Red Sequins

ERG. Friday, yes. Kids driving us nuts. Also yes. Busy day. Yes. Trying to figure out where and when I get dinner. Or if I go home before 9 PM. It’s OK; the after school stuff is good; just maybe the timing is off. We’ll see.

So yeah, the students have decided summer is tomorrow and they don’t have to do any work, despite there being 28 days of school left. Luckily (for me), I was not the only teacher yelling at kids yesterday…so it isn’t just me (like some of them say). Like listen to instructions and then do what you’re asked to do. Don’t whine, don’t distract everyone around you, and no, you can’t pick your group because you’re literally incapable. We have one more day of posters and then next week, I made it something I could handle. Not sure what the fuck we’re doing after testing next week, but hopefully next week’s brain can figure that out. Because I’m trying to finish grades and the dumbassery in the classroom is not allowing me to get anything done. Honestly, the smartest, highest-level classes are the worst. The lower-level classes are doing the work. Mostly. Sigh. Anyway. I know it’s getting down to the end and it’s always somewhat chaotic, but it always seems worse than last year.

I did work on the green head the last few nights. I didn’t fall asleep one night and came up with the next part of it, then got that done in two nights…

Found fabrics, cut freezer paper for appliques, got one stitched on…then last night…

Stitched the other three parts and then stitched one sleeve down, which might have been a mistake, because now I want to do some embroidery and that thing is on top of the sleeve. It’ll be fine. I’ll just need to pay attention to what I’m doing. It’s close to done. Maybe. I think.

I mean, I do have a lot of red sequins.

I also started on the squirrel from Critters and Clover…

Didn’t get very far. But it reminds me that I have Rooted blocks done and should sew them together and put a binding on them. Maybe. I get distracted easily this time of year. I just need like brainless things that feel like I’ve achieved something. To make up for my country’s stupidity?

Highly possible.

Annie is visiting. She has been terrified of cats.

And wanted to sleep in the already full bed last night. Sigh. The boychild is hopefully coming home today to deal with all dogs. Because the dog is scared of the cats and the cats are scared of the dog and there’s just a lot of chaos and the Man is cranky about many things (just yelled something about the dogs not being trained and I reminded him of his cats and their obvious lack of training). ANYWAY. Holy shit. And grades are due. Stupid timing.

Today, the sweet dingbats finish their posters about homologous structures and I hopefully finish grades. Then I have a thing or twelve after school, including listening to Martha Wells talk, which I’m excited about, but the timing is rough. Hopefully my blood sugar complies. Ha! It hasn’t been. Stress levels have been high. And then a weekend…hey, mom, if you’re reading this, I emailed you about Sunday and you haven’t answered. I’ll try to call at some point between one place and another after school, but also, read your email :-). Wish me luck. Hopefully I won’t have to yell today. Ha.

Gonna Get There…

Gotta write fast; got a meeting this morning. My team had five kid meetings this week and divided them out. We usually all go, but we’re all burnt out on them and so we tried to be organized about it. We’ve been to so many meetings this year for kids…and mostly for the same group of kids over and over. And nothing gets solved at a lot of them. Hopefully today’s will go well…it should.

So art is a struggle at the moment. I guess I got to do ceramics yesterday…

I worked on the hands a bit and then figured out how to add a neck that was removable. There’s still no room to put her on the drying racks, so I figure I’m going to have to start underglazing her and let her dry on my shelf? And then try to do the head? Not sure. Actually, I remembered some other things I was going to do, so now that the fabric has solidified a bit, I might do that. We’ll see.

I managed to paint these for the bugs the other night…

I was going to start attaching bugs to them last night, but started to book flights to see the girlchild and got sucked into an Expedia loop that ended with me on two different airline websites instead, telling Expedia to fuck off. That was 90 minutes I would have spent sewing bugs on. So I guess that’s tonight. It’s fine. Really. I do like a big project. These little fussy ones finish up easy and quickly (well, though, is it?), but I get more frustrated with them. Like, it’s small…why isn’t it done already? So yeah. Getting there.

I also started some embroidery on this dye painting…

Hello Scribble…but I need a specific yarn for the hair, I think. And the yarn store isn’t open until tomorrow. So it’s on my list for after school. I do want to do a big piece next. Like the one I planned to do back in January. It’s been waiting patiently. It deserves to be made. I don’t even remember what it looks like.

I also finished this Critters block (Sue Spargo). The ants were fun.

Meanwhile, political shit is crazy. I mean, no matter what you think about what happened and how people reacted…

The difference between those reactions and those directed toward families who lose children in school shootings is boggling.

And those are the jokey ones. Here’s the real shit.

THAT. Is incredibly sad.

Followed by this crazy shit.

We’re already having issues getting treatments approved. We have an idiot in charge of HHS, increasing measles outbreaks, bad math when it comes to medical expenses (I would like a 600% decrease in my medicine costs please)…and now we’re trying to block new science. This will be why you won’t get new treatments for your cancer in the future.

Only the rich will be able to afford them, and they’ll have to fly out of the US to get them. The attack on science, women, people of color, the poor, LGTBQIA. And the billionaires get more billionairy. Vote, y’all. Vote loudly and often. Yell lots. You know what still hasn’t happened? Epstein files. Cheaper gas. Cheaper food. Nothing is great. We’re still at war. We’re still randomly killing people in the Atlantic Ocean. We’re doing so many illegal things.

Well. Cheery thought. Gotta get out of here. Giving a test on natural selection today. Then starting evolution tomorrow. Through state testing…in bits and pieces. Got lots of work to do. Got lots of planning to do for the summer. Deep breaths…gonna get there somehow.

Not Just a Hot Flash

Last night, I considered what it would take to call in sick today. I am actually sick. I wasn’t sure yesterday during the day, but by 8 PM, when I took my temperature, I’m like, well, yes, that is a fever…not just a hot flash. A hot flash of a different kind anyway. Today is the last day of the sex ed unit, I can’t move it, I have 30 kids opted out who need to come back on Monday. It’s also a wishy washy day because I only have one packet left and it doesn’t take all period. I don’t have time to preview a lovely video (although maybe I can find one related to the unit we had to pause to teach this). I’m not feeling well, so whatever it is, it needs to be easy for me. Writing sub plans is a pain. I’m not that sick. I slept yesterday afternoon, woke up to feed the dog and go to my stitching Zoom meeting, ate a small dinner, stitched a bit, and went back to bed. I’m mostly functional.

Here’s what I stitched on…

Almost ready for the ants. Very slow getting this done.

The last two days, I added beads to this…

There were often animals involved…

Which is complicated when you are using little tiny things cats like to play with.

There’s at least one sequin and one bead lost permanently in the couch. Not my problem. I tried to save them.

I suspect I’ll be done soon. Then I need to make some decisions. I need to get these two dye paintings photographed, but it would be good if I could get one more done. It’s taken me forever to do this one though. Not sure why. And if I start something new, what is it? I had one back in December that was ready to go for the next one and then I had to finish one for the group I’m in and these are for another group I’m in, and I know I need two new ones for next year for those two groups, but I’m not ready on one and the other, I don’t have a true deadline or size yet. So do I do the huge weird one I’ve been looking forward to doing? I think I do. I think I try to finish the other dye painting first. And when I get to like May 15, I get whatever’s done photographed. It might be 2; it might be 3.

This feels too real.

The day job I have is sometimes so irritating and fills all the times and energies. In good news, it looks like grades aren’t actually due this weekend. I think. Even though this is halfway through the trimester. Apparently the principals met and changed it two weeks later. Which is definitely not halfway. No logic to it at all, and since we are lowly teachers, we get no say. It’s gonna be pretty hard to bring a grade up after May 17 is what I’ve gotta say. Hardly any academic stuff after state testing. Also, we can’t send grades home on the 17th; it’s a Sunday. I’m not even sure where all these random dates come from. It’s just so stupid.

Wanna see the owl daddy (?) delivering food to the babes and mom (I’m assuming mom is still in there).

I had to get a new camera because the other one finally died. Now I’m working on trimming some of the plant material. The big tripod I was using had a weird connector that was rusted out, so the camera is a little low. Maybe I can work on that this weekend. Not sure how to retrofit the old, taller tripod so it’ll hold this camera. Definitely two babies at the moment though. Exciting stuff.

So here I am, sick, but not REALLY sick, definitely tired, trying to decide what to do with the kids today. I found the microphone yesterday because my voice was shot. That helped. I really need a video or something. I thought I’d do a blooket game, but that’s way more interaction than I can deal with right now. Damn, I wish this job was better about making it easy to be out. It’s not. I’m teaching goal setting today; then some random thing I haven’t decided about yet. I’d like to go to ceramics, but don’t think I’ll have the energy. Unfortunately. Maybe Sunday afternoon? I think sleep tonight, although I’m also supposed to be cooking (fun times). I feel like I was just sick a month ago (because I was). Immune system not at its best.

Soft and Cuddly

I love these weeks where Monday and Tuesday are fathomless days, no end in sight, and then all of a sudden, it’s Friday. Like what happened there? I guess I appreciate it? I’m just not sure about the concept of time. Still. After how many years? Ha! Years. Time. So it is Friday and this weekend is kind of a shitshow and I’m not sure when I’ll grade the things I’ve been carrying around to grade. They require a quiet space and brainpower, and I seem to be lacking those together. I get a quiet space some evenings and brainpower some mornings (not yesterday morning), but they’re hard to get together. Hence I haven’t been able to get much art done either, even though what I’m doing now is mostly brainless. Picking a color to stitch with is maybe the most thinking I’m doing…

I finished the quilting on all of the bugs…

And then did the edge stitching on the ladybug…which is spoken for, just FYI. So is the Staghorn to its right (the pink and green bug). The other three will be available with the others I have on Etsy. When I finish them.

I didn’t get anything done on them last night because I came home to grade stuff and got buried in school minutiae AGAIN, and then went to a stitching meeting, where I worked on this guy…

From Sue Spargo’s Critter and Clover block of the month. To his credit, it was relaxing, and I love how the spots look like eyeballs. The Man texted about food when I was gone and he was dealing with it, but the food didn’t arrive (they apparently delivered to our neighbor…claimed our phone was disconnected…interestingly, because HIS phone was disconnected…the driver, not the neighbor). ANYWAY. We got food around 10. And I went and looked at one of the things that was school related and decided I did not want to remake the wheel, so I’m sticking with what we’re doing today.

Will I bug tonight? Maybe. I’ve got dinner planned with my brother, but notionally, I could stitch in circles (squares actually) around some more bugs. Tomorrow is picking up quilts from a show and going to an art meeting, plus hopefully grading those things. Sunday is more of the same type of stuff, but school stuff instead of art. Just a lot of running around. Hard to get art done when you’re running around.

Here’s photos from Patty Kennedy-Zafred, the juror of the No Boundaries exhibit at the Virginia Quilt Museum (yes, I still have work there!).

From left to right, Suzan Ann Morgan, then mine, Jill Kerttula, Deborah Boschert, Mary Beth Bellah, and Ann Marie Miller.

Mine, Jill Kerttula, Deborah Boschert, and Mary Beth Bellah (the sculpture in the front).

The small one on the left is Eileen Woods, then Suzan Ann Morgan, mine, and Jill Kerttula.

Nice exhibit. There’s more of course…check out the museum online. I missed this opening after spending the entire previous weekend at the museum. It’s a long way for me, y’all. But maybe not as far as the Moon. I’m hoping they splash down safely off the coast of San Diego today…we won’t be able to see it, but we might hear a sonic boom, they tell us.

My stitching meetings are all about books, weirdly. I’m in though.

This is all about my dog.

The Man is frustrated with the barking but is going about it all wrong. All Simba needs is the boychild or the girlchild (or not to be alone all day…poor anxious guy is trying to protect us). I get it, Simba. We’re sorry. Have some cold pizza that was left on our neighbors’ doorstep. Not really. His poor tummy would not abide.

OK. School. Still teaching natural selection. Sex ed starts Monday. Stupid stupid stupid. Thanks to the school board and the state for that shit. My classroom is a disaster and I’m hoping to get more of that under control…I sorted and delivered a bunch of shit yesterday (the sex ed packets were a mess), so that helps. I spent 10 minutes trying to find two bags of luminescent stars and UV flashlights. Why? Because I have more that need to go in the bags, but I can’t find the fucking bags. March self did something very logical with them and April self does not remember. Then ceramics after afterschool duty. I’m supposed to meet with a kid, but it’s really just to tell him no in person instead of via email, but I can only meet before school and he rarely shows up before 2nd period. Amusing. Not my problem. Squirrel! On the fence. Watching it run. We have squirrels now. Then out to dinner with the bro. Then hopefully bugs. It’s been a long weird overwhelming week. I’m good with it ending gently today…please let it end gently. I’ll allow the sonic boom…but the rest just needs to be soft and cuddly.

Extra Hour…

If you’re a teacher, this is my day: it is Friday the 13th, a week before Spring Break, we have an assembly, and it’s supposed to be 94 degrees. And my air conditioning in the classroom is still not working. It worked for one day and then turned off again. Managed to keep it under 74 degrees yesterday with the use of a fan and opening and closing doors to other people’s A/C. But really not sustainable. So fix that shit! At least there’s no full moon though. Pro: short classes. Con: trying to get a thing done with short classes. All the kids who were absent yesterday when I explained how to do the project are on their own; I made a video of the explanation. I have to check every kid’s paper today before they can go to the next stage (this is the fun part). I’ve have no chance to grade the packets all week. I think I have half of one class done. HALF. Fuck me. I need that done before break.

In other news, I’m still working on four quilts at one time. I got the bindings pinned on Wednesday night…

Except for one, because I forgot to zigzag the edges of the seam. Yes, I do that. Crazy sewing training. Then last night, I started the handsewing of the binding.

Simba did not help. I did not finish even one quilt. I got about 3/4s of the way around. On most of them, maybe all of them, I’ll wait to sew the bindings down until the embroidery is done. I don’t want to embroider through the sleeves…that would make them nonfunctional and be very silly. Some people are probably wondering why I did the binding before the embroidery. Because I don’t have the creative brainpower at the moment to decide what and how to embroider. Hopeful that shows up soon, but currently in exhaustion mode. Wish me luck with that.

Last night was my monthly stitching-in-person meeting and I managed more of the raccoon.

Cute; not hard, but fun.

I had Nova next to me and Scribble decided to be on my lap and then bite Nova’s neck.

I swear, Nova is the most submissive cat sometimes. She just sat there, like “this is my fate”. So weird.

This is true.

And I know what I’m gonna do with it.

OK. Seriously, today is not a trivial day. Plus two meetings and trying to wrangle the sex-ed packets between grade levels. Last night’s parent info meeting was also not trivial. More parents than we’ve had in years, maybe ever. Long. Thanks to the translators. After school, I have to book out of there to get to the dentist to get my stitches out…finally. They’re driving me bonkers. Then hopefully I’ll feel OK enough to go to ceramics. More bindings tonight (handsewing…sitting on the couch, staring at the TV in between stitches), and sleep, beautiful sleep. Although the dog hasn’t been letting us sleep in past 7:20 AM. Ugh. Hopeful. I am ever hopeful for that extra hour.

What Is Normal?

Oof. It’s Friday, yes, short week, yes, but holy crap, these short weeks have packed a punch. It’s almost a relief to go back to a normal week (except next week is so not normal). What is normal anyway? Not sure. It’s rained on and off all week and been cold (hey it’s Southern California, but it was 40 degrees here when I woke up…yes that’s warm for a lot of the country, but I don’t have the clothing for that…well, I do, but not to leave the house). I busted out my Ugg boots last night. I got home in the rain, pulled the trashcans in, in the rain, got really wet, in the rain, peed the dog, still raining, and totally damp, I wanted to just put my pjs on and curl up on the couch. But no! A friend I haven’t seen in person for 22 years was in town, so I gladly drove through (guess what, the rain) not-so-bad traffic actually (considering the rain) to hang out with her, another friend, and another on Zoom for a few hours. I got some raccoon done…

These are super relaxing to work on.

So is binding. It’s just the same stitch around and around.

I got the binding done on Wednesday night and then both sleeves on last night…

Not really helpful cat.

Great image, yeah? Well it goes to the photographer tomorrow…

Also a great photo. With my hand in it and a pile of trimmed ends of the threads from the stitching. But it’s done! The first quilt of 2026. With the next ones ready to go…a departure from what I normally do, but I’m excited about that. We’ll see how it goes, how long the excitement lasts before I want to do something different. Or the same. It’s hard when I’m teaching to find the brainpower to branch out into different techniques and processes. I spend so much of my creative energy at school trying to plan and solve problems, that sometimes I come home and there isn’t much left. There are things I can do without a lot of conscious thought, like trace, cut things out, even pick fabrics…but the original creation, the drawing, that requires more thought. And these next ones, however many I do (I have four ready to go) will be completely different…well, not the first stages. Those will be rote…stuff I know how to do…but the later stages will be very different from what I’ve been doing. Excitement? And anxiety. Woo! I don’t know that I need more anxiety at the moment, but it’s creation anxiety, and that’s not always a bad thing. I guess watch this space?

Here’s Nova giving me a judgy look because I yelled at her for eating the kitten’s food.

I did call her chonky. Rightly so.

Well no ceramics tonight unfortunately; this is my normal day though. I have a meeting during my prep (silly parents) and then I have a long meeting after school that will require brain power (make more tea) and will probably go for a couple of hours or longer (hopefully not longer). Then clean up that quilt tonight, iron it flat, get all the damn cat hair off of it. If there’s time, I’ll start the next thing, although I may just fix my pants. I’m hoping to go to a bunch of art shows tomorrow…I have three on my list; two while I’m delivering to the photographer (already almost there…might as well keep going) and one in the evening that I will drag the Man to…it’s fine. We’ll do dinner after. Plus I need to grade a million things again. We’re almost at the end of the trimester, which is stressful. And next week is a shitshow ending with eyeball dissections. Woo! But hopefully sleeping in tomorrow a little and doing some fun things to make up for all the work? That would be nice. And I’ll have some grading time on Wednesday and planning time on Monday to make up for the LACK of it at all other times. Yeah. It’s Friday. Let’s do this.

Do Everything Faster…

It’s Friday. I don’t think I got anything done in the last two days. I mean, I’m sure I did something, but not enough. Never enough. And this weekend is a long one, but chaotic as fuck. And because I didn’t get anything…well, not enough done in the last two days, I will have to do everything faster. And maybe just not sleep. That might do it. Might be able to get it done.

Even quilting…missed one evening…for a good reason, but I had plans to get through some grading and quilting and it just didn’t happen. So no, I am not done quilting…not even close…I did get the outlining done.

Looks good. Then I started the background quilting, which is a pain in the ass.

I did all the tiny fussy areas in the center bit and then started around the edges. Imma be here for a while.

I’ve been buried in meetings, so I made it to ceramics for 10 whole minutes on Wednesday after one meeting. Yesterday there were three school-related meetings and I didn’t even get home in between those and my stitching meeting, where I started the next Sue Spargo block of the month embellishment. These animals are gonna be fun…

Plus I’ve had two early mornings, which fuck with me. And tonight will be IDK how late, but it sounds like I might need to go over two hours early. Ugh. It would be fine if I could sit in the bar and grade while the band sets up, but then what do I do with my computer after? I’m actually considering this y’all. It’s the Man’s band’s last show in the version they currently are. The drummer is leaving, one of the guitarists and the lead singer already technically left. They’re gonna have to remake themselves, but everyone is coming back for tonight, so it’s going to fill up quickly. That said, the Man usually has a bag of stuff backstage. Maybe I can just hotspot the computer and grade for a while and then shove my computer into his bag? It might work. I know, it’s a crazy thing to do on a Friday night, but otherwise, I’m just sitting there for two hours until the show starts. I can’t even go out and sit in the car or something, because they’ll just stop letting people in at some point. Aargh. OK. It’s a plan.

Yesterday’s drive to stitching…the sky was so much more stunning than a phone camera can ever capture.

And then I turned north and just kept seeing it in my rearview mirror getting redder and redder and then just fading out. The sky is fascinating. I used to teach the color part of that…but this year, this year is absolute shit for that. Maybe the last 5 years. Sigh.

Here’s Annie and Simba at the other house. Apparently not allowed on the couch?

Man, Simba looks old there. He’s 11. He’s not really old. Just a baby.

OK, apparently I did a lot of meme-hunting instead of all the things I should be doing. Disassociating. In the way of my people. Honestly though, with all the crazy shit this country is doing, it’s a miracle I can get my head around any of it. This one…except I do love me some sci fi…

And I had to explain this one to my students yesterday when our warmup question about spying came up (we’re reading Maze Runner in Advisory and the docs are spying on the kids with these weird beetle blade creatures).

Crazy world. Sick world. I mean my phone did want to tell me yesterday about the places I’d been and what categories they were.

So then there’s the Epstein Files…or more importantly, all the (mostly men) people who should be arrested.

Do it! Let’s protect some little kids for once. It’s about time…even if they’re grown up now, they still deserve protection.

Sigh. Did I tell you about my high-school acquaintance who was like “the American people don’t care about the files; move on.” WT everloving fuck. I want to talk to your wife. Now.

Exactly. And watching Bondi yesterday? I can’t. These people. And I don’t know what a quilt about this looks like and it’s possible I’ve used that imagery of telling the stupid people in the bubble to stop while we protect women and children and they look stupid, but oh, maybe I can do that again. When the art you’re making is pissing you off…I really need a short break from the part where the topic of it, the content, makes me angry. We’ll see how that goes.

Or both. At the same time.

OK. Meeting at school, in my room. Last-minute. I asked someone else to handle all the organizing and he did jackshit. Love that for me. Then I have an assignment for the kids that is pretty low-key for me. I’m hoping to bang through the homework assignments from last week and maybe work on the academic one I tried to grade Wednesday (I got halfway through). Then duty at school, race home (pick up prescription first), eat, pack quilts, go to the Man’s show, collapse into bed. Up tomorrow, gotta quilt but also have to drop off quilts and do other stuff, hopefully hike, chaos to-do list, scares me, mostly work but also digging and who knows what else. Shit, I need to set up a lab today too. Ugh. I don’t think there are any more bins for that. Huh. Will figure that out. Maybe. Unless they make me sub my prep again. Hopefully not (that was yesterday).