Drippy Icicle Lights…

I know, I know, it’s late. I had stuff to do this morning. I made wontons. I took a shower. Really that’s it. Oh, I talked to the girlchild. That was nice. So no, I didn’t blog this morning. Honestly, I love a 3-day weekend, but I’m not sure what the hell I do with the extra time. The bathrooms and floors still aren’t clean, I didn’t finish grading stuff, I didn’t finish inputting grades, I certainly didn’t finish putting everything back on the deck. My to-do list is still a shitshow. My green pants still aren’t wearable. This is crucial. I hope to fix this tonight. And the grades inputting. Maybe…no, I’m not doing a floor…c’mon, it’s almost 5 PM and I have a 6:30 Zoom? OK, maybe a floor or a shower. We’ll see.

Meanwhile. MLK. I watched a couple of excerpts of his speeches…man that man could talk…so beautifully. Made me tear up…especially in light of Minnesota…and Greenland…and Norway…and Venezuela…and another ICE killing. So did I do right by MLK today? Probably not. But I did talk to the plants I was moving about how the new pot would support them better than the old one. More about that later.

In the quilt realm, I did OK though. Friday night, I managed over 2 hours of ironing (I stayed up late).

I got the fleshy bits ironed down. Scribble was still not helpful.

She’s a sweetheart actually. After ironing the fleshy bits, here’s all the stuff that goes ON the fleshy bits…eyes and hearts and veins and lungs and trees.

OK, trees is weird, I know, but there was also ivy and a snake.

Saturday was my deck/ironing day (no school!), so I ironed for over 4 hours and got most of it done…all of it except the sun and the owl.

Sunday, it took another hour and a half to finish the ironing…156 different fabrics.

All in a bin…

So I can spend the next few days (few???) cutting all the pieces out. Usually that’s faster than picking fabrics…less brain power, less thinking. So now I’m hoping to be done with the cutting out by Saturday? That might be ambitious. The Man has a show Friday night that I’ll be at, and I have a meeting Saturday afternoon, and two meetings Sunday. But maybe if I hope to be ironing it all together by next week…because I need an ironed-together quilt top by February 15, but if I could get closer to done before that, it would be awesome. I will not be done by February 15, just to be clear, but I will definitely be ironed together by then. Total ironing to fabric time? 15 hours and 17 minutes. Longer than normal. Lots of little decisions to make.

I also did some underglazing on the bowl on Friday after school.

Clay is SLOW. I mean, I guess my version of quiltmaking is too. So there’s that.

I hiked Saturday afternoon…3 miles.

It was delightful.

The weather has been strangely warm. But nice. Spring is in the air…yes, it’s January, but it’s also Southern California, so the weeds are proliferating and the yard is a jungle and I could do yardwork every day for 8 hours and never catch up.

Speaking of yardwork, so the boychild and I replaced the deck railings, which were disintegrating. We replaced one of the railing posts too. So I had to move all the plants away from the railings. It’s been on my list for over a year to go through all the plants and repot things that were falling over or out of control, and to just generally clean up the space. But as I do that, I find more things to do. That space under the window…there used to be a planter that hung from the wall, and I don’t remember if we installed it or if it was here when we moved, and I don’t know why two of the slats are missing. I do know it all needs painting. So I pulled everything away and washed it down, and tomorrow, when it’s dry, I’m going to paint it.

Before I move the plants up against it. If I were really good, I’d replace those slats, but IDK what wood that is and it sounds more like hard work, considering the planter is going right up in front of it. So that’s a delay.

Here’s the long view toward that area…

All those planters were up against the railing before, but a lot of them need help. That plant in the front is leggy as hell. I’ve trimmed it before and it does well, so I’m going to do that again.

So basically, in two days. all I got done and set up was this small section of the deck…

Which is all the Man and the dog care about, so that’s fine. I’ll do the rest as I can. Or I’ll get tired of it and move it all back without cleaning it all up. We’ll see which Kathy wins out. I do like plants, but I run out of time.

This was funny…this is Instagram.

Almost 12 years, y’all…I didn’t know Insta had been around that long, but I guess it makes sense. They suggested I add a reel a week. A reel of what? Me talking to my plants? Scribble biting my hand? Yeah. Maybe.

Now for the screenshots that talked to me in the last three days…this one, for sure.

Although maybe I am a very hungry caterpillar. Hard to say.

W.T.F. I am boggled. Fuck the EPA.

Sigh. Why do people think this is OK? How do you live in this world and be OK with this? I guess it’s OK when it’s not you and your family being affected by it? Except they all are. Now we all are.

I could totally get behind this (I am actually part Danish)…

But this thing worries me…

I just looked up my insulin and it’s from Malaysia/India…which explains the emails when I had an issue with one of the pens. But I don’t wish death on the other insulin users, and I don’t want to worry about shortages for insulin users. Plus didn’t that orange fuckup tell us the meds would be 150% cheaper? Waiting on that too.

More people need to think about how this works…

Ecosystems include humans, even when we’re stupid and think science doesn’t matter.

I love this too…

I hope it goes away before it destroys the environment…although it may already be too late.

OK, well I go back to school tomorrow…teaching geese and canaries (sound waves and wave energy), then digital and analog signals. Spent some time with that today. Wrote a rubric that I remembered about at 2 AM. Thank you, school brain. Spent some time today finding a bunch of analog and digital things to show students (records, old video cameras, old cameras, cassette tapes in big wooden boxes). Fun times. Tonight, my local guild has a Zoom with Jane Sassaman, which sounds lovely. My book is due to the library Saturday and it’s for book club on Monday (a week from now). I’ll finish it; it’s good too. I have three Zooms this week (it’s a lot) and who-knows-what-else for school that hasn’t come to the light of day yet. Deep breaths. My neighbor above me still has their drippy icicle Christmas lights up and I’m not mad about it. It’s very relaxing to watch.

Fabric at the End of It…

I’ve officially survived one day with kids; it was notionally a chill day but felt like a lot, which isn’t surprising. I had to put back a lot of things I put away so the Winter Academy could be in our classrooms (I’m not done with that yet), plus deal with a lot of kid stuff (they were pretty chilled out except for that one…there’s always that one). It’s just a lot…going full on for the whole day, so much stimulation, so much talking, so much ON. It’s exhausting. We have a 3-day weekend coming up, which is nice, but grades are also due, so double-edged sword there. I came home after running errands and graded and had an art Zoom meeting and graded some more. So this ALL ON thing doesn’t stop when I get in the car and go home. I realize it COULD? But then I’d have to be at school even longer, and I had to really force myself to stay the extra 10 minutes last night to finish one class of late turn-ins. I have three more classes of those to go; it’s not a lot…it’s just details. I should be able to finish them today. And yes, I came home and read my book with a kitten for a while because I needed that.

Monday, after 17 thousand meeting things (I got nothing done that I needed to get done on Monday…seriously, I left after 4 PM with a half-assed table of contents copied and not much else accomplished), I went to ceramics for the first time since before Christmas. I always think, oh, it’s a break, Imma get SO MUCH clay done. And then I don’t. It’s frustrating. And with this quilt deadline hanging over me, I’m hard-pressed to spend a huge chunk of time there at the moment anyway. I did pick up my frames…

I like them, although one of the greens burned out a lot on both frames…and it looks like they shrunk a lot more than I thought they would. A 4×6 photo fits in the top one if you trim the corners…you’d have to trim it a lot for the bottom frame. I should be better about measuring things. But I’m not. The final satin glaze was definitely more successful than the last few I’ve done. I’d consider reglazing some if I didn’t think it would be an exorbitant cost. But now I know.

And then I worked on the bowl some more…luckily it’s been pretty humid and wet, so it didn’t dry out too much.

I know I had some specific plans at some point, but I don’t remember what they were.

It’s not perfectly round; it’s definitely handbuilt…and even though I used a mold, it’s still not really even symmetrical.

I’m OK with that. I think I’m just going to start underglazing it. I have an idea for the next big art piece and I want to start it.

The quilt is progressing slowly.

I mean, I’m getting lots ironed at night, but it doesn’t look like much because it’s all tiny things mostly. Except for the ground and the water. So it doesn’t feel like much progress. I am trying to iron more than an hour a day. My goal is to be done ironing to fabric this weekend.

Scribble follows me at night (when she wakes up), so she’s in the studio now, checking out progress.

This is after last night’s 90-minute session. I did iron a tiny Scribble-like cat, but then looked at her more closely. Her coloring is complicated. I need a bigger cat to iron to get her facial details to work. A 1″ drawing is not a good place to start with her.

I finished the first 300 pieces plus a few out of the 300 box. So not halfway, but I probably will be tonight. Lots of fussy details in the next 100 pieces too though, so maybe not. Lots of buildings and logos. Sure enough, our school district is pushing teachers using AI in planning, and I’m pushing back. I do use it occasionally, but it’s not as useful as they’d like it to be.

Scribble sometimes comes to bed with me…

But she’s not always ready for actual bedtime. Unlike me. She’s a pretty gentle kitten though. She looks evil and vicious, but is not even breaking the skin. Just gently holding my hand in her mouth and paws. Sweet baby.

I appreciate the cuddles.

This is my medieval animal, apparently.

Seems appropriate.

OK, meeting this morning (ugh), then teaching about waves (ocean first, then sound…sort of? Not entirely sure what I’m doing today…will figure it out as I go). Hopefully my voice holds up…it was shaky yesterday. I’m still holding mucus from the flu…can’t shake it completely, so that doesn’t help. Lots of tea and throat-clearing. I may give in and take cold meds. Then pilates after school (I’m already tired) and I’m cooking dinner tonight (leftover lasagne I was smart enough to cook and freeze over break). Plus grading and then ironing. LONG day. This is what being back to work is though. LONG days. Fabric at the end of it. Good thing.

A Giant Experiment

There are three days of school before we go on break. There’s been some crazy shit (there always is), some crazier than usual. My blood sugar responds to stress, and yes, it is responding to stress. And cake. That was my fault. To my credit, I ate it in two shifts. On Monday, after the holiday party, which was really just a confession and food (is that the definition of a party?), I had to get on the stationary bike for an hour. It’s OK…I finished my book. Although my knees did not appreciate it the next day. They rarely do though. It’s weird…we usually have spirit week before break and dress up most of the days, at least wearing Santa hats and pajamas, and that’s not even happening. I think everyone is just trying to survive. That may be true of everyone honestly. Christmas is coming up and it’s crazy. I still don’t have a box for the stuff I need to ship. I keep forgetting. I have a to-do list but it keeps getting impacted by school. We have three days to get at least the first week of lessons done and we don’t have enough time to teach everything before the state test because the school board did a stupid thing and got sued and now we have to teach stuff that’s not on the test before the test and I can’t even tell you how frustrating that is after we spent hours this summer backwards planning from the end of the year to make sure there was enough time. And now we’re fucked. No one paid me for those summer hours and no one will pay me for the hours it will take to rearrange stuff to fit the school board’s fuckup. Summer self did that work because she knew that May/June self would really appreciate it. And now both of them are pissed off. “It’s fine,” the District says, “It’s only one year and then you can go back to whatever you normally do.” Great. You gonna pay me for the extra planning this year? Nah? I didn’t think so. Plus I have to do more training even though I helped write the damn curriculum. I guess all that is January/February/March’s problem. She’s already irritable about it though. December self just wants the first week or two planned and maybe to have a table of contents for the unit that doesn’t have to be totally rewritten halfway through. Big dreams.

Meanwhile, this is the third morning in a row I’ve had to show up early to school for something…luckily, I think it’s the last one in 2025! Maybe. Knock on wood.

I did finish all the stitchdown on Monday night…stayed up late to do it, which pairs well with getting up early.

Stitchdown is generally pretty fast…this was 4 1/2 hours. Last night, I cut the batting, washed the batting, dried the batting, washed the floor (it was gross), and cut and sewed and ironed the backing. Then it was 10:15 PM and I knew it would take an hour to pinbaste this thing, so I didn’t do it. Did I go to bed earlier? Nope. Totally not. That would make too much sense. I just didn’t want to crawl around on my kneepads for an hour…I’ll do that tonight after yet another early morning and a long day. It’ll be fine. Quilting by tomorrow. Done by? I don’t know. I need a binding fabric…I know I don’t have enough of anything for that.

Cat integration is going really well. These two play during the day (and the night).

Not touching yet, not curled up together…but I know Scribble wants that. Bowie is kind of an asshole (that phrase is said so many times in this house), but he is still kittenish and appreciates the racing around. Scribble bites gently, plays gently (with us), doesn’t hook us with claws, purrs a lot, loves a lot, squawks, and is a sweetheart.

Ceramics! I got this one out of the bisque fire yesterday…

Then glazed both with a clear glaze…hopefully the colors will hold. We’ll see. They do darken in the glaze fire, but I’m hopeful. They are both frames for the wall. I haven’t figured out construction for frames for just standing up. And I forgot to check how much they shrank. Oh well. It’s all a giant experiment anyway.

When I left the studio, Bartholomew had just showed up for dinner.

He’s definitely got more than his share of nine lives.

OK then there’s this…

This might help. Sigh. We don’t solve problems well as a species, but especially here in the US. Dumpster fire has taken over.

OK today. It’s a catchup day. The kids will hopefully get everything done, we’ll do a lab tomorrow, a quick test question Friday, turn their packets in, and go away for three weeks. I need to finish grading last week’s homework and start grading the academic assignment they just finished. Whatever I get done this week I don’t have to do during break. That would be a plus. Pilates after school, then I have to cook (normally I would have done that last night)…oh wait, I did do it last night, but just for me. Then pinbaste, kneepads on. Maybe setup or start quilting. We’ll see. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to some time off too.

Too Many Things…

Oy. Two weeks left in December to teach. On the one hand, thank goodness. On the other hand, holy crap, how do I get through it all? A bit of a challenge on multiple fronts. Trying to deal with Christmas shopping and shipping, but also school and just maybe a bit of sanity. We spent the weekend doing the local ceramics tour, which was really cool, but also time-consuming. I did manage to deal with three Christmas presents, which wasn’t bad. So I feel good about that. I also got to see a lot of cool ceramics and be inspired a bit, which is also nice. Did I get a lot of other stuff done? Hell no. How would I?

I did iron…Saturday night…

Finished the first bathtub, which has a body bag in it. Then started the rug under the second bathtub…

Finished that and started the second bathtub, barely. More on that tonight. Much as I love having the girlchild around, she had projects this time and I ended up not doing art stuff for that…which is still a good thing. Hopefully in the future, she’ll know how to frame stuff herself. This one, she cut the matt and then we covered it in fabric.

I did the complicated one…

But I made her cut the backing pieces. So she drove home with four completed pieces. All the frames came from thrift shops or the grandparents’ house (which is a different kind of thrift shop). She did buy three pieces of matt board and 3/4s of a yard of fabric. All good. I had a stash of hangers and archival tape and all the stuff I used to use to frame my prints, way back in the day. Way way back. Useful skill, though.

She left Saturday morning, but she’ll be back in two weeks-ish.

Scribble likes her. Scribble pretty much likes everyone though, so that’s nice. She inspected the two plant pots I bought on the tour.

I fits!

More politics…

I guess Cloud Walker was the best choice. Sigh.

I spent Friday trying to find all the lab materials I needed for today; missing a handful of magnetic rocks that may have disappeared. They’ll live without them, but it’s annoying. Because we had them before. I’ll go in this morning and check another location and recheck the original location. Teaching magnets today, then a staff meeting, then ceramics. Hoping to finish the second frame today. Not entirely sure what I’m doing next. I did get the tree for the top of the head out of the kiln. Now I need to make the little quilt that goes in the belly, but I can’t do that until I finish this quilt; it has a deadline and it’s coming up. So maybe I’ll make some bowls. I need some new bowls for the house. Then home to iron some more. Probably grading stuff too. I’m not entirely caught up, but I’m doing OK. The redoes are hard to do unless I’m not tired. I should have done some last night, but I did late work instead, because I hadn’t looked at that in almost a month. Too many things…not enough time. Always.

The Muck

Hey. So yeah, this week has been a mess. Seriously. Adults make such a mess sometimes. And I can tell that I ME I am dysregulated. I am. Let alone students. Sigh. Like take your hood off and stop interrupting instruction. Plus the adults in charge of teachers…sigh…just do a better job. And the adults who schedule meetings, for goodness sake, 8 AM is not necessary most of the time. And if you set a meeting, show the fuck up to it. Yes, I get that there are emergencies, but as a teacher, there are so many meetings that the people who need to be there don’t show up to and then I’m sitting there, because I’m responsible and I show up. And I sometimes wish my car would break down so I could just go home.

I have to tell you, I’m incredibly cranky and beat down by the day job at the moment…not the kids. I mean, there’s some annoying kid stuff, but most of it is because another adult didn’t do what they should’ve done, so I’m having to handle it. So I’d rather not. Please do your job. I have a weekend tour of ceramics studios I’m going on this weekend with the Man and I’m totally looking forward to just doing that and telling school to fuck off, but for at least another 10 hours, I need to deal with school and all the requests that I shouldn’t need to deal with, welcome to the job.

OK. And the Man wants me to think more positively, and keeps trying to force that on me, and please, you gratitude people, please stop. Some of us think about what we appreciate all the time and there’s still a bunch of slimey smelly crap from the day that we need to get out of our system so we can function. That’s me. Every day, I am thankful to make art at the end of it. Seriously. I love that part of my life, even when it’s stressful and I miss deadlines because I have so many of them. But I still need to verbalize the muck or it fills my head. I need to go yell out into the universe regularly, it seems.

Artwise, I’m still slow. I framed another (pain in the ass) thing for the girlchild…

I think I have one more frame to cut for her, plus figure out how to hang this one and stabilize the other one. Don’t ask me how my Xmas shopping is going…it’s not.

I did iron last night, for more than an hour, to try to make up for all the not ironing the night before.

Solid start on the mucky bathtub.

I also went to ceramics last night, because I can’t go this afternoon; they’re setting up for the ceramics tour. I was hoping they would start that later, but no. So I did some finalizing work on the other one and then glazed more on this one.

It’s pretty close to done. I need to patch up some of the black and clean up the back. The other one is pretty close to dry, to being able to get fired. Hopefully Monday.

Bart(holomew) the semi-feral cat of the ceramics studio, was very helpful.

Sometimes he bites if he doesn’t like what you’re doing, so I fed him. That generally works. I also squirted orange underglaze all over everything. Fun times.

And I graded. Because I never don’t grade. Scribble was very helpful.

She’s very people-oriented. Which is nice.

OK. I have a parent meeting at 8 because someone thought that was a good plan. My co-teacher is out, so I have to print her plans and seating charts before 8, which means I need to get my ass to school soon. I need more tea. I need to finish and print a worksheet and set up lab bins for magnets on Monday and write a note to our TA to do something and probably write warmups and I think I have abdicated teaching to the students mostly because they need to do some independent work so I can think straight. I’ve been doing direct instruction all week and I’m tired. Then an emergency union meeting (on Zoom, thank goodness, I’ll be on that while I’m at Home Depot) after school. It’s cold and the Man keeps overheating at night, so I haven’t been able to put the flannel sheets on, but I think this weekend is the time where I do it anyway, because I’m freezing at night and that doesn’t help my sleep. Until I’m hot, and then the blankets get thrown off, and that never stops people, it never stops. Yes, I have all the meds and the things and this is just something the women in my family get to do: vomit all through pregnancy and overheat at night until we die.

Positive thoughts. You know what I’ll be doing tonight at SOME time? Ironing. I’ll be ironing. A bathtub with a body bag in it and a rifle underneath it and bullets and blood all around. Yup. You got that.

People and Carbs…

This week is just never relaxing. I’ve been to the grocery store four or five times, the pet store twice (I know, that one is my fault for adopting a new kitten), plus trying to catch up on cleaning (ha!) and yardwork (double ha!), and to finish grading? (triple ha!) …nothing is happening the way I’d planned. What’s new? Nothing. It’s always like this. I try to steal moments for reading or artmaking, but there’s other stuff that snuck in…like all the emails about stuff I needed to do that I totally ignored for the last three weeks? Yeah, those. And the four things that need renewing, but now I can’t find the renewal emails. Ugh. And then being invited to be on a cool website…awesome, but it required an hour of photos with the boychild (thank goodness he has a clue, because I don’t) and I’m sure he spent a ton of time resizing, and then I had to find art photos too and send all of them, plus fill out three pages of forms. I appreciate the opportunity, but I don’t have extra time lying around for all of that. So the bathrooms are still dirty and so are the floors. Oh well.

The kitten is adjusting. She has a name finally…Scribble. She’s like a little ADHD and very balls to the wall with the other cats. Right now, she’s sleeping, after racing around for 5 hours this morning. She’s definitely a curious little thing and won’t let her inability to jump high enough stop her.

We started out with my hanging out with her in a room with no other cats, but once we let her out…man, she didn’t want to stay in.

That said, she’s not banging on the door to be let out when I do put her in the room, which is when I leave the house, because I don’t entirely trust the other cats with her yet.

This was a very tentative moment between Scribble and Nova. Both wanted my lap.

I think we’ll all be OK in the long run…it just might take a while. Certainly last night, when Scribble was all puffed up, jumping sideways, I’m Big! I’m Big! toward Bowie and he’s just staring at her like she’s the scariest thing in the world…I think Bowie is having the hardest time adjusting. But he does appreciate an animal that will run around and parkour like he does, so he’ll come around.

One of the boychild’s photos.

OK, so artwise, I’m mostly still cutting things out.

Which is not particularly fast…

I really wanted to be ironing things together by now. Oh well. I’ve got another 2-3 hours of trimming, I think. I’m going to go do some more in a bit. I might do some yardwork first, before it gets dark.

I also spent a couple of hours at ceramics on Monday…and did most of this. It’s very relaxing.

I need to fix the cloud and a couple of other spots, but I think otherwise it’s ready to fire. I was hoping to get there today as well, but so far, that hasn’t happened? Maybe in an hour. We’ll see.

Found this in the yard.

Such a perfect mushroom.

This…I know some people are leaving for legit reasons, like being afraid of deportation…that’s a real thing and I don’t blame people for leaving. Detention or deportation to Venezuela or whatever other psychotic thing this government has come up with are legitimate fears. Go. Be well. Come back when the crazy is over (knock on wood that this ends at some point).

But if you’re a rich white American-born citizen and you’re leaving? You’re not staying and yelling with the rest of us? WTF. Seriously. I guess it’s easier than living here and being stressed about it, but those of us who don’t have tons of money and the ability to just up and go, we’re here and loud and not putting up with it, and y’all with money need to stay and be part of the fight…OR…take those fucking billionaires with you, the problematic ones, the racist misogynist ones. Take them. I mean, we can’t get rid of the ones who aren’t even here legally and have committed multiple financial crimes, but we’re trying to deport Native Americans. It’s just nuts. And if there’s no one with power and money left behind to yell louder than the rest of us, that’s on you, what happens next. You ran away? So stay away. Because you’re making it worse. You’re not helping.

Sigh. This is a frustrating world we live in. By the way, yes, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, but there’s so many cultural things wrong with this holiday. So much that’s made up. So much violence toward the native cultures that was just shoved aside for the pilgrim story. So I’ll be thankful for a hike tomorrow, and thankful for spending time with family, and thankful for good food (although at the moment, the thought of people and lots of carbs is not really something I want…I’ll get there. But going to the store yet again today made me want to pillow fort for about a week), but remembering all along that we white people are appropriating disease-carrying xenophobes who don’t really belong here. Positive thoughts to all. It’s a rough week for a lot of people.

Teacher Dreams

Wrong day. I’m all discombobulated. Usually I work Fridays. Well, I still worked Friday; I graded all day. But not at school and not with kids. I finished one big assignment; today, I started the second one and got side-tracked by the possibility of a new kitten tonight plus having to clean out the girlchild’s room for new kitten AND girlchild (not at the same time), and then took all those assignments (packets in plastic bags, cat toys!) back to school and went for a hike and then came back here and continued to try to organize quilts and the room. Didn’t finish. I can’t get a handle on storage at the moment. I have some ideas for boxing stuff up and putting it in the garage at this point. I don’t know that I still need all the books I used when I started teaching school. I don’t use them any more. Not quite ready to totally get rid of them, but close. Because I use the internet now instead of books. So much more. But organizing takes time and this week off never has enough time to do a lot. Too much family and other obligations. Plus grading is always an issue. It’s not enough time off for all of it.

Anyway, so I’m still in the stage of hoping to get a lot done but haven’t gotten a lot done. Fun times. I forgot to write yesterday because it didn’t seem like Friday. I don’t know what day it was, but it wasn’t Friday.

So Wednesday night, I ironed things down…

And didn’t freakin’ finish. So frustrating.

Thursday night, I finished.

18 hours and 54 minutes, 152 fabrics. That’s a lot. There were a lot of small detailed things in this quilt…stuff I love, but that is time-consuming on all levels.

Here’s everything that needs to be cut out.

And then I barely started cutting things out.

It never looks like much. Last night, I did some more…

We went out and watched friends of ours play in a different band, so we got home at 10:30, but I still had about an hour in me.

This is the Chameleons, which is really the lead guy and then whoever he decides he wants to play along with him…

But three of those people are in the Radio Thieves, so we got free tickets and hung out and watched them and talked to some friends, and then skipped the main band, because we’ve seen them before and we were both tired. The Man did actually go to work yesterday; and I am tired all the time, so there’s that. There will be no sleeping in during break. Cats don’t care that I need more sleep, and I stay up later, so I’m fucked. Ah well.

I did manage to gently chisel the base off the head; I used the base to hold up the head in the kiln and the clear glaze dripped down and attached them.

And managed to seat the head, although not quite how it originally fit.

There’s going to be acrylic paint on this thing. No way not too. And there’s a lower part too. Anyway, I’m hoping to epoxy these three pieces together, but also to get the tree for the top of the head into the glaze kiln too. And add the wire for the coathanger, and then design and make the little quilt that goes in the belly area. There’s so many hours in this thing, it’s insane. It’s definitely been a learning experience. So many things broke off so many times.

I did hike about 3 miles today to make up for not moving at all yesterday.

It was nice and cool out.

Threatening rain with no rain.

As I was walking, I thought I saw something up on the hillside, but it didn’t move. I even walked forward a little ways and then came back, decided it was a tree stump, then took a photo of it as far as my phone camera could zoom, and still couldn’t decide. It still hadn’t moved. I hiked on and figured I’d check the spot on the way back.

Of course, looking at it now, that’s a fucking coyote, but at the time, I really was seeing a tree stump. My eyes vs the camera’s eyes. It seemed too dark to be a coyote.

I got home to a beautiful sky.

We had a lovely cool, rainy in bits but not horrible, week. This coming week holds no rain, and then it comes back the following week. It’s pretty cold at night (for me)…definitely in my sweats and socks and slippers stage. I must be getting old, because my neck gets cold, but I hate turtlenecks. I have a couple of scarves, one a friend made and one the Man brought back from Denmark? I think? They are doing the trick.

I saw these on a friend’s reels and loved them.

Please pause. I shall return in a better place. I will be pillow-forting for a few days first. Don’t mind me.

Yup. That too. Bingewatching bad TV, reading books, and dreaming about all the things I could finish if I just stopped sleeping and eating and peeing. Really.

These sweet boos.

It must be cold for them to not be killing each other. And I’m about to shake up their existences with another cat. Woo!

This is too real.

Anyway. There’s no school all next week, and I am thankful for that. I am thankful for being done with the packets, and for getting a new furry baby tonight. Whichever one I pick. I was interested in one and then someone else had gotten in before me (this was the third time it had happened), and I’d been offered a slightly younger one, and figured it would be fine from the description, and then the 3rd one came back up as available, so I’m meeting both tonight and somehow I’m supposed to decide. Which is why there are two carriers in the back of the car right now, just in case. Then home to acclimatize whomever ends up coming home with us, some cutting stuff out, some kitten time, more cutting stuff out, more kitten time. You know how that goes. And grading. I should do more of that unfortunately. Ugh. But also relax and hike and read and pee when I want. Plus drinking my tea warm instead of cold. Teacher dreams.

Hopefully Finishing

I’m two long days away from 10 days off. We’ve had enough days off this month, and I’ve just had two days when I didn’t have to grade very much and I was able to catch up in class, so it doesn’t feel horrible right now…not like a couple of weeks ago. That 4-day weekend was a nice recharge. Which is why it’s annoying that they tagged the other ‘free’ day onto an existing holiday instead of giving us another 3-day weekend. Apparently it’s all what the parents want, but since they take any days off as a reason to take MORE days off, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m doing a makeup test today and another tomorrow. Then I’ll have a shit ton of work to grade over break (like always) and I’ll use the extra day they gave us on Friday to hopefully do a huge chunk of it. Knock on wood. Shit always happens when I plan, so who knows if I’ll get to do what I want or need to do.

I’ve spent the last two days carving the two ceramic frames I made.

This was originally going to be a sun, but it looks more like leaves now. Might need to change my color scheme.

I put a sun on this one to make up for it.

It’s been a while since I’ve used the squeeze bottles with underglaze in them, so the yellow was completely glued in. I’m going to have to bring pliers next time and see if I can get the needle out. This is relaxing…this is also about 2 1/2 hours of work, just in the carving. So not fast. Nothing in clay is fast except those people on the wheel maybe. Even then, there are so many steps that it isn’t fast.

Ironing is progressing. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, but some of that is me, I think. Slow. Tired at night. Trying to get other stuff done before I start and then starting late. Here’s Monday night…

And last night…

All I have left is a bunch of little tiny objects on the rug, so each one needs to be considered within the whole, and then colors chosen for just that object. Then I do it again with the next object. So it takes longer than say the water, where I pick four fabrics and then find all the pieces that are those four colors and then iron them all down. Bigger space covered with less thought, although it may take a while to iron all the pieces. It’s not the same as having to consider all the colors around it and make sure it works. I ironed a snake, a plant in a pot, and a cat. That was it, I think. I really am almost done. About 100 pieces left. I don’t have to cook tonight, but I do have pilates and the trash needs to go out, so those are time suckers. But not huge ones. I’m looking forward to being done with the ironing and onto the lovely meditative process of sitting on the couch with an animal or two and cutting out a thousand pieces. It sounds delightful. Then I can go back to standing and ironing after that.

Things that are stressing me out: not having a table of contents for the unit packet after break; losing my prep period today to a parent meeting when I need to be working on said TOC; my car brakes squeaking; the leaky sprinkler; the pool vacuum not moving; whatever I haven’t done that I’ve forgotten I haven’t done. Yeah. That’s a silly one.

OK. Today I am giving a writing test. It’s not easy. Yesterday one kid said, “I watched all the videos but the answer isn’t in there.” Oh my. Yes, my dear. You will need to use your brains this time. Thinking. Hard. The worst part is having to monitor their access to the internet and AI and their older brothers and sisters. Like do your own work, please. I am also trying to get them all organized to turn in these giant packets, plus finish all their work, and that’s frustrating. But ultimately, their problem, not mine. Pilates after school. Probably some lesson planning. Then ironing. Hopefully finishing tonight. Please. It’s time.

Muttering

OK, it’s another short week. Political stuff sucks, but hey, tariffs on things I don’t buy are going down. Hope it helps someone. Maybe stop deporting people who are trying to follow the rules and deport some of those white guys who don’t follow rules back to wherever they came from. I was efficient at grading this weekend and got the academic assignment completely graded, but then spent probably 90 minutes obsessing over how to let kids make it up instead of sleeping. Good times. The shutdown is over…pro, people get paid. Con…nothing changed. Bring on the Epstein files! We’re ready!

Yeah, whatever.

I did iron a decent amount this weekend. Friday night…

I started late because I was grading, and then got all the water laid out for the second bathtub, but also needed to go to bed, because I needed to be up early. So I left part of it for Saturday.

Saturday, I finished the water and did all the fleshy bits of the figure in the second bathtub.

And last night, I did all the non-fleshy bits of the main figure: eyeball, heart, lungs, etc. I’m about halfway through the 800s, maybe a little less than that…so 200 or fewer pieces to go. Mostly her hair and everything on the last rug, plus a plant or two. Probably two more nights, maybe three, depending on how late I start. I’m mostly caught up on grading, though, so that’s a plus. I won’t be after Wednesday, but we get Friday off (really stupid if you ask me; just gives parents more of an excuse to pull them out even earlier) and I plan to grade all Friday so hopefully I won’t have a lot of school stuff to do over break.

I did make it to ceramics on Friday. Mostly I tried to underglaze this well…

It will be much darker when it fires. I’m planning on doing some sgraffito on these. We’ll see how it goes. I haven’t figured out how to make them stand up yet. Or hang. I should do that. I’ll be back there today after school, after a 2-hour staff meeting about stuff I am totally not engaged in. So there’s that.

I caught two photos of my piece The Way Out at MOCA in Westport, CT, part of the Enough Already exhibit of Sara and Michelle Vance Waddell’s work.

It’s looking good.

I appreciate it being able to show in so many places with so much other very cool work.

I took a demo class on Saturday about building figures with a local artist, Moni Bloom.

It was cool to watch; would have been cooler to do as well, but I had misunderstood the type of class it was. It’s OK; the hands-on workshop will be in 2026. I might do it; I might not. Either way, I did learn some stuff about construction that is useful. It makes me want to ditch the frames and build something new. Maybe not as big as the last one. I’m waiting on bisque fix to fix the tree, then I’ll try to make it all go together. Hoping I can get the base to detach from the head; otherwise, I might need to build a new head.

The Man has been tired at night and going to bed earlier than me, which is different. I came to bed Saturday night and saw everyone in there…

Although I put the dog up and then Nova left. Too bad. She’s a sweetheart. Often Bowie doesn’t allow others in there either. He’s kind of a dick. And we may be adding to the menagerie this weekend. I have a hold on a kitten. We’ll see. I’m ready. I think.

I do this all the time. And certainly, I spent a bunch of time this weekend muttering to myself about kids not listening and not reading instructions. It’s fine. Really.

OK, today, I have set up independent work for students to complete. Tomorrow, we start the academic assignment with some background research. Then test Wednesday. I feel like I’m going to need a filler assignment, at least for a couple classes, but I don’t have an idea for that yet. I don’t want more work, so I’m playing it by ear, but maybe a preview of the next unit. I can probably put that together today while designing a google form for redoing the other assignment so I don’t have to give up yet another lunch to makeups, but there’s kids going to away soccer games who miss my 6th period and then miss the makeup. Sigh. I can’t fix all the things. And I’m frustrated by the system that equates grades with the right to be on the stage. I think they should let each teacher pick one kid for the stage. And not have it be grade related. Because I still wouldn’t pick the kid that’s bugging me about his grades. Sigh. Anyway, hopefully it’s a chill day, but we know how that goes. It’s supposed to rain again, although not as much…enough that I should bring my raincoat again though. Just in case. Ceramics after school, some carving I hope, and then home to NOT grade? I might be able to pull that off tonight. And then ironing. Reading my book! I’d like to do that too, although this is a book club book and I’m not entirely sold on it. I don’t care yet. Maybe I will, but not yet. Not enough.

A Day Off…

Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.

Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.

OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night

Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.

And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.

I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.

Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.

Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.

I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…

Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.

I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.

I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.

It looks nice.

I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?

That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.

I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.

Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.

He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.

Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.

Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.

This is me always.

The night is better.

I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.

Because we all wanna know.

Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.