’s positive and so I like to focus on it…like HERE IS STUFF YOU DID SO STOP FREAKING OUT. By the way, grades are done. For now. I didn’t finish grading one assignment. Oh well. I will eventually.

But art! So I’m still quilting. This is a small piece and I can’t remember, but I thought I’d be done by today? Maybe? Ha ha. Yeah. I thought I’d be done last night, and if I weren’t a crazy bitch who decided she wanted to quilt a tiny squiggle everywhere, I probably would be done.

Yeah. Dumbass.

So I’m about halfway done with the background, which might mean I’m not finishing quilting until Thursday night. Problematic if I want it to go to the photographer this weekend, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m close. Maybe. Who knows if I even have enough of anything I can use for binding anyway. So yeah, another hour tonight…after pilates and cooking dinner. Did I agree to cook dinner tonight? AGREE. Ha. That’s funny. There’s no negotiation there. Much. It’s my turn. I often wish it wasn’t.

In other news, San Diego got slammed by a wet storm on Monday…my rain gauge showed over 3 inches of rain in a day. Well. Hmmm. And I came home and did grades and at about 5 PM, the boychild realized there was a lot of water on the carpet in the hallway, and yeah.

So there’s water coming in, presumably from the outside (even though part of that is an interior wall) most of the way down the hallway (there’s a dry bit in the middle), around the corners into the closet at this end and the bedroom at the other end. I’ve sort of resigned myself to the ghetto concrete floor look that I think we’re going to get to soon…although the men are convinced we can save the carpet…

I think we’re up to 6 fans at the moment. And yes, the hallway wall bears the imprints of Calli, deceased, who used to lie on her back and scrabble at the wall. Have I had time to fix that? Well probably. Have I had the time AND energy to fix that? Well fuck no. So we have a call into a restoration place just to figure out what the real problem is (probably water over the bottom plate/slab thing, don’t ask me construction terms) and figure out who can fix it and then how much that shit will cost, and then probably there will be Wayfair/Target area rugs thrown over the concrete for a while until I can afford carpet. The carpet is ancient; should have been replaced long before this, so IDK why they are trying to save it, except to save me money and reduce the ghetto look. This was not in the plan. I know. It never is. Also, I can’t sleep well with the sound of the fans…I know it’s white noise, but my brain thinks it’s a zombie attack. Anyway. Trying not to dwell on it all, but you know how that goes.

In other news, I’m sending work to Japan and Taiwan in the next few months…so that’s new and different. I’m also trying to work on a collaboration with someone in San Francisco who is part of my women’s art group. We’re flailing a bit, but here was my 2nd attempt at drawing ‘unity’…a hard word for me apparently.

Pretty happy drawing for me…And here’s Nova just before attacking that cat toy.

Yesterday was eyeball dissection day…

It was cool. All but one kid participated and he was just being a whiner in general. Ugh. It’s a regular thing for him. I could do without it.

I thought I would go to the gym after school, get some exercise in, but I was exhausted. Completely. I read a bit, talked to the SIL, then made seating charts for today while half lying on the couch. Made dinner, did that drawing, read some more, then went in and quilted. That was it. It was all I could do.

Also this one…

Trying to figure out what to do with this collaboration. Ugh. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT ANYTHING. So there we are. Seriously though. I need someone to just come in and say, blah blah blah, you need to do this, this person will do it, here’s the invoice, it’s bad but not heinous, something you can actually afford, OK, let’s do it. Probably need that for EVERYTHING right now. Oh yeah, and there’s another time/energy-intensive lab on Friday. OKAY. Good plan, Nida. Ha. I think I need to sleep from now until Spring Break. It won’t solve anything, but at least I’ll be well-rested.

Problematic…

OK back to normal 5-day work weeks. Pros and cons to those. They feel more normal. There’s less time off. There you are. It’s pouring today, so probably 30% of our kids won’t come to school. Not sure I blame them. I have a good book. I could stay here and be perfectly happy. Except grades are due tomorrow, and no, I’m not done. Fuck me. I tried. But then all the other stuff, mostly art stuff, which is good…but time-consuming, got in the way. So I’m still not done with grades. I might need to just admit that one assignment isn’t going to get done. I have three more classes of this one assignment, and kids didn’t do very well on it, but I’ve already input two classes, so there’s that. Ugh.

This kid. He’s a little strange, as I’m sure you can guess. He’s not the best student, more from a lack of understanding I think, but he’s funny sometimes.

So quiltwise, good progress was made. I finished ironing all the tiny leaves down on Thursday night, after a million hours at school.

And then I started the stitchdown.

I did most of it Friday night…

But I had to be up earlyish Saturday for the annual boob-squeeze (ouch. It really hurt this time.), so I went to bed at a semi-reasonable time. Then got up Saturday and finished the stitchdown…

Cut a backing, washed the batting, went to an art meeting, which was short, but added on by having a cookie with art friends. My theory is that you should get a cookie for each time they squish your boob like that (which would mean I should have had four, but I settled for one really big and tasty one). Then home, and sandwiched and pinbasted.

Then after dinner out, came home and started quilting.

I did a small amount of school stuff on Saturday. I didn’t completely blow it off. I just didn’t spend more time than I had to on it. I saved the crazy panic for Sunday, which included pilates, grocery shopping, making breakfasts for the next two weeks, handing a quilt over to a guy who’s going to put it in a gallery in Japan (cool), putting up the owl box (with help), and doing schoolwork. I graded a bunch of stuff Friday night too, which I try to avoid, but still not done. Rumor is that the staff meeting will be shorter, so I’ll just come home, torture myself with this last assignment, and get it all done. Right? I even cooked dinner last night (and lunches for the next 7 days). I’m tired though. Still.

I did quilt last night too…

I just have the head left to do…

For the outlining. Then the whole background. It’s probably 1-2 hours left. So I’ll finish tomorrow night? Hopefully. Then trim and bind. Done by this weekend? Ahead of the deadline? I need to do a drawing for another art thing I’m doing. Sometime this week. After grades are done.

Tomorrow is also eyeball dissection, which will be a long day. Starting a new unit. DNA extraction on Friday. Another long day. But no long-ass meetings after work this week, hallelujah. That’ll be next week. Ugh. At least I have one week off from that. And the sex-ed curriculum meetings should be done after next week. Knock on wood. Well, not true…I have one mid-February, but it’s just teachers. Anything without the parents. Sigh. OK, I need more tea. I might need galoshes. I don’t have galoshes. Problematic.

It Will All Happen…

Oh my. I knew this week would be rough, but I didn’t know the universe was like, oh hey, here’s some more…but it’s mostly GOOD stuff, it’s just good stuff that takes time to do and you don’t have any of that, so GO!

Anyway, I’m carving out art time on this quilt each night for an hour (or almost an hour, let’s be honest, or I stayed up too late like last night because I got to a spot and I didn’t want to stop.). I’m ahead of my schedule, barely, which is cool. And also good. So Tuesday night, I got her all ironed together except for her face and a few things…

I really was excited about her hair…it turned out so much better than I imagined.

Then last night, after a really long day (union meeting and pilates), I did her face and the earth.

And because I was in the mood and hadn’t done an hour yet, even though it was past my going-to-bedtime, because I’d had to process and upload EM Spectrum lab videos for school, I ironed it onto a background, because it was pretty easy to do.

That said, I’m not done with that…there are about 65 tiny leaves that go in the trees on her head (see where the cat is? Around there).

I wasn’t kidding about them being tiny. And a lot of them. That’s tonight. And then start stitchdown. Of course, that’s tonight after teaching all day (yesterday was HAARD. Y’all need to use your BRAINS…) AND a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting. Ugh. The third afterschool meeting this week. Y’all I am done. And yet grades are due, I had two parents (of the same child) messaging me last night back and forth (do y’all talk to each other? Yes, they live in the same house…did you read last week’s email about how yesterday was the last day I’d take late work?)…this sweet cat was sitting on the things I was grading the other night…

Not helpful at all. Of course, these assignments are crap. My fault. I took them from another teacher, and I think they are workable, but my kids are Google junkies, they don’t process the info, they just copy it, and the rubric is awful. Completely useless. So I’ll fix that for next year. Hopefully. Not like I have time to do anything but write a note on the calendar about that, which is problematic, because the teacher I got them from will eventually see that. O. M. G.

The tree guy is on his way here so I can show him the two branches that still need to come off…

Apparently the highlighted picture was not enough. Also he wants his check. More importantly.

Here’s the soap that’s currently hanging out in one of the teacher’s bathrooms at school.

That’s about right.

OK, shoes, more tea, my brain, go to school. Tree guy first. Torture kids with an academic assignment today, but maybe I’ll get time to grade. I’m definitely rethinking tomorrow…they can do it on their own. I’m not walking them through it. Eye dissection next week, new unit, fuck me, I need seating charts. OK. Deep breaths. It will all happen.