Reading a Lot…

There’s nothing like an 8 PM email from your principal saying there’s a meeting tomorrow morning to set off a bunch of teachers, especially right after the Nashville shooting. Should we be calling it a shooting? Or a killing? I feel like the latter is relevant. Seven guns. Seriously Tennessee. WTF. Sigh. Anyway, I’m sure it’s something like last year, where they promoted one of our admin right out of our school…in March…with three months left to go, leaving us with an open position right when our kids don’t need change. So it’ll be that. I’m just a lowly teacher; I can’t possibly understand the business acumen that goes into pulling a stable authority figure out of a middle school this close to the end of the year.

Also, my school board is populated with idiots who don’t want us to teach sex ed, despite the state law requiring certain things be taught. I’m glad that law exists so the stupidity that seems to permeate this nation can’t keep my kids from getting information they need to be healthy in the future (or for some of them, right now, because they already need it). Unfortunately, the majority of my school board IS that stupid. So either we’re not teaching it (and getting fined by the state, because that money couldn’t be used to educate children instead of glorifying the opinions of a few small-minded folks) or we’re teaching an older version with less offensive stuff in it (don’t even ask). I do know we’re supposed to be teaching it fairly soon after Spring Break, so these dumbasses need to be making a logical decision soon or we will have to come up with 5 weeks of curriculum that doesn’t currently exist, and that we don’t have the mental energy to create.

Somewhat frustrated this morning. Also this.

Three more days of school until break. Until I break.

I’m still cutting things out, which is good, because I am sitting and watching shows that don’t require a lot of mental energy. Monday night…after grading…

Tuesday night was complicated. I had physical therapy and then came home and finished my book instead of grading. So maybe it wasn’t complicated. I was going to grade, but then the flurry of texts came through about the email from the principal, and I had lost my impetus to grade. Maybe best. So I cut more stuff out.

It looks different. Still not obviously halfway, but I think it is? Not sure. Can’t tell.

I did a little on this too, until I remembered I had stuff to cut out.

Probably should finish this before we go camping, because it’s almost done anyway. I’ve got time though. We’re not camping until Easter weekend.

After PT, I went shoe shopping, which just means I tried on some shoes and then bought the same ones I already own because they were the most comfortable (the old pair is falling apart). Really, I just did it for the cats, so they’d have a bag and some boxes to hang out in. Luna appreciated it.

So did Nova…

She has an obsession with moths and geckos…

Hopefully my windowsill plants will survive her obsession. It’s been iffy at times.

I need to set up the rest of a lab this morning. I did most of it yesterday, but I need water at 65 degrees Celsius (I think?) and a bunch of pipettes in tubes that currently have lids on them. So 20 lids off, 60 pipettes in, water in, water bath on, then meeting of unknowness, then lab all morning, I don’t remember what in the afternoon, then pilates. I’m cooking dinner, I need to grade the thing I couldn’t grade last night (hoping mental status is more focused, ha!), then more cutting of the things. Sleep. If I’m lucky. I’m reading a lot these days; seems to help.

Fuzzy Around the Edges

Oh hey. Is it Daylight Savings Time now or Standard Time now? And which is better for my health overall? More daylight, less sleep? I don’t know. I do know that my brain last night was like FUCK THIS and FUCK SLEEP. Which is always helpful when you are going into a full week of school and you’ve been napping every afternoon to try to recover from the school stuff and still recovering from stupid scarlatina (I guess they didn’t like the scarlet fever name or it had too many bad connotations, so they gave it a name that sounds like an Italian cocktail). Yes, I’ll have the scarlatina? With an olive please. Thanks.

The brain is not helping. Did I grade anything this weekend? One thing. I graded one thing. I really have no excuse. I had nothing planned on Saturday. So what did I do? Slept in a bit, spaced out a lot, read my book (very dark, very slasher, but not), and then made a decision about this upcoming show where the curator is on crack and thinks we should be able to drop everything and make a new piece in a weekend. I drew something…

And then I wasted a lot of my Saturday energy on driving to copy this AND going to Home Depot (the second thing is what threw me). Came home and napped. Then cut out the enlarged piece (200% bigger) and decided I didn’t like those hands, so I cut them off…

Added some paper above, below, and to the left, and then drew the rest…

RESISTED THE URGE TO ADD MORE. Seriously. That’s hard. Then numbered it…

It’s got almost 600 pieces? I thought it was closer to 500, but I’m looking at that and I see 595, so I must be dreaming the lower number. And I have 53 days to finish it. Plus I can’t stand up for extended periods of time and the next step is all about the standing. Ugh. I’m not sure what I was thinking except GET BETTER GET BETTER FUCKING GET BETTER. I also napped somewhere in there. Napping every day, but can’t sleep at night? Aargh. That’s school stress brain, actually. It was yelling at me about not grading, and I’m like, well, how the fuck do you think I’m going to grade tomorrow night if I’m so exhausted from not sleeping tonight?

Dumb brain doesn’t listen.

Did I still cut pieces out? Hell yes. It’s sitting down and relaxing. Friday night…

I always think I’m so close to the end and the last few days are like…yes…yes…no. Saturday night (a little fuzzy around the edges there, which is kinda how I felt too)…

And Sunday night…

Full on staring at the bottom of the box there. Almost done. How many hours so far? 16 plus hours of trimming. Not bad. I probably have a little more than an hour left. My goal is to trace for 30 minutes and to cut for 30 minutes. Work on both for a bit. Bribe myself to do the standing. Because right now? I need a nap. Granted, my brain is still protesting the time switch AND it’s Monday AND I didn’t sleep much last night.

The assembly on Friday was an inflatable SkyDome. It was nice…

Also somewhat fuzzy around the edges. Dark in there. It was a good intro to the space unit. Lots of walking to get there, plus crawling into the thing, and then out. I took a semi-nap during 3rd period, I was so exhausted. Any day now, body. Sigh. Fifteen school days until Spring Break. I might sleep for the first five days. It’s possible.

Slow but…

Oh yeah. Still recovering. Feel like it’s gonna be a while until I feel back to normal. The skin is still prickly, but more obviously, I’m absolutely exhausted at the end of the day. Exhausted enough to come home and nap the last two days. Today will be harder for that because there’s a union meeting, but I’m hoping the other two reps show up and I can leave early. We’ll see how that goes.

The pro of coming back to school is that I was able to get stuff organized from my kids, force them to turn stuff in and realize oh yeah, it counted, plus trying to come up with random shit they can do while I’m gone? That is just exhausting and I’m glad to be done with it. That said, the next two days in 8th grade are very low maintenance for me, which is great…I can sit and grade 7th-grade stuff. 7th grade is a lab today, but it’s not hard. The hardest part is the stupid behaviors that I’m still fighting this many months into school. Still clapping randomly and throwing pencils. These are our future what? Sigh.

OK well, improvement on all fronts otherwise. And falling asleep with the prickly skin is easy, because I’m exhausted.

Monday night, I seemed to cut out enough that I could finally see progress…

Bottom left is what’s left to be cut, bottom right is cut out. I spent about 2 hours cutting Monday night. Came home, read, napped, worked a little, then cut stuff out until bedtime.

I didn’t get any done last night…we got tickets to Neil Degrasse Tyson’s lecture about Bizarre Astronomy about 4 or 5 months ago. Little did we know what a shit show of a week it would be, but after a nap, we met for food and then headed down for a 2-hour lecture on astrophysics.

Like you do. I’m about as tired as I look. It was good though. I teach space science next week, for almost approximately exactly a week. We’re running out of time. Even though we are only 2/3 of the way through the school year, state testing for science is in May. Crazy shit. Luckily, the relief is that I have taught genetics and natural selection before. I even have lessons and tables of contents and vocab. Sort of. Long enough ago that I’m gonna have to wiggle a little, but not as much as creating something from scratch, which is what I’ve been doing since the beginning of the year. I’m impressed by the rest of my team. They don’t seem to be losing it as much as I am. One has a slightly better counterpart team in 8th grade…my one person is awesome, but has 3 littles and is as buried as I am. The other one, well, died. But wasn’t really working with us anyway. I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like it’s just me. But at least I feel like I understand this part of the curriculum. Although it would make way more sense to teach the skin cancer part of the light unit AFTER you teach them DNA. We used to do DNA in 7th, then it went to 6th, now it’s all in 8th grade, and it feels really late. They don’t have any idea what it is. Writing notes in the calendar for next year. Stupid curriculum doesn’t even call it DNA…it calls it genetic material. Why are we pulling that punch? Don’t get it.

So I didn’t cut anything out last night. I came home, made a relaxing cup of tea, drank it, and went to bed. Sounds lovely, yeah? Thinking.

My birthday is this week. I have these dragonfruit plants that I’ve had for years but didn’t have the right supports. I finally went out and bought the wood, I think like 6 months ago, and my ex made them for my birthday. I just need to plant them this weekend and then hopefully we can get these beauties to flower in the next year. Certainly they are not happy in the pots they’re in.

OK. Work. Sit a lot (still). Get stuff done. Lots of it. Then come home, read, and nap. Then pack up 5 quilts for delivery tomorrow. Yikes, tomorrow is a little busier than I need too. Ah well. At least I am up and out of bed. Recovery slow but happening.

Some Definition of Done

Oh lordy. ‘Tis early. I know not for some, but I am truly not a morning person, and it is still dark. I lost my temporary crown earlier this week, and although I’d love to ignore it until my appointment for the permanent crown, that area is sensitive to cold liquids…or even regular tap-water temperature…enough to give me a rancid ache from jaw to eyeball every time I drink something cooler than hot tea. So I made the only appointment I could, at freakin’ 7 AM. So I can guarantee getting to school on time, and also guarantee a difficult mood for me all day. Not sure I can drink enough tea to make up for that.

My brain was already fuzzy on how to do the things. I unplugged my computer at work last night, ready to put it in the bag so I could grade more roller coasters. Brought all the roller coaster drawings home. Left the computer at school. Damn. OK. Guess I’ll be grading those this weekend instead. Ah well.

I’m now sitting in the parking lot at the dentist because they aren’t open yet. It’s a delightful 37 degrees out there. Someday I’ll remember to put a real jacket on for school. This winter has been much colder than usual.

Anyway, I’ve been cutting stuff out every night, in between three Zooms on Wednesday and three on Thursday. Everything hit this week apparently.

Never looks like much. At least you can see the piles getting bigger.

Or can you…

After last night, I had passed the halfway mark. This is just short of three yards. Mostly I got that far because I forgot the school computer or I would’ve done some grading. If I don’t grade constantly, I get really far behind. This week has sucked for feeling caught up.

I did finish the first tattoo block, so that was cool.

Found the next drawing…need to trace it onto freezer paper and pick some fabrics.

Got 18 roller coasters in progress in class…mostly chaos.

Another week and they’ll be done. For some definition of done. Well the dentist was fast and hopefully, I’ll wake up in time to teach. And remember my computer this weekend. Can’t say I’m feeling up to teaching at the moment. Drink the tea. Make more.

Delightfully Wrong…

I don’t remember weeks feeling so long in the first two days before. I don’t remember feeling so tired after Tuesday. Tuesdays are the big planning days for science, so maybe that’s it? I don’t know. Or it was the feeling as I drove away from school yesterday that the slog that is 7th grade at the moment will just continue until I die. Which it won’t. Really. I’m sure of that. Even 8th grade had a moment yesterday…actually, just one table of 8th graders had a moment, where they realized they had no idea what to do and I wasn’t going to help them (we were building a roller coaster element and they talked during the instructions, so I pointed them to the relevant videos). They kept begging people around them to help them and I told them no (multiple people)…they need to listen. Hopefully today is better, or I will separate their group and stick each of them into another group for being idiots. Everyone else was pretty much awesome (although there were some tables I had to direct to involve themselves). 7th grade though. Ugh. Cried when driving away from school again. Just frustrating as fuck. Behaviors and lack of work completion. We’re on the third day of trying to finish something that should have taken a day and a half. Not listening. Not getting it because not listening. And a few behaviors that honestly just drive me bonkers. So yeah. I guess I’m at a point where about 2 days a week, those 2 classes aren’t half bad. And 3 days a week, they fucking suck. Which makes ME feel like I suck. Which maybe I do. Or maybe it’s just a bad combination of kids, time of day, and COVID crap. UGH.

I come home and grade roller coaster drawings, though, and although it’s kind of a pain in the ass, it’s also mostly enjoyable seeing what kids created. That’s the art part of my brain. Although I don’t like teaching art…well, to people who don’t like to do art. Teaching art to the already artsy isn’t that bad.

I’ve made it to the cutting-out stage. I started Monday night and got (I thought) more than halfway through a yard. In fact, I thought I was pretty close to done with it…

Stupidly, I covered up what I had actually cut with what was left to be cut. Which doesn’t look like much. Except I think it was all the tiny pieces and the bigger pieces got cut first? I don’t know. Because it took me another hour last night to finish it up…

So that is 2 hours of cutting? Yup. 2 hours and 2 minutes. Doesn’t look like much. 4 1/2 yards to go. Fussy little shit pieces. Realistically…let’s see…I have another Zoom meeting tonight (2 book clubs in one week seems a mistake)…I actually have 3 Zoom meetings today AND school and physical therapy. Long. So I might get another hour done on this. Thursday is delightfully open (Zoom meeting but I could cut things out if I wanted to), so is Friday…so maybe I’ll be done cutting by Monday? That’s my guess. I was wrong by two days on the tracing, so I’ll be delightfully wrong again if that’s how it rolls. It’s not a very exciting process to watch. Then sort Monday night? Start ironing to fabric Tuesday. Wait. Do I have a background big enough? Probably not. Must think that through, because the damn quilt store is not open late enough during the week for me to go. Still. OK. So that needs to happen Saturday. Put it on the calendar. Saturday is already chunky. Good to know. I do sometimes plan ahead.

I’ve been working on this (not my design!) after dinner, while we watch our daily whatever-the-fuck-we’re-watching (Kindred…which ended quite precipitously).

I reduced it in size 50% because I didn’t want a huge quilt, and the letters are fucking tiny.

But not undoable. I appreciate the wonkiness of hand applique. I know the foundation-paper-piecing people are having heart attacks with the lack of straight lines, but I’m good. I like to hand applique and I found two things I was working on (there are 17 million things I’m working on, just to be clear) and decided I wanted to really work on them and not just put them in a box and pretend I was working on them.

There, that’s the closest to a resolution you’ll get out of me in 2023, until August, when teachers do their resolutions.

The boychild has been crafting wood…these are spoons 3 and 4. Or spoon 3 and scoop 1.

They’re quite pretty. He has no desire to make a business out of it. CalFire has downtime, and this is how he uses it. Seems appropriate to me. He’s got about three or four more weeks, and then he’s off for three months. That will be weird. Or very spoony.

OK. Today. Yeah. Building more roller coaster stuff…straight track and loops today. Then notes in 7th grade. Woo hoo. That will go down well. Who am I kidding? Very little goes down well. Kid meeting in the morning, sex-ed meeting in the afternoon (chaos of a district that would probably prefer NOT to teach it), then PT and book club. Oh yeah, and I popped my temporary crown off, so drinking cold things hurts like a bitch and IDK when I can get into the dentist before it’s time to put the permanent crown on anyway, so that’s a possible week and a half of some disturbing occasional pain. And the rash on the knee from the adhesive crap is not getting better. I’ve tried cortisone and benadryl and neither is helping. Emailing the doc on that one.

In positive news, I’ve been reading a lot. It’s a nice place to be, in a fantasy world somewhere (even one filled with murders) where there isn’t a pile of grading papers and lesson planning threatening to take you under. I’ll stay there for a while.

Way Less Than Optimal…

WordPress is now adding a question to the previously blank blogpost, in case I logged in to write a post and had no idea what to write about. I guess that might happen. Maybe? The question is “what would I want to change about myself?” Um. So many things. That I’m not gonna write about here. But thanks.

This last weekend was the weekend of no sleep. There’s a skunk who has decided that late nights outside the bedroom window are exciting, and the little dog is also excited about this; in fact, everyone except the humans who have to function during the day and can’t nap for endless hours is excited. So I’m running on way less than optimal sleep. On a Monday. Ten school days before Winter Break. Also there’s an on-campus field trip thing tomorrow that only HALF of my 7th graders can go to and I haven’t dealt with that AT ALL and I’m not sure exactly HOW to deal with it because my teacher’s aide has been out and I occasionally am getting a sub, and I can’t send my kids if I don’t have a SECA that day. So how do I present that to a bunch of already problematic kids? Um you MIGHT get to do something cool and fun but only HALF of you get to go tomorrow, the rest have to wait until APRIL and OMG you might NOT get to go if we continue to have too many people out. Yeah. Sounds great.

I worked a lot on school stuff this weekend. The pro is that I am caught up (almost) on grading…I have about 6 redoes that need grading and that’s it. For today anyway. The con is that I didn’t plan all the way through the end of next week…this shit just takes too long. Everything needs editing because it’s too complicated, not helpful, and it’s PDF files, so the editing takes even longer. I beg steal and borrow from other stuff we’ve done to try to help with the planning, and it’s still so fucking time-consuming. I think I spent about 9 hours on the day job this weekend. Ugh.

I did also go to my guild’s holiday party. I took 3 fat quarters for that game they play (didn’t win…but I did last year, so I’m OK with that), but my prize for going to the party was 2 half yards. For you non-quilt-math people, I came out with an extra fat quarter. So that’s fun. We made fabric ornaments…

Which was fun. I did not pick holiday fabrics. And Kitten has already absconded with this. I need to get a hanger on it and get the tree in from outside so she will be less likely to steal it.

I spent a goodly few hours cutting stuff out this weekend…

Friday night with Kitten…

Saturday night after dinner…

And last night after all the things. I’m in the sky. So I cut out basically in opposite order from ironing, although I dumped everything into a bigger bin at some point, so I can see sky and flesh in there, and I think flesh was ironed after sky. So there’s still a big chunk of stuff, but I can see the bottom of the bin, so I’m getting close. Probably not tonight, but maybe tomorrow night. This thing has a hard deadline, so I’m really trying to stay on top of it. I’m behind my original schedule already. Sigh. When am I ever NOT behind? In everything really.

Kitten has been following me around…

This was Friday night’s sleep.

The other two are still cuddling against the cold…

Until Nova wants to sleep in the bedroom, and then Luna loses her fucking mind.

This guy won’t let anyone sleep because of that skunk…

Luckily, boychild is home tonight and can take over…the skunk doesn’t like the dirt outside HIS room as much as the dirt outside MY room. And then maybe I can sleep through the night. That would be nice. Seriously feels like there’s sand in my eyes. So tired.

Saturday night…finishing a drawing from the previous weekend, I think.

I don’t know that it’s actually finished. But I’m finished with it.

Too true below…

I am going in to the doc to have them tell me my knee is royally fucked and they will ask me about my period. The one I haven’t had for like 5+ years. I don’t have a clue when the last one was. Fun stuff.

Last night’s sky was (as always) much prettier in person than my camera will show…

Need a new phone. Sigh to that as well. Just paid the property taxes. At least I could afford that.

OK. Staff meetings today. One grade is doing an assessment (they will be fine). The other grade will have to read by themselves to fill out a chart. So that’s gonna go well. Independent anything has been difficult for them this year. It’s exhausting. But it’s short and I’m not cooking tonight, so maybe I can get more planning done and then cut stuff out for longer. That would be nice. That’s my goal then.

Weighs on You…

Ah yes. Back to work. It’s been a weird interim. In the last two days, I’ve had the brain power to grade stuff (and input it, because my kids think nothing counts this year) and plan about 4 weeks out of 8th-grade science, which is a blessing, because I have no one to plan with at the moment except my poor overworked co-teacher who is managing all the things. So it was good to have the mental space to tear apart the existing curriculum and decide how to actually teach it. I’m curious how the other 8th-grade teacher will handle 6 pages of reading assigned as homework to our kids, but that’s something I can worry about at another time. Today, I am going back to piles of paper, shit I was supposed to do but didn’t because I wasn’t there, and kids who aren’t used to me yet, except for the ones who already had me. So yeah. Chaos. It’ll all be fine. If I can remember all of it. Spent the hour this morning after the man woke up and before I had to get up (he’s loud) trying to remember how to do the labs I’m doing next week…haven’t done them in years. I’m sure it will come back to me.

I have not been spending hours and hours making art mostly, because the day job is significantly hefty enough that even when you feel sick, it still weighs on you. I have been cutting stuff out every night, though…

Yesterday I had a couple of Zoom meetings, so I got a little more done.

I also lost a letter R in that pile of trash. Can’t find it. I really shouldn’t cut over that pile…I usually use a lid and cut into that, so there’s not a huge pile of stuff for a tiny piece to dive into and completely disappear. My fault. I’ll re-iron it tonight. I’m not going to be done cutting anytime soon…there’s a lot still there.

This was the weekend I needed to be done with this piece…completely…if I wanted to meet the deadline. Ah well. Not happening. It’s OK. It’ll get done and go somewhere. The Man has a show tomorrow (hopefully he practices better masking) and will be gone most of the day/evening, so I’ll have plenty of time to cut stuff out and maybe get it sorted. We’ll see.

Simba likes a morning lie-in on the deck before the sun hits it.

And Nova just likes lying on chairs…

At least I only have to go in for one day…it’ll be fine. Next week will be a bigger challenge…everyone else has had a week plus to adjust…I feel a little off on procedures and stuff, but I’ll figure it out. Also have a weekend to remember what exercise is, maybe go for a hike, do some pilates. That would be nice.

Losing Track…

I keep losing track of what day it is. The plus is that as of yesterday, I feel really good. Mostly well. Still a bit rough on the physical exertion and the phlegm isn’t quite gone, but no more weird spacy things going on with the head and brain. I read yesterday! ‘Twas lovely. I also finished the ironing yesterday…I did a little on Monday night…

Some hair and the other faces…

And then yesterday, I finished…22 1/2 hours total. Some of them pretty spacy…

I forgot to count how many fabrics…150. Exactly. Wild. Not supremely colorful when you look at the pull. Lots of flesh tones and earth tones. We’ll see what that looks like in real life, once it’s ironed together.

I continued cutting pieces out last night…here’s the pile before I started…

And after an hour or two…

There’s plenty left to cut out. I’ll do some of that today. So far, though, I’ve been working…school stuff and some art stuff. Saw the boychild…he starts CalFire for real (woohoo!) on Monday. He confirmed that I don’t know what day it is. I still need to write sub plans for tomorrow, grade some more stuff, set up my gradebook, figure some 8th-grade shit out (ugh), and finish my book. Crucial that.

So Kitten was stalking this poor baby in the pile of shoes by the back door…

It might be the same one as last night…it might not…because I just saw another one in the laundry room. It ran off before I could rehome it. Kitten likes to steal their tails. I told her it wasn’t nice. She doesn’t listen.

I’m sure I’ll be back at school at some point. Not sure when. Worst case…Monday. Or best case…depending on how you look at it. Might go make some peach cobbler right now.

Headbanger…

Oh hey. I think I need to lie down while I’m writing this. Let me pop the pictures in and then head for the couch with the iPad.

Yeah I am definitely better…and then I’m not. Yesterday afternoon, I felt almost normal, same when I woke up this morning. Now I’m fighting (or succumbing to) a rancid headache. So back to the couch. Back to lying down. Back to not reading because the words get all tumbly. Hmmm.

Friday was ok. Not great. But I could cut stuff out and binge watch the telly by the evening.

I did quite well for an invalid.

Saturday was all cutting. Watched Shining Vale and The Bear. Much better than the Man’s binge-watching choices.

And holey moley, although Sunday morning required a nap while thinking oh so hard about the grocery list, I almost felt normal in the afternoon…completed tasks AND stood to iron for an hour or so. Such joy.

No such joy today. Head is wobbly, feel blah, need to eat, want to read or work or something, but head. Is. Ache. Also I may have over-ordered tests from the government. I started testing for school yesterday. Still positive. Also probably still incapable of actually functioning well enough to go back.

Meanwhile I did manage watering the plants yesterday…swallowtail caterpillars are back.

Last night, this baby gecko was on the ceiling in the studio. I lost sight of it. So it’s still in there somewhere.

I read some before the headache started up again. This amused me.

Ok that’s all I got. Maybe should eat something besides applesauce. Hoping for a few hours of functional tonight? I’m supposed to cook, so that would be helpful. The Man is back at work, so that’s good. I will be too…eventually. Until then…naps and forgetfulness.

Finally Felt…

I’ve been copyediting all week; I finished yesterday. I also finally felt like I was on break last night. Finally felt like I might have had a decent amount of sleep (until I stayed up too late last night and was still awakened by the world this morning…although hallelujah, I think the neighbors are done giving swimming lessons to everyone and their mother…BUBBLES! YAY!). Finally felt like everything wasn’t hanging over me. Well, that was temporary. I looked at my to-do list briefly this morning and there are still a million things on it. As always. Finally felt like I could do something besides work.

I finished ironing everything on the current quilt to fabric Wednesday night…just short of 22 hours to pick fabrics for 1100 or so pieces. Not fast at all. Fucking slow as hell.

But here’s part of the why…

171 different fabrics. I’m not sure why, but I needed a ton of different fabrics to make this quilt. Lots of fussy little vignettes in it, I think. Not sure. But that’s a lot of fabrics for only 1100 pieces. I know. I said ‘only’, but I’ve made quilts with lots more. It seems like there are certain things that up the time: lots of little tiny pieces, lots of fabrics, lots of differently colored things going on. Yeah. Well.

I started cutting pieces out a week ago…and then last night, I did about 3 hours of it…

And got really close to done. You can see the bottom of the box there, but there are still a lot of pieces left. At least an hour’s worth…I’ve been trimming for 11 1/2 hours, so that’s not bad. I leave some of the tiny pieces for later. But I’m hoping to be done today with this part, then sorting, and start ironing together this weekend.

I’ve also been trying to finish some stuff from the last three years…just get them done and on Etsy, where they will languish forever because it took too much time to make them so they are too expensive for anyone to buy. Ah well. I cleaned up, ironed, trimmed, and found backings for two of them, found canvases that should be the right size (knock on wood) for two of them to be mounted on, and cut strips for another one, so hopefully I can put it in a hoop.

So I’m hoping to do the sewing for those today and get them closer to done and photographed, so I can put them all in a bag somewhere out of my studio. One of my summer goals is to clean up around the computer in here (it’s my annual summer goal, and I do it every year, and then school happens and things get out of control again)…and these were just lying around, so they’re getting done. I haven’t even started the getting done of things that I’m supposed to be doing for my quilt guild challenge. Borders on the alien bed quilt next, so I can quilt it at my mom’s. Plus two wool quilts that need quilting.

Also need to get this current quilt done and on to the next one, although I can’t keep up with the evil shit the Supreme Court keeps doing, so I need to do a Roe v Wade quilt, a teacher prays but only if they’re Christian quilt, and a climate change quilt. Again. Not to mention LGBTQ rights and anti-female sentiment and and and…sigh.

Kitten has decided that this bag of science books from my co-teacher is her favorite in the whole world…

I’m not sure I will ever get that bag back from her.

Simba says hi…

He’s glad it’s a little cooler today.

And this cat…Nova…really needed my love and attention last night despite my trying to cut things out…

This is why I’m always covered in fur. I stopped and petted her for a while and then she let me cut things again.

Meanwhile, my neighbors are having a tree removed today. Is that better than swim lessons on the other side? Or jackhammering in the back corner? I don’t know. I think I’ll be OK if I turn some sound on…music or Netflix or anything but power tools and small children. Also I think I need to make a cloth cover for the part of the desk in front of my keyboard because my arms don’t like the wood when it’s hot out. IDK why. I’m currently putting two napkins on the desk instead of sticking to the wood all day. Also maybe should walk away from the computer. Copyediting for 7 days straight does this to my brain.

Happy July y’all. It’s officially the only full month I have off from school. So I have jury duty. Yeah. Thanks. I am going to enjoy all the fabric stuff I do today though…in between gardening stuff and maybe a trip to the gym. But lots of fabric.