Simplify. Fewer Words.

Mid-week posts while I’m teaching are SPARE. Unless I get into a show. Which I did! I have three pieces that will be in a California Fibers show at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, opening in January…looking forward to that. One of them is NOT the one I made for the show, so if you want to see the hiking quilt, IDK when or where that will be…so here’s I Can’t Be Your Superwoman…which did get in.

Dear WordPress: Why are you being so bitchy this morning? I already know today will be a challenge. I don’t need it shoved in my face. Seriously, it wouldn’t let me bold the title. Then it wouldn’t let me delete the caption under the figure that I didn’t even put there. Then it wouldn’t let me add a new box to type in. It’s like dealing with some of my students. Actually, yesterday, two kids did the thing when I pushed them to do the thing, even though I had no help in a class with 8 SPED in it (soon to be 9, I’m pretty sure)…I’m so tired of our SECA shortage. I’m especially tired of not knowing there will BE a SECA shortage in my classroom until the SECA just doesn’t show up. Yesterday was manageable only because two of them were absent. Another one drew a pentagram on my desk and another with chalk pastel (we had a conversation…I think we bonded over blackened fingers for art) and two of the others rocked it. Today is the less capable group, though, but I’m guaranteed a SECA in there due to child in wheelchair (oh good). We’ll see how it goes. Today is hard because I teach 4 different things: an Advisory topic (IDK WTF today is…I never know until I look at the form), the Block 1 of science (today is figuring out what fossils are on the continents in certain eras…yesterday this went well, good good), Art (will be fucking chaos of India ink and paintbrushes, pray for me to the Goddess of Art Teachers and the Hell in Which They Exist with Materials), and finally Block 2 of Science, which is all thinking and figuring stuff out, which often is a dead silent, not even crickets, because WE DID THE THINGS BUT WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THEM. Yeah. So that. And I have a meeting this morning so I have to leave in 10 minutes.

I did no art on Monday night because I was cleaning my studio. I started with putting the fabrics away.

From the last two quilts…one big one and one little one. I can’t focus on the next one until the room is under control. Also I need the boxes the fabrics are in to sort the Wonder Under, so it’s almost forced cleaning. This is a small space and it is already chock full, so without that stage, there is nothing happening.

Then last night, I made it to the gym for the first time in a month (woo hoo!), came home, packed up two quilts that need to ship out today, and finally made it in the studio for artmaking at about 10 PM. Ah good. So I sorted the first 100 pieces and ironed the first set of dirt to fabric.

It’s a start. It’s not a great start, but I’m ready to go for tonight. I should get a full hour in tonight, I hope, maybe more, although the gradebook opened, so I might be doing that instead.

Nova in a mood.

She likes to scratch things.

Anyway, I gotta get outta here, do the school thing, racing through, which is what most days feel like (hence the exhaustion at the end), then Pilates, then home for dinner and art stuff. Plus thinking about sub plans for Friday. I wrote them, but I need to simplify. Bullet points. Fewer words. Hard for me. You might have noticed.

You Will Have No Title

I was trying to add a title to this but WordPress wasn’t having it. I get it. You don’t want me to post it? Ah well.

Beautiful skies this morning after a rough night. It’s November! As I look at the calendar, which says “Oh fuck, it’s nearly Christmas.” No joke there. It’s that crazy rush time. At least there’s some time off coming.

The weekend still had a lot of school work. I need it mostly done before I take the weekend off for an art/hiking retreat. I did cut more stuff out on Friday night…

And then finished it up, 10 hours in, on Saturday night…

And last night, I sorted all the pieces out by the 100s…

Tonight, I’ll need to clean up the studio, put all the fabrics away from the last quilt (which didn’t get into the show I made it for, ironically…or normally…however you look at it).

I do like this next stage, picking all the fabrics. It’s more creative than the last few stages, but still meditative. Lots of standing though.

We did break up the grading for a 4+-mile hike on Saturday, the other side of the Helix Flume hike that we did a few months back.

We really need to leave earlier if we want to meet in the middle…the parking lots all close at 6. There’s El Cap.

It was warm at the beginning, but cooled off nicely.

Once you get up to the level of the flume, it’s mostly flat. It’s the climbing before that which is a bit much. Starting on the El Monte Park side was easier…I think.

Definitely has been some fire damage up here, but a while ago.

Creative fence building. We only saw one group of people on bikes…otherwise, we were the only ones on trail. The only wildlife this time was birds and bugs. And fresh coyote poop, plus possible footprints that weren’t there when we went through the first time. It’s good to hike. This weekend, we’ll be hiking in Joshua Tree National Park.

The cats were glad to see us. Or maybe perturbed.

Nova looks perturbed anyway.

We tried the silly hat on Calli.

She goes to the vet today to suss out her tumor on her side. The one on her nose is the one that will probably kill her, unfortunately. Inoperable. But the one on her side is supposedly benign…just has opened up and is rather disgusting and smelly. Sigh. Poor baby. It doesn’t hurt her at least.

This was Saturday night’s dinner drawing…

They don’t get finished because someone brings the food. I don’t remember if I posted last week’s drawing…

This is about the only drawing I’m doing at the moment. There just isn’t enough time for all the work and the art and actual sleeping and stuff.

Old timey photo of the kids, circa 2005.

Back in the day. The neighbor kids yelled “trick or treat” from the driveway, where we left the candy in a bowl in the wheelbarrow full of dirt, a skelly arm, and a pumpkin. I wasn’t ready for 23 kids coming up the stairs to the door. I live on a tiny street without traffic, but the neighbors invited friends over. We don’t really have that many kids on the block. It just sounds that way.

Well it’s a short week for me, but I’ll need to do sub plans for Friday. Then next week is even shorter because of Veteran’s Day. Then one full week on and a full week off. Work to do before all that. Grades are due next week…which is difficult. Ah well. I did go to school on Saturday and get one art assignment out of the way…there are two due Friday though and I won’t be there to collect them, so that should be interesting. Bad timing on the retreat, but I didn’t pick the days, unfortunately. OK. Off to work. It’s time.

Scissors Cutting Wonder Under…

I feel like I should follow up the last post with It’s Monday! Like you don’t know what day it is. It IS Monday. Pros: It’s a new week, I finished grading all the science units AND projects over the weekend, and it’s supposed to rain here today…good for plants. Cons: Monday. Tired. Worked all weekend so I don’t feel ready or rested. Pros: All the stuff for school this week is copied and organized. Cons: We planned a week where we are ON for four out of the five days. Granted, we are ON with Oreos on 1 1/2 of those days. Y’all, I don’t like block schedule. Those periods are so LONG and kids check out unless it’s AMAZEBALLS the entire time. Which sometimes it is…like Thursday and Friday. That is exhausting though for the teacher. This week, I will be demonstrating tectonic plates with Oreo cookies…and magma with corn syrup. It’s cool, but it’s a lot of being ON all the time.

Other exciting things for this week: I need to find a Halloween costume in my stash that will not be too hot to wear in the mid- to high 80s. It should be Disney-themed, but I might just fuck that off, because I don’t have the will or the brain power. I’m supposed to dress like my opposite gender on one day, but I think I already do that every day. Maybe I don’t have to wear a bra that day? That would be AWESOME. Not an issue in middle school at all. I can totally get away with that.

Oh man. My brain is on a roll.

So on Friday, I finished tracing all the pieces…

That’s 6 yards, some with a ton of tiny pieces; some with some whopping big pieces. It took a little over 17 hours to trace them all…not bad for 1500 or so pieces. It’ll probably be at least 7 or so hours to cut them out. I didn’t start until last night…

The day job ran the weekend. That’s about 40 minutes of cutting stuff out. Expect to see shots of that pile growing each night until it’s done.

I really did grade most of the weekend. I had about 50 videos to watch with a smattering of slide presentations to check if there was no video. But they’re done. This is a good thing.

I took a break in between Periods 3 and 4 to go for a 3.6-mile hike…

I just needed a break…and some exercise. It sucks to spend a weekend this way, but if it means I can come home all this week and NOT watch videos, I’m OK with it. The end of the trimester is coming up, and I will be out of town the weekend right before grades are due, so I’m trying to get all the last-minute shit out of the way…because my art class will be slamming me with two projects right before the end of the trimester. So there’s that. I know…it’s my fault…but there’s nothing I can do about that. I’ll figure it out. This school year is not low maintenance.

Cat forts…

They like them.

This lizard has moved into the camp chair I left outside.

It’s there every time I get home. The chair is mostly broken, which is why it’s out there…I guess it’s now a lizard home.

OK. Well I’ve got about a million things on the to-do list this week, but I’m hoping that art will happen in the form of scissors cutting Wonder Under every night. Maybe I’ll be done by the weekend? That would be nice…to be ironing onto fabric next weekend? It could happen. I’d need to clean up in here, of course. No Halloween parties for me…just fabric? Maybe. Oh yeah, it’s school photos today. I’m not in the mood. Think I have some animal snouts somewhere I could use for that…should find those. This week also includes reviewing my insurance because it’s open enrollment, plus a flu shot, book club, some exercise, some planning (hopefully a lot of planning), and a Zoom stitching meeting. Plus a chiropractic adjustment while in costume. Things to think about when choosing one’s costume. Hmmm.

Happy Monday thoughts, y’all.

Fast and Furious

Well I have about 8 minutes here to write. Fast and furious. It’s been long days at work, interspersed with some tracing and a little stitching with friends. On Wednesday, the union meeting went for almost 3 hours…I managed to get these graded before and during, as I was listening.

This is the only way I can grade art. Lay it out in the spectrum. So different than grading science.

I get an hour or a little more of this done every night…

I’m in the 400s…only 1100 to go or so.

I just have the head to do on the second figure. IDK how many more to go. There’s a lot of people in this quilt.

I managed stitching last night with friends…well I stitched and they crocheted.

It’s nice to hang out with humans who aren’t pre-teens. And cats…

Luna on her pillar. Yes, I had to cover the top because she kept scratching it. She doesn’t scratch the bottom of it. Ah well.

Unit 2 at school is ending Monday.

So there’s lots of panic on the kids’ part to get work done.

Or not. Some kids don’t get the urgency. It’s been a rough week. I’m looking forward to a couple of days off. Parent meeting this morning with someone who will probably be a major issue. Love those. Enable your kids’ behavior. Please. And then trying to get kids through the assignment. I’m tired.

Ah well. It is Friday. Fridays are often tired. Saturdays will be art and more art with some grading probably. Maybe not. That’s something to look forward to. And more tracing. Meditative. It’s good to do that right before bedtime.

Grading with Pancakes…

Progress on the quilt, a good long hike in the out of doors…even some grading got done. I learned that when I have to grade something hard, I should do something else at the same time…like making pancakes for the next three weeks of breakfasts. Pour batter, grade a thing, flip pancakes, grade a thing, remove from pan, grade a thing. Takes care of that need to get up and scream.

So the drawing is done as of Saturday night…on Friday, I added more paper to the top and decided against another figure…

I just needed enough for some weather. I had help.

Not really. I worked on the people in the bubble…

I really don’t understand the need to tell people what to do with their uteri. It makes no sense to me unless you are willing to adopt the child and feed and clothe it and send it to school. Otherwise, why the fuck do you care? When you are the same people who are OK with immigrant children in cages. When you are the same people ranting about having to wear a mask. It makes no fucking sense. And to ignore the male part of the equation is just stupid. Women don’t get pregnant by themselves, and men can get more than one woman pregnant at a time. There’s your problem…right there. Penises and sperm. Start with those if you wanna get all high and mighty.

Still not helping, Luna.

Saturday we hiked 7 1/2 miles in the Lagunas, which was really nice.

The weather was pretty chilly when we started…

Beautiful blue skies once the clouds went away.

We started at Penny Pines, hiked to the Big Laguna Trail, then cut across…

through Horse Heaven Campground, across the road, then picked up the PCT on the other side.

I’ve done the section north of Penny Pines toward Garnet Peak, but not this piece…great views of the desert on one side, the mountains on the other.

It was definitely warmer on the desert side.

Saw a family hiking this trail…guess they don’t read.

Weird.

Took me forever to see this stick insect. The man saw it right away.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild. It was a good hike and we were back at a reasonable time for me to get some work done, which I also needed to do.

Hey, there’s a Swallowtail cocoon on my lemon tree…

And one of the caterpillars is still feeding…

So many of them disappear; I’m assuming eaten by birds.

I started this drawing on Thursday, the night I forgot to prep dinner, and then finished it Saturday night.

Kinda like it. Not sure what it’s about. But it feels huggy.

Then filled in the background on the big drawing…finished!

Although I ended up adding some lines last night just to break up some pieces more logically. Then I numbered it last night…

Which took an hour and a half…

It’s got 1513 pieces, but I know I have some a’s and b’s in there because I missed things the first time through and wanted the numbers to attempt to make sense.

My dad gave me an article about the guy who helped make the Texas Abortion bill and how he thought about getting around all the challenges. What an ass (the guy, not my dad). Seriously, couldn’t he do something with his skills that might help humanity? Save the planet? Cure disease? Not create a larger unsupported, sometimes unwanted, sometimes unneeded population? That men aren’t responsible for? Yeah. Not a fan.

Well the next step is to trace. First, though, off to work on very little sleep. I’d like to thank my brain for the first hour or so of not sleeping, and a small dog for the last hour or so. He will adapt to our new morning schedule, I think, but it will take a while. Until then, I will either need more caffeine or many naps (not likely).

I leave you with this drawing of magma that looked an awful lot like COVID…

Yeah, makes sense to me.

Missed This, Remembered That…

Saturday was already sorta packed…I wanted to go to a show that was closing that day, plus I had a meeting, an actual in-person meeting. I totally spaced on the fact that it was October and there was a women’s march. Damnit. I meant to look it up, but apparently I’m off the information list or something, and I missed it. Sigh. I did come home after everything I DID do and start drawing an angry quilt in response to the crazy Texas abortion ban. It’s been in my head, drawing and redrawing itself for days, so I finally started to vomit it on paper. With a pen. Much cleaner that way.

I tried drawing part of this in my sketchbook earlier in the day, but eh. Not so much. And my evening was kind of irritating. I almost just shut down and did nothing. My brain was in a bad place. But then I got up and cut the paper and started sketching in pencil, getting the broad idea of where things were going, and kept going from there. This was about an hour in…

And then last night, I started in on the details…which is the one problem with drawing full size…I put too many details in and they’re small…

I’m trying to remember that. But maybe I don’t care as much as I should. I just want a project that takes up all of my mind after work and keeps me going for a while, and work is taking up too much time and brainpower. I need something to counteract that. Big complicated quilt to the rescue!

The closing show I went to was Paula Kovarik’s exhibit at Visions Art Museum…

It was a fascinating show. I have seen some of this develop online, but it’s so much better in person. I’m glad I made it to the show. I did say to the volunteers working there about 5 times that they need to make hours that working people can get to, more than just 10-2 on Saturday. That’s a really rough time for me. If I want to hike, I won’t make it. If I have anything else I need to do, it’s during those same hours. It’s hard, because I know they’re making financial decisions as well, but it’s been near impossible to get there until this weekend. It was totally worth getting up earlier and getting out of the house before I usually do. Saturday is my relaxation morning, the only one I get, so I give it up to very little.

Her work is fascinating…I probably said that already.

The stitched line…

The 3D shapes…

Cutting things up and making them into new things…

The hint of traditional quilting but really not…

Fascinating. Like I said.

I just walked around and enjoyed it…

More than once…

Yeah, that phrase pisses me off.

Crazy amount of details…

If you ever have a chance to see her work, you should. I did listen to her talk back in early August, when the show opened, right before school started (hence my inability to get to the actual show). And I bought her book. Fun stuff. I’m always inspired by how other artists do the work.

I stitched a little on this at the meeting I was at, until I volunteered to remove paper from pieced blocks…

And I drew this at dinner…

The weekend also included a negative COVID test after two positive cases in my classrooms, and a COVID booster. So far, my arm hurts, but nothing else symptom-wise that I’m noticing. Good news.

Nova support on the drawing front…

Although some of her support is not really supportive…

I need those.

And to finish with this…

I wish I lived in a ‘socialist’ country that cared about the health of its people. Sigh. My biggest retirement expense will be medications.

OK, long busy day, already feel tired. Could be vaccine; could just be life. Hopefully energy will rebound at the end for more drawing. I’d like to get done with that stage and onto the tracing.
We’ll see how that goes.

Warm Socks…

I’m loving this cooler weather. I actually wore warm socks to pad around the house, albeit with shorts on, because it’s not flannel pajama weather yet. Quite. It won’t last, of course, but it was nice this weekend to go out hiking with a bit of a chill in the air. Hell, it was just nice to go out hiking, even if it was only 3 miles. I’m fighting for work/life balance (and mostly losing). Here’s the hike view, though, so I don’t forget…

That was Saturday evening, around 5:30 PM.

Friday, after work, after entering a show, I got in the car and drove to Carlsbad, to the PHES Gallery opening of the Allied Craftsmen show. It’s a nice show in a nice space. My two pieces are here…

I lurked behind people and listened to them talk about the pieces. That’s always fun. Although I didn’t get home until after 10 PM, so that was also exhausting. I also got news Friday that two of my quilts at The Studio Door sold, so that was cool…not enough for a new sewing machine or to trim the trees, but it’s a start. It’s always a good thing.

Saturday, I got up early, because my brain knew how much work was on my plate and wouldn’t let me sleep in. I started by cleaning up, ironing, and packing up the quilt to go to the photographer at noon. Then I pieced the two blocks I owed for the community quilt my guild is doing for Quilt Con…they were due at noon to someone’s house, so I dropped them at 11:45 (I was early, c’mon), and then dropped the quilt at the photographer’s. Here’s the blocks…

They had given us some extra fabric to deal with the long pieces in the center, but I fucked that up and ended up having to do some improv piecing, which wasn’t hard and will probably add to the final design…I’ll post it when we have it.

I graded after piecing and before driving to drop things…and then I came home and graded until my sourdough dough was ready for the bulk stage. Then I went to school to deal with the stuff I’d left there…all the late Unit 1s that I had to rip out of kids’ hands (just a little more time! Dude, I need to do progress reports now, not later) and then all the stuffed animal drawings.

Guys, grading art is so hard. Sometime Friday night/Saturday morning, when I wasn’t sleeping, I figured out the best way to handle it…lay them out based on the rubric…who hit all 4 points, who hit most of them, who hit a few of them, and who wasn’t hitting much of anything. Yeah. It worked. I printed the rubrics and graded the obvious As first…they had all the things I asked for. I can’t say the middle lows were easy to grade…they weren’t. But I wrote suggestions, and with some, offered that if they kept going at home and improved it (like actually finished it), their grade would improve.

I know some would just give everyone an A, but this is an academic class and my kids feed into the REAL art teacher (I just play one on TV), and she will hold them to these high standards. Plus this is probably the hardest project we will do. So hopefully the next one will go better. We’ll see.

After 2 1/2 hours at school, I had what I needed, and that’s when I came home and hiked (what I REALLY needed). At dinner, I drew before the food came…

This is the beginning of an idea for the next quilt.

Sunday was more grading, lots more. But Sunday night, I got a chunk more done on this…

It’s taking me forever because of the other deadlines I have. It’s almost done, though, and should be on its way to the Social Justice Sewing Academy this week sometime, assuming I can get to the post office before it closes. I wanted all the things done before I started drawing the next quilt.

Cats are weird, y’all.

I’m gonna shove my face and use the wall as a pillow.

Am I done with grades? Nope. Wearing my Nope shirt today too. Had one kid constantly emailing me all weekend. I stopped answering. I’ll get through the last bit of it today and post grades. Hopefully some of them will learn not to do stuff last minute…luckily it’s a progress report and not a final report card. Then I will have my first chiropractic adjustment in forever, hallelujah. And maybe I’ll get to do something besides school tonight…maybe. I’m still two weeks behind on assignments, so that’s a thing I’ll be doing all week. Plus making videos for this week…kids are still out on COVID contracts. Ugh. Yeah. It’s been too much school lately. Need to get to work on changing that. Again. Still.

Quilted!

I did pretty well in the last few days…finished quilting the big monster and the little late one. Got a new loaner computer that doesn’t randomly shut down and is significantly faster…interesting that they said about the first pile of shit, “This is the only loaner we have,” and then a much better one surfaced when that one proved to be unreliable. It’s good. I was about to call the superintendent. It sucks that all my downloads are on the other one…I forgot about that. Plus my stickies. Sigh. Those don’t save to a cloud…they save to the device. We are so spoiled these days. I did photograph the old stickies, then remade them on the first loaner, and am too paranoid to remake them on the second loaner because maybe that’s what killed the other two. I know, crazy. Superstitious!

I started quilting Friday night and put three hours in before bed…

With help. Damn, honey, that’s my chair. Yes, she’s talking back.

Saturday, I did some school stuff in the morning and then sat down at the machine around 1:30 PM.

I got up a bunch of times to stretch, pee, make tea, run around a bit, but basically staying there for the next 6 1/2 hours.

The Man had a show, and I had nothing better to do (well, don’t tell the day job that…I have a shit ton of grading and progress reports are due in a week).

So after about 9 hours of quilting in 24 hours, I was done.

I trimmed her last night and found some binding fabric…

That was not an easy process. I shopped in the stash, but I needed more than half a yard, and that’s what I usually buy. I thought a green would work, and it probably would have, if I’d had enough of the right one, so I ended up with a blue.

I also quilted the Patreon reward piece. I’ll get it trimmed and bound tonight, hopefully, plus get the binding and sleeves on the other one, then piece my quilt guild blocks, and then I can get the machine back to my mom and plan the next quilt. It’s big. Dedicated to Texas and rich white men and their penises. Sigh. Stupid people trying to monitor uteri. Can’t wear a mask, but can point a finger at a woman who is only half of the issue…and has a damn good reason. So irritated with this country at the moment.

Anyway. Lots of work needs to happen today. We’ll see how it goes. I wish I had a personal laptop I could use to grade while the loaner plays today’s video…then the next three days are all high-maintenance labs. But then home to get these quilts done. Good thing.

Up into the Sky…

Good news…got into a show. Womanscape is going to Quilts=Art=Quilts, so you can see it there.

Bad news…one of the shows I was in has canceled due to COVID. OK news…they’re trying to find a new place to travel the exhibit. So what do I do the last two nights? Enter two more shows. Always doing that. But between that, the paperwork part of being an artist, and my day job, I haven’t made it to the sewing machine much. That is frustrating. And today won’t be much better…

I managed a whopping 45 minutes on Monday night and zero minutes last night.

I am up in the sky, which is significantly less complicated than the shit down below (on the quilt and in real life, right?), so it shouldn’t take much time. That said, I have exercise class and book club (in person!) tonight, so the odds of my having any mental or physical energy left when I get home is low. So tomorrow it is. Goals adjust. I want to be done, but I can’t magic that into happening. I have a shit ton of school work to do as well, so that’s not helping. I did come in here, into the studio last night to do some stitching, but then entered a show and did some other paperwork for art, and yes, did a few things for school…

Because I walked/hiked earlier…3.4 miles. I needed it.

Last week I hardly did anything (granted it was hot and that doesn’t help)…walking all day at school doesn’t count. Although it does…just not as much as I’d like.

Hello friend.

It was big. And didn’t stop coming toward me until I said Hi.

Anyway, I didn’t cook either, bless those who live with me, but after I’d finished eating and we were still watching the show of the night (which is from a comic book I actually read…well, the first few anyway…I’d read them again), I needed something to work on, so I pulled out the scarf I started on Sunday in class. I really SHOULD have pulled out the SJSA block and just gotten it done, but I didn’t. I will. I promise. It needs to get done. Lots of things need to get done. Ugh.

Kitten for sizing. So this is going to be covered in stitching, mostly running stitch. I wanted to get the outline in so I could start adding parts, like veins and a heart and fingernails and lungs if I decide to do that. I have no idea what’s going to be going on around her, but it will be cool. Now that there’s an outline, I don’t need to mark things…I think. Makes it easier. OK, maybe need to mark the heart and the eyeball…and the hair? I don’t know…we’ll see. Fun stuff. Great way to use up all the thread I have…except you know it won’t use ALL of it up. This is almost all of one card of perle cotton. I’ve got about a million more.

And at the end, being Californians, we checked the news.

Oh yeah. Good thing. All politicians suck in many ways, but Larry Elder? Fuck me. He would have devastated the schools. All the things that help my kids, my students? Yeah, gone. Dumbassery. For all the talk of Newsom being heavy-handed with the pandemic, I’d rather be here than in Florida. Our numbers are better. Yes, we’d like to solve the homeless problem and make houses more affordable, but that’s not one guy…that shit has been around through Democrats and Republicans and unless we become much more socialist (oooh…bad word) than we are, it’s not changing. Voting one guy out and replacing him with a talk-show host who is an absolute idiot is not how to solve that shit. Let’s remember which party likes to help people more when the next gubernatorial election comes up. Hopefully we’ll have someone on the ticket who has some plans for that. The fewer rich white guys in charge, the better. The fewer totally unqualified, inexperienced, mouthy assholes in charge, also better.

OK, so today is early in, plan like a whirling dervish, work hard all day, be efficient as hell, hope no one co-opts my prep period so I can actually get the 19 contracts completed and off my computer that need to be done apparently by Friday, plus probably fill out at least one more I saw pop up yesterday…plus work out and then hang out (outside) with my book club friends. What book is it? Dunno. I read it…just don’t remember which one it was. Probably it doesn’t matter. Stitch down if I can tonight…I’m so close to done.

Complicated Fingers

Hey. It’s Wednesday and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I got caught up with some school stuff, which is good, but yesterday, the work day started before 8 AM and ended after 6 PM. Today will be the same. Thursday will start earlier and will have to end earlier, only because I have to be somewhere. And it’s not like I’m getting shit all the way done with all that. The shit I was supposed to do during prep yesterday didn’t happen because we have these new short-term contracts the state wants us to do for kids who are out on pandemic quarantines, and it’s quite a bit of work…not the actual contract. It’s pretty easy, once you have everything set up and all your videos or whatever you’re gonna do made…OK, that actually took most of my prep (also my computer decided it didn’t want to be my friend any more), but then emailing every kid and parent, searching out parent emails, cutting and pasting. I did 11 contracts last night…I probably will have 11 more to do today (I had one I didn’t do last night, because it’s the other subject and so are the other ones I’ll get today)…and it took 90 minutes after school to get it all done. Meanwhile, nothing gets planned or graded for the kids who are actually IN class. I know we have to provide work for everyone, but someone at the district needs to hire someone who can code a program/system/app/I don’t give a fuck what it is but it will go do all the menial shit that’s in the system so I don’t have to…and all the other teachers don’t have to repeat the same work I’m doing. That’s the idiotic part. Politicians pass a law to help kids, but the infrastructure to help the teachers is not in place (what’s new there??? Nothing), and teachers can’t help ALL the kids because they’re helping the kids who will trigger the state to audit our procedures and fine us if we don’t do the things that the state doesn’t give us the money for in order to create the infrastructure. SIGH. A friend asked where all the COVID money went. I DON’T KNOW. Here’s a good place for it. Also, when politicians vote for things, they should be required to sit in my classroom with me until almost 6 PM and HELP ME search out all those parent emails and record videos and set up lessons.

None of that happens. So instead, I am feeling overwhelmed and like I literally got nothing done yesterday that was on my plan…and because I have a union meeting this afternoon, probably today’s prep will be similarly fucked.

Anyway. I can’t say I come home in a great mood…and no exercise because everything ran too late and then I had to cook dinner and I’m pretty sure two phone calls came in and I didn’t answer either of them.

I have renewed my optimism that I will be incredibly efficient during prep today, because I don’t have a prep tomorrow.

I have been ironing. Not much each night, but at least an hour before bed. Monday, though, I managed about 3 hours of ironing. I was really good about getting work done in the morning…so here I am, up in the sky finally.

I’ve decided that I’m the only one who can see the figures…

They are damn subtle. I will pull them out with stitching…

I was hoping to be done Monday, but I had about 50 pieces left, including some complicated fingers and a face that would have to be done separately and then ironed in.

So last night, I finished all that…

With stitching, the face will appear. I can see it.

Hard to get a picture of the whole thing until I get it on a background…which will be tonight, hopefully. Iron it down, clean the space up a bit, and start stitching down.

My Social Justice Sewing Academy block is closer to done…just a little more embellishment.

The back is fascinating.

Kitten keeps trying to lie on it.

She follows me around when I get home, trying to figure out how to get close to me. Not ON me…just close.

Shit. Which reminds me, she needs her meds. Gonna go do that, then brush my teeth and get out of here. I promised a kid a folder up front at the office by 8 AM, and that’s not too long from now. I think I’m fucked on that deadline…hopefully dad will come later. Wish me luck for the day, that it’s productive and less frustrating than yesterday.