This week has been interesting. I’m all over the map on what to worry about. Maybe better to not worry. Make something in fabric. Except I don’t have anything ready for my art classes, minor issue, keep waiting for info, but I don’t have any, so I guess we’re making sculpture out of celery and cilantro. It’ll be fine. FINE. I can’t concentrate on much either, so that’s helpful, brain, thanks so much.
I will panic more about school tomorrow. Really. It probably will involve celery.
The quilt is ironed together and I’m ready to stitch it down.
That will hopefully be an easy task. Who knows, though.
I’ve also been trying to finish the painted backgrounds, because I need to clear off the light table for teaching this week. I added the figure for this one.
Again, gonna be drawing on top of them later. Then for the biggest one, I did the figure first…
Shiny wet in the middle. And then started to paint the background.
I have to wait for parts of it to dry before I can paint the next bit.
I’m almost done with it. I’ll be drawing all over this one.
Still cross-stitching this…
I have other things I’ve been working on while watching bits and pieces of non-news TV. Really nice to not watch the news. I also finished a book…because that seemed important at the time…
I wanted to know what happened. Calli did too.
Cat play time…I knocked all the boxes over…
The cats enjoy words like “under” and “in”…
I’m thinking a box fort for the next 76 days (Spring Break). For me. Not the cats. I mean, they can stop by, but I really need the space.
Also this. As art. Because I don’t have enough going on.
It’s OK. It probably won’t happen. My life is about to go into overdrive again. Probably also I need help with the art planning for school. I’m not gonna get it, but I need it.
Today, I’m hoping to finish that one big background, and to start the stitchdown on this quilt. I’m in a quilt guild meeting online right now, so as soon as I finish this, I’ll probably cut some fabric out on the applique stories piece I’m working on right now. I’m tired, but we should walk today and maybe play a game tonight. I think. And tomorrow, I’ll panic about school. For realz.
Sigh. Well. You know, the Man and I picked yesterday to finish the fifth hike in the Coast to Crest Challenge (and finish it we did), and then were on our way home and got a call from my mom that my dad now has COVID (fuckin’ a, man…he cannot catch a break) and is quarantined in skilled nursing for two weeks, and then while I’m on the phone with my mom, the Man has the news on, and I’m like, WTF is that, WTF is happening? You can’t really pick a day (New Year’s) and say OK, everything after this day is gonna be good, this year is gonna be better, I mean you CAN do that, but it’s silly to think that the flip of a calendar month or pinning up a new calendar (I did that) is going to make the world make sense. There are a lot of people who need to answer for their behavior yesterday, and none of them are Antifa or BLM protestors, and if you think they are, GET THE FUCK OFF MY BLOG. Seriously. I don’t even want you to look at my art. I don’t want you in my personal space or even my public one.
Sigh. Wait a minute. I do want you here, because if you’re here, there’s some part of your brain that must think something sane, right? You can’t possibly look at my work or enjoy what I write without some sense of what should happen in the world. Yes, in real life, I seesaw from anger to empathy to concern to anxiety. I’m checking my meditation app for “political coup plus aging and ill parent with COVID plus only four days until I go back to school” and there is no course of meditations for that, dammit. There SHOULD be. I guess I’ll stick to anxiety (control what you can…wait…WTF…that is literally NOTHING right now) and sleep for meditation.
No, I changed my mind. Get the fuck off my website. Wait No. If we don’t talk, you’ll never see how your attitudes and beliefs are hurting other people, hurting yourself. I don’t think you’ll ever see that, but I have to hope you can.
I live in East County…the eastern portion of San Diego County, where unfortunately, some of the deplorables from yesterday hail from, like the woman who died. We have our proud boys and our KKK here; my UPS driver the other day was wearing an AK-47 T-shirt. I should have complained about that one. He was also missing an arm. Fuck me. The world is so hurt right now; I don’t know how to fix any of it, and here I am, making a quilt about childbirth. I was considering the next quilt for a show I heard about, back to how I, as a privileged white woman (I am educated, I went to good schools, I can pay my bills) can make anything important or legitimate about the existence of people of color…and I can’t. I can only make something that is a story…I don’t know what that story is or what it looks like. I keep running through imagery in my head, and it feels like it’s not my story to tell. But then it is my story…to talk to the white women who think it’s OK to support Trump, who think it’s OK to be racist, who think it’s OK to tell others they can’t tell their stories. That’s my job. And I don’t know how to do that, because I don’t understand those women. At all. Fear? Fear of change? I don’t know. And now we have this…this terrorist event.
Processing, y’all. Processing. I do it here on the blog. Sorry. Not sorry.
So here’s what we did yesterday…the Lusardi Creek loop of the Coast to Crest Challenge…there are tons of invasive wild artichoke plants on this hike.
It feels like you are hiking through an alien landscape.
It’s probably much nicer in Spring, but right now, mostly everything was dead and dry and weird looking.
This hike is probably really hot in the summer. It was pretty hot yesterday, and it wasn’t really hot. There’s a few climbs in here that might merit its ‘moderate to strenuous’ rating. Mostly it’s fire roads though, with some steep inclines.
We took the fire road straight where the map wanted us to turn. That might not have been the best choice, because we then had a hill from hell to trudge up, so on the way back, we went the ‘correct’ way, which still had hills…
It wasn’t the most fun hike I’ve been on, but I prefer the wooded hikes personally.
My partner in hiking was not having a good time, and honestly, I just go very zen on the trail. I mean, this is the trail, we’re hiking it, and it’s not doing anything TO us, so we’re just going to hike it until it’s done. I find you can do just about anything if that’s your attitude, except for some hills, so I hiked away from him for a while. Let him get his anger at the trail out in his own mind. I can’t listen to his complaints. Everyone has to figure out their own relationship to hard trails. I can’t deal with his, so we spread out.
All this while white supremacist terrorists were storming the US Capitol building. That’s the weird part. We’re out on this really quiet hike, hardly any people, in this big wide-open space surrounded by million-dollar homes and there’s a coup going on, an attack on my country.
That might be my next quilt. My place in this country. I’m not sure where it is. Shifting ground. Lack of communication. Can we require therapy for the whole country? I think we should consider it. Worried about my students. Hey, there’s a hawk nest up there.
A nest for your babies in the middle of electrical wires.
So that’s it. We did all five hikes, we get the stickers, we get the patches. Whoop whoop! IDK what we’re doing next. Maybe the previous year’s challenge…there are still patches left for that one, apparently.
Meanwhile, more work is happening on the dry river bed…we dug it out more, the boychild and I…
Spreading the dirt around a bit more. Then we covered it with landscape fabric…
Now I need to get gravel and then river rocks and then plants and somehow make it all look natural. Or not. I just don’t know. It’s such a strange thing to be working on while worrying about dad and the nation and school.
The bees are happily getting nectar from the agave flower spike I got this year. Fascinating stuff.
This from Tuesday night’s walk…
My legs have been like lead blocks lately. So tired. I’m giving them a break today, I think. I need exercise, but I also need rest. Rest with kitties…
Still fucking up on the counting on this…
I actually have more than that done. But then Calli ate the pattern this morning. I found it on my computer (this is why you buy PDFs and not actual patterns, y’all) and printed it again. This is what my brain can handle…make an X. Now make another one.
I did iron Tuesday night, got 100 pieces of the torso done…
And then last night, walk away from the television, shut down the social media apps, and iron the rest…
Easier to iron the heart and face separate and then put them where they belong.
Same with the eyes.
And then got the whole thing in the center of the quilt…
Now I just need to iron it down to the background and start the stitch down. Progress. It’s such a complicated piece.
These guys last night…asleep together…
The two old ladies. No coup on their minds. No insurrection, no terrorism, no confusion about why yesterday’s ‘protestors’ were treated differently than the BLM protestors. We know why (cough cough racist fucking country, stupid police, stupid politicians, who the fuck is in charge). There’s a lot of questions that need answers, a president who needs to be removed right now, some politicians who need to quit, a large number of people who need to be charged with sedition, and probably, in a little while, a quilt for me to draw. I don’t solve anything but the chaos in my own mind when I do that, but I guess that is one thing I can do.
Two weeks of Winter Break left, one assignment left to grade, 23 videos left to make (OK, probably more than that, but 23 that I know of…it’s OK; they’re short). A quilt I thought I’d finish in 2020, but won’t, no way. It’s OK; it’ll be the first in 2021. Expectations all year have been massively adjusted; that will continue. Our safe road trip now includes a Winter warning with snow etc. Hmm. Wasn’t expecting that, but we just need to drive through it to the other side. Should be OK. Additional stress I didn’t want or need. Whatever.
Blog Challenge almost over: I seem to have moved past the need to blog every day. For whatever reason, when I’m teaching physically on campus, it works, and it doesn’t work when I’m literally walking from this room into the other room. I can’t explain it. Welcome to my brain. People always want me to explain it, and I just can’t.
Yesterday’s topic: my favorite sewing foot. I can’t tell you how little I think about this. I use two feet on my machine, the regular one you do almost everything with and the open-toe bouncy foot for free-motion quilting.
I have a bunch of feet…
There’s even more underneath that, and I don’t use any of them. I don’t know what they even do. And I probably don’t care. I had a different free-motion quilting foot with the old machine that I liked better than this one, just because it was wider and transparent and I had better control, but I wasn’t patient enough to wait for one to ship to me and I got used to this one. I’m not that fussy, I guess.
Today’s topic is Techniques to Try. Again, there’s really nothing out there that I want to try that I haven’t? I’m not even sure where to start with that. I have some plans for doing some acrylic painting using paint pens? I keep planning to do it and never get around to it, but I’ve painted before and I draw a lot, so I don’t really think of it as a new technique. New Year’s is the time to think of these things, right? The few classes I take are more for the interaction with a different teacher/artist, listening to their way of doing things; I’m interested in their process more than I’m interested in learning their technique, I guess. I like to listen to people talk about how they make stuff.
Back to what we’ve been doing: we did a socially distanced Christmas dinner and present unwrapping. It was a little chilly, but really, it’s Southern California. We don’t have a lot to complain about with weather. My mom, considering something…
It’s been a rough month…my dad fell and is in skilled nursing right now, hopefully recovering well, but because of COVID, we can’t get all the info we want or need. Mom has taken the brunt of it. She’s a tough old lady, though…a little too tough, sometimes. We did FaceTime with dad…
Not sure what to say about that, except brain injuries are hard on everyone involved. Except Calli, the old lady dog. She was fine. And Simba…
Although he did seem overstimulated at one point…there was a lot of that going on…
Girlchild made an awesome dinner…
Plus dessert and appetizers.
Then back home for a relatively quiet evening…
Being watched by Kitten. Yes, I graded on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day and on Boxing Day. I just want it done, dammit. I am taking breaks.
This is right after Luna was shoving her face in that basket, exploring the threads hidden below the bag on top of it.
She’s a little irritated with my saying no.
I got a cool science teacher superhero from the Man for Christmas…
Handmade by a friend of his…
Someday she’ll go back to school with me. For now, she hangs out by the computer.
I did finally do some ironing on this last night…
Fussy little leaves and overlapping shit up there. It’s taking a long time.
I’ll get there eventually. Found one of the two missing finger bones. In the wrong bin. Oh well.
Tomorrow, we are leaving for a few nights away from the work/home place, safely not talking to anyone or interacting with anything but nature and a very clean Airbnb. I’m going a little crazy being stuck here every day all day. You might have noticed. Being here makes me think of everything that needs doing, and then I flail and can’t get any of it done. Typical holiday behavior, somehow worse this year. We’ll do some exploring outside and hiking and quiet time with no TV and no house/yard that need a million things and no school workstation staring me in the face. Read a little, draw a little, find some peace. And then come back and conquer all that shit. Maybe. At least some of it.
Happy Holidays all! If Christmas is your thang, that too. Hope it is all happy and healthy and safe. It’s quiet and weird this year, but relatively safe. We are just doing one shorter gathering outside later today to do all the food and presents, and our other gathering was on Zoom last night.
I missed the prompt for yesterday, so again, I’m pushing two into a day. The State of My Work Table. Um. I don’t have just one work table…in fact, I don’t really have anything I consider a work table? I use the light table for some of the art process, although it’s currently being used for school as well. I sit on the couch for some parts, the drawing and cutting. I sit at a sewing machine that is on a desk used for other things as well. I have a rolling table I use for some other parts of the process…you can see that here with the ironing board and the sewing desk.
Everything is kind of jimmy-rigged together, no fancy work table or setup. I’d say I’m obviously doing it wrong, but it works for me. Sure, I’d love a giant sewing room with a big table in the middle, but that’s not in the cards right now. I have what I have and I make it work. I have to clean up between each project because otherwise there isn’t room to do the next one. That’s probably a good thing. If I had more space (this is an 8×10′ room and the computer is in here too), I’d fill it and have to clean a larger space. It works.
Today’s prompt is Show Us Your Scraps. Um. Again. I don’t separate my fabric by size of piece…color is a much more useful separation for me. So they’re all in bins of different sizes…
And the smaller bits are shoved in there too, as you can see in the bottom right corner…
If I need black and white, odds are I don’t need a huge piece, so this is what I pull from. Most of what I do doesn’t use huge pieces.
Christmas Eve Eve was spent watching bad television with the girlchild while grading science. She managed to decorate some cookies in between drama on the TV…
Simba worked hard…
Oh yeah. Wish I were that dog.
I took pictures of my pitiful tree…I managed 5 ornaments this year and that was it. Oh well.
It was a good thing I took that picture, because when we got back from our hike, all the presents were gone to the ex’s house, where Xmas will happen. Outside. On a deck. In the sun.
The man and I decided to spend Xmas Eve on the 4th hike of the Coast 2 Crest Challenge, San Pasqual Valley to Raptor Ridge.
It claims to be 5 miles. It’s not. It was 4.4 miles.
The first part is very flat and runs next to the road and then wanders off across probably old fields. I don’t think these are native. They were planted in very straight rows. But they’re pretty.
We didn’t see many people on the trail. Or the Not a Trail.
It’s an easy hike even with the short bit of UP to get you out of the valley.
It would be really hot on a summer’s day.
Very little shade. So interestingly, a few years back (wait…searches blog…February 2014, to be specific), I hiked from the other direction, near the mall in Escondido, past Mule Hill, out to this tree. Yes, this tree. I remember it. It was an 11.8-mile hike that day…much longer than today’s.
So it was interesting to link up to that hike 6 1/2 years later.
A view of the valley that looks similar to one I took that day. We took the required selfie (we get a patch when we finish all five)…
It was cloudy and gloomy, but still a little warm. Started to rain when we got back to the car…
It might be prettier in Spring…wildlife!
He kept poking his head out to see if we’d left. We hadn’t.
We came back and I read for a bit, then Zoomed with the man’s family for Christmas Eve, then graded while watching a movie by the fire. The sky was impressive.
Yes, I graded on Christmas Eve. Y’all, I just want it done and out of my hair. I don’t want it hanging over me. And I don’t want to deal with it in January, which often happens.
Sleepy Kitten.
All the cats were pretty chill, because the dogs were with the kids at their dad’s house. Until a moth showed up.
And then there was excitement all around…
Christmas presents for cats are so easy…just find them a bug.
Eventually the man caught the moth and we released it outside, but sure, Luna had her paw on it twice and then fumbled it. So much excitement.
Oh yeah, I drew after I finished grading.
I finished science anyway. Still have 5 large art assignments. Honestly, yes, on Christmas Day, I am going to try to bang through one of those. I NEED THEM DONE. But here’s last night’s drawing for you.
And no, I haven’t been able to work on the current quilt for the last two nights…too much other stuff going on. But later today, the family will meet and social distance and eat and gift. And then tomorrow, the girlchild wings back to Boston and another COVID test and quarantine, while we keep on keeping on here. Yeah, having her home was a bit of a risk, but the family health issues have had her and the rest of us pretty worried and anxious, so hopefully this will help. Hope your holidays are whatever you need them to be. I guess mine need to be quiet yet productive and apparently full of sugar. Could be worse. It’s a beautiful day and I don’t have to Zoom. Oh wait, I’ll be FaceTiming later, won’t I? Ah well.
Day 9…of the blog challenge. Day 271 of COVID shutdown then not shutdown then shutdown again. I heard someone (an ER nurse who deals with COVID patients) that if the shutdown is significantly affecting you, then you were doing everything wrong going into it. It’s true that it doesn’t affect me much. I’d like to be able to go to the gym, but Zoom Pilates with dog and cat assistance will do. We were occasionally eating outside at restaurants. I could do that at home too, although I might need some type of heater at some point. Otherwise, not much has changed.
Day 9 of the blog challenge is supposed to be my favorite tip. I’m a smartass and keep coming up with punny ways to answer that, some appropriate and some not. Well. Some would say I’m never appropriate, what with the body-part quilts and all, slinging the F-bomb like I just don’t care (I don’t. Although I know when NOT to use it…and often use it in my HEAD instead of out loud.). So my favorite tip about quilting? So many of those. Always close your rotary cutter before you put it down so you don’t have blood all over your quilt. That’s from my first quilt teacher. Never forgotten that one. You know, it’s funny…an hour or two ago, when I was dealing with hour IDK-how-many of being on Zoom, I had about 15 ideas for favorite tips, and now, that’s the only one I can think of. Ironic, that, because I hardly ever use the rotary cutter. Hardly ever cut straight lines. Only when I’m cutting binding and sleeves and straightening up the edges. Every other ‘tip’ I have is to keep trying, keep doing it, keep messing with it until it works. Persevere. And that tip works for a shitload of things…COVID shutdowns, distance learning (for kids OR teachers), making art, getting a good night’s sleep, staying healthy, exercising…
Persevere. Hard word to spell, y’all, and I’m generally a good speller.
I have seven days of school until Winter Break. I’m not sleeping enough or well. I’m buried by work. I often think that if I stopped grading or contacting the parents of kids who don’t show up or don’t do anything or who turn everything in blank, then I would have less work to do. You know? And then the teacher brain kicks in and tells me how that isn’t gonna roll. And tries to find something I can simplify or ignore or do more efficiently so that I don’t go insane with the workload.
Working on the next Applique Story block. Another woman. Made her head smaller than the last two…
Barely started. But definitely going to happen.
Also, these are all the fabrics I used to make a Great Horned owl that is maybe 4″ tall.
Sometimes I go a bit overboard. But I did finally manage to iron down all the foreground, plus the tree and its bits…so now I really AM ready for sky. I know I keep saying that, but now I am. I’m in the 600s, with some of them taken up by that owl, so I think I might be halfway? If not, I’m close. It’s about time. An hour or so a night is all I’ve had, and some nights, not even that. Honestly, it’s less about my making time and more about my head not being in the right place. I keep thinking everything is going to be OK, the world will continue to spin on its axis, the birds will keep flying, and then not so much. More exercise, more art, more sleep, more…? More hope, but even that is a cautious and dangerous thing. You hope that everything will be OK, will work out, and you take the risk that it will go wrong again and then that place that makes hope gets a little more damaged.
Ah life. You are such a dick.
Here’s where we’re at before the sky.
Tea last night. Some nights, it’s apple cider. Some nights, chai latte. Some nights, it’s wine. One glass. More than that would be a mistake on a school night.
Two of my quilts are at the Sparks Gallery in downtown San Diego through February.
They are open, allowing a limited number of people in at a time. This is an Allied Craftsmen exhibit.
This is after school, before the union meeting. Cat took over my chair.
It’s OK…I needed to stand for a while.
Puppy love.
He looks like such an old man when he sleeps. I think he’s 5 now, so not really old.
OK. I’m a moody bastard tonight, but you got your tip. Oh, I’ve got another one, but it’s not quilt-related. Today is the first day for the rest of your life. Except it’s 10 PM, so there isn’t much left of it (that last part is mine, the first is one of the things my dad always said when we were growing up…followed by Don’t let the turkeys get you down.). Fucking turkeys.
Today’s blog challenge topic is “skills I wish I had.” Well, y’all are gonna be disappointed because none of them are quilt-, fabric-, or sewing-related. Because all of those I either have or know that I could have if I really wanted them. In fact, it’s the same thing I tell all my students…wanna get better at it? Then practice. Sure, I’d love to be able to pick up a guitar and strum away, singing along, but I’d need to practice to be able to do that, and I just don’t want to that much.
I need skills in installing sprinklers, doing electrical work, maybe some plumbing…now THAT would be freakin’ useful to me. I guess I need to hire experts for that.
But let’s get back to sewing etc…I sewed my first clothing on a machine at age 8 or so, and I know I was doing handwork before that. There was a time when I wanted to know how to quilt, how to hand-applique, how to embroider, how to paint on fabric. So I took classes and messed around and practiced, and now I know how to do those things. Occasionally I wish I could knit or crochet (I do know how, just not well), but then that bug leaves me and I go back down the fabric rabbit hole. With YouTube and online classes, you probably don’t even need to leave your house to learn how to do something new these days. So really, need skills? Need the willpower to try and practice it until you have them.
It’s been a long day of teaching. I straight up don’t have a lot of patience right now. Sorry.
I keep ironing though…
I found a bigger box for the ironed pieces, because I’m about to start ironing the sky, and it’s a lot of bigger pieces. More tonight. More tomorrow night. More until I’m done.
The skies lately have been lovely…this was the morning…
Then on my walk this evening…
I missed the sunset part…I was on the wrong side of the hill for that. I saw it from far away, and then it was gone.
Ah, old lady…you are lasting well. Calli is a good girl.
They said 6-8 months and we just hit month 6. I hope it’s easy for her, because it won’t be easy for any of us.
The neighbors have a vineyard. Like you do.
Gonna go grade a bunch of stuff. Try to figure out how to deal with the new attendance system, which I really don’t understand. Trying not to stress too hard over the next week or so of school…or even the next unit. Trying not to stress too hard over anything, but I’m not sleeping and that’s not helping. Keep exercising, keep making art, keep trying.
Sometimes I wonder what the assigned topic for the day MEANS. Like is there a project that someone is dreaming of doing? I guess? Like a Baltimore Album quilt or a Dear Jane? I don’t even know what the current-day equivalent is of those, I’m so out of the quilty loop. I did join a new quilt guild this year, right before the COVID shutdown, so although I occasionally go to Zoom meetings and see what people are working on, that one is the Modern Quilt Guild, so it’s really outside of my wheelhouse…I love looking at modern quilts, but I certainly don’t make them. And I don’t have a project I’m dreaming of doing of someone else’s design.
So what is my dream project? Well, it’s my own work. You know, I keep looking at artist residencies, and I know what I think I would like…at least a month, maybe two, far away from home. Not in California. Somewhere different than here. By myself (meaning no fam, no friends). In a space where I could roll out of bed into artmaking onto a deck overlooking a stunning view, a place that tempted with day hikes and just sitting outside, where I didn’t see people most of the time. Maybe dinners are communal, and once a week, a hangout of some sort (see this shit is pre- or post-COVID…not now). Just time and space to make what I want, away from needing to clean the house or empty the dishwasher or deal with the groceries. So I could just be in my Art Brain for a damn good long time.
That’s my dream project. I have researched some, although the one that was top on my list closed about three months into COVID. They couldn’t keep it going. It seemed a permanent shutdown too. Sad but true. There will be others, I know. It’s on my list of things to do in the future…whenever that future might be. Don’t assume you have plenty of time for that…sooner rather than later. I might need to downsize my ambitions to two weeks during the summer one school year. It’s definitely on my wish list. Think I’m hard to buy for? Laughing at that.
Speaking of laughing, my great uncle (who is now dead) encouraged me to draw when I was younger, and apparently while his son was cleaning out his flat files of very important things, he found this.
Oh yeah. A Nida original, circa age 9 (1976). He thought Louisa May Alcott? Perhaps. Perspective is uber flat. Nice though. Definitely showing this to my art students. I don’t remember drawing this AT ALL. Not surprising, although I do remember drawing some things back then.
In other artsy news, I finally ironed last night…
All those pieces for two books on the ground that take up maybe a 2″ square on the quilt.
That’s what’s left of the 400s? or the 500s? Don’t really know.
It’s the 500s. Getting close to halfway. The last two weeks have been such a clusterfuck. I was hoping to be much further along. Oh well. Here’s everything I’ve used so far…
Branching out beyond the greens finally.
My work station, now with Christmas lights.
I hung a Christmas quilt on the bookshelf behind me and put a tiny tree back there, for the kids to see. No. Really, it’s for me.
My real tree came in off the deck on Sunday…
She’s grown tremendously in the last few months…my original plan was to keep her in the house for four years and then plant her out. I figured out the growth each year and where she could go. Last year, she fit on the fireplace hearth. Not this year.
Here she was the first year, three years ago, 2017…
Same desk where I’m teaching now. Ah, Satchemo. So this is the fourth year, yeah? Fourth year as the official household Christmas tree. I think I thought I might get one more. I think not. Same pot. Probably needs to get planted out this year. I got the lights on and stopped there. Sweet Calli asleep on the couch.
Sweet Nova on me.
Sometimes you just need to blow off your job and pet a cat. Or a dog. Doesn’t really matter which. It was a long day.
Nice gift from a friend…I miss my peeps…
It’s a fowl language mug. There’s a Tit inside it. I do the blue-footed booby dance for my students normally. These are all real birds (the man is obsessed with the dickcissel), so I can take it to school with me. Zoom school. Yeah.
OK, it’s 10 PM. School really wiped me out today. Too much of things not working the way they should, of kids not helping each other. My expectations of what they could do were probably too high. We’ll adjust…make it work. No choice there. Gotta do it. For now, I’m allowed to have some apple cider and ironing time. I worked hard and long today, and tomorrow will be more of the same. Gonna keep thinking about that dream project though…maybe a few days in an Airbnb for Winter Break? Somewhere foresty and green? We’ll see.
Ah brain. You have had a day or so off. How do you feel? What do you mean you feel overwhelmed still (probably because I haven’t done anything school-related in two days)? What do you mean the eye twitch is still there (probably because the things that cause the eye twitch have not gone away or been managed)? And other personal stuff just popped up, so I’m sitting here and worrying instead of doing something. Although I did finally (after 6 months or so?) finish hemming all the fabric napkins I cut out in April or May to replace paper napkins in the house. I figured 8 sets of 2 would be OK for most of the time, with just 2 of us using them, but then the dog chewed up 1 pair (they smelled like tacos), so I was down 1, and so I had 3 sets left to sew and I did that in the last 24 hours. I might need another set, but I doubt it, because we’ve been surviving on 4 sets for a long time. But it’s not like there’s a shortage of fabric with which to make more if I need to.
Talk about brainless activity…hemming napkins is high on that list.
Friday, after work, I managed to drag the man out for a walk/hike before gaming.
It’s not a new hike. It’s one we do all the time…close to home but mostly people free.
It gets dark early these days, so we have to get out earlier.
Clouds were coming in and it got a little chilly.
And we definitely had dusk, plus a coyote crying out for a while. Three miles. Not bad.
We’re planning a longer one for Tuesday and maybe another on Friday. That may help with the eye twitch. And the grinding teeth. Did I mention those? Also grading and planning a bunch of shit will help, that’s for sure.
I traced some on Friday night and a bunch Saturday night. I’ve got about 200 pieces to go…
I’m hoping to get those done tonight, if I can get my head into it.
Almost done.
Had an art opening last night…on Zoom. With Luna assist. I was on the panel talking about my work…
Always interesting. The two pieces are at Sparks Gallery in downtown San Diego for a while (February) as part of a show with Allied Craftsmen. You can also see the whole show online at that link. I embroidered stuff I’m not allowed to show you during the opening. It’s Sue Spargo stuff that’s not released yet. By the time it’s released, I might be done with it.
You can see Calli and her ball here…
And Kitten is hogging the phone charger cord (I think it’s warm)…
I’m trying to get my head around things that are more complicated than hemming napkins. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully everything else will chill out a bit this week (not so far, but a woman can dream)…
Here’s the three projects I have in progress for my two levels of art.
I think we’re almost done with stuffed animals. We’ve barely started the faces (the kids are allowed to do up to 2/3ds creatively, but 1/3 has to be realistic using the grid). The top one is the warmup…starting in pencil, then moving to pen and colored pencils. I might have to find my colored pencils at some point. By next Monday, I need a plan for the early finishers of stuffed animals and portraits, plus a digital project for the 6th graders for the last two weeks of December. I also need to finish posting all the stuff for science the week we come back. I got a chunk of it done Friday night, but not all of it. And then the grading begins.
OK, well tracing Wonder Under tonight. I’d like to finish those 200 or so pieces. Then I can maybe sit on the couch and binge watch something while cutting them all out. We’ll see. I’ll grade shit tomorrow. Plus yardwork. I haven’t even started that either. Just so braindead. Ugh. I want to draw too. There’s a few in my head. OK. There are threads of things to do…I just need to follow some of them. Pick the easiest one and just do it.
Kathy Nida 