Brain Down Time…

Hey. It’s a Monday I can handle. I would’ve liked to sleep in more, but I’d have to live further in the boonies, away from gardeners and their blowing devices, plus no daylight to make animals think it’s feeding time. Not happening. Plus I shouldn’t go to sleep so late, but I was contemplating a drawing in progress, and I needed brain down time, and then the ideas popped into my head, but then it was like midnight and I knew Simba would be boofing early in the morning and the boychild would show up from work and there’s just no point in trying to sleep in. Ah well. My art brain is a child sometimes. I wanna stay up! So I’m a little tired this morning. What’s new.

So in quilt news, I finished the binding and sleeves on the Supremes quilt…

Then I needed to add some writing and embroidery (not a lot), so I did that Saturday. Then emailed the prospective buyer. Yes, y’all…this beauty has sold already. I’m always incredibly appreciative of those who support me in all the ways (two friends mailed me those stick-on thimbles to save my finger from holes while stitching the binding on). As I get closer and closer to retirement from teaching, which pays the bills, I do hope I can continue to make the big and beautiful quilts (as well as smaller ones), and selling them does help. This one took 181 hours to make. I’ve been working on it since July 13. At some point this week, I’ll make a post about all the bits and thoughts, best I can.

Saturday night, I started drawing the next quilt. I have a deadline. I’m trying to stay ‘simple’ (this is incredibly difficult for me). I had a drawing in my head, so I started on that, but Nova was insistent.

Really insistent…

Persistent even.

At some point, I just paused and petted her a lot and eventually she had enough attention and left, and I finished drawing. I have no picture of that, of course. And then yesterday, I enlarged the drawing and stared at it for about 30 minutes and then started adding stuff. But then stalled, so then I sat down and scrolled through stupid social media for a while as I watched Madam Secretary (still bingewatching that) and then the idea slammed me upside the head for how to complete it. I taped a bunch of paper on the side and bottom of what I’d drawn (Keep It Simple! um. Maybe not). And then realized it was almost midnight. Aargh. It’s OK. It’s in my head. I can do it. But to really meet the deadline with this one, I need to do more than an hour a night this week. So that’s my goal. Along with everything else. Put in some serious time every day. I can do that. Around cooking and going to family gatherings and dropping people at the airport and walking TWO dogs (the puppy who is no longer really a puppy is coming to stay for 8 days).

I’ve also been stitching down wool bits on something I can’t even show you…but it’s a brain filler. Lets me relax and see progress.

Saturday, we hiked…

My favorite tree fungi (above, not below).

Weird weather flow over the weekend. Today we are back to blue skies.

Girlchild is wandering through Scotland on her way to the wedding that the boychild and ex will be attending as well (hence my puppy visit)…

I’m totally jealous. I made one attempt to go through Scotland (by myself, with very little money), couldn’t understand anyone, got driven nuts by American tourists, and gave up after a week in Edinburgh. I regret that now, but know that I would be much more confident traveling now (it’s also easier with the internet etc.). Maybe someday. Anyway, so the whole family will be in the UK for Thanksgiving except for me, the Man, and the parental units. It’s OK…they’ll all be here for Xmas. I’ll be making a little Tday feast on Friday for us four. Not sure how many dogs will be attending that…at least two.

I also am trying to clean up and sort the other drawer of fabric that Kitten slept in for about 6 months. Serious fur incursions. I’m sorting, dehairing, washing when necessary. Prepping some to be donated. I have donations for SJSA if they need them and The Navajo Quilt Project. My quilt guild also needs donations. So my goal for this week is to get some stuff boxed up and mailed out. There are some reuse stores locally, but they want pictures and then to approve stuff, and that sounds like more than I can deal with at the moment. So here’s the blue drawer sort in progress…

Along with the perpetrator of furry deposits. Sigh. She loves to lie in fabric drawers, that’s for sure. Annoying.

I forgot to show the SAQA auction quilt I bought this year. This is by Jane Haworth…

To add to the collection…this is most of them, although there are 7 in other places around the house…

I usually buy one a year, but two years ago, I bought two because I had sold something and the dinosaur called out to me. They fit really well in the wall space above my windows. And I get to see them all the time. And you can hear the gardeners in the background. Not mine.

Simba in a mood…

OK. So let’s focus on today. I need to finish the drawing, number it, and start tracing. I also need to put some stuff in a safe place because that not-puppy is coming today and she destroys toys and other things. I need to go get my knees X-rayed for future cortisone shots (that I can’t get until February). I need to shower and eat breakfast before all that. I also need to do some grading today, get it over with so it doesn’t loom over me all week. Tomorrow, I’ll do some lesson planning. I think. I do have a vet appointment tomorrow for Simba’s eye again. He’s going to need surgery on a growth that is just getting bigger. And dental stuff for me on Wednesday. Fun times. Plus lots of dog walks and book reading. That’s the plan anyway. Make art, read, sleep, garden…damn, I need to do some of that too. OK. Whatever it is, I do need to get my act in gear and get started.

Current Mental State

Today is Friday before nine days off from school. Will I still have to do school things? Fuck yeah. Will I have to be on campus? Or deal with kids? Or meetings? Fuck no. Win win. I even turned today’s video into one that they need to do on their own, with headphones on. Good reason for that, actually…there’s a bunch of kids who need to complete one or two academic assignments, and this keeps it quiet. You know who else gets some quiet? Or at least can help some of the super low babies? ME. Yup. Smart move, Thursday Night Nida. You anticipated my lost voice, my tired brain, my DONE mentality. Good one. Sigh.

Had to get up early today for a parent meeting. So I’m rolling more tired than usual. This is the second one this week too. Pros from this week: my TA (teacher’s aide) took apart ALL the roller coasters, so my counters are CLEAN again. Bless that child. She just knows how to do the things. She also put away all the magnet stuff. I pulled the last bit, magnetic fields, and did it as a demo for most classes, because some dumbass kid did this…

If you’ve never had to get iron filings off a magnet, you might not understand what an asshole maneuver this is. I do. I’ve done it before. I warned them and then one sweet dumbass did this. So I took them away. There was some “not fair” being called out. It isn’t fair; you’re right. But there is my sanity. Anyway, magnets are done…electricity and light after break. Eyeballs after Winter Break. I still do labs. Just frustrated at the moment. Welcome to middle school.

I’ve been sewing binding for days…

Nova has decided it’s ‘commune with Kathy’ time. Which is fine. It’s nice to have a cat next to me (although she’d prefer ON me) on the couch. I made it all the way around the binding last night and started on the sleeves.

Looks like the same picture. Certainly I’m back in my pajamas. Different sweatshirt though.

And she’s actually nibbling my arm and making very sharp, pointy biscuits in my leg.

I have officially poked a hole in my finger, AND I can’t find the sticky thimble things. I put them somewhere safe. Again. I looked everywhere.

Speaking of looking everywhere, I lost the spool of thread I was using for the handstitching on Wednesday night. Couldn’t find it anywhere. Looked in the couch, under it, under the coffee table, etc. Thursday night, I took everything off the couch (it’s my embroidery project storage area really) and couldn’t find it, until I pulled the quilt out…I had looked before, but there it was, slipped down into the sleeve. Fun times. I love spending an hour looking for something like that. It’s a sign of my current mental state. Soon to be better! More sleep, more time to just be, get some stuff done, start a new quilt (this one is going to the photographer tomorrow). All good. Take the time, relax. Read 17 books. You know. YES, I have to clean house for Thanksgiving and do all the sociable things I don’t feel like doing, plus dentist, doggie eye doctor, make a decision about pneumonia shot (I’m still sporting a rash from the COVID/flu shot extravaganza from last week). It’ll be fine. It’s time anyway, and that’s one thing I always need more of.

That Mindspace

OK. It’s Monday, but it’s a week until I get a week off. Yes, I just had a day off, and yes, I enjoyed the extra time before I had to buckle down and work for the day job. I need more of that. I’m a little in burnout mode right now. Trying to stay out of that…it won’t help me get through the rest of the year. Not sure what will, though. So can I do this 5 days? Um. Maybe. Seriously. Not sure how long all the things will take. I added new stuff this year to stuff I did last year, so there’s always this sense of not having a clue how long anything will take. But only half of it, because the other half is stuff I did do. Ugh. Anyway, we’re in magnets and at least there’s some hands-on stuff this week, but a bunch of stuff is up in the air, hope it works, or hope it doesn’t, or shift this because of that. So that’s not something I really enjoy. I like knowing what I’m doing and how long it will take. Yup.

Plus there’s like 4 parent meetings, but I can’t go to one of them, and one of the others, I need to get through a phone call visit with my doctor in time to go to that one, which I organized (it’s not how I meant it to be), so that’s fun. Double ugh.

Meanwhile, I did finish quilting on Saturday night…

Spent a few hours Friday night…

Finished the outlining with an hour or so on Saturday morning, then packed it up and went to buy binding, because the store is closed on Sunday. Then came back and started the background.

Saturday, I quilted for 5 hours.

I remember back in the old days, pre-COVID, when I could spend most of Saturday working on art stuff if I wanted to.

The only way I could pull it off this weekend was because I had Friday free too. Sad but true.

Then last night, I trimmed the quilt and started getting the binding and sleeves on.

I didn’t finish. I started at 9 PM (worked on school stuff from 2 PM until then, minus cooking and eating dinner). And then it was 10:40 and I needed to go to bed.

I still have one sleeve to put on plus all the hand stitching. I’ll be on the couch with that this week. Then I’m emailing the photographer. He’ll have a field day with this one. Then hopefully mail it off to its new owner. Although my quilt guild wants to see it…so we’ll see if the timing works on that for the next meeting.

Anyway. The next one is in my head. Not sure if I have time to finish it for that deadline, but we’ll see.

Meanwhile, I’ve been drawing in restaurants and forgetting to photograph any of it.

Sometimes it takes two nights out to finish a drawing. Not that one. They took a really long time to serve us.

I drew at the book signing while I was waiting. Shootings are apparently often on my brain.

Sad but true.

It’s the one time I get to draw at the moment. No other free time, really. I need to have a certain frame of mind to draw, and it’s harder to find that mindspace. If I’m home, I’m more likely to pick up my computer and try to get school stuff done. Because it’s ever present.

Friday, I spent time with my old veteran, replacing some lattice covers so I could plant something to cover them.

The old ones were 20 years old and broken, so these have another 20 years hopefully. I also got two vaccines, one of which is causing an allergic reaction on my arm…fun times. Then two MRIs (one for each knee!). It was a weird day. But some stuff got done, which is good.

OK. Well. Today is what it is. I go to work and keep teaching magnets, and hope the labs work out etc. And all the parent meetings this week go well. And I feel less burnt? Unlikely. That’s just the way this year is rolling. Ah well. Time to build some mental health days into my curriculum, eh? I think so.

Y’all Didn’t Read Instructions…

Grades are done. A miracle in itself. It felt never-ending. I mean, I say they’re done, but that’s just Trimester 1. I have four more iterations of panicking over grades. This school year. I actually already have stuff to be graded for Trimester 2…oh yay! A project is finishing up today and tomorrow, with a packet and roller coaster to be graded. 34 roller coasters, as quickly as possible, before the tape starts to fail and they don’t work. I’d do it today, but I have to ship a quilt. Tomorrow after school is pilates and Wednesday is a union meeting. Thursday? I don’t know. I still need sub plans for Wednesday morning’s literacy meeting. Not sure when I’m doing those, let alone making sure I have everything copied for next week (I don’t. None of it.),

I get frustrated with kids who continually resubmit their work without actually reading instructions or comments. I have two who tried to resubmit over the weekend (gradebook closed 10/27 y’all) but no. Y’all didn’t read instructions. You didn’t follow them. You didn’t read or follow comments. I’m done. I’m out. I cannot grade 24 hours a day.

I did get some other things done this weekend: I fixed the damn showerhead so there’s actual water coming out of it. Plus! That was a kamikaze trip to Home Depot. I also got the boychild and the ex to buy me lattice (it won’t fit in my car; I needed a truck) so I can replace what’s on the deck posts and maybe plant some things that will grow up it. I need dad’s help with that. I planted out a bunch of succulents that had been (unhappily) living on the kitchen counter. I have two more that need to go out there, but I went to my quilt guild meeting, which was nice…got to see everyone’s scrap block challenge pieces, the one I never got to. I know…I never do. Well, except during COVID.

And I quilted…Friday night…in the swamp.

Saturday night, I worked on pedestals…

Last night, I finished the pedestals, did the goddess’ legs up to the pubic area, and got most of the people under the umbrella done.

I have two people left to do. The machine is being a little fussy. Not sure how to make it stop. Probably needs cleaning. Next time I refill the bobbin thread, I’ll do that. See if it helps. Also, when I finish, I probably need to call the machine guy and put it on the list to be serviced. I think it’s been a year. They used to put a sticker on it so I would know. Not finding it. Doesn’t mean a cat didn’t eat it.

Probably not this one…

Nova has been clawing my ass in the work chair out in the living room, or making air biscuits here on the couch. But not in my office/studio.

We went hiking on Saturday…

It’s getting dark so early. Ugh. Even earlier tonight.

The next month is a little lighter on the weekend events. Plus some days off from work, which will be much appreciated. I’ll still need to grade and plan, but not while I’m working in the classroom. After today, I can put all the roller coaster materials away and we can move on to the next stuff. After I find all the magnets. I know they’re somewhere. Probably multiple somewheres.

She is cute.

So I’ll be quilting all week, probably. I tried to buy binding on Saturday on the way back from my guild meeting, but I didn’t find anything obvious that would work. I’m going to have to wait until I’m done (or near done) quilting and take the whole quilt in. Friday or Saturday. The quilt store isn’t open late enough during the week. I do have Friday off, so hallelujah. Today is finish building roller coasters, get packets in order, ready to turn in, babysit some kids who didn’t go on the other team’s field trip, a staff meeting, then drive to the UPS place that is actually open after 2 PM to ship this quilt. I have to cook tonight, plus plan some more or something for school. Then quilt. Blessed quilt.

Focus.

Hey yo. Going into Friday with an attempt at zen that will probably dissolve into wack. British spelling. Means something different than what I might do to a mole. Anyway. So that’s my brain falling into rabbit holes. FOCUS Nida. Focus.

As I’m grading all this last-minute crap, that’s what I’m constantly telling myself. Some of them are doing a great job; it’s a joy to regrade their work, note the improvement, tell them how awesome they are. But then a chunk are just rushing it, they’re still not getting it, they’re fixing as fast as possible and still doing a crap job. Frustrating. And those are the ones sending me emails begging me to change their grade, or asking me “does ANYONE get an A in your class?”. Yes dear, but today? Not you. Can that change? Sure. Keep working. If I’d had her last year, she’d be there, but of course, this is the year where you have to have a 4.0 and outstanding in behavior every fucking trimester to get on the stage at graduation. This is one of the things I hate about 8th grade. The begging and pleading. Just listen to the instructions, turn your brain on, and stop writing random stuff. And then there’s the one kid who is using AI. But I’m worried about her. But I’m not letting her get away with it. Sigh. Plus the kids who are still turning in late work and trying to resubmit stuff when the deadline is past. Way past.

I have one more major redo to grade, and then a whole host of little bits and pieces to check. Plus a quilt to pack for shipping. Plus a quilt guild meeting. I want to hike tomorrow. Sometime. Daylight savings is about to fuck us over, so do it now! Hike!

Let’s talk about quilting. Because I finally am. There’s a lot of detail on this thing, but I can look back at the cyberpunk piece, which was a similar size and detail, not as many pieces though, and it was 14 hours of quilting. I’m going to buy binding this weekend though. Not because I need to this week; I could probably push it to next weekend, but because the week has been shit and I need to reward my hard-ass work with some fabric. Don’t look at my stash as I say that. It’s not warranted. But it is necessary.

So Wednesday night, I finally got everything ironed and laid out on the floor…

It was pretty easy, no fussiness. Which is nice.

It took more than an hour to iron stuff and then lay it out, so I didn’t get to quilting until last night.

I started late, because I was still grading crap at 9:30 PM. Fun times. Came home and that’s all I did except make dinner in the middle of that 5-hour time frame. Also the girlchild was on FaceTime with me as she tried to find parking near a Day of the Dead celebration, which unfortunately for her parking situation, was right near her apartment. I don’t miss parking troubles, for sure. Anyway, that’s about 55 minutes of quilting done. One chapter of Ursula K. LeGuin on audiobook. I have a hard time concentrating on audiobooks. I might need to not read book-club books that way. I don’t really hold onto the info. I need to see the words. I’m done with Chapter 3 and I’m still not really sure why this person is on this other planet. Hopefully in the next 10 hours, it will make more sense. Or I’ll have to get the real book and try again.

So I’ll be quilting for the next week. In case you were wondering. I’m good with that. I have the next quilt pre-drawn in my head, which is good, because it’ll be like a 5- to 6-week turnaround. Yikes!

Here was my grading setup yesterday…

Laptop has assignment I’m checking. Candy corn post-its are lists of whose stuff has actually be resubmitted on the form (I ignore the rest; they randomly resubmit without changing anything and it drives me bonkers). Extra monitor has the rubric up for whatever I’m grading. Judgy cat butt is there for general excitement. She’s looking for geckos. To her left is my notebook, propped up on a drawer so (a) I can note any grade changes and (b) Nova can eventually knock it off when she panics about something and jumps off. I’ll be there again tonight and part of tomorrow probably. We’ll see.

Ugh. Here’s one of the four books I’m reading…this is Margaret Atwood in one of her essays/speeches.

Sigh. I never feel like I do enough for that.

School is getting me down. Last year, I was losing my mind about now over 8th grade, but the teacher on leave was coming back at the beginning of November, so I saw a light. Well he didn’t support until mid-February, gave me 6 weeks, and then bowed out. I’m not seeing a light this year, and I suspect last year kinda traumatized me (OK, more than kinda), so I’m just depressed about all of it this year. Put your head down and get it done. Not a fan. That said, here’s a bunch of paper roller coasters half done…

Amusingly, they are supposed to BE done today. We’ll see how that goes. I remember now that the lazy sit-on-your-butt and do-nothing kids drove me crazy during this project, so I’m glad I shortened it this year. They’ll get it done…or not. I’m OK with that. They can still do the academic part without the coaster done; they’ll just lose effort points.

Today. They build. I manage. They have a quiz. Ha! I grade tonight. I quilt tonight. At least I don’t have to wake up in the dark tomorrow morning. Pro. And I think I get to hang out with some friends tonight, briefly. That’s cool.

It’s the Spider’s Fault…

So Saturday night, or maybe it was Sunday morning, I kept waking up and trying to puzzle out what day it was. Did I have to be up early for school? Was I ready? Had I planned? What the hell? It’s true I did absolutely no schoolwork on Friday night or all day Saturday, so I get the panic, but Saturday nights should be clear of most of that, right? It’s 2 AM and my brain is trying to figure out what clues I have for what day it is…no dog, so that’s one of three nights a week. What did I do the night before? Ah, there’s a drawing, so it must have been a Saturday.

There’s more in the finished drawing…it took a long time to get the food. Pro: more time for drawing. There’s little enough of that going on these days.

I had a quilt guild meeting on Saturday and worked a little more on my incredibly slow stitching from 2020? Or was it 2021? Can’t remember.

My brain thought about staying and doing the post-meeting activity, but I really just wanted to get back and iron the Supremes. So I did.

Well, this was Friday night…after a long semi-difficult day that ended with my 56-year-old self trying to figure out how best to break up a fight without getting injured myself. Fun times. I think I came home and slumped on the couch for two hours before I started functioning again.

I did eventually find the missing ‘C’ on Sunday night…

Then Saturday afternoon…

I spent a couple of hours doing the goddess’ legs and toes and all…

Then went for a 3-mile hike by myself…the Man was not feeling well.

Sunset is getting earlier. I was just about OK on time…

It was warm at the start…despite being October, it was in the 90s during the day. But by the end, there was a cool breeze…and this sweet little California Horned Toad/Lizard…

I love these guys. They’re hard to see, so it’s a treat to actually see one.

After dinner, I ironed some more…here’s Gorsuch.

His ‘O’ disappears later. Not sure where. I’m sure it’s here. There was a spider that I think dropped from the ceiling, right on him (ironic?), so there was some scuttling of things to catch it, then forget I had caught it under something and recatching it. I suspect the O succumbed to all that scuttling. I’ll find it. Or recut it. It’s the spider’s fault anyway.

The whole piece so far.

There’s a lot going on in this quilt. I also ironed a bunch of money that’s floating around all those justice’s heads…

Sunday there was less ironing time. Almost 3 hours on Saturday was delightful. Sunday was just over an hour…

The ‘O’ is gone, but there’s Alito. It takes about 70 minutes to iron a Justice. It’s mostly the fingers and the face…all the details. I iron the ears, then the eyes. Then pull the eyes off and do the rest of the face so I can place the eyes well. Stitching will help with the details too.

I’m in the 1000s, about halfway through them, so also halfway through the quilt. I figure a Justice a night…but I’ve got a hellaciously busy week. Three nights with 2-hour meetings. Today’s 1-hour meeting got canceled, and I get to be in charge of the department meeting, so I suggested grade-level was fine, get your stuff done. We don’t need to meet. We already meet Tuesday and Wednesday during prep.

I worked from about 2 PM until 9:15 PM, with an hour’s break to make lunches for the week, and another hour’s break to make dinner and eat it. I didn’t finish. I never do. I did get some major stuff done, though, so I can at least get through this week and the start of next week. I think. Not quite. Gonna use my prep and after school today to make more sense of it…and to make copies. The Man will be gone for 6 days to hike the Trans-Catalina Trail this weekend. AND it’s the Interpretations opening and artist talks and artist dinner at Visions this weekend. Super busy. Two weeks behind on grading homework, but I should be able to get through that this week…we’re doing stations, plus writing a CER (that’s high-maintenance), and then doing a project. So I should have some free time in at least SOME of the classes to get work done. Using time efficiently. Sit next to the kid(s) who need help, but grading at the same time. We all do it.

Hello Kitten. She’s still here. Older by the minute.

I had a drawer of fabric that she (or someone?) peed in so I spent some time this weekend trying to get the pee smell out. Not quite there yet. Frustrating. They’re usually really good about that…which is why I think it was her. Losing control a bit. Giving her lots of love while she’s still here.

OK. Donuts and voting this morning. Teaching. Collisions and momentum. Tried to find a good simple video about conserving momentum that wasn’t too mathy. Wasn’t successful. Could be problematic. Almost done with my book, so suspect I will be doing that tonight. Hoping anyway. And ironing. Thomas is next. He’s complicated…in more ways than one.

Hearts and love to everyone trying to survive in Israel right now. More wars. Do we need them? More death? Sigh. Religion and hate make such a mess of things. Sending good healing and loving thoughts in that direction, hoping it helps. Maybe if we all do it, the warmongers will get hit so hard by the blast of good feelings that they’ll just stop. We can hope. I certainly don’t have any better solutions.

Lots of Trees…

Hey. Camping and hiking was good. Definitely helped my mindset. I got to draw for fun. I was still worried about some of the family stuff, but that’s better since yesterday. Unfortunately, the work stuff was full on in my face when I got home. Grades are due in a week, and now I have more stuff I have to do in the same time frame. I was hoping I’d have more time. Nah. Why give y’all time, you teachers? You don’t need time. I’ll get my head around it (maybe). I’m just irritated at everything piling up in the same week again. You can take time off from work, but you will pay for it later…and before, to be honest. I worked my butt off last week to make sure I was ready for this coming week without having the weekend. Ah well. I only have 7 things to grade and a pre-evaluation reflection to do. I love being told what to reflect about…like I didn’t spend all summer beating myself up about last year. I made goals for this year, all of them kinda shut down for now as we just get through it. None of MY goals are on the district list of what I should care about. And now you want me to make some other goal…ok, I can do that, but I don’t know how to implement it. I don’t have a fucking clue at the moment. I don’t have the time or the mental space. At all. One of my goals is work/life balance. Ironically, that never shows up on the evaluation list. I don’t know how to do that goal either.

Maybe I should go camping again this weekend. Ha! Sigh.

So camping started with hellacious traffic…apparently Interstate 8 is down to one lane for a while, so there was about an hour of this…

Except imagine all those cars and trucks merging into one lane and you’ll have it. We were hoping to get up there before dark. Mostly it was dusk and then dark as we were setting up the campground. We were smart enough to have easy dinner plans. The fire was good until it wasn’t. I think the Man restarted it 17 times. I was drawing the whole time, but my brain was still stuck in work and drive mode, so it turned into a lot of weird balloon heads.

Can’t really explain it. It rained a bit in the night, which is the best time for it to rain while camping. The next morning, we moved slowly, which is also OK. It wasn’t supposed to be super hot this weekend, so getting an early hiking start wasn’t required. Good thing, because I don’t think either of us had an early start in us.

We booked late, so we didn’t have a lot of campsite choices…this one was OK…lots of cars going past, needs some bushes or trees along the road (it used to have them…we could see the stumps)…

But we wandered the campground a few times and found some sites that would be better. Honestly, this was away from all the chaos of the center of the campground. That’s a plus.

We set out hiking late…

The Man hiked south of here when he did the PCT, but hadn’t done the northern section because he came off trail to resupply here. So he missed a bit of the trail. We hiked south to where he had camped last year when he was training to hike the second try.

Lots of trees…

Lots of flowers, which was nice…

Lots of bike tracks (not so nice)…no bikes allowed on the PCT, but this is what the assholes do…

If we cross it off, it doesn’t exist? For the number of people in the campground, I was surprised there weren’t more people on the trails. We didn’t see very many people at all. We did about 4.5 miles, came back to camp and rested/ate, then did another 2.5 miles north…

Just to see the desert view…

Always impressive.

It was National Get the Fuck Outside Day (actually National Public Lands Day or something nice like that…we were on public lands though!).

At that point, it was pretty warm, so I decided to wait 45 minutes for a shower.

Stared at the clouds a lot while waiting. Some people are totally inconsiderate in campgrounds. Like a 30-minute shower when 4 people are waiting. Annoying.

We went out to dinner. We really were trying to take care of ourselves this weekend. Make it good. Setting stuff up and taking it down is hard enough. We didn’t need to haul a second dinner with us. Then a successful fire night! I sat there for probably an hour before I could draw.

I was tired, and the pre-evaluation meeting shit had popped up on my calendar while we were hiking and I was irritated by it. But then I got it out of my head (well, I shoved it into a drawer) and I drew.

In case you’ve ever wondered what it looks like when I draw in campgrounds…

That’s pretty much it. At some point, I put gloves on, because I was cold, and that made it harder to draw. But I did it anyway.

Up the next morning, no rush, here’s the morning wake-up woodpecker.

We made it home, put everything away, bought groceries, and I got back into the weekly grind. Send weekly email, make sure everything is set up for the week, I need sub plans for Thursday and next Monday (literacy meeting and knee doctor, finally). Full on cried a little while grading, after I made the to-do list and tried to figure out how I’d get it all done this week.

Then back to this…

Finally I can see the bottom of the to-cut box! I might finish tonight. Maybe. I have book club on Zoom. I’m supposed to be meeting some curator to pick a piece of art, but I haven’t heard from him, so who knows if it’s tonight or some other night. I have to grade stuff too. Not sure when that slots in. As usual.

Yeah. This is too real right now.

Sigh. It’s fine. Work is not ideal. I’m almost ready to iron this quilt together. That’s cool. I enjoyed most of the weekend. Also cool. Yes, I could take work notifications off my phone, but then I’d never remember to do any of it. Yeah. That might be a plan. Problematic plan, but a plan nonetheless.

A Train on Steroids

Ah a Monday off of work. The sweet sound of children screaming in next-door’s pool. The delightful challenge of installing a dryer vent with at least two trips to Home Depot, plus the scintillating smell of cat pee (gotta wash the litter tray completely out and or throw it out and buy a new one). I finished (almost) all of my work yesterday so I wouldn’t have to do any today. I would’ve done more, but the (um WTF is another word for delightful but when you don’t really mean it) ENCHANTING trait of one of my co-teachers to NOT upload the things I need to plan ahead NOR to answer emails or texts means I can do no more. Lucky that, I guess, although I’ll pay for it later.

This weekend has been a lot of gardening and house stuff, trying to get things under control, because the next three weeks are a little out of control already. I see them barreling at me, like a train on steroids. No worries. Really. It’s like this every year. Adding in an opening in Los Angeles next weekend and camping two weekends after that. Because there’s nothing like a little crazy when it’s already nuts.

I did manage ironing. I’m about 4-5 hours away from done, I think. I don’t think I’ll get there today, but I will sometime this week. Which is good. I’m in the mood to cut things out for a while instead.

Friday night, I ironed the rest of Kavanaugh down…

And started Coney-Barrett.

Saturday, I was much more effective…got Coney-Barrett done, plus Brown-Jackson, and started Kagan…

I did some before we headed out for some art openings and dinner…

And some after all that.

It’s getting pretty chaotic in the fabric bins.

There’s a lot of black and flesh tones in this quilt…

I added more after this…but I also took some out of the far left bin. They didn’t work.

Last night, I ironed the rest of Kagan and all of Sotomayor.

Just Roberts left…and Bader Ginsburg. I’m in the middle of the 1500s. So about 500 pieces left, but I’ve done a few of them already, Roberts’ robes I think. What’s left?

The rest of the goddess, which includes the Supreme Court building itself, then all the things planted on top of the goddess’ arms. So like I said, I’m getting there. The next bits should go a little faster. Maybe. When it’s more about what’s in my head and less about trying to realistically match a skin tone or make a decision about eye color…might be faster. I’m 27 1/2 hours into the ironing. Epic.

So Friday after work, I headed down to the water for a friend’s mom’s retirement party.

It was delightfully cool and oceany, unlike my entire week.

And it was good to hang out with the other work team for a while.

Her mom had lots of smiles on, which is a good thing.

Saturday afternoon, the Man and I went to two related art openings, one at City College and one at Art Produce. I loved Bhavna’s piece at City College, I Found a River in My Body.

Some of her smaller pieces are available at Art Produce. There is an auction going on to raise money for more art stuff. You can find the link at the Art Produce site.

We had a drink while waiting for the second show to open, and then went back to the same place for dinner. There are more bars and restaurants opening in the area, which is cool, because Art Produce has been there for a long time, waiting for the rest to show up.

Lots of art in the area, including this Gloria Muriel mural…

Yesterday I planted all the succulents that have been lying around after being trimmed off something else. I think I need to water today too. Plus iron. Plus book club is tonight, rescheduled. I really just want to lie on the couch, drinking tea and reading my book. I’m feeling a bit off, not quite well. Drinking lots of Vitamin C and hoping for the best.

Kitten is overseeing the ironing like a boss.

Sometimes she is more demanding than others…

Ah yes, thanks for Labor Day all…someone posted this wonderful reminder by @ricardolevinsmorales…

Really, that’s all teachers want. Less of the work, more of the rest and what we will. It’s too hard with what has been put on our plates so far. Certainly, I’ve probably done 8 hours so far this weekend. Most weekends it’s 5-6. Plus all the after hours stuff. Ugh.

OK. So for the rest of the day, I am going to read for a bit, then look at the to-do list. I’m going to iron as well, get myself through the last of the living justices. School this week will be short but probably painful (two early morning meetings, not my favorite). There will be a lot of grading coming the end of this week and the start of the next, and I won’t have a good chunk of the weekend. The neighbor kids have hit an unreasonable noise level that probably won’t let up for 5 or 6 hours, unfortunately. Ah well. And tomorrow, back to work. No more days off until November. The long stretch of September and October is here. Not a fan, although October weather can be lovely. Hopefully. Bright blue skies with cotton ball clouds. A bit of a breeze but not so warm. It’s actually like that today, but not for long…warm days are coming.

It Takes the Time It Takes…

Hey so Hurricane Hilary downgraded to Tropical Storm Hilary and then pretty much just dumped rain on us and didn’t do a lot else where I live in East County. Which is a good thing for us. Looks like the deserts and Mexico were hit much harder. Thankful for the fact that we weren’t. Certainly we still had to prep to teach today…presumably if there’d been more damage, they would have given us an extra day. As it was, I did a bunch of planning Saturday afternoon because of all the threats of power outages etc. that were gonna happen. Education rarely stops for natural disasters.

This was Saturday night, I think.

Strange though. We don’t get hit directly by these things normally. The remnants come off the Gulf of Mexico or up from South America. Our winter storms were worse than this in terms of wind. That said, we had one branch that decided to become heavier until it touched the end of the driveway.

We went out to deal with it, which of course was harder than we’d hoped, and that’s when the rain got really heavy, so we all ended up soaked. Nothing else was an issue though. Knock on wood. Tree trimming is one of the biggest expenses on my property…and one I often can’t afford unfortunately. It’s on my list.

The skies were beautiful on Saturday night. We don’t face west, but we get the reflections on clouds…

The calm before the storm…

Which ended up being pretty calm here.

Thankfully.

I ironed Friday night…

And Saturday night…

I swear, they don’t look very different. They are. I know that. This is taking a long time.

I feel like I would have been more efficient if I wasn’t running around worrying about a hurricane. I guess that’s normal.

And Sunday night…

Doesn’t look like much. I have three pedestals done. Granted, they are complicated, but I’m not being fast about this at all. Any plan to be done by next weekend seems like a giant joke right now. I guess I just go with it. It takes the time it takes. It’s taking that much time because there are lots of color decisions to be made, minute ones. Not big overreaching ones. Accept it and keep going. I think I’m still in the 300s. Am I? No! I made it to the 400s last night. So I’ll be surprised if I’m done by this weekend. I have so many 2-hour meetings after school, no joke, ugh. This week sucks.

One thing that didn’t suck was a mini-art retreat a friend put on Saturday morning. I missed coloring with markers. We had three prompts for this one.

Then three for this one…

Which we folded into a book…

Intriguing…

Would have been cool to do with my art classes.

So glad I’m not teaching art this year. Then we did another all-over one and turned it into a book.

Less abstract.

So ironing all week. I’m already exhausted, so that’s fun. Egg/eyeball demo today…decided against doing it as a lab. I haven’t grocery-shopped yet due to hurricane prep/worries, so that’s happening after a 2-hour staff meeting and 40-minute paid interview today. Ugh. Need to prep some stuff for later in the week and next week. Two evenings of sex-ed committee meetings with ‘concerned parents and school-board members’ who think we are grooming students. Idiots. If I’m grooming them, they would be kind, turn all their work in, charge their chromebooks, and wear deodorant. I did review all their ‘All About Me’ papers yesterday, so I know all the nicknames, but no, I’m not calling that one kid Heisenberg. Not happening. First full week of the school year with kids! It’ll be long and painful. Wish us luck.

Yeah that too.

New Babies…

OK. Mondays. They are just hard. I’m awake. The alarm took care of that. And the shower. And the first half of a cup of tea. Plus it is daylight. Some neighbor is already making gardening noises, so if I weren’t back to work, I’d be irritated by how early it was. But it’s supposed to be hot today and right now it is overcast and cool, so I get it. I’m an evening gardener as opposed to a morning gardener. It’s just my thing. I’ve been planting cuttings from a few succulents that have gotten too large and fallen over in the last week. One yielded about 15 large cuttings; the other, only 4. Plus I think there are two more floating around somewhere. I love succulents for their ability to regrow, to just lie around for a while and then find the dirt. Some I had just lying on the ground, ready for transplanting, but I waited too long and they rooted there. Whoops. Makes it easy for those like me who are not GREAT gardeners. I water. Sometimes I fertilize. Sometimes I forget to water, although I find it meditative to wander around the yard, checking on plant status, looking for caterpillars or new growth.

Like this one…broken off the main cactus, which was grown after I carried a piece back during COVID, filled my hand with stickers because it LOOKED smooth. I put this little piece in a pot months ago and it curled over and broke and I’m like, well that’s it, it’s going to rot away now, but NO. The joy of new babies.

Check them out. That’s exciting. One of my weird old lady habits now.

So. I know, I just posted, but I wrote that Friday morning. Then somehow walked away from the computer (probably panicking about time) and didn’t post it. It was missing a title and a photo and that was it. So here’s Friday and the weekend.

A 3-hour staff meeting…but I forgot my sketchbook. I meant to drop it in my bag, but no. And they logically made us put our computer lids down. So we could answer questions and talk to each other. OK. Well I don’t function well under those circumstances, so I drew all over the question paper.

With the only color I could find in my bag.

These would make cool little quilts. I don’t have time for that right now, but someone remind me later, eh? Because I don’t have a million little drawings lying around. Ha! Here’s the one from Saturday night, which I started last week somewhere…

It’s still not done. I don’t draw fast enough or they bring the food too fast. No, I don’t know if they’re being shot out of cannons or planted in toilet paper tubes. Hard to say. Is that grass or fire on the right? Unknown.

Friday night, I finished cutting all the Wonder Under.

It took 11 hours and 38 minutes. I stayed up too late to do it, because I had an opening to go to before. Then Saturday night, I sorted all the pieces…

That was 2 hours and 11 minutes. And 21 boxes. Significant.

Then last night, I picked my background (luckily I had enough of something that worked, because I forgot to go to the quilt store) and cleaned the studio, putting all the fabric away from the last quilt. I laid out the first 100 pieces and started with the volcano.

I hang the drawing up so I can see it. Yes there’s some chaos going on below the drawing. I don’t know what to say about that except I need more storage or to clean up what I have, but time for that takes away from time for this.

And I have limited patience for that. Barely a start there, but a start. Looking forward to the next probably 25 hours of ironing these…hopefully more than an hour a night, or it will take me until September. Ugh.

Friday night’s opening was at the San Diego Downtown Library, in their 9th-floor exhibition space, which is very nice. My crooked photo of the blurb.

And there’s my piece, Doctor’s Orders…

Plus me! After a very frustrating day at work managing a lot of other people’s stuff instead of my own. I came home, showered, changed, and left again. With more tea in me. This show was mostly Allied Craftsmen, but a few other people added in.

I made an Instagram reel of this video of me rolling around my very undone room. It might be better with the music.

Many people were like, it looks great! Good enough! The only thing I had done was open/unlock cupboards and move the tables and chairs. Literally nothing in the eyes of what needed to be done. All those boxes needed to get OUT of the prep room so we can use it.

It’s OK. This was after three hours on Saturday…

I also went in Sunday and mopped the prep room floor because it was disgusting. Plus made a bunch of copies because they needed to be made. Today, I have two meetings and hopefully I’ll get a big chunk done. Hoping. Saturday, I was feeling very stressed about all of it. I’m still having issues. Also, the A/C isn’t working. So it’s warm. Not great. Supposed to be in the 90s this week.

And I also did a reel of this, so you could see what 2 hours of sorting pieces looks like. The plus of the reel is not listening to whatever I was watching I guess.

For each one, I’m looking at the number and finding the box with that number. Sometimes with the little pieces, I put them in my hand and pile them up by number, which is a little faster.

Sunday, I also cut out pieces for a revision of a tattoo quilt I’m doing.

We did a short hike.

The Man’s back is bothering him.

Plus it’s hot. But check out that thundercloud! It did not make its way to us, unfortunately.

And Kitten this morning. 15 years old. Definitely slowed down. Poor old lady.

Yes, she has taken over that drawer of blue fabric.

Anyway, that’s it. And I have to be at school in 30 minutes. Need meds, brush teeth, etc. More tea! Totally more tea. One meeting this morning, then one this afternoon. Hopefully my room will be presentable by 1 PM for that one. Or not! Then home after a couple of errands, to maybe go to the gym with my book, definitely ironing to fabric tonight. Definitely.