Yeah it’s been a while, although I think I blogged Monday. In retrospect, I should’ve found the energy after school to go to urgent care then. Ah well. It was strep…even better than strep! Scarlet fever! Hey the only adults who get that are those who have or work with kids. Lucky me. Also this shit knocked me out. No food for days, everything still tastes bad or weird, even tea, and I love tea. Still have a sore throat but I can swallow now…nice change. Could do without the rash…kept me up all night. Also the meds make me see weird things when my eyes are closed but not asleep? Like strange upside down 3D black and white landscapes but with these flashes of really bright colors at random intervals. I bathed yesterday but haven’t had the energy to shower. Gonna do that today. Although I might do an oatmeal bath too…before bed. Damn prickly annoying rash. So I’ve spent about 6 days fighting this, not eating, writing sub plans with what little brain power I’ve had, mostly prone. Even now, I’m writing this lying on the couch, resting up for the shower. First one since Monday. Should be exciting.
Me in bed. Cats. Luna left, Kitten right. Getting out to pee was hard.
Luckily the sore throat was so bad, I wasn’t drinking anything hardly at all, so who needs to pee? Honestly not the best choice.
I managed cutting pieces out on Monday night for about an hour.
Then nothing until last night, a little over an hour…
So the top left box is everything that needs to be cut out, the top right is what little I’ve done, and the bottom is the trash. Lots to do. And grades are due Tuesday. I’ve done none of that. I don’t have a lesson plan for 8th grade past Monday. MONDAY. Yeah. I’m fucked. But I will figure it out. Those thoughts were what forced me to eat and drink yesterday. You know what the only things that taste normal are? Gatorade and Froot Loops. Thanks by the way to the men in my life who take me to Urgent Care, take me to the pharmacy, and do not question the texted grocery list. Although the fridge needs cleaning out, the compost needs to go out, and I’m doing laundry.
This guy, Simba, has also been a champ, although I’m sure he thinks I’m really boring. But also nice for cuddles.
Ok. So with improved health on the way and hopefully less prickly skin soon, I’m going to continue the rest of March. I was out of it when it started and I don’t know what actual day it is now. It’s a long month but the end of it brings Spring Break and I think I’m gonna need it. Probably sooner than it comes. Gonna go take that shower now. And then rest again.
I’m watching the weather today because it’s supposed to start pissing down rain sometimes later today and I have duty at the stoplight after school. Might be damp. Then tomorrow, as it’s in the middle of 2″ of rain in 24 hours (which doesn’t happen here…that might be our annual rainfall some years), I will be picking up two quilts. Can’t park anywhere close to the pickup location, so that should be fun too. At least none of it is during rush hour traffic. I have multiple art pickups and dropoffs in the next few weeks, which is a good (but annoying and stressful) problem to have. One tomorrow, one, next Thursday (moved that one by a week), then another one…not sure when. I saw an email and promptly forgot about it. Problematic.
I am not at QuiltCon…which sucks, but also, I still get to see all the pictures. There’s some stuff I’d love to see up close. Ah well. The next QuiltCon on the West Coast isn’t until 2025. That said, one of my guild friends posted this…
That’s mine on the right…although the name is wrong. I emailed the lecturer and she responded right away. Frank Klein does own the other one, so it wasn’t a huge deal. It’s just that quilt has an awesome name: The Goddess of Never-Ending Chaos, which is kinda how it’s felt since I made it in 2016. Or maybe the goddess of increasing chaos at this point. Or unsustainable chaos.
It’s Friday. Hallelujah for that. If only I can get my head around the next batch of things while finishing up trimester 2 grades. It’s a lot to ask, especially with no more 3-day weekends. Tomorrow is all art pickup and socializing with friends we haven’t seen…well, I haven’t seen them before COVID I think. Pretty sure. So that’s crazy. But then I just have Sunday to catch up on everything. Yikes!
Be Efficient. Be Be Efficient.
I keep thinking I’ll be done with the ironing and then I’m not. Here’s Wednesday night…
Eyeball tree and IDK what else.
It’s a huge stash of fabrics I’ve got in this quilt…
And every night I add some more, because I don’t QUITE have the right shade of brown or gray or whatever.
Last night…I did an arm, a glove, and a basket, and some barcodes, but got stymied by the eggs the barcodes were on.
I wanted to do more, but my brain was done. I worked a lot yesterday, got a lot done, walked kids through the beginning of sound (I know more about sound than I thought I did…let’s hope the same thing happens with space, but I suspect not, because I never ever had space in school and I’ve never taught it either) and then the other grade, I got more and more frustrated with the inability to just focus for 20 whole minutes. Write me…shit, I didn’t even ask for sentences. I’m not sure what the deal was. I know that by the time I got to 6th period, I wasn’t letting them leave without finishing the assignment, so I made it their ticket out the door. You don’t leave until you’ve typed these four things in. On topic. The kids who are on top of it totally were done and ready on time. The kids who want the answers handed to them, who whine about everything, who spend the entire period trying to figure out how to throw something or clap loudly without being caught or just not DO anything at all, they were flabbergasted. What? You can’t keep me (I can). I don’t know what to do (I explained it three times). You’re gonna make me stay? (yes). The last kid was maybe 5 minutes late out of class, because you know what? With the threat of having to stay until he finished, he figured his shit out. Learned helplessness. Plus post-COVID stuff. Plus a batch of really immature kids (probably also COVID-related…no social skills learned during a pandemic, as we’ve seen nationwide). There was more after school that was halfway between laughable and WTF, and then I went to physical therapy and came home to a Zoom meeting, with about 12 minutes in between. That was enjoyable, but I can’t show you what I worked on, because it hasn’t been published yet.
Ironing started at 9:36 PM. I don’t have a lot left, but I keep saying that. Hopefully tonight. I’m frustrated by my days…which lean heavily into my nights.
Meanwhile, Hi, Kitten, but also, that mug in the background?
I painted that with a friend before she moved to Seattle, and it has a crack in it. It was working fine last night, but this morning decided it was done being a mug and wanted to be a small fountain.
It makes me sad. Yes, I can make a new one, but IDK when (not anytime soon). I don’t NEED a new one. I have plenty of mugs. I just really like all the naked people on it. Although the one I replaced it with also has a naked person on it. So yeah.
And I forgot to post this the other day…the owls are back in the nesting box!
This is exciting. But also means I can’t trim that tree for a while. Oh well, can’t afford to do it anyway. Birds are more important.
I still have Cheech photos…
This has no color, but the wires and phone/electric lines plus the background just fascinated me…
This is Roberto Gutierrez‘ piece Untitled (at least, I think that’s what it is…three labels and three pieces of art…making some assumptions here).
And this is It’s a Brown World After All by Eloy Torrez, who is quite a portrait painter.
That’s Cheech Marin himself, in case you don’t recognize him.
OK, I’ll do more later…gotta go to school again. Labs today in both grades, what am I, nuts? Didn’t plan that well. Who am I kidding…I can’t plan at that level this year. I’m in survival mode.
Damn ducks. School. Duty hopefully not in the rain. Set up classroom for next week. Come home and collapse. Um. I mean make a healthy dinner and make good choices and get some work done in preparation for not doing any tomorrow for a WHOLE day and then finish ironing and get a good night’s sleep. Ha! We’ll see.
Hello. It’s a holiday for me. Hence my writing at a weird hour. It’s been a weird day. For one thing, we left on a short road trip Saturday morning and got back yesterday afternoon, so today I’ve been trying to do all the things I would’ve done yesterday and the day before, and I’m running out of time. Which is pretty standard for my weekends, unfortunately. I needed some significant brain power for one thing though, so I did most of that first. I’m not done, but I’m on a roll, and I think that will help in the long run.
Meanwhile, why the road trip? Two art opportunities: Fabric of a Nation is at the Skirball Cultural Center through March 12, and it’s been on my list since it opened in Boston. So that was my original plan. Then figured I might as well make a weekend of it and do a loop past the Cheech in Riverside, since I hadn’t been there since it had opened. Both incredible shows. Lots of color. Lots of amazing imagery. I’m going to try to put it on here, but there’s a lot (and there’s more photos I took, but I don’t have the time to do all of them, so I picked the best of the bunch).
So this was my first Bisa Butler piece in person, I think. I’ve seen photos and videos, but it’s never the same as closeup.
This is To God and Truth…
Her use of patterned fabric is amazing.
There’s no such thing as ‘too busy’.
This was a detail from an old applique quilt that had some racist blocks on it. This is Scenes of American Life by Mrs. Cecil White.
I always wonder if she meant to be racist, or was completely clueless about it. Or if it was commentary (unlikely; the quilt is from the 1920s). There’s so little known about some of these. Her technique is pretty fascinating for the time. Too bad parts of it are questionable in subject matter.
This crazy quilt was kind of amazing. It’s by Celestine Bacheller.
Fascinating. Most crazy quilts might have one center pictorial block, and then regular pieced crazy quilt blocks around. I’ve never seen one like this.
Carolyn Mazloomi’s graphic Strange Fruit II was even more emotional in person than in photos.
Just black and white. No way to shy away from the topic.
A detail from the Harriet Powers’ quilt…
I always think I take more (and better) pictures than I actually do. I remember seeing pictures of this one when I started quilting in the 90s. It was mind-boggling then in its simplicity. Still is.
And this one, Ruth Bader Ginsberg by Kisasi Ramsess.
Amazing use of color, again, and patterned fabrics that don’t seem to belong together and yet do.
We spent the night in Pasadena, near where I grew up. I worked on one of the Sue Spargo blocks in the car and while watching a strange movie…
And I did iron on Friday night…
Wings and a strange cat. Not this one…
Although she is pretty strange. And toothless. Or light on teeth, anyway.
There were signs at the Skirball as part of another art project by Chloë Bass called Wayfinding, up through September.
Lots of thought-provoking stuff. Do you laugh or…?
Hard to say. We walked around Pasadena a bit looking for art (all closed up), found some food and drink.
Drew something weird.
Then the next morning, drove through my old neighborhood and said hi to the house I mostly grew up in…
Cool house. Interesting what they cut down and what they leave. It was a nice place to grow up in, the house anyway. Some of the town was not so nice, but that’s another story.
OK, I have work to do, so all the Cheech photos will have to wait until later. I did iron yesterday night though…these were all the fabrics I used on one kind of weird steampunk butterfly.
I’m a little more than halfway through the 1200s now. Getting close to done.
I do need to go back to work now, though…need to grade some stuff and do some more planning, make sure I’m ready for tomorrow (don’t FEEL ready, and there’s a staff meeting in the morning, which is different). This week, I will hopefully be very efficient (unlike last week) and finish all the things, plus get done with the ironing on this thing so I can start cutting them out. Everything is taking a lot of time. I’m glad I took two days off and did some ME stuff, but I knew I’d pay for it today and the rest of the week, so there’s that. It’s nice to have the extra day, though, to catch up. Won’t see that for another 38 days. To be very specific.
I am very lucky to have today off. Well. Luck. I will still be working. I’ve worked the last two days; why not continue? I’m sick as well, a minor cold at least, but enough to make the working harder than I’d like. Mostly Saturday. I fell asleep on the couch, which is a perfectly healthy thing to do, even when you’re not sick. I need to grade a couple of higher-level thinking things today, plus plan more for the rest of the unit, because I feel like I’m really far behind and can’t get my head around any of it. As usual. Ugh.
So let’s think about things I do have control over (or do I?)…ironing! I’ve managed that despite the cold, although this weekend has reminded me that in the past, I could’ve ironed ALL weekend and done fuck-all with school because it didn’t take up this much of my life. So there’s that.
Friday night’s ironing…
I ironed a small green fishboy. And an embedded phone…in a leg.
Then Saturday night…
We did not go out. I wasn’t feeling great. I don’t remember what I ironed at all. There’s a bunch of little details going on all over this thing.
Sunday night I remember!
The incubator with everything in it and attached to it. I had to recut three pieces out of Wonder Under because I had numbered really badly with the overlapping tubes from the uterus to the incubator, but it’s OK. It’s done now. Some of this is just difficult to figure out in terms of what colors and how to portray what I want to show. But all that is good for me. It would be easier if I didn’t have to also figure out what to do with the light waves portion of the current unit and then next unit about space, which I haven’t even looked at. Yeah. Freaking out about some of that for sure.
So much better to think about what I’m ironing next, which is a flask (glass) with liquid in it, always problematic…reflections and all. Ironically…just like what I need to teach next. Yeah. OK.
I’d really like to be done with the ironing this week. We’re going to LA/Riverside next weekend and I’d like to be cutting things out (much more transportable)…although I have enough to cut out that it doesn’t matter if I’m done or not…I have plenty to take with me. It’s more a matter of needing to finish this one so I can move on to the next two.
I lost this piece. Then found it. Then lost it again, spent 10 minutes looking for it, couldn’t find it, decided it didn’t matter, then found it again.
It’s fucking tiny. In the scheme of this quilt, it doesn’t really matter, but the fact that it’s reappeared more than once means it does matter. So I know exactly where it is right now and will be ironing it down to something immediately before it gets lost again.
Simba guarding my leg…
Kitten rubbing her head all over things I’m grading…
She was doing the same thing a year ago. A year ago, I went to QuiltCon, which is not happening this year, because it is much further away (Atlanta). Too bad. I’m still debating Quilt National…it’s a long way, a pain to get to, expensive (the biggest issue), and during the school year. Near testing. Ugh.
These guys are friends again.
It’s nice when they’re friendly. Sometimes they’re not and it sucks. It’s mostly Luna having issues. Nova is pretty chill.
This is one of my students. She’s an English-language learner, but it turns out a lot of them don’t know what Dry January is…
Which is a good problem to have, I guess. Not sure if I should just ignore this and move on, or…?
Yeah that. Explains middle school appropriately.
OK, well the car is at the shop for an oil change and some other crap that may or may not need to be done, the boychild is officially laid off for at least three months (CalFire is weird), I have a shit ton of work to do (nothing changing there), I have a dermatology appointment so they can tell me I should’ve worn more sunscreen as a child (there wasn’t really sunscreen when I was a kid…it was SPF10 and lasted 5 minutes for a paleface like me). And I’ll be ironing later tonight. Again. For the happy foreseeable future.
I’m semi-awake this morning. That’s interesting. I must have slept better last night. Some nights are better than others. I was definitely exhausted. Not sure why.
I didn’t bring my work computer home last night. I had a long day and I knew I wanted to go to the gym after all of it (which I did, dragging myself by the hair), so what’s the point? I have some time to grade/plan in class today for once (someone is giving a presentation), so I can give myself a night off. I also had an art show to enter and some other paperwork to do, plus something I forgot to bring home (oh well). So I did all the things I could and then started ironing a little earlier than usual. Which is nice.
Monday night, I straightened up the studio and put away the fabrics from the last quilt, which was the little one with the Christmas lights. So that didn’t take long. Then I set up for the new quilt, hanging the drawing up so I can see it…
Laid out the first 100 pieces…
They’re in piles of 10, numerical order. And laid out the detached Wonder Under bits…
Plus one unnumbered piece and one piece that was a line on the Wonder Under but had no number and pieces inside it, so I’m not sure how I fucked that up, but it will probably eventually become apparent. Probably I forgot to number it and I can use this to trace a new one without a hole in the middle. So yes, I’m somewhat of a hoarder, but there are reasons for it. Yes, I know they all say that.
I didn’t get many pieces ironed the first night…just some dirt and rocks…
Last night, I managed the right corner, mostly dirt and lava…there’s some ironed lava right there with Kitten.
Tonight I get to decide what color an iron snail would be in the future…
But before that, I have yet another early parent meeting (rescheduled from Monday afternoon), a day of 3/5 grading/not teaching and 2/5 teaching. Plus some dumbassery from yesterday that is still pissing me off. But whatever.
The boychild always tries to get Simba and Kitten to be friends, but Kitten has sharp bits and gets annoyed.
And Simba knows it.
Luna asking for pets…
And Kitten in her fabric/batting hidey hole up high…
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Gonna pack my lunch, make more tea, take meds, shove everything in a bag, and go back to school. So I can come home and iron some snails and more dirt, or maybe I’ll make it into the grassy knoll tonight. Green instead of brown. That would be good.
OK, normal work week, normal number of days with kids, let’s see if I can do the rest of it on schedule. Blog on the right days, remember to do the things after school, or even the things before school. Act like a normal human being, as much as that is possible when you are an artist and an introvert. Yup. All the things.
First of all, I finished tracing after some mammoth tracing sessions this weekend. Well, not really mammoth; just more than the normal 54-62 minutes I do during the school week. Friday night with my quilting group…
There was probably some Thursday night as well…since I didn’t blog on Friday…because I’m totally off schedule.
More on Friday night after dinner…
Most of the yardage was full up at that point, except for the most recent one. It had some tree parts, which take up a lot of space and leave a lot of open bits to fill in later.
Saturday night, I got the head done. There were about 100 pieces left, but it was already late and I knew I had to be up the next morning.
I pretty much always have to be up the next morning. So last night, I pushed, went a little late, and finished it all…
It’s 5 and a bit yards. Some really big pieces and a lot of not-big pieces. I’ll start cutting out today. That’s 20 hours and 41 minutes of tracing. So far, this quilt has 32 1/2 hours in.
I did a lot of grading stuff this weekend too, but then the grading program was having issues, ignoring all the grades from January (minor issue; only 1/3 of the grading period), so I had to stop. They’re due Tuesday and we have a 2-hour staff meeting today, so hopefully the boss will do something about that. He does know the system is fucked. We got that email yesterday afternoon.
We had some free/reduced tickets to the zoo that expire next weekend, so we had planned that for Saturday afternoon. If you’ve never been to the San Diego Zoo, it’s pretty cool. Here’s a photo dump from that…
That last one, the cheetah was lying down in her cave and then this little boy was squealing and running super fast like he was pretending to be a cheetah, and she totally perked up, like “that’s prey” perk up, and came out, and all I could think was, yeah, that boy is dinner. There’s always this thought that they’ll come out of the cage or through the glass. For me anyway. It was a good 3-hour walk. There were lots of people, but it wasn’t too horrible. Definitely worth it.
A little more after-dinner hand applique…
Hand appliqueing a hand. Ha ha.
Kitten venturing out even though…
Katie is here visiting…
Could not get these two to sit together. They’re not really friends. Mostly because Katie is much bigger and doesn’t realize it and basically runs Simba over.
Katie is a famous singer…
She’s kinda pitiful sometimes. Then we have the master barker…
Apparently I cannot have video going the appropriate direction. Sigh. Thirty minutes of coyote singing later, he finally stopped.
OK. Well. Grades aren’t done because they can’t be. A lot of frustrated teachers today; wonder if it is just our school. I don’t feel ready to teach at all. Nothing new there. I think Friday self set up the classroom pretty well, though (at least I hope she did), so I should be OK. Starting the roller-coaster building today…two weeks of it. Not sure how that will go, but I’m sorta ready. No I’m not. I don’t even have a sample. Shit. I just thought of something I need to prep before school starts. This is how it goes. Also we are officially halfway through now. Only.
Friday the 13th. In a middle school. Wait, what’s the damn moon doing right now…OK…we’re just waning gibbous. That should help. Yeah. Usually I enjoy a good Friday the 13th, but this week has been rough for everyone. I’m tired, the kids are tired. I thought yesterday went OK, but then I got an email. Sigh. Well I’ll hopefully deal with that today, with admin support, plus I don’t think I have a lot of grading for this week, because we just started a bunch of things (although I’m still playing catchup with stuff from December). I spent an hour yesterday dealing with late work for all but one class. I still need to do redoes. Where I let kids fix their work. So they learn from it. Even though it’s torture for me to try to regrade these, looking at what they wrote originally, what comments I left, what does the rubric from December or November say, and how did they change it. Ugh. Hate it, but it’s necessary.
Glad it’s Friday.
I’ve done a little tracing the last two nights…honestly, not even getting an hour in each night. Starting too late, trying to get back in the habit of going to bed earlier. I started training myself back on the 10:30 bedtime last week, but mostly failed at it. Ah well. Soon the exhaustion will help. Hopefully.
The first 150 pieces are mostly big dirt pieces with some smaller stuff interspersed. Big rock pieces take longer to trace because they’re big. And sometimes complicated. So it seems really slow.
I have to become one with the slow. I had to cut a second piece of Wonder Under because the weird shapes wouldn’t fit between all the other weird shapes and they’re all big. It’s OK…when I get to the little pieces, they will all fit between all the big pieces. It’s a puzzle.
I’m only 2 hours in…more this weekend, I hope. It’s supposed to rain most of the weekend. I’m hoping for big chunks of tracing time while listening to weird TV. Although I need to have a crown replaced, my neighbors are having some sort of dessert and drinks gathering, two animals need to go to the vet, we’re having dinner with the parentals…see, the days just get filled up.
Ah, complicated. This is the complicated I like.
Last night was my monthly in-person stitching meeting. Fun stuff.
Fun little house. Fun stitching. We spent time oohing and aahing at each other’s projects, complaining about work, looking up the pronunciation and etymology of syncytial, and talking about books. All worthwhile. This is still Sue Spargo’s Homegrown. I’ll be working on it all year probably. Easily.
Um. I am both of these. Except I don’t delete emails after reading them. I might need them again. I delete a LOT of them, but not all of them. And 12 tabs is nowhere near enough. On this computer, which I don’t use for work as much as I used to, there are 23 tabs open. You can imagine that the work computer is much worse. It is. I organize my Flair pens by what I use them for: writing on docs in class (dark so it’s easy to see on the doc cam), light and bright for grading (make it cheery!), ugly colors I will never use but will never throw out (because that’s anathema). But I also have an entire drawer, another box, and random other locations where pens go to die. Or live free lives, depending on how you look at it.
I think my right eye stopped twitching for maybe 2 days over break. It’s back.
Here’s Luna being sweet.
She didn’t even whack me after I petted her…she just reached out like she was GOING to whack me.
OK. School. Get classroom ready for today. Teach centripetal force and momentum (a little bit), give a quiz, get kids learning about the history of roller coasters, then pivot to atoms and matter, finish up the elements exploration lab that should have been done yesterday, make kids read an article even though they don’t know how to read (pretty sure we have a recording of one of us reading it) and watch a video where they have to pay enough attention to answer the questions. On a Friday. The first Friday back after break. That’s two grade levels there…I’m not teaching the same classes both roller coaster physics AND atoms and matter. Just to be clear.
Stand at a traffic light for 15 minutes, ready to call 911 if a kid crosses at breakneck speed while staring at their phone because some parent was in a hurry to turn the corner without looking for kids…around a school. Go home and spread some wildflower seeds for the upcoming rain deluge, PUT MY PAJAMAS ON, take my bra off, read a book? Drink some tea? Maybe grade some stuff that’s easy. Maybe plan something that’s easy. Maybe not. Maybe stare at cat videos for 45 minutes. Then make dinner (who thought THAT was a good idea). Then trace a bunch of dirt. More dirt. Lots more dirt. Things in the dirt. Dirt. Love me some dirt.
Well. Here we are. The first day back to work. No kids today (which is good, because I’m not even ready for a room full of educational staff, let alone a school full of tired and cranky middle-schoolers). Introverts love this sort of all-school meeting. Really. We do (want to just crawl into a corner under a desk with our books).
I can’t say that I’m ready. There’s a bunch of stuff I should have done over the weekend, and honestly, let’s be straight up, I didn’t do any of it. Which means it all has to be done today. Ha! That’s not happening either. I do need to copy one thing (there was no more paper last week) and do my seating charts on paper (they exist in the machine). I didn’t grade two things so far…I’m thinking I can do the easy one while I am supposed to be reviewing my strengths and how they will help me do my job. I didn’t grade all the late work and redoes…just about half of them. 20/48 left to go. Plus 6. Ugh.
Stop thinking about work for a moment and think about art! The California Fibers’ opening at the Cannon Gallery was Saturday afternoon. Here’s my two pieces in the show (for some reason, I was relegated to the corner).
And here’s the Man with the quilt he inspired…
So there was that. There were a lot of people at the opening and it felt overwhelming, but there seemed to be a positive response. Honestly I was surprised they took any of my work because they are one of the ‘family-friendly’ galleries (it’s city-owned), but of the three I entered, they took the two that were less nude than the other one, so I’m happy with that. It’s something.
Meanwhile, my goal was to finish the current drawing…so on Friday night, I had inked this far, but had penciled in the bottom right as well…
I love a really complicated drawing. Although I forgot that the handle needed to go OVER the fingers. Ah well. Liquid paper is my friend.
Saturday night, I inked the bottom right…but in typical Nida fashion, did not take a picture of it. I still had some details to add to the bird and last night, I added the tree to fill that space. Plus a few more bug things and another bone.
That’s 9 hours and 17 minutes of drawing there.
Then last night, I started numbering…
And then (after more than an hour) went OH SHIT because it was late and I had to go to work this morning. Fuck. So I stopped at piece 938, which might be halfway? And might not. Tune in tonight to see the total. I’m guessing 1800 pieces. Which is fine. It is. Really. It is.
I did the second figure on this dinner drawing Saturday night…
I’m still not sure it’s done. And I think the one on the left was supposed to be male, but now has a uterus, which seems fair to me.
One of the reasons I didn’t get any schoolwork done yesterday is that I was prepping some quilt sandwiches for a friend of mine who stitches but does not quilt. She did the cross stitch, and I’m making 9 of these and basting them for her.
She’ll do the handquilting, and then I’ll stitch them all into a quilt. Somewhat time-consuming, but not horrible. I’m a little less than halfway with the basting. I’m hoping to finish it tonight or tomorrow night, so I can deliver them to her, and then she’ll take 6-9 months to quilt them before I have to worry about the next part. Which is harder, but still doable. I’ve never done a quilt-as-you-go quilt. There’s always a first time.
I noticed we had more caterpillars on the dying milkweed…
But not all of them are monarchs…
Or are they? That said, the internet isn’t helping much with this one. Too many variations. Anyway, I’ve got about 4 or 5 of them at the moment, all sizes, and the Man says he saw a monarch lay an egg the other day, so I need to get more milkweed. I planted what few seeds I had left, but it’ll be a while before they’re big enough to feed anything.
Meanwhile, when your owl pellets are all gross and covered in stuff, just leave them out in the weather to clean themselves up. They look great after a few months.
Gopher on the left? The right is something else, I think, but it’s still got too much fluff on it. I’ll have to go check the owlet skelly I left out and see how it’s cleaning up.
I forgot the WTF list from the curriculum we had to reconstruct on Thursday and Friday…these were all (well, most) of the things that made us think (or yell) WTF.
This curriculum comes out of Stanford University, by the way. Really shouldn’t have to deal with this. You can see the frustration increasing as we get down the list.
I went to my quilt guild meeting on Saturday and worked some more on my body scarf.
It’s slow but enjoyable. It may never be done.
Can’t go wrong with this stuff…
I almost bought that book to take to work today. But I do give a fuck. That’s the problem.
Kitten enjoying a hint of Spring before the next Winter storm kicks us in the butt…
She likes to sit there.
And last but not least, if I’m going to have to get up at ugh in the morning, you might as well give me a sunset worth getting up for…
My camera missed all the pinks in there, but it was glorious. Unlike the rest of the day. Sitting in a big room with a ton of people. I don’t hate my job. I’m just finding it incredibly overwhelming the last three years…worse each year? No, the 2020/2021 year was bad, last year was slightly better (block schedule, 2 preps, and still COVID made it hard), and this year is bad for the workload…similar to the 2020 year. I just need a year that is less about creating All New Stuff and more about refining stuff, making it better, focusing on behaviors and academics, not so buried in trying to learn new things AND do the old things AND all the other stuff the district continues to throw at us. Yeah. We’re not even at the halfway point…that’s in two weeks? Three? Something like that.
Anyway. I do have to go. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Well it’s official. It’s almost time to dive into the sucking mud of my day job. Luckily, this new drawing is almost at the point where I can start the brainless tracing and cutting stages. I’m really enjoying drawing this…just letting my brain wander around in all the weird shit I’ve read over the years about bio modifications.
Here’s a video of the drawing as of Wednesday night…
And then some of the drawing I did last night…she has pockets! Also that kid with the webbed feet? I think that’s the kid in Game of Thrones…maybe.
I didn’t take a picture of the stuff at the top, but suffice it to say, that I used this photo to create a glove…
I think most of the stuff is done except for what’s under her legs. And no, I don’t exactly know what all that is yet. I know some of it. It keeps waking me up at 2 in the morning and making me take notes on it. Thank you, Art Brain. I both appreciate you and am annoyed by you.
I spent 5 hours working on school shit yesterday. Back again today. Ugh. Getting paid for it at least. Could do without it though. Still need to finish grading stuff! Almost done, actually. Torture though. It’s this…
There has been very little relaxing about this break. That said, I read a lot. I just finished another book this morning. Made me exclaim aloud with the last sentence. So exciting.
This is the second cat who has used the tent…just one to go…
And this is Simba, who is a millisecond away from exploding toward the hand with the dental treat that signals he is to be left alone for hours. And yet he’s excited for that treat. Weirdo.
OK, I need to get out of here for work. And when I get home, I will need to finish ALL the things that have been sitting on my Winter Break to-do list since the first weekend, right before I got sick. Uh huh. Yeah. Bullshit, right? I know. Whatever. I did manage to book two nights in Spring Break at a campground we always wanted to go back to…glad I did that, because there were only 6 left. I got the one right NEXT to the one we were in before. I really liked the one we were in before. That was another ‘wake-up-at-2-AM’ thing…needing to book that before they were sold out. Of course, we still have two nights before and one night after to do something ELSE in Arizona…no clue what. Minor issue. We’ll figure that out.
OK, Break, it was nice (not really) knowing you. Hopefully you have done your job, allowing me to wallow in reading material and a weird drawing, letting me (sort of) sleep in, and I will return, refreshed (semi) to my job, where the kids are the capital, which is the only reason I don’t just jump and run toward the closest job that I don’t have to lug home with me and doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night. Not sure what that is. But it’s tempting sometimes, that’s for sure. I hate being bored, though, and I love the kids, even when I don’t. So there’s that. Back to it!
Quick! Write the blog before you get sidetracked by that email that came in about a show, plus the name of that hedgehog your therapist recommended you look up, and the fact that your tea is already cold…again. Plus try not to think about grading, because even though you bribed yourself all day yesterday, you didn’t FINISH (of course not) and you need to FINISH. Plus yeah. So many things. Is this headache your neck and you need to schedule the chiropractor (probably)? Did you answer that email about the DNA extraction kits (maybe)? Did you finish planning the roller coaster unit (fuck no)? OK. Well. Nope. Got distracted about a folder on Google Drive.
My daughter was diagnosed as ADD years ago. Sometimes I wonder about me. But also on the spectrum? Or just antisocial? (Me, not the daughter) Or is it just that I’m old (not really, if you look at the spectrum, the OTHER spectrum, of age) and people annoy the shit out of me? Maybe that.
OK. I checked the folder on Google Drive. I can move on with my life.
It’s quiet here, except for the dog barking. And the kids next door shooting off their nerf guns. Popopopopopopopop. I’m not on that side of the house, or I’d turn music on to drown that shit out. Boychild and the Man have gone back to work. I just work here. I’ll be at school Thursday and Friday to rewrite a stupid curriculum that I have no choice about, but at least I’m getting paid for those 10 hours. Ugh. Today, I need to finish grading that thing from yesterday and one more thing, finish the roller coaster planning (both unpaid), get my retinas scanned (like you do), go to Pilates, cook dinner (new recipe, might kill me), get the dog to go out and pee even though it’s wet out, finish another book (I finished the one that was due, but this one, I’m at 94% and honestly, the ONLY thing I want to do today is finish that book dammit), work on the quilt that’s on the machine, work on a donation quilt, work on a quilt that I’m helping a friend do, and draw the next piece. Short list, eh? There’s some other stuff I need to do, but I don’t feel like driving to REI or finding the leaf blower (probably not here) or moving gravel. So there.
Sleep and read, man. That’s where I’m at. Unfortunate.
So the current quilt…is still in the drawing stage and probably will be for the rest of this week. Because I’m having a lot of fun letting my brain just wander around with this biopunk/steampunk/cyberpunk, channeling Margaret Atwood and other weird shit that’s in my head because science teacher brain.
I started inking Monday night…
I really got into it. I sat on the couch for about an hour, spacing out, watching cat videos, and then got up and did this.
I had penciled stuff in, but I always change it a little when I use ink. I moved the entire butterfly up a bit.
The post-its have notes about stuff I want to think about or put into the drawing, and then in the middle of the night, I have ideas and I type them into my phone for the next time I’m drawing…
There’s more penciled in above and below…not slacking on the details in this one. So I’m going to keep going. It’s not political (yet. Or is it?).
I’m also still quilting this, although to be honest, not working consistently on it.
Two columns done, three to go, plus borders. It doesn’t take long; I just have a lot of other shit going on right now. You might have noticed.
Grading…
This was my view for 4 hours yesterday…probably another 4 today, if I can pull that off. Ugh.
Boychild made his own birthday cake…raspberry frosting was quite tasty…
It was chocolate on the inside, so I didn’t get a taste of it, but the rest of the fam did when they came by for presents.
We have a very similar picture from last year (watching the boychild open stuff). Mom petting the dog.
Where’s MY cake?
From the book I finished, which was better than I was expecting:
My milkweed is not only still blooming, but has caterpillars!
I would have thought it was too cold for them, but there are three of them…
I need to plant more seeds because these plants are at their leggy ends…
As you can see.
Plus now my deck has fungus…
I really need to replace these top boards. In my spare time. Ugh. Maybe summer.
OK. More tea (or heat this cup up for the fourth time). Read my book. (C’mon, it’s still break). Eat lunch. Grade some stuff. Then let them scan the eye (means I have to put pants and a bra back on. Ugh). Then more grading and some exercise. More tea. Break is coming to an end. Need to enjoy it as much as possible.
Kathy Nida 