However-Many-Weeks It’s Been…

It’s interesting what has made me change my blogging habits in the past. I’ve been blogging since 2003 or 2004, something like that, really it’s just my mental journal and some of you read it and hang out in the places my head has been. Or you just come for the pictures, which is A-OK, because I like me some pix as well. In the beginning, it was really random; some months had 10 posts and some had one. Then about 2 or 3 years in, I realized I should make a PRACTICE of it to get better at it, so I set a schedule of I think it was three days a week? I picked days when I tended to have more time, and I pretty much stuck to it…obviously, vacations made it more difficult, being back in the day when phones couldn’t do everything. YES, that was REAL. Then I had a minor (or not-so-minor) mental breakdown in 2013 and wrote every day except Sunday for about…um…let me think…almost 7 years?? Until Covid sent me home. And then I couldn’t do every day. Ironically, because I was home more, I couldn’t get up and write every day? So weird. I can’t explain what happens to time on Covid time, but it just disappears. Seriously, I get up, and then it’s midnight again, and I’m still tired. Summer is a little like that, but this has been much worse. I can’t keep my brain going in a straight line for more than about 15 minutes.

So with that, school is over as of tomorrow, whatever that looks like. It does mean no required wakeup times (well, except for stuff I’ve committed to, like rebuilding a fence with my dad, who regularly wakes up at 4 AM). It also means no required Zoom meetings, wait, that’s not true. There will still be work meetings over the summer, if just to iron out what next school year looks like. But there’s more freedom. I’m waiting for my copyediting job to show up, and I’m totally OK with it taking a while, although I’d like to be done with it before we go back to school (last year, it came really late in the summer and fucked me up in August and September). Will I go back to writing every day? Maybe? I tend to remember less of what I wanted to write about with a two-day schedule, which is kinda what I settled on over the last however-many-weeks it’s been (three months or so, anyway). It’s longer to write on a two-day schedule. I think I’d like to try to go back to every day except Sunday. It helps me clear my brain of the previous day and sleepy-time crap (I keep having nightmares that I’m out places and I’ve forgotten my mask…I’m probably not the only person). Plus it helps me plan the current day, keeps me accountable to my own goals and plans. So we’ll see how that goes. It is more computer time, but it’s pretty focused and quick usually. With no interruptions from Zoom calls and work texts and emails. Will those stop? Just don’t know. Probably not.

As far as work goes, my district looks like it will offer three options: full-time online, full-time in the classroom but socially distanced in some unknown ways, and a hybrid of the two…show up for class on campus a few days a week and do stuff at home a few days a week. Parents will get to choose, apparently, which will also be interesting. We’re expecting about 25% to stay home…not sure what all this will look like. I do have the option of getting a doctor’s note and opting for teaching online only, because I have diabetes and I’m not young, and I did check in with my doctor about it, but she said as long as it’s controlled (which it is) and I’m careful, it’s my decision. I may regret it later, but I think that would be true if I stayed home as well. Yes, I will be the teacher who walks around with a pool noodle and bops anyone who is inside the 6-foot radius of Nida.

Meanwhile, the ironing has been slow but steady. My woman has a face and a cat…as always, iron the eyes separately and then put them on…otherwise, they’ll end up crooked.

Totally feeling the rainbow these days. It is Pride Month. There we go.

She’s the Earth Mother in the piece, although even she can’t solve Covid. I didn’t get much done last night…tired and started late, but she has a cat playing with a Covid virion, although it’s missing some pieces…

They’re probably accidentally in another box, so I’ll figure that out as I keep ironing. I’m in the last half of the 700s, so just under halfway. Almost 11 hours of ironing so far. So it’s slow. Some of that is my being tired. So tired! Although I mostly got to sleep in to the alarm today, minus the man banging around to go to work and my dad banging around to drop off wood for the fence. Unlike yesterday, when the pool builders were out and about BEEP BEEP BEEPing at 7 AM. Ugh. Mornings hurt. I might get more done tonight. We’ll see. I have book club too.

I also have been piecing fabric to use for the stitch-along quilt I’m doing with my guild. More rainbows…

These are going to be cut using the templates you saw last week. I have a plan…

Mostly. We’ll see how it all works. I’m not that worried. It’s just for fun and mental exercise.

I’m planning on doing a few more of these pieced things today, so I can start cutting pieces with the templates and putting blocks together. I’m supposed to put 5 blocks together this week. Uh huh. OK. Doesn’t sound hard, right? Except the part where you have to “make” fabric first. Plus I am hemming napkins, the ones I cut out weeks ago, because we finally ran out of paper ones and I need fabric ones.

And of course, dots…the lion is above the yellow spool…

It took me 2 1/2 hours to stitch this…

And his face is a little hidden.

Then I wasn’t sure I would finish last night’s…because beads…below the yellow skein…

To get to the beads, I have to pull out a bunch of stuff…

But I did, and that’s probably why I started ironing so late.

I also exercised and spent 2 hours at the vet waiting for the two dogs. It was a long day.

What else besides school? The neighbors are still making a pool, but it’s been quiet for a day…

Unlike what it will be once they start swimming in it. Girlchild is done with kid sounds. I have issues with construction noise. Right now, it’s leaves in the wind and the occasional dog barking. A hawk in the tree outside my window (can you even see it?

Top right…

Monday was dress up for a holiday, so I did…

For this online lunch with students…

Getting closer to done with that embroidery.

Luna managed to get herself stuck on the closet shelf twice…

She’s so silly.

Girlchild is hanging with the dogs again. She’s going home in a week and a half. The dogs will be devastated.

Kitten has been inhabiting kitten spaces…this morning, she hung out and played with their shit…

Their toys…not their shit. Pretty funny.

OK. Tired. More tea. I need to finish watering things. I need to piece more pieces into fabric. We’re walking the dogs later. I have book club tonight for a book I didn’t really like. Not sure if my dislike was cultural or not? Interesting thing to talk about though. And then hopefully ironing. I also have a dot to work on and I’ll probably stitch during book club. Then tomorrow is graduation…so we’ll have a Zoom, then go into school to do final clean up, and then gather in front of school to give kids drive-through certificates and swag, socially distanced. Then a last drink with the team, who will be minus 2 next year, gaining a newbie from 6th grade. Then the 2019-2020 school year, which was a giant fucked-up mess before Covid even hit, will be over. Into the 2020-2021 year, which will be a different kind of mess, mostly unknown at this point. Unknown makes me grind my teeth. Gotta work on that.

Whatever DONE Means…

Hey Monday. I know there was a weekend, but I didn’t really feel it. I think it’s because I don’t leave the house any more. So work days feel like weekend days feel like work days. But it’s almost done, the school stuff. Well, whatever DONE means. I won’t have to do any more Advisory classes (until August). I do have more meetings this week, so there’s that. But grading things and chasing down scores on 11 different programs will be DONE.

I’ve been trying to listen to podcasts…I do really well for like the first 7-10 minutes and then my brain ignores everything that’s being sad. It’s possible that I do this during staff meetings as well. (Sorry. It’s true. My attention span is not great.). Just so you know, I do better at listening if I’m stitching or drawing. So I do try to do those two things during staff or other meetings. Even social stuff, I zone out unless it’s in person. I think it’s just how my brain works…it wanders off into art brain mode, which is trying to draw, design, color, and ignores everything else around it. I’m not sure that’s getting better with old age. Oh well.

Right now, I’m hot-flashing, but my feet are cold…so I want to take the slippers off, but the feet still feel cold, even though I’m on fire. Sigh. My mom tells me these will never stop. I feel like they should. They did go away for many months, but now they are back. It could be stress. Last year, they were horrendous from early May to the end of July. So I have another two months? Ugh.

Meanwhile…

Um. I’m totally the one on the left, except it’s all in boxes that might be labeled. Sort of. Not like on the right though. Nothing matches. Nothing is cute. It just is. I have to go back in to school on Thursday and deal with the last of the stuff. I got an email today from our AP who is leaving to be a principal that my room isn’t done. Sigh. The sarcasm he brings is needed, as is the male role modelness. Oh well.

One of my readers emailed me Saturday or yesterday about workers comp and COVID and how my district might deal with sick teachers. I’m hoping the union has some control over how the district handles it, but as my reader said, the optics of NOT taking care of your sick teachers when they got COVID coming back to work? Well, let’s hope people still care by the time that happens.

Speaking of teaching, IDK who thought Architect could be a verb, as in Architect Your Life, but that is fucked up, because it does not even make sense. Y’all: architect is a noun, but it “is increasingly common to hear it used as a verb, though usually in business or technical situations where jargon is very common.” I hate jargon. I especially hate teacher jargon. I keep having to look shit up and I’ve been teaching for a long time, and they keep changing it all. I cannot keep it all straight in my head. So this coming year? I will be an architect architecting. Even WordPress doesn’t think that’s a word. I architect, you architect, we all architect. Sigh.

OK, so I have a team lunch (with kids on Zoom) in 7 minutes, I have my Santa hat ready for holiday dress (don’t even ask, it’s a teacher thing, but it has nothing to do with architecting), and then IDK what’s happening after that.

And I’m back. Lunch is over. I should finish writing this. I’ve been ironing a little each day…hopefully more today? Maybe? Got into the torso, but needed to iron the heart separately…

None of this is fast, but it is engrossing…

And then put the heart where it belongs…

So I think this is where I got to on Saturday night…

She’s the largest figure in the quilt.

Then Sunday, I worked on arms…this one has a bat hanging from it, a reference to the first animal they blamed for COVID. I ironed it separately…too many small parts…

And then attached it…

If you’re one of my patrons on Patreon, I show some of this arm and hand in the video that will be posted later today. And then I did the other arm…

I’ve been ironing for about 9 1/2 hours and I’m halfway through the pieces…I think…wait, no I’m not. I’m in the high 600s. Close though. She just needs a cat and her head. Then on to Figure 3.

Also still doing dots…Saturday’s is just above the top spool.

It was pretty easy…

I don’t have much of the sparkly Dazzle thread, so it always has to be pink or red.

And last night’s…to the right of the yellow thread…

Is very similar to one we’ve already done, but with more space.

Getting closer and closer to done.

It will then take me two years to remove all the cat and dog hair from it.

I also picked the fabrics for the pieced thing I’m doing…

Because there isn’t enough crazy shit going on in my life right now. I needed something brainless. Although I have some stitching I’m doing that’s relatively brainless.

OK. What else? I hiked yesterday…well, walked around the neighborhood, which includes some good hills.

Sometimes I go up that one. Sometimes I go down. Always looking for new flowers…

These were all in the trees…

Messy but beautiful…

The neighbors are still building a pool. Did I mention that already? Dig Day 2: BEEP BEEP BEEP. Sigh.

Damn cat sleeps through everything.

Must be nice…

Old lady dog does too…

OK, note to self…this is gonna be hard for this old lady to see at night…

CAN ONLY STITCH ON THIS IN FULL SUNLIGHT.

I amuse myself. OK. I’ve got exercise, ironing, and a book to finish. It sounds like Summer vacation is getting really close. Tomorrow is meeting hell, but today is done. All good. Enjoy.

More Wine and Goldfish…

Late-night ironing assists: wine and goldfish. The cheddar cheese kind, not the swimming kind. Hey, Mr. Domestic is doing a fundraiser right now on Instagram, ends today though (hey, it’s been a busy week for me…I’m slow. IDK what even happened to this week.). But this thing…

this shirt, you can buy this at any time and he donates all proceeds to one of the anti-racist charities listed here. I hadn’t heard of Mr. Domestic until some brouhaha (oh my, so many of those online right now) over a quilt store I’d never heard of not saying they were anti-racist…or delaying saying that. In case that’s an issue, I am anti-racist. I am a semi-old white lady (ask my neighbor how old he thinks I am as I scramble up his slope on a rope) who has white privilege (but can’t spell that word to save my life without help from a dictionary) and grew up in a nice mostly white town with all the privileges of good schools and safe streets and all that. I teach mostly immigrants and BIPOC, always have, so my understanding of my own racist background has grown over the years. But we are always learning, always finding better ways of dealing with our own understanding. So I continue to read and consider my own artwork in the realm of the larger world of racism and sexism and all that stuff. We are not doing it right if we aren’t continuing to listen and learn.

A shirt doesn’t solve many problems…but it could start a useful conversation and puts money somewhere it might help. I just sent my address info in again to Social Justice Sewing Academy to embroider some blocks. I did that a while ago…but with summer break coming up and no major embroidery that I HAVE to do this summer, I can handle this again.

I am in this weird head space with school. The last academic assignments were today, but grades were due Wednesday. I have things I have to do next week for school, some even in person (masked and 6 feet apart), but the work part is done…until summer, when they start throwing shit at us again. I spent hours in Zoom meetings yesterday for school stuff, most of it frustrating and not ideal, but that will be at least the next year. I’m worried about all of it, but don’t know the solution. I can’t afford to quit or retire, so work I shall, in as safe a manner as I can. The end of the school year is always hard on my brain…the stress of finishing and then having a summer to-do list but not being able to mentally handle any of it. It’s hard to explain to non-teachers. Especially when facing the next school year, which is destined to be different than anything we’ve ever done. It will be hard and different and probably sad, and hopefully not heart-breaking. I am not good with uncertain futures. I like to know what’s coming. Here was our team at the beginning of the school year…

We’re losing two of these teachers and our next photo next week will be social distanced…but I’ll post that. Because a good team is a lifesaver, and this group has made this bearable. Hopefully this summer will allow us to get some rest for next year…because it will be hard.

So I’ve been ironing this quilt together, because that’s something I can control.

I got her face ironed down…

This is the bottom right corner with a gravestone to Covid…I did that while on a stitching Zoom…

This thing is huge. Have I mentioned how huge it is? I had all these background pieces lying around, so I just ironed them together for now, and I’ll combine them with Figure 3 when I get to her…

With the gravestone…she’s in the 700s, I think, and I’m only in the 200s at the moment. So I put those sections aside, and started ironing Figure 2…

She’s the largest figure and uses the mid-200s through the mid-700s, I think. Then I laid out the 300s, ready for tonight or this afternoon or whatever.

See? Wine. Goldfish were already eaten. So the trash is still lying around just in case, the top right box is the pieces I’ve ironed together already on the left and right of the large figure, ready to get ironed to her when she’s done. I have to cover all the laid-out pieces so cats won’t lie on them.

More to come on that this weekend. Hopefully.

Stressful meetings call for distractions…this is the science curriculum adoption meeting, where we realized we had no choices…

Ah well…so be it. I kept doing this during the school board meeting with all their pomposity and stupidity.

Yeah, it’s a pattern. I couldn’t handle decisions. Here’s the final resolution for next year from the school board…

Yup. There we are.

Dots! Almost done? Well…two weeks left at least. The flower to the right of the green spool.

Pretty easy to do…

Mostly covered the dot…

That was Wednesday night…here’s Thursday…the sand dollar above the blue spool.

This was actually super fast…

I’ve been stealing those gray threads from another Spargo BOM…I might run out? Maybe? Hard to say.

What else? The old lady likes to fetch (but not very far) pine cones out of the pool. This one is too far. she wants me to move it closer.

The little boy does not like the pool or water at all.

The old lady always wants more than she should actually have…she gets tired.

Cats…don’t like heat…

Neither do dogs…

This fly died after getting stuck in the pool fence…the coloring is fascinating.

I drew the other night as well…

A protest reaction. Hard to know how to process things right now, so I’ll just draw until I can make sense of it all.

View of smoke from a local fire. I think it’s under control today, but it wasn’t yesterday.

Winds don’t help with that. They’ve mostly died down today. Plus it’s much cooler.

My neighbors are digging a pool hole. It’s loud and annoying. Sigh. I understand though. It’s hot here. Of course you want a pool.

I just wish I could be at school so I wouldn’t have to listen to it.

And here’s the pens I’ve been using to keep track of kids’ grades since we went out. Green is science, red is computers/PE, blue is math, purple is Advisory, orange is history, pink is English and pencil is you did it, but you’re not proficient (less than 70%).

Have I mentioned that I’m a visual learner? Yeah. You know what’s easier? Only teaching the subject you’re credentialed and trained in. Although I suspect this multi-tasking shit will continue into next year as well. Sigh.

I’m doing a stitch-along. I think. Maybe. It involves templates. It’s not how I usually roll. We’ll see how that goes.

I’ve done this before…just not recently.

OK, it’s the middle of the day and I have one more class and something else I said I’d do and the pool digging is driving me nuts (it’ll be at least another day, if not more, then all the construction crap). And I burned my thumb while toasting frozen naan. Of course. That’s probably something I’ve never written before. Artmaking this weekend. A minor amount of school stuff. Getting ready to replace part of my fence. Thinking about art entries. Reading my book because book club is next week. More wine and goldfish. Definitely.

crazy wacky holy crappy

Sign petitions. Put money in the hands of groups and people making change. Put money in the hands of BIPOC makers. Start here on Etsy (although I think they have added non-Etsy shops in there). Commission some art from a BIPOC maker…many artists are hurting right now if that was their primary money-maker. Let’s support them. Get food at BIPOC-owned restaurants in your area. These lists are easy to find. And once you buy something, especially something handmade or homemade, post about it with links. You know how many of those links YOU click on. Click and like and spend. If you can. If you can’t spend, you can click, like, share, show up, speak up, write about it. I saw someone post about not using your introvertness as an excuse. Introversity? Introvertedness? Hmm. One of those. Many of us can still spend and create and write and post. In fact, many of us do that online because it’s easier for us than in person…certainly that fits the instructions right now.

Interestingly, I saw an embroiderer whose work I liked, and she admits to not having a website because she doesn’t have the bandwidth for dealing with that, but it was hard to know what was available and prices and all that, and I know we as artists often don’t do the business side of things. So the solution is to just ask, of course. And when they have a VenMo or Patreon or some other way to support them, then do it.

OK, I’ve spent hours in meetings today and am finally done for today. My brain is swimming. For some reason, meetings in person are easier to process. I don’t know why. So much job chaos right now. It’s a hot day, which isn’t helping. Plus I want cookies.

I already wrote the rest of this post, but the internet here gets ultra-sketchy when it’s hot, and hot it is, and the damn thing disappeared into the ether. So here we go. Again. This is 2020 all over the place.

I drew a little on Sunday night. I’ve got something in my head and this is the first iteration (of many, I’m sure) of one part of the whole…

It’s not right. There are many more iterations before it will be right.

I started ironing the big quilt together on Sunday night, my favorite part of the quilt process. Maybe. It’s all color and things coming together and the first time I see it whole. The damn thing is huge…

I put the drawing on the ironing board and then a Teflon sheet over it and start ironing down. I had to fold it back up over the ironing board during the day so it wasn’t in the way.

I started on the left side with the background pieces, and decided to keep working on the figure there, even though her pieces are in the 100s and 200s and I wasn’t done with the under-100s yet.

I decided to iron this whole section together and then the righthand section together. There’s a bottom piece and then maybe I’ll iron the center together and see if I can get them all to fit.

That’s the current plan anyway. I was imagining what a cytokine storm might look like, since they happen in COVID-19 cases, so I read about them and kind of drew what a bunch of cells spilling out chemicals that killed people would look like.

Tonight, hopefully, I’ll finish her fingers and her face, and then move on to the other side. Or the bottom. Or something.

I bought more fabric online when I was looking for something else.

No, I don’t need more fabric. Shut up.

Dots! I’m doing dots. If you’ll remember, I barely started Saturday before it was tired time, so on Sunday, I finished Saturday’s dot…to the left of the orange ball.

Tiny bugs…

With a million colors in them…

And then I continued on with Sunday’s dot…

This time to the right of the orange ball…that ball gets around…

This was a much more abstract dot…

And pretty simple, although sometimes they seem simple and take forever…

This is last-night’s dot, which was more on the forever continuum…above the red dot that hasn’t been stitched yet…

It was way too complicated and the cast-on bullions are an issue, but whatever…

It probably doesn’t matter in the long run…

That’s either 72 or 73. Can’t remember. Getting near the end.

I had a stressful work day yesterday. Hell, I had a stressful day today too, and tomorrow is looking to continue the roll, but yesterday, I needed a walk out in nature, away from people. It’s been hot though…around 95 degrees, and humidity at 6%…or “Lo”, as this said. It was hotter than that…this thing is inside.

I pushed the walk off as long as I could, to about 5 PM, and then set out with a full Camelbak. The local Santa Ana winds are hot, dry, destructive, and flammable…but you can see for miles.

There was a breeze, at least, and I drank almost all of my water. This tree was labeled…a new label.

No idea what it means.

Sun beating down on me. But sometimes, I get so antsy I can’t sit still any more and I need to get out of the house and away from humanity.

Funny, since there aren’t very many humans around me, not like when I’m teaching.

It was worth it. I’m in a better frame of mind today, although there are many stupid things going on for work.

People leave cuttings of plants out in boxes in their front yards. I keep picking them up.

Probably should have worn gloves with this one. Sharp bits in my fingers.

Dogs can’t read.

There wasn’t just one of these…there’s a whole line of them.

A lost hawk feather in my front yard…

So the hot makes the animals very slow-moving. I hear green fabrics are very chilling.

This one pulled down 7 shirts to find this space…

And this one just sits in front of the fan…

Oh yeah, I framed these finally…

I love that Quilt National prints these for you with details of your quilt. I bought a pack of three frames, so I’m ready to add 2021. Right?

OK, my plans include eating dinner, some sort of exercise, another dot, and some ironing. Grades went in today, so I officially don’t have to care about school…I just have to show up online when I’m supposed to and do the things I’m supposed to before it ends. School is going to be difficult in the Fall, but some things will hopefully be new and interesting, and if I’m on campus, at least I will see my friends and students (some of them, because the models they’ve been telling us about are crazy wacky holy crappy), and hopefully we won’t get sick. And the sun will shine and all that. Maybe I’ll even start sleeping again. You’d think with these schedules that I’d get more sleep. That didn’t happen. OK. Summer break (whatever that is in 2020) is almost here. And I got to wear a lot of pajamas and very few bras in the last three months, so there’s that. That probably won’t happen again until I retire, and that’s a long way off.

So There’s That…

Well. I think I just made more work for myself. As always. What’s new? The end of this school year is so weird, so surreal, but it is ending…in fire and disease, right? Well, not really. But I’m intrigued by how my students don’t want to talk about the protests and police, but they do want to talk about the beach and food and seeing their friends and being done with homework. And cheese. One kid only wants to talk about cheese. I think it would be different in person, in a different world, one where things weren’t so scary, but this is what we have right now…scary and different. It’s safe to talk to me about cheese.

Normally, I’d be one of the protesters, out marching, but I’m worried about the transmission of this virus. Really worried. For myself and others. I see too many unmasked people at the protests. Normally, standing with a large crowd of chanting marchers, holding signs, that’s a thing I can do…some friends don’t or can’t, and it’s OK, because I can. But when I get sick with this thing, and a lot of us will, I want it to be as far along in the process as possible. That is my privilege talking…I’m not getting shot at for my skin color or knelt upon or unfairly jailed. So I have to put my protest energy somewhere. I’m still reading, I’m still watching…finished When They See Us on Netflix last night…the episode with Korey Wise in jail is difficult to watch. But necessary. It’s been on my list for a year, since it came out. One of my few white, non-immigrant students told me to watch it. There’s nothing easy about watching our white dumbassery hurting anyone, especially kids, and there’s the reality of the families who went through this and those boys becoming men. It’s not enough for it to sicken our hearts and stomachs though…like the Breonna Taylor story does. Something has to change. We have to change. It was her birthday yesterday…

Go to @battmamzelle for links to how to Say Her Name and get Breonna and her family some justice. Check out @arielsinhaha for more amazing graphic art.

I’m still working on BIPOC embroiderers and fiber artists and other artists. Some I was already following because of their work popping up in my feed when a friend liked it, but that’s not good enough. I need to go search more out and find a way to support it.

Locally, we might still be on curfew. It’s hard to tell. Our neighboring city is, still with the National Guard. Fear is a hard one, y’all. We want everything to be nice and pretty and cleaned up, but the reality for most is that that police are not doing that for them. We must continue to protest until they really do protect and serve all of us.

I want to draw today; it helps my brain process, but I know how much other work I have going on. Grades are due. I had completed everything I thought I was going to do, and then I thought about how much more I could do…and so I emailed every kid that was missing enough to not get credit, and we’ll see what comes of that. Maybe nothing. Maybe they will do it. As a teacher, what I’m doing now is so far away from how I usually teach and want kids to process and learn, and yet I am lucky to have a job and a paycheck and a calling (however annoying it may be), so there’s that. Next year will be different. It will not necessarily be better. It will probably be hard. But hopefully I will do a better job of reaching kids…I say that every year. How many kids did you reach? Hard to say. That one. And maybe this one. And in 5 years, one will come back and tell me they were one I didn’t even know about. So there’s that too.

I’m almost done with cutting this thing out, this giant-ass quilt that has dominated my COVID not-time-off. Thursday’s meeting time…

You can see how much is left in the box…

There’s a whole bunch of flesh cut out…this is probably Figure 2…

And the pile grows…or shrinks…depending on which one you’re looking at.

That was Thursday night…here’s Friday night…I can see the bottom of the box!

I’m cutting out pieces of the background hillside. That’s cool. That’s close to the end.

That’s almost 19 hours of cutting. I said 20? It will probably be 21 or 22 hours, but I was close. Then sort, then iron. In the middle of all the grades and a million meetings next week. I love how my school district decides to just ADD meetings to the mix, two weeks before we’re done. Like y’all have no idea what we’re actually doing with our time. I finished the “7-hour” training (it wasn’t 7 hours), so that’s a thing. My classroom still needs some work, but I’m waiting for the floors to be done. I signed up for curriculum stuff. Because I can’t stand certain people deciding on the curriculum for my kids. My fault for caring.

But this quilt will eventually get done. I’m hoping by the end of the month, but it might just be July. Too many other things going on. Like yesterday, my niece graduated from high school!

Online, of course, but I hadn’t made plans to GO to the graduation (it’s a rough time of year for teachers), so it was cool to see what they did online.

Probably a better view than we normally see.

She should be going to college in the Fall…it remains to be seen what that will look like. That’s true for everything right now though.

Simba carefully watched the whole thing.

And the dots! We’re in the last few weeks of this crazy thing. I had another online meeting Thursday night and did my bee dot, just under the white ball. Which isn’t really white.

Some commentary there. I’m not actually sure why that ball is there. I didn’t use it. Whoops. Those bees are also fucking tiny.

So there’s that.

Two years ago, our 7th-grade science teacher motto was “Whatever.” This last year, it was (ironically now), “It’s Fine.” (It’s not. But you get it.). For next year? It probably involves cussing. But “So there’s that” might be a close second.

Last night’s dot was easy peasy…kitty corner to the left of the bottom spool.

Bullion knots no longer frighten me.

Although that was true before I started this project.

Twenty one to go.

Today is a day free from school work. Well, except for what I already did. I have a quilt guild meeting and I want to finish cutting out pieces and maybe sort them, and I need a long walk outside in nature. It’s a cool, cloudy, and slightly rainy day. Should make walking nice, unlike next week, when Satan arrives on his 95-degree-Fahrenheit horse. I might read or draw some too. But first, a shower and some more tea, because I didn’t sleep, yet again. Gotta love this old lady body and her stupid hormones. I mean, it’s all I got, so I gotta love it. Peace to all; protesters today, stay safe, but make change the obvious choice. And cops, knock it the fuck off. Quit your job. Go do something more humane. Sigh.

Queen of Workarounds

I hope you all had a decent weekend, that you got outside and maybe did something you wouldn’t normally do, as long as it was safe and socially distant and you’re not in a 2-week quarantine right now, waiting out the consequences of the doing. I didn’t really do anything different…just checked things off the to-do list and grocery shopped and ate and did some schoolwork and some art. The schoolwork means my hands hurt today, after a lot of mousing cut-and-paste bullshit that is just annoying and could have been avoided if the district were smarter, but will help my students. Some formatting, some moving stuff around, some formatting challenges because some dumbass coded something stupid because they aren’t an end user. It’s fine. I’m the queen of workarounds at the moment. Or as always. I’ve got one more for this afternoon. Woohoo! Exciting.

We learn every day, if we’re paying attention.

I’m really close to being done with the fabric-choosing portion of this gigantic quilt…I made it to the angels…which I decided should be wearing red and white polka dots. Well, the dots are red and background is white, but I had a pretty good stash of them.

I had this vision while walking Saturday evening of this almost clownlike costume, but referring to angels in white spattered with blood. I know. Dark. But you read it here, so if I forget it when someone asks me about it in the future, you will know.

At the end of Sunday night’s ironing, here’s where I was…

Honestly, I’ve been starting the process pretty late, just because of other things happening. Last night, I did the angels’ fleshy bits…

Pale with a tendency toward green and gray. I have a ton of boxes out right now that are full of fabric, but I picked new ones for this. I didn’t want them to look like the still-living figures in the quilt.

Here was my setup last night, sans Golden Retriever…

But with Kitten. Sometimes Calli lies just at the end of the ironing board, and I have to step over her to get to any of the fabric on that side of the room. I guess it’s good practice for balancing.

These are all the pieces that are left…eyeballs, hair, halos, and some medical accoutrement.

No masks on these. Only thing wearing a mask in the whole quilt is the skeleton.

Angels don’t need masks. They’re supernatural. Or dead. However you visualize that.

Almost there.

Angel faces, ready to be cut out. Hopefully I’ll finish ironing tonight. That would be good.

Dots! Sunday night…below the green spool…

and a closeup…the pink one with the blue flower.

Wait. I took a real closeup in daylight.

Ah, the cat hair in this thing.

I also took closeups of the previous two dots…mutated ladder stitch…

And this…

Then last night was a watermelon slice…under the black and brown ball.

The seeds are large…

Getting close to 2/3s done.

I also stitched down and put in a quilting line on the two small quilt tops I made for the Patreon reward…

I’m going to clean them up and finish the edges, and then send them off to the first three patrons who are at reward level…after supporting me for a year, they deserve it.

I also redrew the drawing from last Wednesday, fixing the head, during an anniversary party online.

I need to scan it and upload it for this month’s Patreon drawing. I had dogs with me the whole time…

And the man for a little while…

He’s watching the hummingbirds buzz around the feeder.

As always, the animals are ever present…Nova likes to destroy paper bags…

Luna’s death glare after being wakened from a cat nap…

Much as I look in the same situation, I’m sure.

And Simba, who will do anything for cuddles…

Including song and dance routines. He will be devastated when the girlchild goes back to Boston.

And this guy, with no name…

Because honestly, he’s probably bird food by now. I see plenty of these but never the cocoons. Too many birds around for that, I think.

OK, well it’s warm here, but at least I’m cheating the energy company out of electric dollars. I have one more class today, and then hopefully I will walk when it cools down. I have no idea what’s for dinner, but it’s probably going to involve some sort of leftovers or frozen thing. I STILL want cookies (yes, I know I could solve this, but it’s better if I don’t). I will sew a dot tonight and hopefully finish ironing, and then spend 20 or so hours cutting pieces out before I get to the next stage. It’s quiet today. My neighbor isn’t mowing or sawing anything and there are no screams of tiny beings in the air. So I’ll turn the fan on and hope I don’t fall asleep and miss class (makes up for my inability to sleep until well after 1 AM)…

I Want Cookies

I am an introvert. It doesn’t mean I don’t like people. It means too many peoplish interactions drain me. I’m OK being alone a bit or being in a house and barely interacting with people for a long time. Or being in the same room with people and not talking to them because I’m drawing or tracing or reading my book. I’m also OK with talking to people or hanging out with them, although on a video call, that’s exhausting. I feel like I’m talking to myself…sometimes I’m just tired and don’t feel like talking (and then, hello, you can find the extroverts out there giving me shit for not talking. Ask me a question? I’ll answer. I’m just too tired to randomly say shit). It’s not like in person where you can have a conversation with just one person…you have to talk to ALL the people at once. I suck at that. I also need a break from all the Zoomy school stuff, which is compounded by Zoomy social stuff, which is better than no social stuff? Most of the time? So tomorrow is a “holiday” (well, I don’t have to Zoom for work! That’s all it really means.) and I’m looking forward to no Zoomy. I also have an extra day to get the trillion things I need to get done for school actually done. My team is texting away and I haven’t started any of it. I took time yesterday to deal with my composter and the deck around the pool and a quick pickup (totally social distanced in an appropriate way, thank you, new quilt guild) and a nice long hike, where only 3 of the 30 people I saw were wearing masks. Fuck all of you folks. Seriously. I don’t wear it unless I’m within 6 feet of someone. And all of you are dumbass assholes.

Sigh. See, that’s not the introvert in me…that’s the paranoid scientist in me. Plus my own co-workers who don’t socially distance and/or mask appropriately, because you will be with my kids in the Fall or around other teachers, and you can pass it on to me or my students. An even bigger sigh. I can’t like the photos you post because you are not following the rules.

Less anger, less irritation, less annoyance.

On Friday, I went to school to help with PE locker cleanout.

The kids were so nervous, so hesitant…and very few showed up. I’m probably going to be the bitch on campus re: adults wearing masks. Or socially distancing. I also need a better mask design…waiting for some jersey tie material to come and then I’ll do a different version…since it looks like I’ll be wearing them for a while.

OK, I haven’t worked on the big quilt since Friday…but I did iron some then…

Them’s some bones.

My regular quilt group met Friday instead of Thursday, so I got a little ironing done…

Definitely in the 1200s…on to the angels next, I think. Almost done!

I also cut some stuff out…hung out with some new people Friday night.

Well, that’s Calli. She’s not new. But the cut-out stuff is on the right, to-be cut in the middle, and trash on the left. There’s a lot left to do.

I also ironed together the little quilts…

They’re rewards for my patrons on Patreon…

They need stitch down this weekend. LATER.

Then I got a weird bug up my butt. I’ve wanted to do a larger embroidery for a while of one of my more complicated drawings, with all the colors in the world. So I picked one.

And traced it.

I like the look of stitching on black, but black is apparently hard to find at the moment due to the mask-making phenomenon. And also you have to use a carbon-type paper to transfer and it rubs off…which on something this detailed would be a pain in the ass. So then I could have used white fabric, because I have a chunk of it, but I don’t really like it, so I picked this weird blue-gray color. We’ll see how it goes. Expect to see this in a hoop soon. I did all those embroidery patterns last year, but was limited to 5 colors for each one, which was a pain. I can do a MILLION colors on this one.

OK, then there’s dots…there’s always dots. There will be dots until sometime in July, I think. The one below the green spool…

I suck at the ladder herringbone going around a circle. Maybe if I thought about beforehand that the backstitches needed to be in a particular position so the herringbone would work right. I did not think that beforehand.

It’s fine. Then last night was a million colonial knots. I didn’t think they would take as long as they did. Top left under the orange ball.

I was supposed to put the twisty fly stitch tops closer together.

Looks kinda viral.

What else went on in the last two days? I did a longish hike by myself…the local trail had a full parking lot (it’s tiny), so I went up the road and came down a different trail to hook into the loop.

It was a little warm out, but there was a nice breeze. This is where almost no one had a mask. The trail is single width for part of it. There’s a ton of poison oak at the moment too, and the last time we went there, the dogs got a million ticks.

But it was outside and there was no pavement and most of the time, there were few people.

My left hip socket or muscle has been bugging me. I need to do more pilates during the week. I’m mostly only hiking.

We missed most of the wildflower season, but there are still some out there.

I had my eyes peeled for new flowers.

Things that poke me.

Big outdoorsy sigh.

It was a good choice. I think I slept better than I had all week.

California quail…from a distance. They flew away when I tried to get closer.

Nice to see them.

This is the part of the trail where I might be able to get 6 feet away from your heavy-breathing ass. I work Monday-Friday, so I can’t do trails except on the weekends really…maybe if it weren’t hot, but it’s supposed to be in the 90s most of this week. So it would have to be late. We’ll see. I don’t like hiking by myself when it’s late.

I told Kitten I might need this chair today. She did this.

First I will have to get all that cat hair off of it.

Girlchild finally successfully made sourdough bread. It’s good.

I’ve eaten a bunch of it.

My ex had a hawk decide to hang out on the ground…young? Hard to say how young.

It’s gone today…hopefully with its wings and not dragged off by something.

This pup is so spoiled.

Poor thing.

OK. Well, I need to eat some real food. Haven’t done that yet today. Grocery shopping is done. A fuckton of school work is on my plate. I need to organize my week in my journal…usually that’s the first thing I do on a Sunday, but I cleaned the fridge instead. I also have a celebratory Zoom later (I’m not really a fan of these things, but honestly, if it were an in-person party, I wouldn’t be thrilled either, so whatever). I want to iron some fabrics today and stitch my dot and IDK what else, but something that makes me feel accomplished and artistic instead of like a tortured online teacher. Because that’s no fun. I want to also feel prepared and organized for school, so it’s a good thing I have tomorrow to catch up on that shit. And I want cookies. So there. Also, I might need polka-dotted fabric. I don’t really. I will find something that works. But it popped into my head while I was hiking yesterday…I often draw or color drawings in my head as I walk. It’s a useful skill. Until you realize you don’t have any polka dots in your stash. OK. It’s a plan. One I will probably flail on, but a plan nonetheless.

Damn Rumination

It’s a little chilly this morning. I start the mornings with slippers on because my feet are cold every morning, no matter how warm it is outside. And eventually they come off and I am barefoot for most of the day. Pandemic clothing is pretty simple…looks a lot like my summer wear, except there are some t-shirts I can’t wear on Zoom when I’m teaching. I also have to think about what tea mug I’m drinking out of, because some have naked people on them. Plus the drawing that’s hanging up. I pin it up just in case. I’m pretty sure it’s too far away for the kids to see, but why take that risk?

I’m not sleeping well…not falling asleep quickly enough, try to go to bed earlier so the mornings aren’t so bad, but that doesn’t help. Just more lying around trying to fall asleep happens then. And then when the man gets up early, some mornings, I’m so exhausted I zonk out again, but some, I just lie there and ruminate. Damn rumination. It just messes me up. Weird dreams too. Last night, we were on vacation (VACATION!) and in a hotel, and this woman came into our room and started unpacking her stuff, because the hotel/Airbnb/whatever it was allowed people to double book or something? But she was someone I sorta knew? But it was SO UNCOMFORTABLE having someone else in the room, and that’s how I feel about going ANYWHERE right now. It’s just uncomfortable.

I finally FINALLY got to iron stuff on the big quilt last night. It’s not anybody’s fault…just gets too late, or the girlchild wants me to hang out, so I stitch instead. I’m still doing stuff I need to do…it’s just not this big quilt. I picked the fabrics for the third figure, darker…

This disease doesn’t care about you personally, but certain communities are harder hit…relative to health care options and poverty. If you have money, you’re better off? Or insurance? Or access to good healthcare? It all sucks. We should be taking care of everyone. All the time. Not just during a pandemic.

I didn’t finish ironing those down. It was 12:20 AM and I really need to go to bed earlier…but also sleep earlier. I can totally feel it today. I’m braindead and cranky as shit.

I also ironed the fabrics for the two mini-quilts I’m making for Patreon rewards…

That’s the bird laid out.

The heart in hands is on the right. I’ll cut those out later tonight probably. These go pretty quickly…just need to fit them in around everything else. This morning is two meetings, one of which is done (and was a clusterfuck, just so you know…makes me question my ability as a teacher in this situation). SIGH. Big Fucking Sigh.

Anyway. I also did dots. Strawberry, bottom right. Or some other berry? Don’t know.

It looks like a strawberry.

Then last night was this foxy dot…to the right of the white spool…

Ah yes…turned out pretty good, I think.

I also worked on the next Patreon reward embroidery…those are Luna’s legs under the coffee table…

And Kitten keeping me company on the couch…

I’m not sure how offended she is that I am stitching birds, not cats.

Hard to say.

What else is going on? Walks with dogs…

Someone weed-whacked. Hopefully that means fewer ticks.

Because despite that face, Simba hates combing.

Boychild made bagels…

I didn’t even know how bagels were made…

It’s a very strange process. Like how did we decide to boil FOOD in lye?

I feel like more of us should have died in the past just for our weird food practices.

Cats are always asleep…

She sits with me every day as I work…although this was last night…

It looks like the beginning of a horror movie. CATS!

There’s been some food-sharing issues amongst the cats. They are figuring it out. Certainly no one is starving.

And more of the conversations…although this is one I have often (minus my bro…usually it’s just the SIL and occasionally a kid)…

Everyone is going a little stir crazy.

Today? Today I make some decisions about my Advisory class, how I’m going to run it. I hate it, so it needs to change. Today I get some exercise, do some ironing, maybe some cutting stuff out and embroidery. Today I…sigh. I need more sleep. Maybe today I nap. Or draw. Or finish my book (I’ve been trying to do that for four days). Whatever. Today feels sucky. I will fix that. Somehow.

Realize.

I meant to write this yesterday. There are a lot of things I meant to do yesterday. I really should just remember that I am unfocused at least one day a week and that day is often Saturday. At least at the moment. Realize. It’s a word I should pay more attention to. Realize reality? As the county starts to open more things up, it’s harder to get away from crowds of people? Is it OK to go to Target to get pool noodles for shipping? Will I be shipping anything anywhere? Eventually. How do I feel about Target? I don’t know. I don’t know about anything. It all feels uncomfortable at the moment. Realize nothing.

I ironed nothing down on the Covid quilt in the last two days. Three days? Nothing since Thursday night. Let’s put it that way. That sucks. I was really tired on Friday and we had gaming…

I didn’t do anything after that except be tired. I did stitch on some dots…this was Friday night’s…the one under the green spool.

Simple flower shape…

And then Saturday night’s…just under the magenta spool.

I had another late finish and then mental exhaustion.

Pretty rose stitch though.

I also finished the first of the Patreon rewards…

And traced the second one on fabric, although I need to choose threads. And then I traced the Wonder Under and cut it out for the two small quilts.

I was hoping to finish picking fabrics for these yesterday, but brain fog won out.

I have a shit-ton of work to do for school this afternoon, so we’ll see what I get done. When I had finished the other embroidery, I didn’t have the next one ready to go, so I pulled this out of the pile and started on it while gaming.

It’s a Cozy Blue Handmade pattern. I suck at ironing stuff on. I bought this in Boston when I visited the girlchild a year and a half ago. Long time.

What else? The requisite dog and cat pictures…the deck is an appropriate temperature for us to live on some days, super buggy other days, way too hot at times. Simba likes it.

As long as someone is out with him.

Kitten has found another chair to sit on…although right now, she’s in her normal place…

Right behind me.

Simba loves the girlchild. She does not love his ticks.

There are a lot of ticks right now.

Yesterday was warm and tiring.

I agree, Luna…wholeheartedly.

I have a few new babies…I didn’t even do this right, and it made a baby. I’m so happy.

Succulents are amazing.

I think this one is my first…no second grandchild. I think the first one died. Or maybe it was incorporated into this one. But we do spend a lot of time thinking about them…

Yep, that’s our sourdough starter, version 2.0.

We did a short walk with the dogs on Friday, and then Saturday, I did a longer one, later, close to sunset, by myself. Everyone else was gone anyway.

It was relatively cool out, nice day, nice breeze, hazy skies.

Dumbasses on motorcycles zooming around in the valley, polluting the world with their tiny-penis noise. Seriously. Stop.

I like to just listen to the birds…not my neighbor’s lawnmower. He mows so many days. I realize it’s a ride-on and he likes his toys, but ffs, just stop. Let the lawn grow an eighth of an inch before you mow it again dude.

Most people out there have masks, although fewer on the walks in the neighborhood. One in the grocery store with no mask, though. WTF?

Apparently someone is painting these and leaving them around the neighborhood I walk in.

That’s so cool. I love that. More of that shit. More ravens just hanging out on wires.

Less noise pollution.

OK. Well. It’s 3 PM and I probably have at least 2-3 hours of school shit to do, another dot to sew, and then I’d really like to do some ironing. If I can. A good night’s sleep would be good too. One where I woke up the next morning and didn’t feel tired? That would be good. That’s a rare thing though. New week. Get it on.

I Dreamed I Was Sitting in a Restaurant Last Night…

Hey Friday. You make me tired. And overwhelmed. Nothing new there. Looking forward to some free time tomorrow, but who knows if I’ll be panicking about school and desperately planning stuff instead of ironing and stitching. It could go either way. I’m feeling a little constrained these days by the existence…no talking to anyone in person, like one-on-one, or lunches at work. I don’t know what’s going on with anyone except for the basics, because Zoom is always a bunch of people and mostly work-related, except for the desperate late-night texts about this program or that website, and occasionally on Insta or FB, I see what they ate or read or something like that. No deep conversations. No complaining about stupid shit. No venting about the job or the SO or sharing some awesome book or movie we’d love. Well, there’s a little of that in text and email, but not the same. I know, it’s because we’re trying to take care of everyone. I get that, but I dreamed I was sitting in a restaurant last night, at the bar, and I’m thinking it will be a year or two before that’s a thing. I love that so many states are ignoring science. 84,000 dead. And it’s only May 15. San Diego is still ticking up, but reopening some things. Malls opened this week, but not the stores in them. Curbside pickup only. I’m wondering what I really need the mall for anyway. Not much.

I’ve been ironing a little bit every day. I was hoping to be further than this, but work has been long and hard. So I’m about halfway, I think.

I think Wednesday night, after 5 hours of Zooming in the afternoon, only gave me a little ironing. I think I did the bat. He was semi-complicated. And some eyeballs. Pills. Oh yeah. Some Covid-19.

They’re all over the place. OK. There are only four of them. There’s a lot of fabric colors in this thing.

Still have three figures left to iron.

My Wednesday night companion…I get to step over her every time I go choose fabric from over there. I’m OK with that.

Last night, I think I got 30 minutes in…Kitten assistance…

But I also ironed in the afternoon with my quilt group. I’m at 17 1/2 hours. And halfway. It’s not been the most effective time, with only an hour here and an hour there. The work I’m doing during the day sucks up brainwaves and turns them into mush, so that doesn’t help. I’m staring at two browns and trying to decide whether to go darker or lighter, for a really long time.

The coffin is ironed.

Tonight? Tonight I’m hoping to start Figure 3. It might not happen until tomorrow. We’ll see. I kind of want to reorganize all the fabric in color order too…it’s looking really chaotic.

I also started stitching one of the Patreon pieces…they’re not big, but they’re not supposed to be.

I worked on this one during a staff meeting. My boss called it knitting. Whatever.

I’m still caught up on dots…the mushroom to the left of the red ball…

Kinda cute.

And then last night’s…to the left of the brown spool…is a dandelion.

I added a few wandering dandelion seeds…

More than halfway on that.

I wanted to draw the other night, but I was too damn tired. So I just sat on the deck and read while drinking tea.

Speaking of drinking, a Wednesday-night incident drove me to a margarita…I think I mentioned that. Well here it is…

Tasty. Created by girlchild, who also created an amazing dinner…

I feel like if she weren’t here, we’d be living on PopTarts and toast. She takes the artsy photo…

‘Twas good. Homemade pita on my shitty-looking cookie pan from my long-defunct wedding in 1989.

We do know how to cook. She’s just way better at it.

We pretty much cook the same stuff over and over again. This is tastier. I admit to not having the brain power for this.

However, these keep popping into my tiny little brain.

Seriously, she’s making me throw away potential penicillin. It’s OK. Also, I’ve been unfriending people on FB like crazy, all the conspiracy and liberal snowflake haters. I can’t deal with your dumbassery any more. I don’t understand how you like my work if you can’t think. So there. Go the fuck away. Most of you just want me to like your shop and buy stuff anyway. You’re freaking out because the quilt shows and vending opportunities are being canceled. I barely buy anything quilt-related online, y’all. I don’t need your long-arm services and I don’t want your cute fabric bundles and patterns. Friend me if you like my work AND understand my politics. I don’t want to read your crazy. You probably don’t want to read mine either.

Old lady dog asleep on the deck…

During one of my move-it-outside meetings. I wish I lived closer to the beach. Or had the energy to drive there after dinner one night. Not tonight. Don’t want to fight crowds on the weekend either. Maybe that’s a goal for next week.

Kitten playing time. Kitten playing with a kitten.

They’re funny.

Followed by the little boy, snuggling with his favorite tick-removing human…

I’m betting she’s on Pinterest or a recipe site.

OK. It’s 1 PM on a Friday. I have one more class. I need to plan for next week, set up posts, create some shit, make some decisions. I need to stitch on a dot. I need to iron. Gaming is happening tonight, and I want to walk the dogs, but I’ll need help with that. Also, weed-whacking needs to happen, but I don’t think I can fit that into all the shit I just listed. Also I want a long hike, but that’s not happening either. OK. Welcome to my online learning world.