One of Those School Dreams…

So I was trying to fall back asleep around 4:30 AM, like you do, and then the Man’s alarm was going off and I realized I was dreaming about school, sort of, because it’s never really your school or work or whatever. It’s tweaked. But I’m running (RUNNING) home from school because I forgot to take a shower (WTF Nida) and I had my teacup and my bag and I ran into one of my current students and she had a big platter of Christmas goodies she wanted to give me (this shit never happens in real life) and she really was worried and wanted to do it right then (kind of realistic actually) so we went into a tea shop and I put my stuff down and took her goodies and thanked her and all that and then RAN home, but for some reason, I never got there; I was running toward school, except it’s that dream school I have that looks a lot like the high school I went to, but not quite, and then I’m still trying to take a shower, but realizing I left my teacup and bag in the tea shop, and I keep looking at my watch (I haven’t worn a watch in years) and ONE minute has passed and then ONE MORE minute has passed, and there’s only a shower in the science department, but they just had a huge meeting (we only have maybe 9 teachers max in our ‘science department’) and they’re all breaking up and using the bathroom, so the time is getting later and later and I still haven’t had a shower and my TEACUP is not here; it’s in the tea shop. I don’t even know what I did with the treats from that kid and then my alarm goes off.

For Fuck’s Sake, brain. You could be more creative than that.

Yes, today, everywhere, teachers will be teaching with their hair on fucking fire. Just think good thoughts. (I showered, by the way.) Send treats. Find my teacup.

My solar is being installed today. It was supposed to be Monday, but it’s supposed to rain a lot, ironically, so it will be today. I won’t be here. Hopefully they won’t fall through my roof.

I am going to go to school and try to make 164 kids (oh, who the hell are we kidding…at least 20 won’t show up, maybe more by the end of the day) finish the essay (it’s SEVEN whole sentences y’all) they started yesterday, and turn all their shit in, so I can spend break grading it. Uh huh. It’s a stupid system. Not sure how to improve that part.

We have an assembly at the end of the day, which should be a lot of standing and eyeballing kids doing stupid shit (that’s the audience). It’ll be fine. Then I hand out progress reports. More fun. No really. And clean my room so the custodial staff can clean my room. And pack up a pile of crap to grade.

Which is why, last night, I stayed up grading an assignment instead of doing art. I needed at least one more gone before break started. Which is also why the only photos I have are of kittens.

I went out for a drink after work, which I almost never do…and it was Thursday, so then my brain thought it was Friday (it wasn’t). I came home and we had dinner and I graded an assignment in between being a Kitten Landing Zone…this is Luna…

And this is Luna chewing on her sister Nova’s ear. In my face.

This did not end well.

But eventually they came back and settled and purred and slept and then the Man made me get up to fetch dinner…

I graded more, which was fascinating to cats because paper makes crinkly noises and pens are just fun to play with. But eventually they offloaded onto the Man…

Which made it easier to grade.

They are cute. And fascinating. I finished grading one assignment, which took a long time (probably because I was watching the new season of The Expanse, which is also fascinating). And then I went to bed. And today I gird my loins and go off into battle. Then I spend the next three weeks avoiding all those assignments, and DRAWING EVERY DAY. Yes, I’m doing that again, starting tonight. Looking forward to letting my brain spill out on paper every day. Wish me luck.

Rocks Are Hard Yo…

Yesterday. Was a slog. Apparently 12-year-olds don’t like rocks as much as I do. Plus I had to act out a wind turbine, which was hard because (a) I forgot the sound effects (whoOSH) and (b) my arms won’t turn like that, so I just look like a crazy woman. What’s new, right? I made the SECA laugh anyway. The kids think I’m nuts though, and rocks are hard yo. Ha Ha. They usually ARE hard. I want that shirt now. Rocks are hard. OK, this is how you know we’re close to break…the stupidest shit makes a teacher laugh until she cries. Rocks are hard.

OK. That said, I had to push and shove and yank them through the understanding of mining and the rock cycle yesterday…today we finish with the copper mine and then they write the CER. QUIETLY. For reals. Sigh. I can’t help anyone when I have children losing their minds because I asked them to write 7 whole sentences. In two days, it’ll be fine. FINE, I SAID.

I went to pilates right after work. That was pretty smart. The class was half empty (it wasn’t supposed to be) and it was good. Relaxing in a shaky-muscle kinda way. When I made it home, someone else was cooking for once (yay!) and I finished grading one assignment and input it and another one, and then made a list of all the things that needed grading over break unless I get some of them done in the next two days and I lost my mind. Eyes rolling back in head. Seriously behind. Always. Never caught up. My eyelid is not twitching though…yet…so that’s a good sign. Although my neck is close to frozen in place. Massage! To the rescue!

The kittens are very energetic…

And in everything, EVERYTHING. They tried to climb one of the quilts on the wall yesterday, so we moved some stuff to stop that. This is my sewing bag. Or a cat carryon. Hard to say.

They completely shredded this toy after pulling it out of a box and dragging it around…

I wish I could get a good photo of them leaping through the air, but they are too fast…

Sometimes they even slow down and let you pet them…

They are sweet. Although the house is currently a lot of animals trying to eat poop or attack things.

Kitten is still avoiding it all…by living in my office…

Calli wants to play too…and eat poop…

Simba is in the eat poop category…but also how much cat food can he steal.

I did stitch down for about an hour. I don’t have much stamina at the moment.

My brain is all over the map, stressed out, trying to get everything done and out of my head onto paper.

I’m more than halfway around, two full figures done and started on the third. It won’t take long to finish it. I just need the mental space (as always) and the energy. At some point, I’m going to need to sit down with my art deadlines and realistically decide about the next one. I’m not there yet. Certainly with two days of school before break, that is NOT the time to reevaluate anything (except my job choice of course).

Which means I need to go to work. It’s Decade Day. I’m 90s grunge, even though I always dress this way and I have to wear my school shirt because it’s also the staff picture day. And during the 90s, I was giving birth to my children, so 90s grunge was all about breastfeeding and diapers. Well, the last half of it anyway. Whatever. Happy holidays y’all! Especially sending good thoughts to teachers everywhere. Don’t kill them! It’s not worth the jail time. Joke. Mostly.

It’s My Favorite Day of the School Year…

It is my favorite day of the entire school year. No, not the last day. I hate the last day. It’s stressful and annoying and I have my homeroom kids for 3 hours straight which is just nuts. Not fun. It’s not the day before Winter Break…then they act like they’re on crack and they can do totally stupid shit because three weeks is forever for them and they don’t think they’ll EVER get in trouble for acting out, plus sugar, plus Christmas makes them LOSE THEIR MINDS, and there’s an assembly, which just hurts my head even more, so no, not this Friday. Today is my favorite day because it’s…pajama day. You heard me. I get to wear pajamas to school. It’s like heaven on Earth. Oh yeah. I’m so happy.

Which is good, because I’m teaching about mining and spending my lunch giving quizzes, so none of that is fun at all. Well, mining isn’t bad. It’s just getting them to understand what the rock cycle has to do with it. It might be really obvious to YOU. Not so to a 12-year-old.

Anyway, I can survive three more days of school. I’m up early for yet another random meeting. Yesterday, during tutoring, I sat with an exhausting table. Sometimes I walk around and help random kids, but yesterday there was a group of kids who are mostly mine who needed science help. Literally one I had to say…now write the next sentence about farts. Seriously. Don’t even ask. Please. The rest of the time was like having WWII fighter pilots bombing you from above and trying to avoid the bombs, plus answer all the questions, and keep the pilots on task, because they wanted to go over THERE or over THERE and not do their job. EXHAUSTING. I really appreciate the other teacher who stayed late because all the other teachers ditched yesterday and I was gonna be all alone.

I came home and wrapped some gifts and talked to some people in person and on the phone and made dinner yet again (not sure how I ended up with double duty, and I’m pretty sure someone was supposed to help last night and didn’t, but when I looked over to ask for help, he had two baby kittens snoring on him)…spaced out a little, watched some TV, read 6 pages of Trump’s crazy-ass letter to Pelosi (how did he write that much? That’s a lot of words, albeit crazy words), and came in here and set up to do stitchdown…

This isn’t going to take very long. It’s very meditative…

Ah, spacecat. I only did an hour’s worth. More tonight I think…

I should be grading shit, but I couldn’t deal with it after being in tutoring. I was tired of it. I’ll do some today. I swear. There’s some easy stuff I could (should) get out of the way. I don’t want to be grading all break. Although there’s a few significant assignments this week. Ugh.

It’s really hard to get good pictures of these beasts sometimes. They’re constantly racing around…they wanted out this morning after the man left, but I knew I was leaving too, so I told them no…

They’re not really big enough yet to be let all over the house unsupervised, especially with my sweet girl (um. Well. She’s not so sweet.) in the house.

I had a moment last night…it’s the second time…where I really wanted to go to Craft Napa up in…well…Napa. It’s mostly art quilt stuff and it just sounds fun to take a class and mess around, but it takes forever to get there and I am back at school and I’m taking a class the weekend before in Palm Springs, which is a ways away, but nowhere near as far as Napa, so UGH. I had to persuade myself out of it again. Plus it would be really expensive to get there and stay there and take classes, so no, no, no, you can’t. Plus you have another quilt to finish before the end of January and it doesn’t even exist on paper, so I don’t know how the hell you think that is going to happen if you are traipsing all over California.

OK, I also need to wrap presents and pack quilts for shows tonight, so I should do some of that. I bought the boxes yesterday to get ready for it. And I have pilates right after school…I’ve never done an early class like this, right after school…I’ll need to change at school and go over there. I’m hoping it’s really relaxing and helps me slide into the evening. Because remembering to bring all my shit with me and actually leave school on time is a little stressful.

OK. I’m rocking pajama day. Happy to be in flannel. Already more relaxed than I would normally be.

Portland in Review

We’re back from Portland. I haven’t slept much. I’ve been awake since 4:42 AM. I did go to bed early, so I think it was about the same amount of sleep. It was a fun trip, too short of course, but I think I might be able to handle the rest of this week. We’ll see. Perhaps the sub notes will send me over the edge. Certainly some of the student emails I got over the weekend might. I’m getting a shirt that says “It’s not fair…” and then something pithy. That my students won’t understand. Like most of my shirts.

Anyway, we picked Portland just because. We had to use a flight before the end of the year and we didn’t have much time, so we didn’t want to spend it all flying. Portland was a good distance, had some entertainment stuff we liked, had some friends we liked, and the man had never been there. Plus we might do a camping trip up there sometime. A ways out. So this was just kind of checking it out.

My ex-San Diego friend Susan (she’s not my ex-friend…she moved to Portland recently) picked us up and pretended to be our Lyft driver. We fed her lunch, which we don’t do with our Lyft drivers…

She then dropped us off at our Airbnb…with a stop at a grocery store for some supplies. We did talk about the street art and the homeless population…comparing Portland’s treatment to San Diego’s…

No spiky rocks planted there to keep them from camping out…

It was a longish day of travel…we were up early…so the man crashed out for a couple of hours. He needed it.

I graded stuff and drew and read my book. I’m good at entertaining myself.

Our Airbnb was up a huge hill, right next to Forest Park. Pros: right next to Forest Park and great views. Cons: huge hill.

We did walk down for dinner. The cold is not something we’re really used to, but we layered up. Ate dinner. Decided not to walk back. I would have. The man called a Lyft.

We got up at a reasonable hour the next morning, ate breakfast, and walked the half block to the first trail…

This was cool.

It’s been a while since we’ve hiked together…and it was good. Lots of dogs and misty rain and runners and green, so much green.

We went out Wildwood Trail for a good 4 miles or so, and then hiked down to the road coming back. It was shorter on the way back, but a healthy start to the day. Then we did a bunch of stuff that involved two Lyft drivers, wandering through Powell’s Books mindlessly, some chicken wings and cider or beer, plus seeing an old high-school friend, his wife, and their dog (dog is sweet), plus more walking, some more cider or beer and some food, plus this…

That’s from a dollhouse in the Freakybuttrue Peculiarium…

Which reminded me a lot of an alien museum in Roswell, NM, that we enjoyed…although I wanted to file a complaint about this…because that’s not needlepoint.

So there.

Drawing in bars…my specialty…although this was a bottle shop…

This was a painting outside a food co-op…

And this was the drawing I finished on Friday…

Sort of out of order. Here’s Saturday’s drawing…

finished in the bottle shop. I persuaded the man to walk back to the house! I know. He probably had a bit too much beer in him, but we made it! I think that was 7 miles total.

Sunday, we got up, ate, packed, and our lovely not-Lyft driver took us to the airport…on the plane, we saw the first sun we’d seen since we left San Diego, plus one of the volcanic majesties around Portland. We saw two, so this might be Mt. Hood…it might not.

Someone knowledgeable will tell me. Drawing 3 happened in the Las Vegas airport, surrounded by people with hangovers…

And then we were home…the man left to go get the babies, who got spayed last week…and are quite recovered. They look sleepy there, but that was after 3 hours of rampaging around the house…

They are officially ours now…paid for and our problem.

I consoled the old lady, who missed us. Maybe.

She helped me grade more stuff. It’s always good to go on a trip right before grades are due. I really only graded in airports, except for the 2-hour nap thing. No, I’m not done. I’m close though.

This morning, babies are up and crazy again…

Stitches my ass. They are not feeling it now.

OK. Gotta go to work. Teach kids. Ignore the whiny It’s Not Fair crew. Grade some shit. Give a test! Whatever. Hopefully art this week, beyond just drawing…not that I don’t like to draw. I truly enjoyed giving myself that time this weekend. Keeping that in mind for the future. Oh yeah, Portland…we’ll be back…maybe with a tent and more hiking time to spare…

Doesn’t Look Like Much…

Well it’s humpday. My brain is confused by days. As a teacher, I should have this down. What day is it? I write it on the board every day. You’d think I’d have a clue. This week is weird, though. I’ll be out on Friday, so I need sub plans and a video explaining shit. Plus packing and laundry and grocery shopping. No worries. Two meetings tonight. Not sure how all this will get done.

I have two more periods of grading this hellacious assignment. Grades are due Tuesday, less than a week away. I’m in Portland for three days. Grading will happen on the plane and in airports, but I don’t want it to happen once we get there. There honestly won’t be time. A stressful trip but hopefully a fun one too.

The sunset last night from the chiropractor’s office…

It was prettier in person of course.

The kittens went off to their spay surgery location last night…spay today; we’ll see them on Sunday night (well, the man will see them tomorrow night). Apparently one really didn’t want to get in the cage at the foster location. Awww. We are no longer fostering by the way…they’re ours. Because they were gone, though, Kitten came out to explore her favorite thing this time of year, the Christmas tree. Yes, it only has one ornament on it. I’ve been busy.

Really, she just wants to eat pine needles and throw them back up. It’s a strange ritual.

I graded until about 10:30 PM. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that today with the two meetings. We’ll see. Maybe I can grade some in class, but I doubt it.

Then ironing…I so want to be done with this step, but life is busy. I got everything ironed except the last head…

And the center bit…and I laid out all the 800s…but to keep ironing would have put me well past 1 AM, so I stopped at midnight. Ish. Sleep is a thing I need. So I have a head to do, the center bit, and the space cat, about 72 pieces. Then I need to figure out the background, which is a bigger deal. Because I have no idea what I’m going to do about that. Maybe give up and go shopping on Thursday after work. I wanted to piece this background and this was going to be the perfect piece for that, and it might still be, but I haven’t had the time to see if I can pull it off. Too much time being responsible and shit.

Oh yeah, she’s headless…

Here’s some loose bits that will hang out around the women…

A spaceship and a monarch butterfly. You know, like you do.

Look! That’s all that’s left…

Doesn’t look like much because it’s not. I might not go to book club tonight. I might do this instead (shhh). Or I might get out of the first meeting too late anyway to traipse all the way across town.

It’ll all get done eventually. Even decorating the tree. Cleaning the girlchild’s room (she’s coming home in 10 days, 15 hours, and 18 minutes. Give or take. Winter Break. It’s soon too. All good. Really. OK. Off to NeedyTown. We play a game today. It’ll be OK.

Which Way Is Up…

When I’m ironing a quilt together late at night, the little tiny voice that remembers how tired I will be the next day is very quiet. It’s overwhelmed by the art brain, which is stomping around and excited about what happens next and why can’t we just finish it now and WTF is up with your needing a day job what happened to us being starving artists. Yeah. So sometimes I don’t hear the little voice until it’s late and sometimes I don’t hear it until it’s REALLY late. Luckily last night was just late. And I did see the clock. And I realized I had a parent meeting this morning. And I just didn’t care. Last night. This morning, I care a little bit more, although I’m functional. Art brain is muttering about how we could have FINISHED the ironing last night (always true. Not always smart.). It’s OK. We’ll finish tonight. We’re close, it’s true, but not close enough.

Speaking of close, while I was grading, somehow I ended up with this…

She made it hard to type, but how can you resist? Sweet (bitey asshole) baby. No really. She is a bitey asshole. Her sister will confirm. “I want to clean your ear. And then I want to bite it.” Eventually Nova left. No bites.

But first, a requisite family photo…

Nova definitely upped the weight gain last week. They’re getting spayed tomorrow. Hoping they’re both OK. We won’t see them again until Sunday night. I think we temporarily named them Flower or Sweetness (on the left) and Butthead (on the right) last night. Significantly different personalities.

I was trying to grade through all that. All that was after spending about an hour and a half standing in pharmacies, arguing with my medication insurance company about their fucked-up stupidity…always fun. Eventually solved. Someone lost or stole my meds in Compton, so they never showed up…getting short-term replacements is a Pain in the ASS. It doesn’t matter that your doctor approved it. Your insurance company needs five levels of approval and at least one Giant Fuckup on their part before they’ll OVERRIDE. I apologize to everyone in CVS last night who heard me go off on the LAST person I talked to. Love insurance. Really. Mostly. Sigh.

I gave up on grading after 5 essays. Between the residual holiday party annoyance, the pharmacy irritation, and kitten interactions, I couldn’t concentrate any more. Which sucks, because ideally they’re all done before I leave, and I’m less than halfway there. Ugh.

I ironed. It was 10 PM. It was fair.

Yeah, that’s upside down. See previous comments about which way is up. Because I don’t know. Figure 3 in progress, new iron…

It’s large. Probably more likely to hit the floor.

I need an iron that knows how (and when) to levitate.

Figure 3 is done…now comes the fun part of trying to make Figure 4 fit everything together.

Hard to do…I got a start on her, but she’s missing some chunks. I did make it work though.

No holes! My original background choices aren’t going to work, I think. Too much dark in the figures to go on a relatively dark background. I’ll have to think about it. And go through the stash, because I’m probably piecing it. I don’t have time to go buy anything new, so it’ll have to be pieced.

Anyway, that’s after today’s day at work, which includes a lab and managing the sweet dipwads who haven’t finished all their work. Plus tutoring. Where the kids who don’t need it show up and the kids whose parents are forcing them to go show up and say they don’t want to work on science because history is easier. Then when I walk away, they go back to whatever game they were playing that I can’t catch them at. Yup. It’s December and progress reports are coming.

I Killed an Iron…

Happy Monday! I know. It’s Monday. I’m trying a positive attitude. I actually did OK this weekend and am feeling OK about going into this week. Not awesome, but OK. As always, I’m tired. I’m behind in grading. And the floors are dirty. What’s new? I know, right? It’s not raining. That’s a plus. Today’s classwork is a known thing. Also a plus. The lab is tomorrow. That will be harder, but it’s a pretty easy lab. I’m only working 4 days this week…at school…because I’m ditching school for a day to go to Portland. Why Portland? No good reason. We had a free flight that needed to be used before the end of the year, so we picked somewhere relatively close. Honestly, if we sit in the Airbnb for the whole time, it will be OK.

So I did a lot of artmaking this weekend…I think that’s why I’m feeling OK about it being Monday. This was Saturday afternoon…

It was a delightful afternoon. I gave myself about two and a half hours to iron.

It’s a great form of meditation…

Kitten break. They finally got big enough to be spayed…it’ll be this week, mostly while we’re gone. Poor babies.

These are the 200s, all laid out for ironing.

This thing is going together pretty easily. Here’s the start of Figure number 2…

Saturday night, we had the man’s work party, on top of a downtown building again.

It was OK. Snacking food is hard for a diabetic. There was gambling AND a murder mystery AND a masquerade. Seemed like a lot. The man won pizza socks. Lots of them.

Sunday was slow-moving, like my dad in his truck, carrying a lime tree from a friend’s house that is about to be sold to my house where it will live in the ground quite happily. Hopefully.

I grocery shopped, did laundry, and even graded. But I ironed for another 2 hours. I actually killed my iron last night…

I’ve dropped it multiple times, super-glued the base back together twice, but this was The Death of It. Seriously, pieces went flying. Everywhere. It’s gone.

Luckily, I keep a spare.

Kitten interaction in between things…

That’s my leg, Luna.

Kitten (the real Kitten) likes to hang out while I iron.

Sometimes right in front of the screen. There’s Figure 2, getting ironed…

Then she has eyeballs and she’s right side up.

The hardest part of this quilt might be deciding which way is up. This will be the third quilt this year where I’ve had that issue.

Starting on Figure 3. That’s where I had to go to bed.

I won’t be done tonight, but I’ll be close. Stitchdown by the end of the week. Then hopefully quilting next week.

Here’s my top nine on Instagram for 2019. Interesting…two aren’t quilts and two are old quilts. But that’s OK.

And one has no face. That’s just weird.

OK, today is the festive (not) forced holiday party at work for 2 hours. Shoot me now. Then I can come home and iron to my heart’s content. Well, I have a grading goal, but THEN I can iron.

Earned It…

I guess today’s post should be been titled ‘We Survived’, since we managed to get through the zoo field trip yet another year. I do actually like this field trip…I have just a small group of kids and it’s mostly not stressful…once you’re actually on the bus. We aren’t actually there a long time, so we always miss some of the animals…

Somehow we always catch the flamingos. Oh yeah, because they’re by the entrance. Then I take a survey of the group as to what they want to see… and then we head that direction…

I had mostly girls this year with a couple of boys I had to add on at the end. They were pretty good, even the two guys…

The one who whines all day in my class did not do so on the field trip.

I don’t know if that’s because he was in a smaller group or because all those girls intimidated him.

Either way, I don’t care. He behaved. It went well.

When we got back, there was the requisite amount of running around and returning nurse stuff, cafeteria stuff, dress-coding a kid (duh on the short shorts sweetheart), finally eating lunch, then ‘teaching’ my 8th period (here’s a video. eat the foods. be quiet. don’t bug me.) as I cleaned the classroom, and then did duty.

I got home and ingested caffeine. It started to rain. Then I headed out to an artist talk. I was pretty tired.

Which is why it looks like I’m praying to my phone in the photo…came home and ate the ordered pizza, graded an assignment with this guy…

And straight up? Went to bed. Three hours early. So tired.

This morning was a not-relaxing (but good) pilates class, some food, some reading (book club meets Wednesday and I haven’t finished the book…luckily, it’s short). I showered, petted this little (not so little) beast…

And these two…

Who have now flipped their growth spurts…Nova (on the left) gained more than Luna this week. She’s still smaller, but not as much.

I have about 4 hours now of an afternoon, rain falling, gloomy skies. I think I’m going to iron for a while. I should grade some essays too, but I don’t feel like it. I’ve earned some art time.

We Survived…

Today we take a bunch of kids to the zoo. Hopefully we don’t lose or damage any of them and they all come back with us. Well, you know, our classes are big this year…we wouldn’t miss a few of them. No really. It’s usually a good field trip, one I enjoy, even though I currently feel like I’ve been hit by a Mack truck. My team rocks, though…they’ve handled a good chunk of what’s going on today, which I appreciate. I, however, will be carrying about 17 epipens and inhalers in a backpack, along with 149 permission slips, just in case we have to call a parent or guardian about a kid. I feel like that could be automated, but what do I know. Nothing, by the way…I know nothing.

I stayed late last night for an hour-long parent meeting, plus the last bits of field trip stuff. Came home way too exhausted to deal with going to the gym (too bad…I really wanted to this week). Plus I was supposed to make dinner, so timing was an issue.

I started grading the horrible assignment last night…made it through about three of them before my brain shut down. One of those three was actually pretty awesome. One could have been awesome. The third one was the ouch. I’ll keep working on them. I need to get through them before next week. I don’t want to take my computer with me at all. And grades are due about 36 hours after I get back.

This weekend is busy. Not horribly so, but enough. I’m tired. I’m always tired though. The holidays are demanding. I’m looking forward to the girlchild coming home and having a lot of time for art. I will have grading to do, of course, but hopefully it won’t be too bad.

After dinner, after talking to the girlchild on the actual phone, after doing some work, I sorted the quilt pieces…only 8 boxes because there are only 800 or so pieces in this one…

This part doesn’t take long usually. I had some assistance? Not really. Luna is incredibly curious about Kitten.

Kitten is less interested…

Although she didn’t do as much hissing as before, and I played with both of them at the end of a long ribbon. So there was some staring at the little one, who played like a kitten. And they’re all fascinated with the Christmas tree. So I think there’s hope. We’ll see.

It took about 48 minutes (which included cat interactions) to sort all these…

Then I came into the office and cleaned up a bit so I could iron. I made it through part of the first torso and all the stuff behind.

That’s about an hour’s worth. More tonight, hopefully, after the artist talk I have to go to. It’s going to be a long day.

Here’s some of the drawing stuff I’ve been doing for school…I did a worksheet for a video and website we wanted the kids to go through…

I don’t know if doing this is ever worth the amount of time it took.

This is an assignment we have them do with lyrics of a song about the layers of the Earth…

And I finally got the cover page colored…

Space cat! Yes, I needed a lot of coloring time this week. It’s good. Next week is a lab and then more coloring, and then I’m ditching school for a day. Hopefully I will be well for that, because I’m surrounded by sick people at the moment. I can’t afford to get sick. I don’t have time. Nobody ever has time…that’s when it’s mostly likely to happen.

Wish us luck. This could be newsworthy. Hopefully not. Last year? Oh, last year, when our bus driver took the wrong turn (she was a newbie) and couldn’t figure out how to get us on the freeway without getting hit…oh shit, it was scary. We survived.

I Like to Color…

Another early morning. The parent didn’t show yesterday. I got an angry parent email this morning. Yesterday I called a parent and now I will be meeting with them after school with their kid so I can explain all the stuff that’s in the email we send out and that she gets, but she needs to see it (I’m actually totally OK with that one…it’s just the timing that’s rough). The meeting today is with the principal, so as long as he shows up mostly on time (he’s got littles), I’m good. At some point, we need to finalize the field trip stuff today…yesterday at 9:00 PM or so the texts started, trying to get groups fixed and wondering how we aren’t gonna end up burning the whole zoo down and letting all the animals go. I think I know which chaperoned group will do that too. They’ll have my phone number. Minor issue. I can almost guarantee one of the teachers will be making their group race across the zoo to grab that one kid who can’t deal. It’s possible all of us will.

But it’s the zoo! And outside. And not in school. So tomorrow should be cool. Once the buses leave school, a sense of relief hits and you know you can get through the rest.

Until then, things are tense. I have a good team. They help. I need another brain, but that’s not a team thing.

Here’s the current unit cover page in process…

I need to color it today. Plus the other thing we did yesterday. Lots of coloring at the moment. I like to color.

Yesterday after school, I went to a neighborhood gathering…the house above me finally sold (again). They’re retiring to Mexico and a young family with a baby is moving in. So we’re surrounded by screaming. The boychild and I will respond with music and whatever else keeps us sane. We’ve said all along that house is not kid friendly…and I wonder how a young family affords it, but I guess I was a young family here 21 years ago when we moved in. That makes three families with kids…as they get older, maybe they’ll be able to dog-sit. You never know. My neighbors call me an enigma because they never see me. I imagine they are all talking amongst themselves at tea parties and cocktail parties while I work into the late hours. Plus I don’t garden much.

Anyway, it’s change. No more cigars! I hope. That smell. Ugh.

OK, so after all that, I graded the rest of an assignment (grades are due again in less than two weeks) and then cut out the last of this…

FINALLY. I’m so frustrated with the lack of progress on this. But it’s OK. It’ll be fine. It probably won’t be done until Christmas. It’s not the end of the world. It took almost 12 hours to cut out all the pieces. I started on November 26 and finished last night. I really wanted to be done the week of Thanksgiving, plus have the whole thing ironed together that week. HA! Oh so funny. I will sort pieces tonight and hopefully start ironing it together. Friday night is questionable for that…got an artist talk plus it’s our anniversary of meeting each other, me and the man, so we’re going to celebrate that. Then his holiday work party is Saturday. I’m hoping to get some ironing in on Saturday anyway, but there is still a major assignment looming over me. Sunday has us moving a tree (don’t ask). Next weekend, we’re in Portland. Strange timing…but it’ll be fine.

There was lots of kitten activity last night…Nova is totally about to attack Luna’s tail…

They play really well together…

And then we had Luna sleeping on Simba…lots of belly rubs for Simba so he didn’t freak out.

We had a cat, Midnight, who he just loved, so we’re hoping he can love these cats too.

Calli is bigger and clumsier…but she also sleeps a lot, so she’s been walked on a bit…and sniffed.

She’s still pretty scary though…which is funny, because she doesn’t really care about cats. She is a little bit frightened of their sharp bits, I think.

You have to watch where you sit, walk, stand, step, and lie down right now. There are kittens everywhere.

Anyway. They’re nice. Although we all have stab wounds at the moment, mostly from Luna. Kitten still hasn’t really warmed up to them…although they mostly stay in one half of the house and she mostly stays in the other half.

OK. Meeting. Need to make lunch. Need to figure out all the pieces for tomorrow. I know I’ve forgotten something. Need to take deep breaths. Need to make art at the end of it.