Ah Sleep…

Humpday this year seems to be Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Hardest day of the week. This week, they’re all hard. I am tired. I know, it feels like I’m always tired. But I’m Friday tired this morning and it’s only Wednesday. Doesn’t help that the last two days have been LOOONNNGGGG. Ah well. Yesterday was a 12-hour day for school, which is a lot. Sat through part of a school board meeting to protest their paltry 0.5% offer, when they have 8 times the necessary reserve and a chunk of money from the state that would cover our increase and more. Our health insurance costs will go up more than that, so they’re essentially giving us a pay cut. But you want me to work more, work harder. Do it for the kids! I can’t do anything for the kids if I can’t pay the bills. Don’t they always tell you to put your own oxygen on first before you put on your kids? Anyway…this is after a bunch of people left, because they kept moving when public comments were…

There were more before. Outside even. There’s been more in previous meetings…it’s the damn holidays, we’re all exhausted, and the school board needs to see that we’re listening to how much they value us. My school has lost like 4 teachers mid-year, which almost never happens. They need to see that. Plus the 6th graders who went away three years ago (they sent them back to the elementaries), half of them are now coming back to our school, which has no empty classrooms. Crazy stuff.

So that was yesterday. Student IEP at 8 AM, at school by 7:45 AM, out of the school board meeting at 7:45 PM, home, on the couch…because I stood for 3 hours.

To Nova drooling all over my shirt. She was happy.

Art stuff: I finally finished ironing everything to fabric…I stayed up a bit late because I knew there wasn’t much and I just needed to get it done.

That’s 24 hours of ironing. Now I can cut things out. Kitten was trying to help…

Not very helpful. The night before was no art, but I did get this Bowie/Simba connect…

And I did some ceramics…

Some sort of mutant cat that was too soft to fix at that point. It’s not really going in there…it’s going on a knee, but it was a good place to store it to harden up a bit. I’m running out of room on my shelf, but all the drying shelves are totally full, so I can’t move her out. Yet. Give it time.

Yesterday’s early morning…

I got to sleep in 30 minutes this morning…tomorrow is another early start though.

I love this kid’s dino drawings…

They don’t know it yet, but I’m keeping this. Which I guess leads right into this…

Yup. I’m a crow. I admit it.

And this is really where I’m at.

I have so much stuff I want to get done before break so I don’t have to do it on break, but my brain is mostly nonfunctional. I got some homework graded in class yesterday and will aim for more tomorrow, but by 6th period, all I could do is stalk kids on our tracker app and add the sentence starters to the slides for them because they weren’t even doing that. That’s what we get for trying to do actual school work this week. What kind of dumbasses are we?

OK, notes about electric motors today, then finish the academic thing, because most of them didn’t. Pilates after school. I have to cook. I already emptied the dishwasher. I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open right now. Not good. Cut things out then sleep. Sleep. Ah sleep.

If I Had Time…

Definitely feeling the knee and the hip this morning. Cold. Worked out last night. Apparently walked a lot in class yesterday. All the things. That torn meniscus that refuses to heal and my insurance says will just heal (really? when?) is a bitch some days. Fun times. I’m rolling on exhausted. I try to go to bed early, but then dogs bark and people come to bed late and then at some point, a kitten whacked me in the face with a claw (no damage for once). So I put the blanket over my head and now my eyes are all swollen. I need to sleep for like a week. Still. It’s like I never catch up. I started this year trying to improve my sleep, and I feel like I’ve done my part, but adding a kitten to the mix didn’t help. Ah well. He is a sweetheart when he’s not whacking me in the face.

I can’t get the old lady Kitten to come out and take her meds in the morning. Too cold. Doesn’t want to come out of her cave of batting. Not sure I blame her. I talk to her and she slow blinks at me and I slow blink back and we can do that for 20 minutes…she still won’t come out. I can leave some of her meds in the cave and she’ll eat them, but the big pill isn’t going down her throat without help.

OK. I’m behind on shopping for Christmas, I need to pack and ship a quilt, I need to ship gifts north, I need time to deal with all this, plus do grades and exercise and maybe read my book, which will be returned to the library in three days. Hmmm. Prioritize all that. Book first, of course. Well. Maybe grading first.

I’m still ironing.

Lots of colors still happening. This was barbed wire and a fire around her head.

Last night, I started the visual disturbance section, which I am sort of psychotically trying to make accurate…something only I see…so like who would know?

I spent too much time trying to get my ethernet to work last night, so I didn’t get much done. I have about half of the 1000s done. It’s all visual disturbance. And I really need to pack that quilt tonight before I iron, so maybe I’m not grading tonight. Unfortunately. I’m on a roll and want to get it done. The kids are being remarkably clueless about what they need to complete to not have an F. Totally braindead. Fun times.

I did ceramics on Monday…

Getting close to having this base done and needing to figure out how to go up. Minor issue.

Normally, I’d go in on Friday, but they’re doing a potluck and really I just want to sit in the quiet and sculpt things, so I might have to do that Saturday instead, around a dental appointment. I’m sure it’s fine to go to the dentist covered in clay.

When I left ceramics, some footprints that weren’t there before appeared…

The footprints of a cat who hangs out in a ceramics studio, I think. I’ve never seen him on top of a car though.

This is how my knee is feeling.

I’m not sure if I’m the jackass or if the Man is. I feel like my pit crew should be more than just me? But maybe not.

And this…I don’t know why this is a problem.

I would be totally content in this room. OK, I’d probably straighten up a little. If I had time.

Gratuitous picture of Simba…

More magnet labs today; almost done, hallelujah. It’s been on on on for days. I need a break. I need them to just be working for once. Not a lot of that happening at the moment. Friday…but I have to sit through a training first. And I have two teacher groups I’m supposed to work with? At the same time? About different things? Yeah. That feels about right. I need a nap already. I have a meeting after school and I’m cooking dinner. Too many things. Pro! The bank figured out that I was inappropriately charged for someone else’s gym membership and actually refunded me the money. How did they figure that out? I told them. And then they told me I had to contact the vendor, so I spent too much time talking to bros in gyms. Even the boss was a bro. But it’s solved now and I don’t have to call the bros’ money launderers. Um. Whatever they are. That was a positive bit of mail yesterday. Yay! Kitten still hasn’t come out for her meds. Sigh. Maybe this is her next step of the decline. Double sigh. Heading off for school. Gonna pour a bunch of tea down my gullet and see if that helps.

Fabric Is Calling

So where am I at in the Thanksgiving Break/recovery from school and a sinus infection? Ugh. On new meds…they’re working, but slowly. I occasionally breathe normally. But still sound like (what did my PT say?) Zooey Deschanel. I do not think this is true. I think I sound like someone whose head has been filled with snot for 5 weeks. Not pretty. I’m still sleeping a lot, napping, resting. I did pilates this morning for the first time in 10 days. I did OK. I napped this afternoon though in response. That seems fair. It does seem like a hike is not happening tomorrow morning, as is my Thanksgiving preference. Hmmm. We’ll see. I might feel more energetic tomorrow morning. Right now? Not so much. I have finished four books (to clarify, I had already started and was ensconced in three of them, so don’t freak out). Wait. Shit. I finished five books. OK. So there’s that. I finished cutting out Wonder Under, which wasn’t that hard, because it all happens sitting in front of a television…

It took 10 hours and 4 minutes to do that. Not bad. I started Friday and finished Monday night. No, I wasn’t feeling well for most of it. Good choice to be able to do that. Last night, I sorted all 1606 pieces (there’s more because I missed numbering some, but I didn’t count those…they’re all ‘a’s of other numbers))…

Sorting took an hour and 15 minutes. Now the next step is ironing to fabric, which requires me (a) to clean my office, which is a fucking disaster of partially done ceramics pieces and fabric that needs to be put away), and (b) to be able to stand for extended periods of time. Questionable today. We’ll see. I might have a run of energy later. Right now I’m in nap aftermath and it feels tiring. Tired. Headachy. There’s meds for that. I should take some. I am So Tired of taking meds.

I also started grading (finally!) last night. Not a lot. Just a little. Nothing hard. Ugh. I don’t want to not get the hard stuff done now, when there’s a lot of silence and time to space out…I don’t want to have to do it in December, when things are loud and rushed and overwhelming and stressful. I realize I might not have a choice.

I have this video of my two pieces in Glendora at Citrus College…

Thanks to Lydia for taking the video. Not sure I’ll be able to get up there when the college is open.

I managed to make it to ceramics on Tuesday morning, finally…9 days of not doing that. I picked this sweet pot up…

I also worked for a couple of hours on this thing…which is a beast.

It’s big and heavy and this is only the bottom half. Or third.

It’s time-consuming. And delightful because of that. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to go back…holiday season is complicated. Maybe Saturday? We’ll see.

Also I have another piece in a museum in Florida…

It’s on the far right behind the coat. This is Ft. Pierce, Florida. The other piece I have in Florida is there through December 20, I believe, in Miami. All good. More work than I’ve ever had in Florida at any one time, I think.

Requisite photo of girlchild and Simba…

He is very good at laps.

That’s my lap. Good dog.

I’m currently having a messaging argument with my cable company who offered a higher price service that would still be intermittent instead of giving me a solution to the problem. Give me a discount assholes. Tell me what the problem is and when it will be solved. Don’t offer me hotspots…I’m on a damn desktop. WTF. What if I were fucking disabled? What would you do then? Not everyone can take their device in the car to another location. Stupid companies. This is not getting better in the next four years. It’s not.

OK. It’s not worth the irritation. Make tea. Consider your views on climate change.

I love Greta. I don’t love Amy. I really don’t want to make another Supreme Court quilt y’all.

OK. Well. Make tea, try to clean office/studio enough so that I can start picking fabrics. Wait. I don’t have a background big enough. Or do I? I might. I’ll have to clean to find it. Maybe I should go read my 6th book instead. Or take another nap? Not sure. I should definitely post this before the internet disappears again. Tomorrow is the Man’s Fam’s Thanksgiving, where I just show up and try to be coherent (questionable right now). I do need to get my turkey into the brine soon. Our Thanksgiving will be Friday. I’m in charge of the turkey and the green beans. And not much else. Ugh. Take headache meds. Drink the tea. Fabric is calling.

I Want Energy

Oh hey, Monday. I don’t have school today, so I’m not sure I recognize Monday. Although I have to do things today. And it’s the last week of November? I don’t even know what happened to November. October was the longest month ever and November is like blip. Gone. Done.

I’m still sick. I’m on the second illness now, which started out like a cold and has turned into the rest of that sinus infection, I think. I do already have a doc appointment for later today (made months ago, seriously), so hopefully there will be a solution besides, here, take those same antibiotics again that cause horrendous diarrhea. Or spray salt water into your nose, which has done nothing useful so far but to drip back out. I’ve been switching up meds, trying to find something that will bring some, any relief…spent most of Saturday asleep. Yeah. I’m up and showered today, but only because (1) a shower seems to briefly help with the congestion and (2) I have to go to the doctor later. Ugh. I’m tired of being sick. I’m just tired. So although I have a giant to-do list for break, mostly house- and yard-related, I don’t think most of it is getting done. The girlchild is here for the week, which is nice. I barely got her room cleaned up between Saturday and Sunday. I’m reading a lot. Sleeping. But not well. Too stuffed up.

So there’s all that. Hoping I can recover enough this week to survive the next three of school. I keep cancelling exercise classes because I can’t breathe well enough to go to them. Let alone exert energy. I have one set up for Wednesday, although I haven’t actually gotten into it yet (on the wait list)…hoping to be able to do that.

I did manage to finish tracing all the Wonder Under on Friday night, despite the congestion. Being upright is better than sitting or lying down.

Six approximate yards of the stuff. Two of the old, four of the new. A little over 17 hours of tracing. So then I started cutting stuff out.

Remember how I didn’t feel well Saturday? I cut things out for 4 1/2 hours in the afternoon/evening, because it was sitting on the couch and I could handle that. Once I stopped sleeping. I did some more last night…

I’ve got four of the six yards cut out…two more to go. Tonight? Maybe. We’ll see. Might take me two nights. I’m not particularly energetic at the moment and I might have to go grocery shopping again.

Our field trip Friday was to Petco Park.

Eh. Not the most exciting field trip, especially if you don’t give a crap about baseball. They didn’t even get to go on the field because some golf event was going on…

From the press box. Not sure I ever want to go there again. Not sure I get a choice in the matter, unfortunately. Ah well. We got back to school and the police followed us in: major altercation on campus. Gotta love Fridays before breaks. Dumbassery abounds.

This was part of that Saturday night rest-fest.

He didn’t hang out for very long, luckily, because I could do nothing else.

It’s been cold and cats have been almost cuddling.

Almost. Speaking of cuddling…the girlchild is here and her favorite dog likes to cuddle.

Finally remembered to take a family photo!

Did pretty well with that one.

Someone needs to make a tshirt with this for me to wear.

And this…is what I wish I had the health and energy for right now.

I swear, I haven’t been hiking or barely exercising due to all the sinus crap. I’m just so done with it. I want energy. Sigh. OK, maybe the doc can help. Hopefully. I don’t want more antibiotics, but I’ll do it if it’ll kick this thing.

OK. Doc today, plus book club. Need to turn in my library book (yes an actual book from an actual library building) and pick up cat meds. And maybe do Thanksgiving food shopping. Plus read and sleep and maybe eat. Although I haven’t had much of an appetite, that’s for sure. Ugh. I’d love to go do some clay at some point, but I’m not sure when that’ll happen. Maybe after the doc? for an hour? Maybe? Not sure I feel up to it. Haven’t been in over a week. Feel like crap does not translate into go to a place where you will have to sit on a stool and manhandle clay for an hour or so. Maybe it will later. Hopefully.

Buggy…

I finally updated my website to include all the bugs I made. You can see them here. At least for now. They might move. One has sold (that I know of)…it’s OK, it was the mutant first one I did before I figured out how to more easily (and quickly) finish them. Four of them are at VMOTA for now. The rest are here with me. They don’t have to be.

There’s one of them.

It’s the time of year when I’m scrambling and ducking and weaving and running. I could do with some down time, y’all. I did have a meeting canceled last night, and though I was looking forward to some stitching time with friends, I also enjoyed sitting on the couch with a variety of animals and reading my book for once. Well, I did a bunch of that last weekend too. Still sick, so balancing that with doing way too much. There is no balance. WTF am I talking about.

I’ve been doing about an hour of tracing a night, if I’m lucky…just short of an hour really. So I’m not getting far.

And it looks pretty much the same from one day to the next. I did start another yard of Wonder Under…

I’m in the mid to high 600s. Not even halfway. Ah well. Progress is slow. I did want to be ironing next week. Hopefully I will be at some point.

Must be cold. Dog in couch.

This is feeling real.

And I always appreciate this quote.

Creation is my sanity.

From the book I’m reading…The Dictionary of Lost Words…

Good book. I’d like to read it more.

OK. Ugh. I’m tired. Have not been sleeping well. Mostly in the AM. Still teaching waves…today is transverse and longitudinal. Only sort of know what I’m doing ahead of time, which is a bit nerve-wracking, but whatever. Nothing new there. Hopefully no stressful student crap today. Or adult crap for that matter. Hopefully some ceramics time. Then to the parents for dinner with the bro. Home to trace. Busy. Trying not to think about the idiocy that is my government in process. Dismantling the education department just hurts people. So many people are going to have their lives uprooted by all this…including those who voted for the idiot. Or who didn’t vote at all. You get what you deserve, but you dragged us all down with you. Stressed about all that. Ah well. Carry on. Draw some more. Contain the anger in a pile of fabric pieces…well, it’s not really contained, is it. Off to the mines it is…

Freedoms…

‘Tis Veterans Day. Thanks to those who protected our freedoms. Hopefully you’ll keep doing that, even against homegrown incursions. It’s ironic. But not funny. It’s a day off for teachers, also appreciated. I needed an extra day to decompress…aka read another book, do some gardening, get to the ceramics studio. Hopefully get healthy. I think the cough is wandering (very slowly) off and the sinus crap might not be far behind. Although still not well well, better.

Friday night, all I had in me was reading. So I did that. With Nova…

And then Simba…

I was cold, I felt like crap, I was tired. It worked. The Man was still on soft food, so I ate leftovers. And then I sewed a handheld tornado together.

Like you do. I spent a lot of time looking at memes and cat videos. Also like you do when you are trying to get over all the things. Friday…was a lot of things…I had to sub my prep (Math! Anathema) and then stay after school with my co-teacher because we hadn’t figured next week out, and I needed to get my head around it.

I copied stuff for Tuesday and then was too tired to go to ceramics…in the dark.

So I did that Saturday afternoon instead. In the morning, I lounged, I entered two art shows, I did some accounting-type shit.

It’s good I didn’t go earlier, because they had a class in the morning and it would have been crowded. I’m loving this new clay, B-mix…it holds up much better than half and half. I built up…

And it held! This was fun.

We’ll see how much it held up when I go in today, yeah? It seemed pretty stable. I only have an inch or two before it’s taller than my shelf space though. Again. There is going to be a top half. But now I need to decide how I’m handling the rest of it. She needs legs. And for me to decide if the inside is going to be fabric. I think it is.

Saturday also included a dinner drawing (the Man ate solid food!)…

Plus I sewed some clouds…

My machine kept pausing to tell me there was too much fabric under the needle and I just kept telling it to forget about it, keep sewing, it’ll all be OK.

I also built a tiny house out of balsa wood. I need at least two more of these.

They are a rancid pain. I sewed cars on a cloud too…trying to decide if they need painting. I think they do. But they are already sewn on. Ah well.

That Fuentes idiot and everyone who follows him…

I’m loving hearing about the 4B movement in South Korea by the way. Reminds me of the play Lysistrata and the movie Chiraq, both inspiration for the We Got the Power exhibit I’m in that’s currently showing in Florida. The timing of all this.

I’m honestly confused by the majority of married white women. Is it really easier to give up your power? I don’t get it.

I get that too.

Sunday…went by too fast. All of a sudden, it was late in the afternoon. In an attempt to save (remove from house) a large gecko, I had moved a bunch of stuff off a bookcase…two days later, I actually found the gecko and rehomed him outside. But I had to clean off all these books and tins and find homes for them, and I found this.

There was no disk inside. I kept the tin because, remember when you could cover them and then put a magnetic thing inside and it would be a needleholder? Yeah that. That was what I’d saved it for. It’s OK…I’m sure my mom has 10 of them. I tossed it. I also got rid of some books. And threw out a file folder filled with recipes I’d cut from magazines that I will never ever look at again. It was good.

I’m actually fairly reality-bound, unfortunately.

The other good thing was that the Wonder Under I’d ordered a week ago showed up. It’s still not the same as the old stuff, but it’s not as heavy as the stuff I had in my stash. I was still worried about the heaviness of the paper and the plasticky feel of the fusible, so I decided to test it out on something small before I committed to using it on the quilt I’d already started tracing with the old stuff. I was so freaked out about the change…they’ve changed the formulation before, but not so drastically.

Good news…it actually seems easier to use. The fusible is less bumpy, so it’s easier to trace over. The heavier paper probably helps with that too.

And it peeled right off…usually I have to wait at least 24 hours to peel, but this was immediate and worked well.

Done. Only issue is that the bolts are half the size they used to be and I can’t find them locally, so I have to ship. I also have two full bolts of the thicker stuff…don’t know what I’ll do with those. I bought them quite a while ago. Not sure why they’re so different, but they have a slightly different code on them.

But it means I can start tracing again. Ahhhh. Such a relief. Video of Annie greeting me when I went to pick up Simba…

This dog is a freak. A loving freak, but a freak nonetheless.

OK. Today. More yardwork (watering mostly…it’s been very dry, warm too)…maybe some digging and removing plant matter if I have the energy. Totally going back to ceramics today. Also grading more stuff. I’m almost done with the Unit 2 packets and I need to input some grades at some point. I’m trying to get caught up so Thanksgiving Break is not all grades. I did some lesson planning last night and got stuff made for every day but Friday. Friday is started at least. I need to copy stuff tomorrow. I need to build a couple more balsawood houses and paint them and the cars. I need to figure out what I’m doing with the wings and test drill some ceramics so I can get some stuff attached. I need to read my book. I need to write a blogpost for one of my art groups. I sat down to do this one and it’s taken forever. Not sure why. And then I’m going to trace Wonder Under. Happily. Short week of school, brother will be in town, hopefully continuing to get over this sinus infection and bronchitis. Trying to come to terms with half the country. I’m not sure why voting for someone who only has rich people in his sights ever makes sense if you want things to be cheaper. But it’s what we have. No shortage of artmaking ideas for the next four years…I guess that’s the plus. Retirement plans? Aaugh. Try not to think too hard about that. I’d like to hike, but I’m not sure I have it in me. We’ll see.

Hoping the Meds Kick In

Graded all day Saturday. Drove all day Sunday. Did some art. Still recovering from virus and infection. Body not thrilled with any of it.

I finished the drawing Friday night…

And started numbering…

Did not finish.

Kept going on Saturday night.

Managed to finish. Notionally 1606 pieces.

Odds are I missed some.

Started tracing last night…

Didn’t get far. Big ground pieces are a pain to trace. This will be the view for a while.

This was the grading view at some point…

Followed by some of this…

The Man had a show on Saturday night…Barbie-themed.

Nice outfit.

This is Bowie trying to get comfortable.

He’s not very good at it.

This is where I’m at right now.

Can’t go back to bed though. Hoping all the meds kick in and I survive the day.

Under Control…

OK. So my butt is wet. The cat did something on my chair. This is not a nice way to start Monday. Actually, I started with randomly low blood sugar. Always fun. The cat is old. I’m hoping it’s not…fuck…I’m pretty sure it’s pee. Sigh. She’s looking pretty irritated right now. Maybe because I’m accusing her of peeing herself. I guess I need to call the vet. Sigh. She’s old, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready for her to be gone. She has been getting worse…unfortunately.

So artwise, I finished all the bugs. Except I need to repaint one for like the fourth time. I delivered 4 to Visions Museum on Saturday. The rest will hold for a bit (maybe?) and go on Etsy (maybe?). I took official photos of them; I’ll put them on the website later too. Here’s the last one though…

With the one that needs repainting in the background.

I finally started drawing the next big one…it’s been in my head for well over a month.

Not that you can see much, and the boobs might need redrawing based on this. I just get the general shapes with the pencil on something this big. I don’t usually use pencil on the smaller drawings. Here’s a pre-drawing for it…done in two restaurants before dinner came…

Not quite all there. But a vague idea of it. I drew this too, with no purpose…

On Friday, I did some underglazing…

This stuff takes forever…

But it’s relaxing…

Apparently two of my pieces came out of the glaze fire, but I couldn’t find them on Friday. Ugh. Maybe today.

I also finished the center panel of Homegrown…

So now I can piece all the houses around it and spend another year making the borders. It’s also relaxing, but in a different way.

My piece Stop the Murder Madness made it to Miami for the opening…

A fellow artist took a picture of it for me…

Her name is Eden Quispe and you should go look at her work because it’s amazing. And I appreciate her recommending this show to me in the first place and sending me photos as well.

I managed NOT to work most of the weekend (on school stuff), which I think is pretty healthy. We walked the dog on Saturday.

I also blew leaves off half the roof, terrified of being up there, trimmed a bunch of stuff, dumped plant matter in greenery trashcans, finally rehung the art in the hallway…

Drove to a sketch location and bought a recliner for my kid, who may or may not actually want it because he was in Pinnacles with no cell service. Long weekend. I finished a book! That was good. Wait, I actually finished two. So even better.

For some reason, all the animals were giving me judgy looks this weekend. Here’s Nova.

Bowie…

You already saw Kitten up at the top…and Simba…

Luna avoided me mostly, so I guess I didn’t wrong her too badly.

I’ll finish up with two new skull finds…

The one on the right is a new type…I don’t think I’ve seen it before? I’ll wait for nature to clean it up a bit. We get a lot of rats and mice…this is not the right shape for that. Wait and see.

OK, today is teaching speed and velocity…pretty easy stuff. Then a 2-hour staff meeting about literacy. I’ve been prewarned that the scientific content is factually incorrect (oh good), so I’m prepared to be irritated. Then to clay, to hopefully underglaze some more and find my two glazed pieces. Then back here to pack up three quilts for shipping. Fun times. And more drawing, hopefully…get those boobs under control. On the drawing. Those are the only ones I can control.

In Space…

Up early again. Legit reason today. Emergency kid meeting. I’ll volunteer for those, if it’s my student. Not a fan of getting up early if I don’t have to. That was yesterday. Lack of communication. There’s a lot of that. Yesterday was also a pre-fight…apparently I walked right into the middle of it without knowing who was about to fight. I still don’t know…I told the APs to go check the cameras. Hint to kidlets: don’t try to start a fight right in front of the damn cameras. Thank goodness we have them and they work. Thank goodness one of the APs answers when I call.

Today will be fine. Yesterday I worked with this one kid who fell off a second-story roof when he was 7 and was in a coma and shockingly now at 13 has learning issues. We’re trying to get him help. Dad says his brain is weak, but it’s not…it’s traumatized. And that might be the theme for my whole school sometimes. I saw him sitting yesterday, trying to do the independent practice, and just shivering at the table, so I sat with him and talked him through it…which meant the rest of the class kinda went to hell. Sigh. They’ll be better today. Or else? I can’t solve all these kids’ problems, but I sometimes can help. I have no help in that class and he’s not actually on an IEP to get help (YET)…I wish I could move some of these kids around so they were in a more supportive space without all the official paperwork. Sometimes we can…

ANYWAY. In amazeballs news, I’m still not done with the bugs. I painted more canvases on Wednesday night…after I sewed these two, there were two that needed touching up…

The wrist brace is a thumb thing…from too much tech…mouse plus holding phone and ipad plus IDK what. The embroidery doesn’t seem to bug it…I sewed these down with the brace on.

Last night, I did one with the brace on and two without.

And then repainted one that didn’t seem to be the right color. So there’s one left. That’s tonight, plus making labels for them. Then I’m delivering some to the Visions Museum of Textile Art, and IDK what with the rest. Etsy? Maybe.

The opening of We Got the Power is tonight…I finally found the invites everyone was posting…

I still haven’t seen it in the gallery…they’ve been posting pictures but not of the whole thing.

I’m just glad it made it there.

So I’m about to start something new! And big. This little stuff drives me nuts. The Man was trying to figure out how many bugs I’d have to make a week to make up for my salary…and it’s not how many I’d have to MAKE…I’d have to sell like 300 of them a week. And that’s so not happening. Every time I make a little batch of quilts like this (I’ve done birds and cats before), I realize about halfway through that I don’t like doing it. I like to make big things. I like to make things that matter. It’s not that they aren’t cute or cool (they are cute…for bugs)…it’s just not why I make art. And when I retire from teaching, I don’t want to spend more time doing that…making little things that might sell but take up all the time. I want to experiment, explore, make different things, like I’m trying to do with the clay. AND make the big beautiful quilts I really enjoy making. All that.

Anyway.

It’s gonna be a while. And I don’t like chocolate.

Today. Today I will finish the last bug. I will watch that kid I helped yesterday completely fail the quiz because no matter how much I tried to help him, his brain doesn’t get it, and that’s not his fault. And I hope we can get him more help. Same with the emergency meeting this morning. I just want them to get help, and I can’t always do that for them. Which sucks. I’m also going to ceramics (hopefully the hand will play along and be OK with that). And I’m going to read my book, maybe finish it. And label the bugs. And finish designing the academic assignment in space. The assignment is set in space…I don’t have to be in space (unfortunately) to do it. That might be fun too. It is Friday. That’s a thing.

Check for Zombies

Well hey. I wish I had slept more last night, but the little dog made me get up once to check for zombies and there were definitely other barky moments when I was like, “it wasn’t zombies LAST time, so no, I’m not getting out of bed”. He’s definitely in need of something these days. A long walk…a cuddle with his boy (who still has 10 days of training to go). He is a grumpy old man (the dog, to clarify…although there are other grumpy old men in my vicinity, for sure). What it means is that my brain is a little fuzzy (when is it not?) and my eyes a little crusty, and maybe I’m drinking this whole cup of tea quickly so I can get another one down? Ugh. When my doctor tells me to improve my sleep, for health reasons, I want to explain to her that I’ve always been a bad sleeper and that has not improved with age and there are many factors affecting my sleep, most of which (zombies) are out of my control. Oh well. Doing my best. Mostly. Nah, I could do better. If I had more sleep. Maybe.

So I’m still slogging along on bugs. I stitched the edges of the last two on Monday night…

And last night, I painted all five canvases…

Last time, some of them needed a second coat, but hopefully there’ll be a couple ready to stitch down tonight. I also need to make labels for the back.

I did some carving on Monday as well…

Just for fun planter…

In video…

I’m just gonna work on this here for a while. I need to buy more clay for the next batch of projects. Not there yet.

After dinner, I’ve been working on the centerpiece for Homegrown.

I think I just have that last flower on top to do and then I can piece the whole quilt together and start the borders. I’m ahead of schedule! I thought I wouldn’t finish the center until next year. I figured 5 flowers, 5 months? But I’ve been faster than that for once. Mostly because I’m trying to get work done before I leave school and then leave it there. Much as I can. I did last night, anyway.

This is the face of a cat spying a gecko on the window.

I was reading a book the other day and they used the term ‘sanguivore’ for vampires, and turns out, it’s a real word (I love learning new words) for things like vampire bats and mosquitos (bloodsuckers), so my co-teacher and I thought it would be cool to add this word learning to our 7th-grade curriculum when we do trophic levels (carnivores, herbivores, etc), adding this one to the mix and then having kids make some up…I came up with ‘cerebrevore’ for zombies…

Makes sense? Right? We are supposed to be teaching literacy.

This is relevant as I get closer to the Quilt Visions opening, where I will have to explain my work in front of people…

Sometimes it’s a challenge. This quilt is actually easy to explain and way too relevant these days.

This is another word I like.

Unfortunately, I think if I do that today, kids aren’t going to try to learn…they’re just going to copy each other and then Friday’s test will be painful. So I will have to interact with them. And I have a union meeting after school, so that’s more people and talking. When I just want to read my book in silence. Not happening. Tonight, I’ll be sewing little bug quilts on canvases and/or repainting some of them. All good. I will read my book at some point though. It’s required.