I’m semi-awake this morning. That’s interesting. I must have slept better last night. Some nights are better than others. I was definitely exhausted. Not sure why.
I didn’t bring my work computer home last night. I had a long day and I knew I wanted to go to the gym after all of it (which I did, dragging myself by the hair), so what’s the point? I have some time to grade/plan in class today for once (someone is giving a presentation), so I can give myself a night off. I also had an art show to enter and some other paperwork to do, plus something I forgot to bring home (oh well). So I did all the things I could and then started ironing a little earlier than usual. Which is nice.
Monday night, I straightened up the studio and put away the fabrics from the last quilt, which was the little one with the Christmas lights. So that didn’t take long. Then I set up for the new quilt, hanging the drawing up so I can see it…
Laid out the first 100 pieces…
They’re in piles of 10, numerical order. And laid out the detached Wonder Under bits…
Plus one unnumbered piece and one piece that was a line on the Wonder Under but had no number and pieces inside it, so I’m not sure how I fucked that up, but it will probably eventually become apparent. Probably I forgot to number it and I can use this to trace a new one without a hole in the middle. So yes, I’m somewhat of a hoarder, but there are reasons for it. Yes, I know they all say that.
I didn’t get many pieces ironed the first night…just some dirt and rocks…
Last night, I managed the right corner, mostly dirt and lava…there’s some ironed lava right there with Kitten.
Tonight I get to decide what color an iron snail would be in the future…
But before that, I have yet another early parent meeting (rescheduled from Monday afternoon), a day of 3/5 grading/not teaching and 2/5 teaching. Plus some dumbassery from yesterday that is still pissing me off. But whatever.
The boychild always tries to get Simba and Kitten to be friends, but Kitten has sharp bits and gets annoyed.
And Simba knows it.
Luna asking for pets…
And Kitten in her fabric/batting hidey hole up high…
That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Gonna pack my lunch, make more tea, take meds, shove everything in a bag, and go back to school. So I can come home and iron some snails and more dirt, or maybe I’ll make it into the grassy knoll tonight. Green instead of brown. That would be good.
It’s raining again. Sort of. Pushed off to tonight mostly…oh yeah, and my drive time (which is remarkably short and only notable because one must get TO the car and OUT of the car). Rain is good for California…I’m just kinda done with it. I’ve got some yard stuff to do. That said, the sprinklers have been off for a good long time now, and that’s a plus. A slightly smaller water bill will not cover the heating bill, but it will help. A little.
Here’s a teacher thing…two of us on my team were checking our account balances yesterday to see if we would bounce with the groceries. I’m pretty sure it shouldn’t be like that. It’s been an expensive few months. I have some extra in this paycheck though (backpay on our new raise), so I’m putting that aside for travel. I’ve got some stuff lined up and some other stuff I’d like to do, if I can afford it. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, I spent a good chunk of the weekend grading (and not planning, unfortunately). I’m not done. I’m never done. I was hoping to be done with the roller coaster drawings, but I needed another hour and a half I lost to an art meeting or buying dog food or trying to find leeks. Fun stuff. I did work on cutting out the Wonder Under though…
Simba was not helpful. I finished cutting Saturday night.
And then sorted it last night, which took over an hour…
Some of the Wonder Under I was using was from the end of a bolt, and I am incapable of just throwing it out, even when it’s releasing the fusible from the paper, which gives me a bunch of weird pieces like this…
Which I will lay out on a colored lid (so I can see them all) and every time I find a piece with no fusible, I’ll try to match it up to one of these, which is a little (perhaps more than a little) insane. If I can’t match it up, I’ll retrace it. Sigh. I hate it when this happens. I could have prevented it by tossing out the last few yards, but I’m a little on the thrifty side, I guess. Perhaps a little too much.
The good news is that I get to start ironing to fabric tonight. I love that part. I bought the background fabric yesterday (the dark blue) and some others…
Hanging out mostly in the batik ranges these days.
No hike this weekend, not much of anything but grading and a 2-hour art meeting at the Mingei, which required parking a mile away. Not a bad walk for a Saturday though. Good news, though…we have an upcoming show at the downtown library gallery. More shows that need new work! At first, they said a year old, but we petitioned for longer (like how long do they think work takes to make? Plus I’m already buried in this one. Sigh. I don’t work fast enough). We’ll see what they come back with. I have so much out right now that I think I’d have to make something, perhaps something smaller. This one is not particularly small. I think finished it will be about 46″ wide by 72″ high. OK. That’s not small at all.
Saturday night’s drawing…
Actually took two Saturday nights. The Man can’t eat certain things right now as his jaw is healing, so our places to eat dinner are fairly limited. Ah well. They serve fast. Not enough time to do a whole drawing, unfortunately.
Well let’s hope I am efficient today and get lots done, and the rain holds off until I get home, and the demonstration in 7th grade goes OK, and someone else is cooking dinner. Oh wait. That’s me. Ugh. OK. Well. The rest can still happen, right? And I need to grade a lot and plan a lot. As always. We are officially past halfway and I can start considering that I might survive this school year. Like the last three.
OK, normal work week, normal number of days with kids, let’s see if I can do the rest of it on schedule. Blog on the right days, remember to do the things after school, or even the things before school. Act like a normal human being, as much as that is possible when you are an artist and an introvert. Yup. All the things.
First of all, I finished tracing after some mammoth tracing sessions this weekend. Well, not really mammoth; just more than the normal 54-62 minutes I do during the school week. Friday night with my quilting group…
There was probably some Thursday night as well…since I didn’t blog on Friday…because I’m totally off schedule.
More on Friday night after dinner…
Most of the yardage was full up at that point, except for the most recent one. It had some tree parts, which take up a lot of space and leave a lot of open bits to fill in later.
Saturday night, I got the head done. There were about 100 pieces left, but it was already late and I knew I had to be up the next morning.
I pretty much always have to be up the next morning. So last night, I pushed, went a little late, and finished it all…
It’s 5 and a bit yards. Some really big pieces and a lot of not-big pieces. I’ll start cutting out today. That’s 20 hours and 41 minutes of tracing. So far, this quilt has 32 1/2 hours in.
I did a lot of grading stuff this weekend too, but then the grading program was having issues, ignoring all the grades from January (minor issue; only 1/3 of the grading period), so I had to stop. They’re due Tuesday and we have a 2-hour staff meeting today, so hopefully the boss will do something about that. He does know the system is fucked. We got that email yesterday afternoon.
We had some free/reduced tickets to the zoo that expire next weekend, so we had planned that for Saturday afternoon. If you’ve never been to the San Diego Zoo, it’s pretty cool. Here’s a photo dump from that…
That last one, the cheetah was lying down in her cave and then this little boy was squealing and running super fast like he was pretending to be a cheetah, and she totally perked up, like “that’s prey” perk up, and came out, and all I could think was, yeah, that boy is dinner. There’s always this thought that they’ll come out of the cage or through the glass. For me anyway. It was a good 3-hour walk. There were lots of people, but it wasn’t too horrible. Definitely worth it.
A little more after-dinner hand applique…
Hand appliqueing a hand. Ha ha.
Kitten venturing out even though…
Katie is here visiting…
Could not get these two to sit together. They’re not really friends. Mostly because Katie is much bigger and doesn’t realize it and basically runs Simba over.
Katie is a famous singer…
She’s kinda pitiful sometimes. Then we have the master barker…
Apparently I cannot have video going the appropriate direction. Sigh. Thirty minutes of coyote singing later, he finally stopped.
OK. Well. Grades aren’t done because they can’t be. A lot of frustrated teachers today; wonder if it is just our school. I don’t feel ready to teach at all. Nothing new there. I think Friday self set up the classroom pretty well, though (at least I hope she did), so I should be OK. Starting the roller-coaster building today…two weeks of it. Not sure how that will go, but I’m sorta ready. No I’m not. I don’t even have a sample. Shit. I just thought of something I need to prep before school starts. This is how it goes. Also we are officially halfway through now. Only.
I totally forgot yesterday was Monday. Well done! Good start. I mean, I appreciate the extra day to get stuff done. I even made myself a special post-it to-do list for the weekend with things to cross off (I did not finish all of them, but I did a lot). These two months, January and February, there’s this delightful smattering of 3-day weekends that make me think I can be caught up, and then the disaster of March happens, with 5 long weeks of no days off. No breaks. Just a slog until Spring Break. Teachers know what I’m talking about. May is very similar, but at least ends with a 3-day weekend. Two-day weekends…I lose a whole day to trying to get ready for the week, so just Saturday is free…and it often isn’t. I have progress reports due next week, so this coming weekend is looking a little stressy. Trying to get ahead of that now, but we’ll see how it goes.
It rained all weekend. Like a downpour. Not as bad as further north of us, but at over 3 1/2 inches of rain here (I bought a rain gauge just for this); that’s sometimes our annual rainfall. Everything is exceedingly damp. No trees went down here, not even a fallen branch (knock on wood), so that’s good. A few water issues, but nothing major. The garage will be damp for days. I need to actually sweep water out of it when I get a chance (not sure when that will be). So we didn’t go a lot of places…but I did work a lot. As always. Don’t seem to be able to escape it.
I finished basting and delivered the cross-stitched blocks back to my friend, so she can spend a few months hand-quilting them before I have to figure out how to put them together. I also picked up one of my quilts from a show that closed.
This show was extended into February…
I’m hoping to be at the closing reception, only because it’s First Friday in Liberty Station, and that’s always cool.
OK, on to the weekend tracing, of which there was a lot, although not as much as I would’ve liked. Like maybe 2 hours a night instead of 1.
This is filling in the little spaces in between bigger pieces…
I had a strange leftover piece of Wonder Under I used at the end of a bolt. Some of it was releasing from the paper, so I cut those bits off. Don’t want to deal with it.
Friday night might have been one of those 2-hour nights…
Saturday night definitely was. We had a neighborhood party to introduce ourselves to our new neighbors, and then I came back and did more as the Man crashed…he had emergency dental surgery Friday and was kind of a mess all weekend. Hopefully it’ll be better this week for him.
Lots of complication here…still filling in the spaces.
I think this was Sunday night…another 2 hours…
But Monday night, I was working later on school stuff, so only an hour and a bit. I’m in the 700s, I think. Close to halfway, but not quite.
I thought I’d be further up the drawing by now, but no. It seems there are more pieces in the top half than the bottom half. Even though the bottom half is solid pieces and the top has a lot of open bits. More smaller pieces up top; bigger pieces down below. I have the upper torso and arms, plus head, plus everything she’s holding. And when I say arms, one is done, three to go. Yup. She’s got four. Like you do.
So based on how many pieces are left and how fast I’m tracing, I suspect I’ve got another 8 days of this. Not so exciting to watch on your end, but pretty meditative on mine. I’m OK with that.
This is from the book I’m really enjoying, The House in the Cerulean Sea…
Books are nice, especially on rainy days. And sunny days. And windy days and cloudy days. Yup. All the days.
My possibly permanent existence…at least while I’m still teaching.
Friday afternoon’s sky, before the rains started.
The caterpillars are still here, still eating. I bought them more food. Planting seeds for more after that.
Simba does not like the rain. At all. His raincoat seems to help a little.
Mom’s flowers on Sunday night. Did I take pictures of my parents? Nope. Forgot.
Sigh. OK. It’s only a 4-day week. It’s a busy 4-day week, though, so bracing for that. But I have tracing every night and a good book to read and this week is actually planned out. I didn’t quite get all my planning and grading done, but that’s always the case. It’s not supposed to rain much more (although the clouds have rolled in again and my co-teacher sent me a photo of a double rainbow, so maybe we’re not out of it yet…it’s dark as hell to the west and sunny on my left shoulder).
Fully appreciated yesterday’s social-media roll through MLK quotes I hadn’t seen before, the ones challenging the white capitalist take on him and his views. One was from 1967 and could still be used today, sadly. Things have changed but nowhere near enough. As long as people are using ‘woke’ as a bad thing and ‘patriot’ as a good thing (after Jan 6? Really?), there are still some major problems in this country. And the world. Brazil. Talking to you. So we work in small ways to improve those things, best we can, through our relationships with people and through the web and all the other crap. Making art. Reading more books. Listening to more people, different people. Dark clouds rolling in here, y’all…gotta get to work before it turns into more than a cloud.
Is it midweek? Or just time for a nap? Hard to say. Back into school, actually sort of finishing grading all the stuff I was supposed to do over break (except for the late work and redoes). Yesterday should have been a chill start to a new project and a new unit, but chill is not the word I would use. Annoying would be a good one. I reviewed behavior expectations, got them started, had to deal with a huge number of behavior issues in two out of the five classes, and then the adult stuff, the district stuff, that’s what threw me over the edge. I think I give up. I mean, I don’t. I go off instead. Not at the kids yesterday. Education shouldn’t be a business. My classroom shouldn’t be a place where district advertising happens. But it is. I feel like my district is a significant part of my discontent. Hmmm. And yet, because of the way our salaries and benefits work, I can’t afford to go to another one. Yeah. Plus I love my team and most of the kids (yeah, really) and the school. So. I’d love more respect from the district too, but that would mean they were different than all the other districts out there (and there are some that are much worse). They actually sent us an email today about the difference between alcoholics and workaholics. Like they aren’t the cause of it all. It’s physically impossible to get it all done. It’s like what we spent part of Monday on…how do we solve problems that don’t start in school, that we have no control over, that we can’t possibly affect? Sigh. This is the job of my discontent at the moment. Live with that thought for a bit. Then figure out how to move on.
Meanwhile, I’m making art. I’m always making art. It’s my sanity. I finished numbering on Monday night…
I was guessing 1800 pieces, but I was delightfully wrong…
It was only 1574. Sounds good. Looking forward to all of it.
I started tracing last night, but I didn’t have my full hour…
Only 36 minutes…because I stayed at school to grade one class period of an assignment, then came home and went to the gym, then came back and graded the other class period of that assignment, all before I started tracing at 9:54 PM. So I only got some rocks and dirt done. I’m hoping tonight is better, but I won’t even get home until after 7 PM, so IDK how that will go. Maybe I will not be grading anything tonight. And here’s how it goes!
Work smarter, not harder. Or not longer. I’ve got some tweaks to do on the roller coaster stuff for the week after next, and I got a delightful planning period with my 8th-grade co-teacher for the first time this school year. I think this is going to help. I’m hoping this is going to help. Or I might lose my mind.
You know those delivery photos you get to prove your package was delivered? Simba is in this one, barking his little mind out…
What a good boy.
I was grading my advisory assignments on Monday (yes, during professional development…what ELSE do you do during something that doesn’t actually help you teach or prepare or self care or whatever?)…and this kid, whom I love…
I agree. Totally. Hands down the best answer.
The girlchild and I were talking about thriving (another thing my district thinks I am doing)…
Yup. Well. Not gaming, but certainly pillow forting with a book or art and a dog or cat or both.
OK, so I still have to grade a pile of late work and redoes, plus do that fussy shit for the roller coaster project, and maybe look at the stuff for next week, write some warmups, WAKE THE FUCK UP (omg when will I get enough sleep), get through today (notes in one grade level, plus one activity, then simulation in the other grade), then pilates followed by physical therapy (the knee is improving very slowly in terms of mobility, but the pain is still there, still an issue going upstairs, worse on some days than others). Dinner. Art. Sleep. Is that it? I think it’s all I’ve got right now. That and an intriguingly complicated quilt to make.
Well it’s official. It’s almost time to dive into the sucking mud of my day job. Luckily, this new drawing is almost at the point where I can start the brainless tracing and cutting stages. I’m really enjoying drawing this…just letting my brain wander around in all the weird shit I’ve read over the years about bio modifications.
Here’s a video of the drawing as of Wednesday night…
And then some of the drawing I did last night…she has pockets! Also that kid with the webbed feet? I think that’s the kid in Game of Thrones…maybe.
I didn’t take a picture of the stuff at the top, but suffice it to say, that I used this photo to create a glove…
I think most of the stuff is done except for what’s under her legs. And no, I don’t exactly know what all that is yet. I know some of it. It keeps waking me up at 2 in the morning and making me take notes on it. Thank you, Art Brain. I both appreciate you and am annoyed by you.
I spent 5 hours working on school shit yesterday. Back again today. Ugh. Getting paid for it at least. Could do without it though. Still need to finish grading stuff! Almost done, actually. Torture though. It’s this…
There has been very little relaxing about this break. That said, I read a lot. I just finished another book this morning. Made me exclaim aloud with the last sentence. So exciting.
This is the second cat who has used the tent…just one to go…
And this is Simba, who is a millisecond away from exploding toward the hand with the dental treat that signals he is to be left alone for hours. And yet he’s excited for that treat. Weirdo.
OK, I need to get out of here for work. And when I get home, I will need to finish ALL the things that have been sitting on my Winter Break to-do list since the first weekend, right before I got sick. Uh huh. Yeah. Bullshit, right? I know. Whatever. I did manage to book two nights in Spring Break at a campground we always wanted to go back to…glad I did that, because there were only 6 left. I got the one right NEXT to the one we were in before. I really liked the one we were in before. That was another ‘wake-up-at-2-AM’ thing…needing to book that before they were sold out. Of course, we still have two nights before and one night after to do something ELSE in Arizona…no clue what. Minor issue. We’ll figure that out.
OK, Break, it was nice (not really) knowing you. Hopefully you have done your job, allowing me to wallow in reading material and a weird drawing, letting me (sort of) sleep in, and I will return, refreshed (semi) to my job, where the kids are the capital, which is the only reason I don’t just jump and run toward the closest job that I don’t have to lug home with me and doesn’t wake me up in the middle of the night. Not sure what that is. But it’s tempting sometimes, that’s for sure. I hate being bored, though, and I love the kids, even when I don’t. So there’s that. Back to it!
Quick! Write the blog before you get sidetracked by that email that came in about a show, plus the name of that hedgehog your therapist recommended you look up, and the fact that your tea is already cold…again. Plus try not to think about grading, because even though you bribed yourself all day yesterday, you didn’t FINISH (of course not) and you need to FINISH. Plus yeah. So many things. Is this headache your neck and you need to schedule the chiropractor (probably)? Did you answer that email about the DNA extraction kits (maybe)? Did you finish planning the roller coaster unit (fuck no)? OK. Well. Nope. Got distracted about a folder on Google Drive.
My daughter was diagnosed as ADD years ago. Sometimes I wonder about me. But also on the spectrum? Or just antisocial? (Me, not the daughter) Or is it just that I’m old (not really, if you look at the spectrum, the OTHER spectrum, of age) and people annoy the shit out of me? Maybe that.
OK. I checked the folder on Google Drive. I can move on with my life.
It’s quiet here, except for the dog barking. And the kids next door shooting off their nerf guns. Popopopopopopopop. I’m not on that side of the house, or I’d turn music on to drown that shit out. Boychild and the Man have gone back to work. I just work here. I’ll be at school Thursday and Friday to rewrite a stupid curriculum that I have no choice about, but at least I’m getting paid for those 10 hours. Ugh. Today, I need to finish grading that thing from yesterday and one more thing, finish the roller coaster planning (both unpaid), get my retinas scanned (like you do), go to Pilates, cook dinner (new recipe, might kill me), get the dog to go out and pee even though it’s wet out, finish another book (I finished the one that was due, but this one, I’m at 94% and honestly, the ONLY thing I want to do today is finish that book dammit), work on the quilt that’s on the machine, work on a donation quilt, work on a quilt that I’m helping a friend do, and draw the next piece. Short list, eh? There’s some other stuff I need to do, but I don’t feel like driving to REI or finding the leaf blower (probably not here) or moving gravel. So there.
Sleep and read, man. That’s where I’m at. Unfortunate.
So the current quilt…is still in the drawing stage and probably will be for the rest of this week. Because I’m having a lot of fun letting my brain just wander around with this biopunk/steampunk/cyberpunk, channeling Margaret Atwood and other weird shit that’s in my head because science teacher brain.
I started inking Monday night…
I really got into it. I sat on the couch for about an hour, spacing out, watching cat videos, and then got up and did this.
I had penciled stuff in, but I always change it a little when I use ink. I moved the entire butterfly up a bit.
The post-its have notes about stuff I want to think about or put into the drawing, and then in the middle of the night, I have ideas and I type them into my phone for the next time I’m drawing…
There’s more penciled in above and below…not slacking on the details in this one. So I’m going to keep going. It’s not political (yet. Or is it?).
I’m also still quilting this, although to be honest, not working consistently on it.
Two columns done, three to go, plus borders. It doesn’t take long; I just have a lot of other shit going on right now. You might have noticed.
Grading…
This was my view for 4 hours yesterday…probably another 4 today, if I can pull that off. Ugh.
Boychild made his own birthday cake…raspberry frosting was quite tasty…
It was chocolate on the inside, so I didn’t get a taste of it, but the rest of the fam did when they came by for presents.
We have a very similar picture from last year (watching the boychild open stuff). Mom petting the dog.
Where’s MY cake?
From the book I finished, which was better than I was expecting:
My milkweed is not only still blooming, but has caterpillars!
I would have thought it was too cold for them, but there are three of them…
I need to plant more seeds because these plants are at their leggy ends…
As you can see.
Plus now my deck has fungus…
I really need to replace these top boards. In my spare time. Ugh. Maybe summer.
OK. More tea (or heat this cup up for the fourth time). Read my book. (C’mon, it’s still break). Eat lunch. Grade some stuff. Then let them scan the eye (means I have to put pants and a bra back on. Ugh). Then more grading and some exercise. More tea. Break is coming to an end. Need to enjoy it as much as possible.
Please don’t ask me what day it is. Or even what year. I like to pretend I know what’s going on.
So tiny quilt progress…progress on a tiny quilt, not the other way around, although honestly, I could finish a tiny quilt in one day if I weren’t still fighting this stupid head cold that has planted its phlegmy self in my sinuses and refuses to let go. Anyway, I think it’s been a few days since I remembered I write things, so I managed to iron the quilt together…
It’s easier to do some parts off to the side and then put them on top…
Then onto the background…this was all Christmas Eve…
Then Christmas Day, we cleaned a lot and cooked a little…because we delayed a day for the boychild to get off of work…so I sandwiched and pinbasted.
Then Christmas night (which was actually Boxing Day), after all the presents and dinner stuff, I quilted it…
Super fast while everyone was asleep…
She’s got some attitude…
And then last night, I trimmed it and cut binding and sleeves…
Hopefully I’ll get those on today and get the handsewing done.
I was hoping to get some ‘models’ (aka the fam) to take a photo for me for the next quilt, but I floated the idea and there wasn’t a lot of yah sure, in fact, one fuck off (someone was in a mood), so I’m going to do some reading/research today hopefully and then start some rudimentary drawings tonight or tomorrow. It’s going to be big again. It’s better to have a big piece to work on when school starts, so there’s lots to do that’s not thinking too hard, easy to come home and just do the next step without having to work too hard at decisions. Picking fabric is an easy thing. Deciding what to make next is not. And as much as I know I should be taking a break from school stuff and not working, I also know January and February Me will appreciate it if I do some planning and grading. I took a few days off when I was too sick to do anything, but I can’t really afford big chunks of no work at the moment, not this year. It sucks, yes. I don’t have a solution, no. Teachers who aren’t working over break at all? Congratulations. Your situation is different than mine. Sigh.
Anyway, I only have three assignments left to grade, so that’s good. Next week, I’ll be spending 10 hours working with my co-teacher on that damn tobacco curriculum again, same as last year (hopefully for the last time). Somewhere between now and then, I need to finish the roller coaster project planning and plan the next unit. Most of it anyway. So yeah. Luckily the holiday bits are over and (sadly) the kids are both gone, so it is quiet during the day. Just me and the furry beasts. If only I could get motivated! And stop coughing.
In good news, or is it? I went to physical therapy yesterday for the knee and have a plan, plus a further plan if this doesn’t work. I’d like to avoid the further further plan of surgery, so I’m going with it. Also my NP was on crack, but I knew that when she kept saying arthritis. Anyway…after 6 weeks, it’s nice to at least have something that might work.
This year, I sucked at taking family photos, although here is dad with a spoon the boychild made…
Here is the girlchild with Simba, yet again…
Oh yeah, and we pulled the owl box down to clean it…
Sure enough, there was the missing owlet…
I had thought there were three early on, but only two at the end. They lay the eggs days apart, so sometimes the smallest doesn’t get enough food and becomes dinner.
I finally put more than 4 ornaments on the tree (although not a lot more)…
Simba stuck his tongue out at me…
He’s in a donut to keep him from licking his dew claw, which got hurt the other day. He doesn’t like it.
That fabric looks like my mom’s old sheets. It might even BE my mom’s old sheets. Working on a charity quilt for my quilt guild.
Only need 259 more blocks…
The back of a student’s homework sheet…’mini Nida’…I’m laughing.
I love this kid.
Kitten shoved behind me on the chair…
Nova in her new tent…
Kitten in the tube…
And us old folks (because someone else took the photo)…
I wasn’t feeling my best (Christmas Eve), but I made it out of the house. I’m a little better each day, so that’s good, and I go to the doc tomorrow, so she’ll give me antibiotics if she thinks they’re warranted. Would not recommend this cold. Nope. Nuh uh.
Today? I need to ship the girlchild’s jacket she remembered once she got to the airport. I need to get some boxes to ship fabric to some places (donations). I need a sprinkler to replace the broken one and a lightswitch knob to also replace the broken one. I need to read my book. I need to maybe plant some milkweed seeds. I am actually going to an exercise class tonight, first one in 10 days (yeah, I was that sick). Looking forward to it. Plus put the binding on this little quilt and go read some stuff about magnets and planets. Not together. Shit. Should take a shower too. My plans of drawing every day over break? Completely fucked so far. Maybe try now? We’ll see. The momentum is gone. Sucks.
Hoping your week between the weirdness of the gifty holidays and the drinky holidays is going well. Chill. Or at least mentally chill with the power on so you don’t actually have to be cold.
Hello Christmas Eve! Actually tomorrow is our Christmas Eve. Or something. This year is too confusing.
I had this plan to be drawing every day during break. Not happening. No brain power for it. I get through a few errands and then need to lie down for a while. I am improving, but it’s slow and torturous. What is this thing? The same cold that everyone else has that’s wiped out the cold medicine section at my grocery store. I finally found more of the stuff that lets me sleep through the night without coughing, so that’s a plus. The rest is more about…well…rest. I need lots of it apparently. So the to-do list languishes. Or gets done really slowly. The physical stuff will have to wait until I have some energy back.
I’m doing a little art stuff every day, not hours of it like I would like to. Ah well. The little piece got ironed to fabrics over 24 hours…
There’s not a lot to it, but I wasn’t feeling well, so I did most of it Thursday night…
And then finished it on Friday night…
Only 33 fabrics…some of which were only used for one piece. Then I cut them all out…
With the idea of ironing them together this afternoon, but I did a bunch of other things (made sourdough starter pancakes to freeze, for the first time since August, wrapped the last of the Xmas stuff, graded two assignments, tried to make sense of another one, showered…that was exhausting)…and now I need a nap. We have one family gathering this evening and I’m already tired. I’m also still short on milk and couldn’t find eggnog, although I can make that from scratch if I have to…I’ve done it before. Probably my body is adamantly telling me what I need (as I half fall asleep here in the chair). Should maybe listen. Just 20 minutes for a snooze, eh?
You can see how the drawing isn’t happening. No energy to clean either; that has to happen tomorrow. We got skunked the other night and half the rooms still reek of it. Luckily Southern California has blessed us with lovely weather (sorry y’all) and the windows are open to dispel the smell.
I Zoomed with friends on Thursday night and made a fence and some veggies…
Do I fix the lumpy carrot or let it be its realistic lumpy self? Who knows.
Simba loves everyone being home…
Although the boychild is back at work until Monday and the girlchild was gone all yesterday, which is why I got his loving attention.
Kitten wasn’t having any of it…
She does RBF well.
This morning, Simba got one of his favorite people on the couch…
He was communing with his other doggie friends, passing the word along in boofy paragraphs.
OK. I can lie down and read for a while. Then go find some milk and maybe eggnog. We are food shopping tomorrow like nutcakes. It’s OK. I wrangled meat yesterday from a big guy who was sure I wanted it all cut up (I didn’t) and then winked at me at the end. Ugh. I don’t know whether to laugh my old chubby ass off at that or be creeped out (or both, which is where I’m at right now). Then off to the Man’s fam for a gathering that will be all noise and color and bright, like holidays are, which sometimes my brain appreciates. I’m hoping to get there in the next 3 hours. Until then, hello couch, hello book, hello pajamas. And hoping everyone gets some time to do what they want with whomever they want, furry beast or otherwise.
Hey so if you want to talk to me this week, probably you should text me. My voice is not doing great. I am feeling better, but the phlegm is real, y’all. Mornings are rough until I get some tea into me. The pro is that it is Winter Break, so I am not trying to write sub plans or come in and teach sick because I don’t have COVID or the flu (probably), and there are no subs. I just have to finish the Xmas shopping and decorating (there are four whole ornaments on the tree) and maybe a book or three. Plus grading. How I know I’m getting better? I graded an academic assignment yesterday…it required brainpower and I found it. I had 14 assignments to grade at the beginning of break. I now have 9. Probably more importantly, I need to plan out the next unit plus or I will be hating life in January and February, and I don’t want that. I need to get ahead. At least a little.
I did finish the newest quilt, which doesn’t have a name yet. It goes to the photographer tomorrow with the last one (I never got around to photographing it).
Lame photo hanging over the couch. This one is not huge. Now going into the holidays, I have an idea for the next big one, but I need the headspace to check deadlines and do some planning, plus I’d really like the fam to stage this one so I can see how all the body parts will go, but so far, I’ve gotten some dissension on that happening. Either way, I can’t get a big drawing going until after we do Xmas Day, which will be Boxing Day for us this year, so is it possible for me to NOT be working on a quilt for 7 whole days?
I tried to distract myself with Xmas ornament stitching that I bought last year and never started…
Fun enough, but not the same as an actual quilt. Then at 2 AM, while lying there, trying to sleep, I remembered that funny drawing with the Xmas lights on it that is floating around my office that I keep meaning to make into a little quilt and never do. Some drawings just call to me and want to be a quilt. This one has called for a while. A LONG while.
The date on it is February 8, 1993. In 1993, I was still married. I didn’t have kids. At first, I was like, ah, this drawing, it’s about 10 years old (because I was on cold medication and could not do any form of math). Nah. This fucker is almost 30 years old. I even numbered it already. Like probably 20 years ago. Who knows? At some point in the past when I thought I’d make it. Well yeah. It does deserve to be made if it’s still around after all this time (it’s not the only one that made it to numbering stage and then got left somewhere, in case you’re wondering).
Poor thing. So I graded yesterday (because I felt better), and then I stayed up late and watched a semi-bad movie while tracing this…
It’s only got 97 pieces.
And then cut out the Wonder Under…
No need to do the sort by 100s step. There aren’t even 100 pieces. So hopefully today, after running Xmas errands (and showering…need to do that next), I’ll be picking fabrics for this sweet little thing. There is a lot going on over the next 7 days, and I can’t say I’m feeling totally with it, so a nap or some lying on the couch with my book will probably still be happening, but for now, I have a little project. Which is good. Never throw old shit away, y’all. It might be exactly what you need. Yes, that is part of my hoarder issue, but it’s also truth.
I did spend about 2 hours yesterday ironing and dehairing the two quilts that need to go to the photographer…that did make me need to nap. Ugh. And I’ll still work on the Xmas ornaments. They’ll probably be done in 2025. Certainly starting them on December 20 was probably not the best plan. Ah well.
Simba thinks we are all silly.
And maybe we are…
Certainly he is getting plenty of attention…
OK. Well I’m off to shower and drive all over heck and back for the 4 or 5 things I still need. I canceled almost everything I was supposed to do this week due to being sick. Probably the best thing for me anyway. At least the family is still healthy (and sucking up Vitamin C and Zinc). Some of the things on my to-do list will not be happening this week, due to my not feeling up to the physical crap, but it will get done eventually. Peace out all…may your holidays be what you need them to be. Sending love to all.
Kathy Nida 