More Fun Than Ladders

Whoa. It’s been seconds since I realized it is now July. It is July, right? WTF. How did that happen? I know, the inexorable march of time forward blah blah blah. I’m leaving for my residency in 17 days. I did start making a pile of stuff on the girlchild’s bed. I fall asleep to lists of things I need to pack or ship (I need an iron for sure…do I need a ruler? Unknown.).

I have been chipping away at all the things…the back deck railing is painted. The fascia is a mess; I’m surprised the people putting the gutters up didn’t say anything (then they would have had to DO something). So I’m doing something. On a ladder. Fun times. I started painting the other half of the east-facing deck wall. At some point, I will need a ladder for that as well. I don’t like ladders. I got my car fixed and got the radio replaced. I’m very happy about that…I upgraded a bit so my phone connects. Excited about that (weird thing to be excited about unless you’re about to leave on a million-mile driving trip). OK, it’s not a million miles. Short route is only 847 miles. One way. So it’s not a short distance. Longer than we usually go for a vacation, but the Man is only going halfway. The first day of driving will suck, but it will be fine after that. I’m really excited. Trying to control the need to take everything I own with me. Hard to do. I’m a hoarder at heart. Yardwork is slowly getting done, but since it will never BE done, it’s fine. A little every day. Mostly. I figured out all my medications and how to organize that…that was a challenge.

In quilt progress, I cut stuff out on Monday night…

Yesterday, I finished cutting stuff out in a couple of hours, forgot to take a picture, and then spent 90 minutes sorting them.

I’ll start ironing it all together tonight. I might put a small dye-painted quilt together first, so I can add it to the pile coming to Oregon. I think I’m going to bring two of them with me and try to finish them there; I have so many shows coming up that I want to enter and so little work that’s available.

I went to ceramics the last two days…when I took the class, I wasn’t thinking about (a) where to store these things and (b) the fact that I needed to finish them. So it took about 2 1/2 hours to glaze the smaller one…

It’s Stroke and Coat, so it’s one and done. It’ll still need to dry for about two weeks before it can go in the kiln though.

This is 2 1/2 hours on the second one…

Probably another two hours to go. Here it was before I started glazing.

I think they’re just going to go out in the yard to scare the squirrels away. I like the idea of these. I might make more? I don’t know. I need to finish the upper torso of the other one and get it bisque fired before I leave. Yikes. It seems like I have plenty of time, but I have a lot of stuff planned in the next 2 1/2 weeks. The Man has two shows, we have a weekend away for his birthday, a friend is visiting for two days, and I have four different doctors’ appointments? Maybe 5. Plus getting the fabric prepped and entering a few more shows. Plus all the house and yardwork. It’s a lot. Plus I sat in the library parking lot today so I could return a book. I like to NOT leave the house if I can get away with it. It’s nice here; there’s a breeze, it’s sunny, but not too hot, and it’s quiet at the moment.

Anyway. So the day is almost done, but the car radio got done this morning. I think I’m going to go put gloves on and do the kind of dangerous fascia wood treatment, so I can patch it this evening. Sand it tomorrow? Maybe paint Friday? The sun has to be in the right place for all the painting stuff or it’s too hot. For me and the paint. I’ll keep letting my brain percolate about what to take to Oregon. I found the cute little iron mom bought me…so it’s going. I thought about that at about 1 AM, when the Man’s snoring took a turn for the worse. Fun times. Tonight, I’ll work on some fabric stuff, probably ironing stuff together and quilting. That’s the plan anyway. Looking forward to it. More fun than climbing up and down ladders.

The Word of the Day Is Chaos

I’m trying to get my writing back on schedule. My brain has been summer break fuzz. I did realize over the weekend that I’m leaving for my residency in less than three weeks, and I have 17 thousand things to do before I leave, so there’s a tiny bit of panic in there. But also, I’m still waiting to get my car back…it’s been gone since Thursday. I’m glad I took it in, because the radiator probably would have died and maybe the battery too and that would have sucked big time. So it’s all good. Still don’t have the radio thing fixed though. Sigh.

OK, let’s start with fabric…I finished ironing everything to fabric last Thursday…

I used 176 different fabrics.

I like to sort by color; it gives me an idea of what I used more or less of in that particular quilt. Although sometimes if pieces were small in one color, it won’t be as obvious in the quilt as when I use big pieces of colors…like I know there’s big gray clouds everywhere and some big fleshy patches plus a giant sun. So those fabrics will show up more in the quilt than they might in this color sort.

I actually started trimming them during an art Zoom on Wednesday, but here’s the first official photo of trimming on Thursday night…

Top left is trimmed, top right is not, bottom is trash, which I hold onto until the quilt is done in case I lose a tiny piece and need to replace it. I also keep all the sorted fabrics until the quilt is done; same reason.

Scribble likes to sit on my lap while I do this, which is not always convenient. No way can I reach my tea in this situation.

But I will rarely say no to a cat on my lap.

Friday night…flipped

Trimmed stuff is on the right.

Saturday night…trimmed still on the right…

More Scribble assistance.

Sunday night…

And more Scribble…

She doesn’t stay for super long. And she does bat at the loose bits. So at this point, I am almost 13 hours into the trimming and I probably have at least 2 hours to go, if not more. I’m hoping to be done today, but there’s a lot of chaos today that needs to happen as well, so we’ll see. I need a car!

I also took a ceramics class on Saturday from Moni Blom. I had gone to a demo class of hers before. Her stuff is just fun and whimsical…

However, I didn’t consider that whatever I made in class would need to be added to list of things I needed to get done before I left! I made two sculptures…you can see another student’s piece behind my blurry ones (obviously badly focused in the moment).

Plastic is covering my Fallopian tubes. You know. Like you do. I made two because the first one (taller) was starting to lean. My hand is holding the second one. In real life, you’d make all the parts and let them sit for a day before trying to put them together. I’m hoping they are still standing upright when I go in to glaze them today or tomorrow.

I dropped at least two of the parts doing this anyway. Fun things though. Would look great in the garden, if your garden was less chaotic than mine.

My heart made it out of the bisque fire.

Oh yeah, they said the sculptures needed to sit for 2-3 weeks before firing. That’s when I leave. Yikes. I’m a little stressed at the moment at the timing of everything. I’m trying to enter shows too, and that’s kind of a clusterfuck…can I ship before I go? Can I deliver before I go? Who knows. I dumped one because I couldn’t tell…not enough info. Frustrating.

More art-related stuff. This is the Instagram of the newish group I joined at the end of last year.

You should go follow it; this is a detail from a piece by Luana Rubin. We have a show just finishing up at the New England Quilt Museum in a few weeks, then it travels to Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England. There will be an exhibit at IQF in Houston, Texas, but I unfortunately won’t have a piece in that. I was considering going, but it’s all a timing thing. Then it will all go to Road to California in January. There are more exhibits planned, but I will be making a new piece to travel at that point.

Here’s a photo Margaret took of me in front of one of her pieces I really liked, when I was up in San Francisco.

One of my favorite shirts too.

I had two work-related events in the last few days; here’s my whole teaching team at the retirement party of one of our principals…

Almost mentally on break. Soon. I said goodbye until August to a lot of people on Sunday. I suspect I may be on Zoom with this crew at some point before that though.

Ah this.

I’m eternally frustrated by humanity…and the lack thereof. Because this…

And this…

FFS folks. We work our asses off. And it’s so hard starting break and having people tell us we’re LUCKY to need this time to recharge so we can go back to working our asses off. Unpaid too. I won’t see a paycheck until the end of August. But at least we have this…

Thanks to my solar panels and the battery. They help.

But this happened today…

And the more disturbing part of this is the far right’s argument that childbirths are down and we need more babies. From teens? Who need more supports? Which you have also decimated? What the absolute fuck. So I’m considering a quilt about this. Maybe. I have so many things I have to do in the next 7 months quiltwise. The topics are up in the air though, so if I can get my head around what this would look like. I think I can. Certainly there’s falling…lots of falling and flailing with no help.

And lastly, because it’s summer…

Although not potatoes; too many carbs. It’s summer and my blood sugar is a pain in the ass. Plus I have two MRIs next week, and though I’ve done one with my glucose monitor in, when I called, they said no for the first one…so I think I’m going without the monitor for a week. Which is a little scary with the numerous lows I’ve had. My body is in recovery from school still. And the heel pain is still there, though walkable. So I have another acupuncture appointment set up. And I have a pile of exercises to get through. Plus a pile of pieces of fabric that need trimming. I need to be ironing this thing together in the next day or so. Yesterday, I started putting the 20+ quilts away that had accumulated in the girlchild’s room over the last few months, as shows returned work and I finished a few. I got three rolls of quilts dealt with, but I can’t fit one of them under the bed any more. Not sure how I fit it before, because I didn’t add anything to it…just tried to put back the six quilts that had come back. I can’t lift the other roll up onto the bed, so I’ll deal with those tonight. But I think I need to start a new one and I’m not sure where it’s going to go. I’m still storing other people’s art for a possible airport show that hasn’t come about yet. I feel like I’ve had those hanging around for a year or so. Ah well.

OK. Today. Need a car. Need to go grocery shopping (see ‘need a car’). Need to paint the back deck railing for the third time. Need to finish cutting things out. Need to get to ceramics if possible and glaze. Definitely tomorrow if not today. I’m doing laundry. Need to put quilts away. Need to lay out stuff I want/need to take to residency so I can get a good idea of what I’m shipping and what is going in the car. Need a walk, honestly, but it’s warm. And no car, so that limits my walkiness. I do have a lunch for today though. And I have paint and stuff to cut out. So if I can’t leave the house, there is (unfortunately) plenty to do. I need someone to help me lift this quilt roll up. Should have had the Man help before he left for work. Oh well. Plenty of yardwork to do (always…never ending). You know what I don’t have to do? Lesson plan. Grade shit. Go to school. Whoop whoop for that.

The Light…

The Monday post is where I evaluate how much I got done (including books and art) over the weekend and consider how much of a shitshow the week is going to be. I did OK with the weekend: got some stuff done but never enough (always the case) and yes, this week will be a shitshow. Until it’s not. Grades are due Friday, probably while I’m at the local tiny amusement park with a bunch of 8th graders. So I’ll have to be done Thursday night. Problematic. They used to be due the following Monday, which gave us more time, but no, not this year. It has not been logical all year. Frustrated by that.

Friday, I managed to cut out the last yard (yup, stayed up too late).

Thanks Scribble. Then Saturday, I sorted them…

I also put borders on the third dye painting this time around…

This is one of my favorites…I was sitting around, at a self-directed residency in Temecula, waiting for the results of yet another biopsy, and it was the 10th day of waiting. I finished this, and about an hour later, got the email that everything was fine. Sigh. That shit is terrifying.

Then last night, I put away all the fabric from the last big quilt I did and cleaned other stuff up and swept the floor (it was bad), and then I set out the first 100 Wonder Under pieces for ironing to fabric tonight.

They’re in piles of 10. Makes it easier to find them on the drawing. I also bought a couple of possible background fabrics on Saturday during my errand blitz. Can’t do a lot of errands during the school week, so I bang them out on Saturdays. I was efficient.

Friday, Simba had his annual teeth cleaning. They send me a picture midday of his drugged-out little self.

He’s recovered since then.

Nova pretends to be all serious and then you catch her doing this…

Serious, my ass.

So I think the baby owls have dispersed. I didn’t hear them last night at all. I heard an owl threat sound, which they also know how to do, but none of the baby cry for food and parental assist. So this might be the last video I have of them.

I don’t think we’ve ever had them leave this early. Last year, it was well into the end of August.

So many things this administration is dismantling, so petty about things like vaccines and immigrants and climate change…it’s so frustrating to watch them destroy things that have been working, that have a purpose, just to deny that. Like this one…

The cost to recreate this at this point would be insane. And stupid. Like if we don’t have the sensors, we can ignore the damage we’re doing, the damage that will affect our people. Meanwhile, we have this…

No Epstein files, no questioning a man who is definitely not healthy. None of this makes any sense.

Well. It’s the last full week of school (no, I’m not out yet!). Yes, we’re still teaching…egg drop this week. Then into promotion stuff starting Friday. That part is exhausting in its own way. But closer to the time when I get to go on my residency. The foot is better (not well yet). I’m moving around just fine; just a little soreness at times. My neck and shoulder are also fucked at the moment, so there’s that. I have 70 million doctors’ appointments scheduled before I leave. I need to do all the house/yard stuff before I leave, and make sure I can jump into teaching the day after I get back. I’m actually not really worried about that. That’s the easy part. But I still need to get through the next 8 days of school. Knock on wood that there will be no major issues. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s a plus.

Making All the Things…

Friday. FINALLY. Seriously how does a normal 5-day week get so LONG?! So much stress at the end of the year over grades…this kid’s grades, that kid’s grades, FINISHING grades (I have one week). Parent emails after midnight (I didn’t see it until today). I’m so ready for this school year to be done (I say this every year). We have 9 more days. NINE. I wrote to two parents last night with that number: can you please persuade your child to behave for NINE days and then they can whatever with YOU. Sigh. And the Man asked me again today, so are you out NEXT week? FUCK NO. Sigh.

It’s fine. I’m getting there. I spent over 3 hours making art last night and I don’t feel bad about it. Friday morning self wishes I had graded more (I did grade some!), but that’s OK. So I went to ceramics, because I won’t make it there today…

I carved the arm…

I don’t think you know how hard it is to carve lines around a 3D shape. I’m laughing. It’s hard.

Then I came home and did my monthly stitching Zoom and put borders on two dye paintings from last summer.

I have two more to border and then I’ll make quilt sandwiches and quilt then and decide what else they need. Actually, I like the idea of 3D loose leaves on this one.

I still have one other quilted dye painting that needs embroidery. Piling them up.

Then I cut stuff out until way too late…in the way of my people (art folk). Wednesday night…

And last night…

It’s taking longer than I thought it would. I have one yard left…for tonight. Sort tomorrow, clean up studio (finish grades), then start ironing to fabric. Although I’m not sure I have a background. Hmmm. So a trip to the fabric store if my stash doesn’t have a piece big enough that’s the right color.

Otherwise, the last test in science is today (which means grading it in class, which is my goal, and this weekend). So they should be quiet (ha!). And I should be able to get shit done in there (ha ha!). Then duty after school, plus a meeting about the new science teacher decision, then pick up the dog from his teeth cleaning, then finish my book (I’m so close) and grade and make more art. Figure out how to exercise without exacerbating the foot. I went to the podiatrist yesterday and it was positive and vague, as always. Don’t know why it happened. Don’t know if it will happen again. Here’s all the things you can do, which you remember from 17 years ago. GO! Yeah. Well. Bodies age and it’s annoying. At least my brain is still making all the things.

That Should Be Enough…

OK we only have two full weeks (and a short one) left. It doesn’t make this week easier, mostly, because we’re still here, trying to teach, while students dream of summer vacay (trust me, y’all…we also are dreaming of this…we’re just capable of dreaming AND working). I woke up this morning, and my foot is behaving (knock on wood). Not even any pain (in that one, ironically, let’s not talk about the other foot). Weird shit, bodies. I managed to pick up three pieces from the photographer yesterday and get them entered (the deadline was today). And I did art this weekend. All good.

I traced Friday night…

I was close to the end…about 150 pieces away.

Foot was still hurting Saturday. We had to go grocery shopping and I took the crutches because they force me not to limp and destroy all my other muscles, which is part of what happened last week. Everything hurt.

Saturday night, I finished tracing…5 full yards and a little bit of one.

Scribble guarding them. And I started cutting them out.

Usually I can do about a yard a night, but I started late, had to be up early Sunday for an art meeting, and had that funny little bit to do as well, so I’m already off my easy tracking plan.

Last night I finished that yard and got about a 1/3 of the way through another.

Friday night, I should be sorting them, ironing Saturday…I hope. Lots of busy weekends this month though…but also, school will end. I have to get this to a good place before I leave for Oregon. For some definition of ‘good place’. I also started the borders of the next set of dye paintings I’m going to finish, but I didn’t take any photos. Yes, I bought more fabric for those, because I don’t have enough of anything in my stash to work.

The local fabric store usually has an awesome stash for this stuff, but they have downsized and their stash was not as awesome as before. It does not bode well for me and my batik habit. Maybe it bodes well for my finances.

Local wildlife…the two (blurry) young coyotes who ran through my yard, over my fence, into my neighbor’s yard, over their fence.

The hawks were out in force. This one has something in its talons.

Two of the owl babies are racing around, flying everywhere. One is still staying back, I think. This is so early for release.

Our own wildlife…Scribble loves this bed.

Simba was at the ex’s house with the boychild…and Annie.

Peaceful moment for them.

This is my brain on the regular, especially last week.

I actually didn’t lose my mind over the foot/brain stuff for too long. I prefer to make art and read books.

Especially when I see this.

So frustrating. As is this.

Any other president and we wouldn’t be speculating like this.

Anyway. Teaching space this week still, focusing on mass and gravity. So a simulation today, a demo tomorrow with help from kids. Leaving the crutches home. Frustrated about my district/principal. Not sure who came up with the busywork we’ve been assigned for 2 hours after work, but it’s already been done, just not in this format. Differentiation for professional development is not a thing in my district. So quietly simmering and trying not to. Trying to think about getting stuff set up for tomorrow and finishing grading and getting myself back to my art instead of considering my WHY. If you’re a teacher, you’ll get that reference. But if my district/principal are not telling me why I need to do this thing, then WHY do I need to do it in this format? It already exists. If it’s for me and my department, that should be enough. Right? Anyway. We know how these arguments go. Rarely on the side of the worker bee.

That Matters…

Yes, I’m writing late today. I took the morning off to attend an art-related Zoom that is usually difficult for me to go to, due to that lovely day job, but the kids are walking to the high school today in the morning anyway, so I’m not missing a lot of instructional time; I’ll be back to give a test to my afternoon kids, which totally thrills them, let me tell you. So I slept in (a little bit, because let’s be honest, my body thinks I should be up at 6:30 all the time and so it just wakes up and I don’t fall back to sleep easily). I’ll shower in a bit. I might put a second coat of paint on the deck wall (I was working on the deck and plants last night in the dusk light and it was not easy, but it needs to get done and it’s always dark when I get home these days). I’m definitely inputting grades…yes, taking time off from work and still working is what teachers do; why do you ask? And hopefully I can start grading that other academic assignment…I’ll be coming home from work and doing that for sure. Unfortunately.

Luckily, there is progress on the quilt front. It took 11 1/2 hours to trim all the pieces…

And then I sorted them the same night…

Scribble was not particularly helpful in this process. As you might imagine…although she eventually chilled out and just watched.

Nova was chilling on the couch.

Then last night, I started ironing the whole thing together.

I did almost 100 pieces in an hour. Pretty soon, it will all be small pieces and progress will look much slower. I’m not expecting to be done quickly, but I’m hoping to get some big chunks of weekend time in the next few weeks. I need it all ironed together and to a background by February 15, then finished ASAP. Ha! OK. Doing it.

I also made it in to work on the bowl…mostly underglazing at this point.

I think I have two more colors I want to put on there, but also, I wish I had painted inside the mouth. I might just do a tongue and not worry about the background, but it looks weird now, so not the best decision I’ve made this week.

Also probably not the worst, y’all. And it’s only Wednesday; there’s still time for worse decisions. I am liking the bowl though. It’s fun.

I’m finishing up teaching digital and analog signals this week, and found this mix tape in the box of cassettes I brought to school.

Yup, my brother made that.

Trying to explain to these digital kids that you made a tape to share your music with your friends or a relative and it was like a gift, and how you thought about them when you made it, and then when you listened to it, you thought about the person who made it for you. They don’t get it. Sad. But things have changed. They share TikTok videos and memes. Maybe it’s the same?

Yesterday, I left school quickly and came home to work on the deck in daylight. I have part of the house wall that really needs paint, and I wanted to do that before I started pushing plants back up against the wall. So I did a little sanding and one coat of paint last night, as the sky turned into this.

My eucalyptus tress still look sad. Hopefully they’ll be fluffier by summer. I have too much of a view of my back and lower neighbors’ yards at the moment. I could do without that. But the sky was nice. I moved three plant shelves back toward the railing, but also realized I don’t remember where everything goes. I’m sure it will be fine (she says). I’ve moved a few anyway that needed room or to dangle. Some things need some major pruning or replanting, so that’s a different issue.

I’m thinking about using this when we teach natural selection…but then the kids will think it’s a choice.

Honestly, I don’t know how much natural selection we’re going to get to this year, thanks to the school board fucking up our schedule. So frustrated with this year. I can’t even look at the calendar for April without stressing. My blood sugar has been super reactive this week. Not sure what changed except everyone around me is sick and I’ve definitely been fighting something off since Saturday, but I’m not sick…and my blood sugar is an asshole. Things that normally don’t shoot my blood sugar high…well, they are. So it’s just gonna be high this week I guess. Sigh. I have pilates today; hopefully that will help. I don’t feel more stressed than last week, so who knows what else it could be. Random shit…brought to you by my body.

Discombobulated is one of my favorite words.

I never considered what bobulated would be.

I try to do this every day.

It helps.

This thought also helps; but it’s also depressing.

Economic shutdown Friday. I can’t skip school; it’s not fair to the kids. There aren’t enough subs. I already have plans for Friday night to support a friend; the money was already spent, though. We are going out after, but I’m pretty sure it’s an independent place. Not a Cohn-owned monstrosity. I’ve got my eyes open for what’s happening Saturday. One rep emailed back. I don’t actually need to hear from them. I need to see them vote and start yelling. Get Noem out. Get out of Minnesota. Get out of everywhere. No ICE.

This is boggling.

So unsustainable. Then again, our need for money and power always is unsustainable.

This is an issue.

And frustrating, because they think we don’t think too. SCIENCE! I didn’t even post the measles graph for 2025. Measles cases went from like 238 in 2024 to over 2000 cases in 2025. Thanks RFK for being an ignorant dickhead.

Imma leave you with a sleepy kitten.

She’s a good baby.

OK, I need to shower, set up some stuff for school, get on a Zoom, maybe paint a wall, grade some stuff, input some grades, then go to school and give a test, go to Pilates, come home, grade some more after reading some of my book, and then iron. Busy day. Even “taking time off” (whatever that means). But art is in there and that matters.

Lurking…

Hey. The weekend, it was messy, wasn’t it? Whether it was extreme weather or extreme authoritarian government actions, it was difficult for a lot of people. I called my Senate and House representatives (unfortunately, Padilla doesn’t have voicemail…so I guess I try to call while I’m teaching? Not particularly convenient for your constituents sir). I’m hoping the ICE funding doesn’t pass the Senate, hoping no more Democrats slip over to the dark side. They aren’t MY reps, so IDK what their logic was, although I’m sure it’s somewhere on the internet. At some point, all that news gets to be too much for all of us. That said, thank the brave folks of Minnesota who are still recording the bullshit, even as we hear it out of the government’s mouth, but it doesn’t match the videos. It’s wrong.

I saw someone that I know post that if the sanctuary cities would just hand over the illegals, none of this would happen. So ignorance of how the immigration system works (I’ve been through it with my ex) and why people might immigrate to another country…and the fact that all us white folks are immigrants here. We overran the place, destroyed so many existing communities and families…why? We wanted freedom! And land and resources and power and money. And forgetting that part of the story is boggling.

This country was built (correctly or not) on immigrants. And so many of the people being rounded up are going through the process legally, showing up to appointments, following the rules, NOT breaking the law, NOT gang members. Especially now, in Minnesota, how many of the people being harassed, thrown to the ground, dragged out of their houses…how many of those have already been outed as whoops, we didn’t get the right person? It’s insane that this hasn’t been shut down, that the funding is still there, instead of protecting people, feeding people, making sure they have the medication and healthcare they need. This is what you want your tax dollars spent on? When food and electricity costs are going through the roof? Insane that some of these people can’t even look at the weekly grocery bill and see the effect all this is having on them personally. And lying about it.

We saw all the videos, y’all. Where are the gun people? Why aren’t they screaming about their 2nd Amendment rights? Why aren’t they on the news for that? He didn’t pull a gun…he recorded bad behavior. And they killed him. He was innocent and they killed him. And he’s not the first and won’t be the last. Sick.

The climate stuff is supremely worrying. We’re making it so much worse. It will take years to get back to where we were a year ago. The scientific ignorance this government propagates is mind-boggling. And to prioritize machines over people’s lives? This is mind-boggling.

Shut it down. We need regulation so humans can live.

So did I make art this weekend? I did. I also had three art meetings and the Man’s band played at the Music Box on Friday night…so I went to that too.

Sometimes the guitar player stands in front of the Man the entire show…

Photos are hard. I did come home and manage to cut stuff out for about an hour before I fell exhausted into bed…

I cut again on Saturday…

And I was really hoping I’d be done last night…

But I needed about another 30 or 40 minutes and I had to go to bed to get up today and teach.

So you can see in the top bin that not much is left. I’ll finish those tonight and sort them all, and start ironing this together tomorrow night. The next part is not quick and it’s a tight deadline.

One of the art meetings Saturday was at the Mingei…they have this cool mini-exhibit of aardvarks in the front.

I’d never really thought of the artistic possibilities of an aardvark, but now I am.

My quilt was sighted in one of the pictures from MOCA Connecticut…

Very cool.

I finished one book and started another.

Today after school is a school social event that I need to be part of, but…

I always wonder this. Pointlessly. I’m hoping to go to ceramics after that. We’ll see. Mondays are delightfully quiet at the studio. But I have book club tonight too, so time is an issue. I did finally finish my grades (there were so many issues with grades this time; crazy stuff). I’m pretty convinced I forgot to do something I was supposed to do this weekend…there were things I hoped to do that I didn’t get to, because everything always takes twice as much time as you think it will. And I didn’t factor in having to yell at the government again (although maybe that should be a weekly allowance of time, based on what we’re seeing). Sigh.

Here’s the most recent quilt, in case you haven’t seen it…

We Hold These Truths…that’s a body bag in the left bathtub. Way too real right now.

OK. Today. I teach. Something. Um. Digital vs analog. This week is a mess. Lots of talking today I think, unfortunately, and tomorrow. Then testing Wednesday, except for the kids on the walking trip; their test will be Thursday. Which means adjusting shit for that. And I’m talking Wednesday morning off for an art thing, so I need sub plans. My co-teacher is out (sick)…I thought I was coming down with something yesterday, but today, it seems to be gone? Knock on wood. So either I kicked it or it’s lurking. Fun stuff. Then an hour meeting about bullying and another hour or so of socializing (not my favorite), then hopefully clay and book club and cutting things out. And sleep, glorious sleep. I’m still so tired after this weekend. Did not recover from last week. Ah well…we soldier on. Hopeful.

Make More Tea…

Well I’m a bit tired. Not uncommon I know, but cat night shenanigans were at an extreme level last night (not mine; she was quietly asleep by my leg) and my sleep was stolen with a pillow over my head mostly. It’s always fun to go to school when you are already really trying to get your eyes to open and you’ve already had your shower. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. Grades are due, mine were done, until I realized the ending date had been set wrong (not by me…higher up), so the last stuff I put in is not counting. The district reset the date to January 14 now (it was December before), but no clue why, because the trimester closes on a Friday? Whatever. If you want your employees to stop giving a shit, keep doing random things that make their jobs more difficult. Seriously. I guess the kids will have the grades set as of December because I don’t have time to go back and redo everything, and it won’t even count the one grade I input for that week because it was due the 16th. Whatever. I do the best I can for the kids DESPITE the adults. It’s all I can do.

Still trimming tiny pieces. It gets hard to tell the days apart by looking at the bins, especially in the middle. Here’s Wednesday night…

And last night…

I got through a big chunk of the flesh pieces, so it looks like a lot. I don’t have a clue how far along I am; I just know I probably won’t get much done tonight. The Man has a show, and although he’ll be done early, the second band is friends of ours, so we’re probably staying. That said, we’re both exhausted and cranky from the cat crap, so maybe he’ll want to come home early (I’d be OK with that). This weekend is also a shit show of meetings, plus I’m trying to regrade the things kids did this week so the improved scores go on their progress reports, but realistically, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to pull that off.

Scribble wants to help…

You know, usually, she just sits next to me on the couch and sleeps when I work here, but lately, she wants to be asleep on my lap, which is cute but more complicated. Easier to just read with her there.

Apparently she was interested in the book, because the boychild sent me this yesterday.

Bowie is still isolated in a room, so she hasn’t had him to play with. I’m hoping he can come out soon too. We offered it last night, and he hid under the bed again, which is really unlike him. He is eating more and peeing, but has a hard time seeing water in the bowl…that has always been an issue. Anyway, not sure what is going on with him, but the Man has been sleeping in there with him and his other two cats were scratching at the door all night, which is why I had a pillow on my head. UGH.

I finished the last Sue Spargo Rooted block last night, finally.

This was a fun mini-block-of-the-month…

Now they just have to be trimmed, sewn together, and bordered. I think there’s more embroidery on the border, but not as much as on the last one. These are a nice size of block to travel and stitch on. They’re fun to do. I can’t really carry my art quilts with me when I travel, and these are more mindless for me, so easier. Not that I travel a lot, which is why it takes me forever to finish anything. I do have the next one all appliqued down and ready for stitching. I didn’t sign up for the mini one this year…I have a lot of these; I’m way behind, and sometimes they don’t appeal to me…like this year’s. The Christmas tree one my mom and I did together…that was nice because she got to do all the embroidery and keep it. I think I have three minis saved up. Plenty to work on. Hell, I always have plenty to work on.

OK. Today. Will be long. Luckily, no meetings today, just teaching digital and analog signals, and mostly, it’s the kids working independently. Halle-fucking-lujah. I’ve been ON for days. ON ON. ONONON. Singing too (frequency, highs and lows, and my voice is shot). Played guitar, explained cassette tapes and records and old phones and video recorders and cameras (actual FILM cameras) and CDs and Walkmans. It’s been a lot. So it’s good that today is more on them than me. We’re behind in planning, so I just finished Monday’s worksheet last night and copied it after school because one of the copiers is down. So I have worksheets for Monday and Tuesday…don’t need one Wednesday, and I have no clue what’s happening after Wednesday. Light, I think. So hopefully the copier gets fixed. My partner has dance performances coming up, so she’s trying to grade at school, and so I’m trying to do things on my own, and realizing my teacher brain needs someone to bounce stuff off of…which I knew, seriously, that year when she was out was hard, but I’m not sure this one is easier. Her kids are lower than mine; I have all the honors kids, so we do kind of plan alone…together…sometimes. And support the new guy. And then all the union crap. And walking field trip crap. And and and. It’s a lot. It always is. I haven’t gotten home before dark any night this week to paint the wall next to the deck so I can start putting plants back up against it. Hell, I haven’t been able to do anything with the deck since Monday. Ah well, we do make decisions as to what to do with our time. I will be at ceramics after school this afternoon before coming home in the dark and then heading downtown for the show. It’ll be fine. It’ll all be fine and eventually we will get more sleep than last night and everyone will stop being so cranky (cats included). Maybe. Until then, I’m gonna make more tea.

No Peace…

Hey. Weird week again. I don’t know what day it is. I think that starts in mid-December and continues until my first full week…which technically is next week. Maybe then I’ll feel less discombobulated. Or not. It’s not like this year has started out stable and balanced. I just had another art deadline moved up last night, by a month. I have nothing for that show at the moment, due to some subject restrictions. I might not enter. I might not be able to. I have a couple of ideas that could happen relatively quickly, but I need to finish this one first.

I’ll be trimming all week…here’s Monday’s progress…

And here’s what I had to deal with…

Every stage is new for her, so she has to explore it.

Which is sometimes problematic.

Last night’s progress started like this…

And eventually turned into this…

Which meant I could do this…

I see progress, but it’s slow. I was grading stuff last night and in an art zoom, on top of all of it, so trimming was only an hour. I also worked on this last night…

I’m going to add a bunch more colors around the spirals (or as spirals?). The black is like a base for it. Yes, this bowl already has 7 1/2 hours in it. Seriously unaffordable. I mean, I love working on it, so it’s OK, but seriously never making money at ceramics. It was nice to be there though, just glazing and carving. And I bought more clay for the next artsy piece, which has been in my head for a month now.

OK. Today. Teaching geese and canaries (sound waves). Bunch of kids will be in and out for high school meetings. Yesterday, there were probably 15 phone calls pulling kids in the last three periods of the day. While I’m trying to teach. Fucking irritating. They gave up on calling me at some point (I couldn’t hear the phone through the oscillators and piano keyboards) and sent a kid with a note. WAY BETTER Y’ALL. So many interruptions to the job. I finished my grades (mostly) last night, a week early, because the principals decided to change the dates and no one told the teachers. Fuckers. It’s fine. I can’t do them this weekend anyway. I have three art meetings. It was four, but I wasn’t going to that one anyway. Too far. Too much other stuff I need to do right now. I do have pilates after school though and then this is the one night this week when I don’t have something on Zoom or in person (thank goodness). So I will sit quietly, read my book (that goes back to the library on Saturday), consider Greenland as its own free country, send good strong independent thoughts to Minnesota, and hope for world peace. I’ve been watching Homeland lately and it’s really not the best for a sense of peace. I do realize it…but am also sort of OK with living in that discomfort at the moment. Because a huge chunk of our country is living in similar discomfort. Sigh. Why do we treat people like this? It’s all money and feeling safe and power, but there’s no empathy in it. And I can’t live in a world without empathy.

Cocooning…

Friday. Last Friday of Winter Break. I’ve been really out of it this break…not sure why, although I can blame some of it on being sick for the middle third and then feeling like I never caught up. I’m never ready to go back, so it’s a moot point to say it again, but here I am. In terms of classwork, I have one class of packets left to grade, one whole academic assignment, and two smaller one-class assignments. Plus I need a worksheet done by Thursday and my notes from December make no sense. So there’s that. Fun times. I might figure that out this weekend. Or not. I’m not really motivated to get ‘er done in terms of school, except to finish the grading because progress report grades are coming up. Soon. And I have this quilt to finish, plus the deck railings, which are taking forever to paint. It’s been wet and cold and nothing is drying until today, when it’s still cold, but there’s a breeze and that’s helping. So I have three coats plus primer on 3/4s of the sides and I need to do the other side. I was hoping this project would be done by this weekend, and that’s not happening. It never does. Seriously. DIY is torture. School feels the same way sometimes, and so does housecleaning.

I did manage to finish trimming all the Wonder Under; honestly, I finished the first large chunk of it in the first day, then the last little bit last night.

Scribble slept through most of it.

Then after I finished trimming last night, I sorted them all…

At this point, Scribble was less than helpful…she kept seeing shadows under the bins and shoving them apart to get to them.

Fun times. I managed to get it all sorted despite all that.

I also bought background fabric, so I’m hopefully ironing down to fabric starting tonight. The office is a bit of a mess, and I need to fix a pair of pants first, plus put away fabric from the last quilt and move some stuff out of the way so I can get to the fabric bins. But it’s not a lot to do. Hopefully I’ll finish ironing to fabric in the next week and start trimming. We’ll see how that goes with going back to school.

I went out to meet stitching friends last night…this one is almost done.

It’s the 9th tree in Sue Spargo’s Rooted, so the last of them. Plenty left to do on it.

You’d think when it’s this cold that all the cats would be curled up. This was only because Bowie wanted the blue blanket and me.

And Scribble was already there.

Babies sleep a lot.

Anyway. Next step in the quilt. Scribble tends to follow me, so presumably she’ll be in the office while I iron. She’s set herself up before in the sleep spot Kitten used to frequent.

I wish I had something insightful to say about the ICE shootings in the last few days, but it’s beyond me. I just finished an ICE-related quilt with a body bag in it, not because I can see the future, but because people had already died in ICE custody. This is heinous. It’s not law enforcement, it’s not making my world safer. My world is not safe at all, and I’m an old white lady. I can’t imagine the fear and anxiety being a person of color or someone in the middle of the immigration process must feel…I just know it’s wrong.

There are a lot of wrong things in the world right now…some of them have always been there, but we’ve made some attempt to make them better. And now that’s not even happening.

This one applies to so many things…

Back to vaccinations and health recommendations. So many idiots. So much not learning happening.

Anyway. If you like my work, odds are your brain is going through the same confused contortions mine is. With no solution in sight. So many lies. So much bad information. So disheartening.

It’s late in the day…I need to go buy some cat food and figure out where to get one skein of DMC floss. Then grade some stuff and clean some stuff so I can iron later. Read a bit. Eat something healthy…or not. Resign myself to going back to work in a few days. Fight for the time to have a life outside of my job. Go back to ceramics…it’s been two weeks since I’ve been there. Sucks. Work on getting the gym back into my selfcare regime. HAVE a selfcare regime that isn’t just about cocooning in the house with sweats or pajamas on. OK, maybe that’s not a bad thing.