This is the last full week of school. It’s a doozy, of course. Nothing like next week, but still a ton of stuff going on, both at school and in the evenings. Fewer kids turning in late work this trimester. A blessing for me; maybe not so much for their grades. No more lesson planning really though. That’s a plus. Spent so many hours over the last school year trying to do that. Desperately doing that. Can’t teach if you don’t know what you’re teaching. Glad that’s done. Mostly. Yeah. This week is pregnancy and STIs, plus bridge building and maybe breaking, plus a field trip, but coming back and teaching afterwards. Ugh. It’ll be fine. Right? It will? It will be something.
I did get some significant progress done on the new quilt…traced a chunk of time on Saturday…
Before a hike and after dinner. Made it more than halfway.
Then last night, I was going to grade another thing (I graded all afternoon), but then a kid, two kids really, cheated in a truly annoying assholular way, so I quit. Did not have the mental stamina to continue. So I traced instead, which may always be the healthier option.
There’s only 60 pieces left for tonight, and then I can start cutting.
Simba curled up on the couch. Yeah, I had hoped to be done with the tracing yesterday, but I did other things instead. Got a lot of things crossed off the to-do list, which is good. Feels less overwhelming at the moment.
The next goal is to be totally cut out this week and ironing to fabric by the weekend. Hopefully. Gotta put a lot of stuff away in the studio for that to happen, and I’m not sure I have a background fabric that will work. We’ll see.
I drew a little at dinner…
I don’t know if I posted this one, from the last two weeks of dinners…
Some places serve food super fast and I don’t have time to really finish a drawing. This sketchbook is almost finished. It’s a perfect size to fit in my purse. I probably have another one in my stash that will fit.
I went to my quilt guild meeting and worked on this. The never-to-be-finished scarf.
Almost got the body done. Still need to do the face and then decide what else I’m doing. I’m not covering all the black. I think.
We also hiked the dogs…mostly trying to tire out the puppy.
We tired the old man (the dog, not the Man) out pretty quickly…
But Annie was still zooming around at the end of 3 miles.
She was pretty good…a few moments of chewing stuff and she peed and pooped in the house in the first hour, but then figured out how to tell us she needed to go out. Good thing; she’ll be back in two weeks when the ex helps drive the girlchild across country. I’ll be off school, though, so hopefully that will help. Or not! Who knows.
Lots of blooming going on in the yard…
Lots of my chipping away at weeds, cleaning up the yard, trying to make it nicer. A little bit at a time. It probably needs more than a little bit, but that’s what I have time for. That and reading and making art. Lots of reading to do…looking forward to more of that. I do have a school training I have to do in July, and I really should plan things (but not sure how that goes…probably need to meet with my 8th-grade team at some point, but one is a newbie to our school and the other one is as burnt out as I am). Hmm. Not worrying about that right now. Maybe later this week.
Annie meets Kitten. Pretty sure I have scratches from this meeting.
9 days y’all. I might actually survive this school year…it felt pretty desperate last November…but I seem to have managed it. Not sure how. OK. Monday. Go to school.
I’m so off on my blog writing. It’s OK. I should have done it yesterday, but I read my book instead. In fact, there’s a lot of things lately where I think, “I should have done it…, but I read my book instead.” It’s OK. It’s a coping mechanism. It doesn’t make the right eye twitch less at this point. A week of sleep might, but that’s unlikely. Anyway, two weeks of school left. Some field trips, some promotion practice, some bridge building, some reproductive learning. It is easier. I still have stuff to grade, though. Brought a bunch of it home but have felt not at all like looking at it. Not a surprise really. Already mentally on break? Can’t really be there already. Next weekend will be a crazy batch of grading. This weekend, we are puppysitting. I did start tracing the new quilt though…people are always amazed that I go right into the next one without a break, but this one has been drawing itself in my head for almost 8 months. It needs to come out. I don’t like sitting down after school on the couch and NOT thinking about artmaking. My brain is on overdrive, often three or four quilts out, what’s next? Appease the art brain.
Anyway, I started tracing on Thursday night…
The first background pieces are large, long, and swoopy, so I didn’t get far. Last night, I finished those up and started on the sun.
Annie (Anwen) was trying to help by climbing up on the light table (the cats do it; why can’t I?). Not helpful. But I did get a goodly chunk of stuff traced last night; hopefully more today. I wanted to be done with tracing by Sunday night. Not sure I can pull that off. I do have a meeting today and we need to walk the dogs, tire the puppy out at least. And I do have things to do that are house-related instead of school-related. We’ll see how it goes.
So far, she’s peed on one couch, which led me to find a bra belonging to the girlchild (she hasn’t been here since December) and pooped on a rug. And scared herself with the cats. Both the Man and I are sporting claw marks (somehow we got in the way of the cats killing the dog). But in general, she’s fine. Sweet. Just puppylike.
Simba is not a fan.
But he gets the love from us anyway.
The good news is that I have two days off to semi-relax, maybe get a little bit more sleep than I have been during the week. I have plenty of books to read, possibly too many (is that a thing?), my meeting is in a quilt store, and school is almost out for the summer. It’s all good.
One of the ways I keep track of the days of the week during school is by the day I blog. And I’m off this week. Missed it on Monday, so did it Tuesday. Yesterday morning had two morning meetings, missed it again, so here I am on a Thursday. It’s not the end of the world, but it does make it harder for me to figure out what day it is. I usually announce to my Advisory students what day it is, and it’s more for me than them, and sometimes I’m wrong, and they think that’s weird, but then a bunch of them have no idea that today is JUNE. It’s June. Finally.
You know there’s two kinds of people in education: the kind that count the days left of the year and count the day they haven’t survived yet (me) and the kind who erases that day from their count because it IS that day. I don’t understand the latter. At all. I have 11 days of school left. One of my principals yesterday told me it was 10 days, and I’m like, the FUCK it is. I feel like those in the classroom know WAY BETTER than admin how many days are left. Grades are due in 9 days, I need to do award certificates, someone else is dealing with breakfast food (I do certificates so I don’t have to do food), I need to figure out what I’m wearing to graduation. Although the way the weather is going, it may be less of a worry than originally. Normally it’s hot and sunny, but it’s been May Gray all last month, maybe 5 days of sun all month, and this morning is just as gray. I’m still wearing socks to school. I know that sounds weird, but usually I’m in sandals by now. My heater is still coming on in the morning. It’s set for 65. Weird.
In awesome news, My Body. My Choice. got into another show, No Boundaries at the Virginia Quilt Museum. It will be on exhibit July 11-October 7.
I love it when work gets to be all over the place. West Coast, then East Coast. Good stuff.
I recently decided not to enter a show because (a) I didn’t really have a lot to enter and (b) the museum show that went with it is a museum that has previously pulled my work due to nudity. I decided it wasn’t worth the stretch to find pieces that might be OK to enter. I would have, I think, if I’d had more work. That’s what I need: more work. The newest quilt (still unnamed) goes to the photographer today. I spent an hour last night ironing it, cleaning it up, and packing it up for delivery. It took 146 hours to make. I started January 1 and finished May 28, but also did another smaller quilt in the middle…which better get into that show. Well. Honestly. It may well not. Oh well. I tried.
But the next newest quilt has been percolating in my head since last October, and although it has existed in many different versions, I know I have limited time to get it done, so I tried to keep it simple. Unlike the last one, where I went all out into Complicated Detail City.
I finished the drawing on Tuesday night…
I don’t actually even know if this is the right way up. It could go many ways. I turned the paper as I was drawing.
And then last night, I numbered it…
I’m usually pretty clueless about how many pieces there will be until I do this. I knew I held back on detail (except for the satellite and the Mars rover…just couldn’t be simple) so I’d have a chance at meeting the deadline. That whole thing where I’m gone for 10 days in the middle is going to complicate stuff. But it only has 545 pieces; I think the one I did in the middle of the last one was about that many pieces, and I was able to finish it in a month. Granted, part of that month was Spring Break, but part of this month will be Summer Break, so I should be able to pull it off. Also, I’m pretty much (almost) done with lesson planning, although I spent an hour last night editing some sex-ed video shorter, and I still need a graphic organizer for that, and an academic question for 8th grade. Unless I blow that off. So I think this quilt is doable. Tonight I’ll start tracing on Wonder Under, finish that by Sunday? Get it all cut out by the following Friday, start ironing to fabric next weekend, be done with that by the following weekend, then trim it all and start ironing it together before I go to Seattle. I can do this.
Already thinking about what will be on the next quilt: womens’ rights, banned books, and owls. What? Owls? Hey the owls fledged! This is 5 weeks earlier than last year. I thought that third owl was an interloper…turns out, there are three babies and they are partying it up in the evenings…I caught all three (blurry, you should try to take photos with a phone in the dark) in the tree across the yard the other night (the third one is further up, around the corner).
And then the following morning, they were up early and messing around…
This is around 5 AM.
I think I was also up at the time, but just to pee and go back to bed.
They are adorable. And loud. Honestly. They are. This group has been practice screeching. Freaks the dog out no end. Probably my neighbors too. Sorry. Not sorry. Taking care of the rat population y’all. I say that, and I had made some juice out of my tangerines and there was a lot of pulp. The rats have been eating out of my tangerines hanging on the tree, and I’m like, I’m not wasting this, so I put it out in a bowl and they ate it all, so now the owls can have rats with a citrusy sauce. Dark, I know. Cycle of life and all.
Someone took pictures of my quilts for me…one of Desert Mother at Quilt National (I don’t have the book yet, but I know the one is the background is Sky Trippers by Dinah Sargeant, and the other one is called Fig, by Maren Johnston).
It’s the first picture I’ve seen of my piece at QN.
They also took a picture at Art Quilt Elements, where Coronawood is hanging.
I don’t have info on the other pieces. I also need to update my Gallery page on this website. So I will. When I have time. Dunno when that will be.
OK. Meeting this morning. Not sure why. Some mom request. Then teaching reproduction vocab (not really teaching…just making them do the things) and finally building bridges. Hopefully. Then deliver quilt for photography, cook dinner, read my book, grade some things? Maybe not. And trace Wonder Under. Hopefully get more sleep than I did last night. I don’t know what was going on, but I don’t think I got more than 3 or 4 hours. Too much awake, uncomfortable, noise, couldn’t switch off. Which sucks. But it’s Thursday, so close to the weekend. Always good.
I fully realize that I just had a three-day weekend, an extra day off, thank you to those who died in wars for that (I’m actually really sorry it had to go that way). But I feel exhausted still. I know I didn’t do a good job of the sleep thing; I tried, but ’twas not in the cards. At some point yesterday, I had the distinct and very strong feeling that I didn’t want to teach this week. Which is funny, because this week is pretty easy…short week, plus teaching puberty and menstruation (not hard), and starting to build bridges (shouldn’t be hard to start; might be hard to finish…these 8th graders have decided to stop working on many things). I’m not super behind on grading, for once. I have three morning meetings, which kind of sucks, but none of them are crucial. I mean, waiting until the end of the year to figure out why your kid is failing? Eh. Well nothing has changed since the last meeting, so…I’m not even sure why this meeting is happening. The other one, we’re pretty sure mom is nuts, and if your kid is home all the time, I’m not sure how you expect them to pass, so that should be an interesting one, but not crucial to the kid passing. She’s a sweet kid, by the way. Perfectly capable. Freaked out as all get out though. Not that I blame her; middle school is legit something to freak out about.
So that’s not a good reason to not feel like teaching. I suspect I’m just done. I’ve been done for a while. Maybe since Spring Break. More done than usual? Feels like it. But what do I know? I do this every year and then read my blog from a year ago and that’s how I felt then too. Sad but true. I love parts of teaching, I really do. I’m hoping to see some cool bridges next week, hoping there’s some fun with breaking them. But I’m also really deeply reflecting into what went wrong this year and why, and how much of it I have any impact on for next year. Mindset flip. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s not all me. But some of it is.
So I didn’t do any school work at all until Monday. Friday night, I put the binding on the quilt…
Then Saturday morning, we made an attempt at hiking Corte Madera.
We didn’t get all the way to the top. It was a test of my knee, which was definitely having issues, but we kind of forgot the man’s shoulder/back issue. There was one portion that was basically like climbing down a rock fall. I was almost all the way down when he said he wasn’t going to be able to do it. Too much pulling on the bad part of his back. He’s in physical therapy for it and it had already been bugging him, so we turned around with 3/4 of a mile to go.
Not here. We went up that.
There’s Corte Madera in the background…
And we went up to the hill on the far right…so up wasn’t the issue; it was down that was the problem.
Because there’s a goodly way up the up. Or maybe coming back up the down that was the issue. I’ve done this hike multiple times…and it’s not easy, per se. It’s not impossible. It’s just a challenge at times, especially with injuries.
So this was on the way back down again. It was a good test of my knee, at least. We’ll try again when everyone is out of PT, maybe.
I spent most of the afternoon and evening sewing binding and sleeves on…and then finished those on Sunday…
I’m standing on the fireplace hearth to get that photo. It goes to the real photographer this week.
Yes, I already started on the next one. It’s been in my head in a variety of configurations for about 6 months, so it is proving relatively easy to draw. This was Sunday night…
Followed by Monday night, after grading for hours…
Yes, I’m drawing in a circle. I’m trying to keep it relatively simple, because I have a deadline and I’ll be out of town for a chunk of the making time. Not sure how that will work, so there’s that. But getting a solid start on it now will help. I figure at least one more night of drawing, maybe two, and then I can start tracing.
I did a little yardwork as well, this weekend, trying to clean up, still dealing with weeds. Found some turkey tail fungus though…
Never seen that in my yard before; it isn’t usually wet enough. Cool though.
And there was an owl interloper this weekend.
I’m pretty sure the one hanging onto the hole does not belong. There’s been lots of screeching going on from the parents in general. And there are definitely two babies I can hear now. So much drama.
This amused me. Because Kloob can’t do all the things for me either.
My teachers’ aide, though…she can do some toothpick counting for me today, for the bridges. She has the other science teacher, so she’ll be building them too. She filled all my glue bottles last week. Exciting life. She gets to draw a lot. Jelly.
So physical therapy, probably the last one, after school. Then home to a quiet evening as the Man is at band practice. I’m hoping to finish the drawing, maybe number it. Also maybe finish my book (at 82% and it’s good). I can do the things. I can start thinking about next year. Although that’s weird. Unless things change drastically, I won’t be teaching 7th-grade science for two years, as I’m in the 8th-grade-only part of the rotation. First time ever in 20 years of teaching. Weird shit. Change…it’s all over the place. Hopefully for the best.
Monday mornings. I didn’t do enough schoolwork this weekend because I just couldn’t. I had other priorities and I will pay for that today, I’m sure. I have curriculum done for 8th grade through Wednesday, probably. Not ready for next week at all, not even close. 7th grade is fine except for the fact that we just barely got approval for the sex-ed program last week, sent letters Friday, and start next Monday. It’s good but it’s less time than we usually have to prep for it, so that’s stressful. Plus frog dissections this week and collecting a bunch of stuff…so yeah. I’m not prepared. I hate that; usually this is the time of the year where we can step back a little from the crazy. We’ve taught sex ed enough that it is a known entity. There are some stressful bits, but mostly the kids are engaged, unlike in math or whatever, so that makes it easier. I’ve spent most of the year, though, with 7th grade curriculum being the known, the easier (the actual kids in the classes are not)…so that’s been the only saving grace to teaching two grade levels. Otherwise it’s been a stressful shit show. I’m not sure how the other members of my team are so chill about it. It’s been nuts. 23 days left.
My goal this weekend was to get the quilt pinbasted. Which meant finishing the stitchdown. Which meant blowing off most of my schoolwork.
Friday night, I didn’t get far…
Pigoon, legs, stopped at the arm, hadn’t finished the torso.
Saturday morning I did some before going to a baby shower…
Maybe 20 minutes. At that point, I was fairly sure I wasn’t going to finish…
Came back from the shower and hiked…I promised my physical therapist I’d hike every weekend until I saw him again to test out the knee. Lots of ravens on the hike…
Came back and went to dinner, date night, drawing with no plan…
Not sure why it ended up being a dog…but last week’s was even weirder…
Then I did stitchdown for about 2 1/2 hours. At some point, I was just thinking it needed to be done. That if I went to bed and did the rest the next day, I wouldn’t be pinbasted until Tuesday and that would suck.
This is the back, by the way, never to be seen again.
I scan the back, looking for mistakes, stuff I’ve missed, didn’t stitch down. I’m seeing one right now. It’s OK. I can catch them in the quilting.
I guessed 6-7 hours on the stitchdown and I was right…6 hours and 45 minutes.
Then Sunday happened. Chaos. I was ready to clean the floor, and then remembered I hadn’t checked for batting. So I did that. Went through the whole pile…nothing’s big enough. Dammit. Drove to Joanns, which was mostly empty (Mother’s Day?), came back, washed the batting, dried the batting, but in between, found another pile of batting I’d set aside after the last time I bought batting. Pretty sure it would’ve been big enough. Giant ass sigh. That’s where my brain is right now…in not-very-efficient panic mode. Also I cleaned the floor and taped the backing down that I had pieced, then remembered the batting wasn’t dry yet and we were running out of time to leave for the parentals, so I pulled it back up, didn’t finish before we left. See, that was the plan…finish pinbasting before we left so I could do school stuff when we got back. Or not. So I went to dinner at the parents, forgot to take any photos because my brain. Fuzz. Then came back and laid it all back out, this time with dry batting.
Then pinbasted while watching the first episode or two of Queen Charlotte.
Kneepads and all. I think I’m in love. With the show, the quilt, and the kneepads. And now I can quilt. Well, after I go to school and try to plan the rest of the week during a staff meeting. It’ll be fine.
This is very true of the classroom, except we skip the spraying it black part. Today we are doing embryos in 8th grade (embryology as part of the theory of evolution) and human impact on national parks in 7th grade. On Friday, I heard that The Way Out won Honorable Mention at Form, Not Function.
It’s still a very relevant piece. Unfortunately. Nice to get an award for it.
When you live with an artist, there are always things all over the house that remind you of that. I found this in the hallway. Not sure how it got there…on an animal butt? or my shirt? Oh yeah, and I’m the artist.
I do know what it’s from, at least. Seriously miles away from where I was working.
No yardwork this week either…
I don’t actually have a pile of dirty dishes OR laundry, but there are definitely things piling up that are driving me nuts but that I don’t have time to deal with. Ah well. I will get to it all eventually. Or not.
Quilting tonight though. I’m figuring the quilting will take 16-20 hours. There’s a shitload of details in this thing. Plus a healthy chunk of just plain background. It won’t be quick. So an hour a night this week? Maybe a little more. I don’t have a ton of meetings this week like last week. And my weekend is more free for once. I’m still not expecting to be done this week. Next week. Yeah. I have some deadlines I’m dealing with. I’ll be fine with this one; it’s the next one that’s questionable.
Anyway. Mother’s Day was stressful (school and my fault with the batting) but ended well. Saw my mom (she looks good), talked to the girlchild (she also looks good). Got some nice gifts from the kidlets…always nice when they get me stuff, because it’s not stuff I would have gotten myself. Appreciate that. Hoping to hear at school about a new science hire plus our principal for next year…hoping the district is not populated by total idiots. You know how that goes. And I get to quilt tonight. I love that. I can’t watch Queen Charlotte while I’m doing that, but I’ll figure that out. Worst case it’ll be listening to music or podcasts. Meditative. All good.
Weekends just aren’t long enough for all the things. I suspect some people do some of the things during the week, but all I do during the week is work on school, work on art, eat, sleep, and occasionally exercise. A few social things on Zoom or in person, but not many. Today I have a 2-hour staff meeting and a drive to my photographer’s after school, so it will be a long day. Ironically it is a short teaching day. Ah well. I’m giving an assessment (quiz?) in one class and showing a movie in the other. Should go fine.
What did I do this weekend? Lots of school work, a hike, dinner out with the Man, an art meeting almost an hour away (lots of drive time in the last week for art), groceries, laundry…maybe 50% of what I needed to get done. As usual. It is what it is. I did read my book too, so that’s my time. And pilates. Necessary but my time.
I ironed all three nights…not getting enough done on this thing. Haven’t had enough time on the weekends to spend a few hours ironing, unfortunately.
I had these tiny little overlapping veins/arteries to deal with on Friday night. They were a pain in the butt.
And then I had filled up the teflon sheet, so I was going to need to move the whole thing off and reattach it, which is always a bit scary.
Plus I ironed an incubator. Gotta be way easier than giving birth. Although not very portable. Should’ve put a handle on it.
Added an in-leg phone with apps, plus a fleshy knife pocket for dangerous situations.
Tried to consider all her needs.
She’s got some sciency experiments going on.
Some are turning out fine. Some maybe not so much.
Some protective breastwear.
Last night, I ironed the little froggy boy plus some additional tech for her arm.
Really she’s got everything she needs…except maybe a body fridge for storing sandwiches and drinks. Didn’t think of that until just now.
Really enjoying this piece, which is nice. It’s a little twisted and dark but fun. Political, but some wouldn’t see that. Not like most of mine, which bash you in the face with politics. And I have hit the halfway mark…which just means I need to go faster. I really need this one done sooner rather than later. Sigh. Ah well. There’s 12 hours into the ironing, probably 12 more to go.
And it finally warmed up enough at night to switch flannel out for the quilt I started a million years ago and finished last year.
Still need to make matching pillow cases. Haven’t done that. Have the fabric, have tons of the fabric, but time…that’s another issue altogether. I have a baby shower coming up and there’s no way I’m going to be able to make a baby quilt. Sigh.
We hiked at one of the local spots we regularly do, but haven’t been to since December.
The water moved the bridge a little off…it’s meant to move. There’s a lot more water than normal.
Lots of flowers…
We keep doing these close to sunset due to all my stuff during the day. It’s nice out, but we expect to see more coyotes and don’t. Not sure why.
Then dinner out and the drawing I started last week and couldn’t finish.
It got weird. So did the Man.
Kitten’s hiding space behind all the things.
A friend got me this…
Totally appropriate. I can’t sew with shoes on. Or slippers. The Man thought she had gotten this specially made, and I’m like no, this is a thing…I’m not the only one. I still don’t think he believes me. Finding space for it in here…
Starting the week out tired. I know, what’s new. I got a lot of 8th grade stuff done yesterday and then realized how far behind we are in 7th grade stuff. Whoops. Plus grading. I can’t lesson plan AND grade, and progress report grades are due next week. I didn’t grade any of the late work or redoes…didn’t have time. I don’t know when I will have time. I have dueling meetings this Saturday. Can’t be in two places at once. Oh well. Plus I’ve gotta fit that hike in. 33 days of school left. Getting there. Losing my mind on the way, but getting there.
From Organ Pipe, we went up to 5500′ in elevation, higher where we hiked. It was cooler, but not enough during the day to really matter. We considered (and deconsidered…unconsidered? Removed from consideration) one hike due to the climb with the heat. We’re out of shape and heat is hard. But it was still a nice place to be, Chiricahua National Monument, which might be a National Park by the next time we go. Which will be hard for it, because there are only 26 campsites or something like that. We had a great campsite when we were there in 2018 (minus the loud kids in the two sites next to us), but I couldn’t get that one, so this is the one next to it.
Not as good. Lots of sun issues during the day, lots of moving chairs to get shade. But not bad. The amphitheater was right next to it, though, and people kept going there to have private conversations and/or entertain children. Notes for next time.
The last time we were there, we had the energy to hike after we set up camp (WTF, who were those people?); this time? Not so much. We did sit through an hour-long presentation on paws, pines, and poop that was totally worth it. I know more about animal poop now than I ever did before. Did not help at all when I was on the trail, staring at scat, trying to figure out who had left it. Ah well.
There were many Mexican jays in camp.
They were pretty ballsy about being on the tables…
Good reminder to put shit away, which is good, because this is bear country…and jaguar, mountain lion, and bobcat territory, plus!!!
Our first time seeing a WHOLE coatimundi in the wild (last time we only saw the tail disappearing into the brush). This is a single male. We still haven’t seen a whole group of females wandering around.
Last time, we also saw deer. We saw them while driving this time…
But our evening attempt to hike to the meadow they like to hang out in turned into a mostly dark night hike, not so good for seeing deer. We were really bad at timing dinner this trip…either too late or too late. Really, we were always too late even when we tried to be early.
The first night, after the very long poop talk, we ate freeze-dried things and then the Man tried starting a fire, but it wasn’t in the mood and neither was he. I did draw by the dying fire…
The wind picked up while we were there.
The last time we were here, we missed a shuttle up to the top with a hike down to the visitor center (we only camped one night), so this time, we wanted to do that. The shuttle picks you up in the campground and drives you up to Massai Point, so you don’t have to come back to your car.
Last time, we went down into Echo Canyon and then had to climb back out in the heat, which was not fun. So this was more fun. Although it was still hot. So we have saved the longer hike for the next time, when we will either have to start earlier in the year or earlier in the day. Not sure which is going to be easier to pull off. PLUS be in better shape going into vacation, so no job shit that takes up tons of time, no scarlet fever or nasty colds. You know. Ha! Because we have control over all that.
Chiricahua is known for its hoodoos.
It’s different than Bryce, if you’ve been there. But still cool.
That said, it was warm and we were glad to mostly be going downhill.
Lots of different pine trees out there too, a nice change from saguaros.
Also these things are fun to consider drawing.
So this was about 5 miles down…
Mostly exposed…
Reminded us of home, honestly. But there was a breeze, which made it bearable. It really was only in the 80s, but at 6500 feet starting, the sun just feels hotter.
There was still water in the stream at the bottom though. We did another mile and half at dusk to Not See the deer, so we got our 5-mile Hike to Health pin from Chiricahua too. Cool beans. And we have reasons to come back.
I worked on this block in the car from El Cajon to Organ Pipe, in the campground at Organ Pipe, in the car from Organ Pipe to Chiricahua, in the campground at Chiricahua, and in the car home to El Cajon…
I go back and forth during the day between stitching (mostly brainless) and reading (requires slightly more brainpower, depending on the book)…nighttime is for drawing.
I finished it somewhere outside of Gila Bend, I think. Or going into Gila Bend. Hard to say. It all looks the same.
Is that Interstate 10 or the 8? And then I started the next one…got about that far in the car…
And almost finished it…
Crooked tree trunk and all.
So when we got home, we were there for less than 24 hours, and then left for a They Might Be Giants concert at Humphreys. We had reserved a room as a treat, and they gave us a balcony overlooking the venue! So I stitched there a bit…
If we’d been smart, we would have watched the whole show from the room, because it rained and rained (drizzle, but solidly wetly constantly drizzling)…
It was fine in that picture…
But no. We wanted to hang out and bounce around down where we could see the whole thing.
Although trying to see over the people in front of me got harder and harder. Ah well. And this video was because everyone was singing along to this, but you can also see the rain going sideways through it.
Amusing. And no, we didn’t bring raingear. This is freakin’ San Diego, y’all. In Spring. So I think I had 4 layers on, including a hoodie. The Man didn’t. We didn’t think it through. It was fine; we had fun.
Foggy/cloudy view of downtown.
We wanted to test out some of the AI art apps, just to see what they did. I find them frustrating, and gave up pretty quickly, but from that picture of us above, and the text “woman covered with cats”, I got this.
I couldn’t get it to do anything with my art. Ah well. I went back to stitching. The Man has 20 tries with mice with mushroom hats.
Here are better pictures of the four drawings I did on the trip…
Some were more complicated than others. Oh wait, there were five. But I abandoned this one.
It was after I’d seen a bunch of news articles about shooting and pregnancy laws and stupid political bullshit. Like this shit…
Which then turned into this one…and anytime they want to pull Viagra? I’m good with that.
Which I might make into something.
Here’s the windy night drawing…
I was reading about all this space stuff, which might explain her head. Might not.
And the last night, when we were both in pretty irritable moods honestly…
Although it’s not apparent in the drawing, unless you look at the really bad coatimundi drawing. Ah well. Shit happens.
I also managed to find the energy to quilt on Tuesday night…
It took a lot of caffeine…
And a certain amount of panic about the end of Spring Break always coming much faster than I’m prepared for. Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a artist’s grant application. My CV is now up-to-date, I’ve found some relevant press releases, and I submitted the whole damn thing around noon today…probably about 10 hours in that thing, but if I get it, totally worth it. If I don’t? I can try again. I’ve done the hardest part already. Plus maybe it’s time to try for some artist residencies too, although they would need to be paid for in some way.
More quilting last night after staring at that damn CV for about 5 hours…
I’m more than halfway through the outlining. More today. I was expecting to be done with this by today, but reality is always a slap across the face. I have four things to grade, all the makeups and redoes to grade, lesson planning for 8th grade, posts for 7th and 8th…ugh. I will have to do some of that today or tomorrow, but the goal is to finish the quilting, pack up another quilt for a show, do some house and yard work? Maybe. Eh. Floors need cleaning. I want to go on a hike tomorrow. We’ll see.
Kitten has been stalking me. She’s very glad to have me back.
The other two are as well…
I’ll finish off with this…
Made me laugh.
OK. Yard? Because it’s still daylight and a little moving around won’t hurt me. Then quilting. I’m not cooking tonight (hurrah!). Then more quilting. Yeah.
Well we’re back; told you it was a short one. A short one with limited cell service. I’d be sitting in camp at night and 3 texts would ping in but whatever service had brought those in whisked away with the wind. It was all good. Nice to not be tethered to all that for a few days.
The landscape, as always, was gorgeous, as are the animals and the stars and the moon (although we lost that the last few days due to the landscape). I do get tired of eating the same stuff and having to clean up at bear level (better than having bears in camp though). And if I had to camp for more than three days with no shower, I’d probably shave my head because I can’t stand my hair anymore after that. Last night’s shower was a delight. Usually we camp for a while and then get an AirBnb for a break, but because this was a short trip, we skipped that part. Which is why we got up yesterday morning and drove all the way home (from the Eastern side of Arizona). We needed a bed, a fridge, and a shower. All good.
We stop at weird little parks to eat lunch while we’re driving, just like I did when I was a kid and my parents drove me across the country to see every historic landmark in the US.
This mural was in one of those parks.
By the way, the landscape described as “high-density cactus forest” that is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is absolutely gorgeous in spring…all flowery and green and weirdly amazing. Totally would go there again, even though the daytime is hot. They say April is the end of the hiking, and I would agree, unless you are hiking at night. Warm. Some shade, not enough.
I’m not really a desert lover…it’s hot and dry and often flat, but this was beautiful.
We were lucky to have gotten one of the few campsites with a ramada, which gave shade at certain times of the day, mostly the hot times.
You had to keep your car hood up and start the car at least once a day to keep pack rats out of the engine. I never saw any, but I did see a lot of hoods up.
Mostly flat desert makes for really nice sunsets…especially when there are some clouds out there.
We went to one of the ranger talks, about the moon, which I just finished teaching about.
No fire pits, but we managed fires in the grills. Good thing…the Man can’t stand camping without the requisite staring into the fire and managing the fire. It’s fire TV. I do a little staring myself, but mostly it’s my drawing time.
The moths were particularly happy about my headlamp on the first night.
It was warm enough to not even put socks on for a while. It’s been a while since we’ve camped anywhere that warm. And of course, that means it’s even warmer when we’re hiking, which is harder. But hike we did. The Arizona parks have a Hike for Health thing going on right now where you get a pin if you hike at least 5 miles in the park (proven by photos), so we did that in both parks. But honestly, we’re out of shape after a particularly un-hikey winter (health plus work plus weather). Normally we’d be in for 10-15 miles a day, but we did less.
We did Victoria Mine, which was close to 5 miles when we finished; we should have started two hours earlier to beat the heat, but we didn’t. The ocotillo was just starting to leaf out, so some had flowers and no leaves, some had new reddish leaves, and some had green leaves.
It’s a fascinating plant. I keep trying to simplify it for the quilts I make, because making it realistically is a very time-consuming thing. If I JUST made a quilt about one ocotillo branch, that would be doable. Anything else would be nuts. Says the woman who regularly makes quilts with over 1000 pieces.
I do love me some ocotillo though.
In Organ Pipe, we had pretty good cell service, so my Seek app for identifying plants was working. Since I just made my Desert Mother quilt last year and had researched all these plants, many of which I’ve seen before but never ID’d, it was cool to go around and see them in real life…the Organ Pipe cactus themselves…
Plus all the different chollas…
Saguaros of course…
So many saguaros…
I’d never seen the inside of one…
And some of them had fascinating growth patterns…
Lots of flowers because…Spring…
Spring is such a short season that I often miss the blooms that happen.
By the time I have a free weekend to go down to Anza Borrego, it’s done.
I called this Introverted Cactus.
Stay the fuck away cactus. It’s actually some thorny spike cactus (like no duh, look at that thing). In bloom, nonetheless! This was on the kamikaze half-run up a hill to see the sunset. We didn’t time dinner perfectly, so it was a bit of a rush.
The mine itself had these weird little ceramic sculptures that the rangers said they’d found elsewhere too.
Not original to the park probably.
Requisite photo of us, me looking very red and sweaty (’twas warm!) so we could get our pin.
It was a fairly easy hike, in terms of elevation etc. Just warm.
So that was almost 5 miles…then we rested for a while, cooled off, I took a shower with their solar collectors, so warm sometimes, sometimes not.
Then we realized how crappy our cooler was (seriously needed daily ice infusions, which was a pain)…so we drove into Why, Arizona, to get more ice plus drinks plus snacks.
Lots of cool mural stuff at this convenience store…with a quilt motif!
Pretty amazing…
And fun.
We tried a drive, but the ‘better’ dirt road was enough to persuade me that the 21 miles of ‘not so good’ dirt road would be a pain. The other drive was closed for repairs, unfortunately, but reason enough to come back.
Camp was fine. I had a book, cold water, a chair, and shade. I also had friends…this trapdoor spider by the water spigot…
A round-tailed ground squirrel who came up to my feet until I jiggled them.
Then a run up to the sunset…
Another proof picture…where I force that smile…
Yeah well. Still warm.
But beautiful…
Drawing on the second night…
I had actually started another drawing (I’ll post better photos of these once they’ve downloaded off the cloud), but couldn’t get my head around it. Something about protecting unborn children more than the actually born ones. And guns. And teachers. And banning medications for women, but not men. It was frustration. This second drawing is better and has the potential to be something. When I’m traveling, I just draw to draw, not to potentially be a finished quilt. I usually focus on the landscape around me, which is how this started, but I couldn’t get past the other crap going on in our country.
Which hello…this truck was in one of the campsites down from us…
I finally got all the way around it…
Nice sentiments…
Beautiful. I hope she was safe as she drove. I hope no one made it unsafe for her. Because that’s our existence too, more than half of the nation: women, LGBTQIA, children, people of color. Not safe for any of them. And it should be. I’m not sure when the politicians will realize they are outnumbered. I hope it is soon. As I make my work and it becomes more and more relevant with time instead of less…which is what I want. I want the problems to go away, for the world to be better, and it’s not going that way. It’s getting harder for all those groups and that’s just wrong.
OK, with that happy finish! Ha. Oh wait, I did start working on this on the road…
Just so you have a comparison to later. I always take too much stitching, and that’s OK. No one ever wants to run out of something to work on when you don’t feel like drawing or reading.
Today we are going to a concert, They Might Be Giants (my Xmas present to the Man), and are staying near the venue to make it easier for us old folks, so I need to get a bunch of stuff done, laundered, put away, etc before we leave. Early. Because we are old. Plus school stuff and other stuff…like shipping a quilt to a show! I got into Form, Not Function with The Way Out…
So that’s cool. More politics. Nothing like a Nida quilt with a uterus AND a giant vagina with a landscape in it. Originally made for a show called Portals. So there’s that. Good news all around. I have some work to do this week; even was quilting last night, despite being exhausted, so more of that today as well. First to make sure the pool guy put everything back after trying to flood my house, then another delightful wonderful shower, and then stuff to get done. It’s still Spring Break for 5 more days. More about Chiricahua and the second half of the trip tomorrow. Or Friday. We’ll see.
Field trip day. Pros: no teaching in the AM, get to be outside (sort of?), and I’m chaperoning the introvert art geek girls (they picked ME! OK, I was one of them in middle and high school). Cons: I still have to teach 7th grade (hoping the annoying ones go home early or don’t come to school), I’m going to the Midway (ah, me and the military, such a fit), my knee is still not the best (I totally fell off my physical therapy schedule with getting sick), and I’m totally exhausted already. At least it’s different. I appreciate a different day every once in a while. A change in the routine. It isn’t until we’re on the buses, though, that it feels OK. Right now, it just feels stressful, but since my co-teacher did almost everything (!), I really shouldn’t complain. She’s awesome, IDK how she does it, oh yeah, she has a student teacher and I always say no to those. NOT rethinking that. The day I say yes is the day I get some perky little thing that drives me bonkers.
In other news, it’s Friday, hallelujah, even if I have to spend all of tomorrow doing taxes and planning for next week, I don’t care, because it will be here where I can pee when I want and make 7 thousand cups of tea and pet dogs and cats in wild abandon. Plus no annoying, gaslighting 13-year-old boys who are clueless about life. I do appreciate most of them, because most of them in 8th grade seem to be getting a clue or are totally mature and responsible and amazing. Which I tell them all the time. One of the gaslighters told me he would be a MAN next year (age 14, freshman in high school) and he would be nice to me when I was nice to him. OMG. SHHHHHHH. I told him I figured he’d be OK, he’s smart enough, eventually he would figure out what he needed to do.
So being away from all that shit for two days is a plus. I do appreciate a huge number of my kids…I really do. They do the things, they think, they try, they work, they ask questions, they figure stuff out. They’re fun even when they’re having a hard day, because they realize they’re having a hard day. It’s a pretty small percentage of those who drive us bonkers, but this year, the bonkers is taller and wider.
I ironed on Wednesday night…
I started ironing all the little figures the main figure is protecting. I needed lots of small runs of different flesh tones. Hopefully it works out.
Then last night, I finished those and started on the rest of the bits and pieces that make up the figure.
The top left bin is all the fabrics I used for the figures; there are 7 of them. I couldn’t even iron all their hearts onto the same red fabric. They needed their own shade of red. Crazy, I know. I have a few of the 300s left, and then I think I’m in the 400s. So more than halfway? I think? Who knows. My biggest issue is what to do with the main figure’s hair. When I decided to make her blue (on a blue background), I didn’t really consider hair. I might just go for some crazy multi-color thing. We’ll see. Probably tonight we’ll see.
The right eye is twitching again. It went away for a bit, but it’s back.
I also had my stitching Zoom meeting last night, so I worked on one of the May Homegrown blocks from Sue Spargo.
I’ve been working on these forever. Then again, her Bird Crazy (not its real name) quilt is still under my machine, and I think I started quilting it in January. It would probably take 2 or 3 hours to finish it…it’s on my list for Spring Break. So is EVERYTHING though.
I figured this out really quickly…
I have a screenprint from before the kids are born that is called Make It So. Someday I’ll get all my prints photographed (or copied from slides) and posted somewhere. Not this year.
OK. I have to go to school. Need to put a snack in my bag. Need to make sure I’m ready for later. Ha! I’m never ready for later. More tea. Don’t forget to pee. Phone fully charged. Lunch ready for when we get back (I’d better get to eat…it’s always an issue these days and that sucks). Exhaustion level high, but we all know how to deal with that. Six days of school until Spring Break. We can DO this. Also, I want to read my book. Hmmm. Later.
Oh hey. Is it Daylight Savings Time now or Standard Time now? And which is better for my health overall? More daylight, less sleep? I don’t know. I do know that my brain last night was like FUCK THIS and FUCK SLEEP. Which is always helpful when you are going into a full week of school and you’ve been napping every afternoon to try to recover from the school stuff and still recovering from stupid scarlatina (I guess they didn’t like the scarlet fever name or it had too many bad connotations, so they gave it a name that sounds like an Italian cocktail). Yes, I’ll have the scarlatina? With an olive please. Thanks.
The brain is not helping. Did I grade anything this weekend? One thing. I graded one thing. I really have no excuse. I had nothing planned on Saturday. So what did I do? Slept in a bit, spaced out a lot, read my book (very dark, very slasher, but not), and then made a decision about this upcoming show where the curator is on crack and thinks we should be able to drop everything and make a new piece in a weekend. I drew something…
And then I wasted a lot of my Saturday energy on driving to copy this AND going to Home Depot (the second thing is what threw me). Came home and napped. Then cut out the enlarged piece (200% bigger) and decided I didn’t like those hands, so I cut them off…
Added some paper above, below, and to the left, and then drew the rest…
RESISTED THE URGE TO ADD MORE. Seriously. That’s hard. Then numbered it…
It’s got almost 600 pieces? I thought it was closer to 500, but I’m looking at that and I see 595, so I must be dreaming the lower number. And I have 53 days to finish it. Plus I can’t stand up for extended periods of time and the next step is all about the standing. Ugh. I’m not sure what I was thinking except GET BETTER GET BETTER FUCKING GET BETTER. I also napped somewhere in there. Napping every day, but can’t sleep at night? Aargh. That’s school stress brain, actually. It was yelling at me about not grading, and I’m like, well, how the fuck do you think I’m going to grade tomorrow night if I’m so exhausted from not sleeping tonight?
Dumb brain doesn’t listen.
Did I still cut pieces out? Hell yes. It’s sitting down and relaxing. Friday night…
I always think I’m so close to the end and the last few days are like…yes…yes…no. Saturday night (a little fuzzy around the edges there, which is kinda how I felt too)…
And Sunday night…
Full on staring at the bottom of the box there. Almost done. How many hours so far? 16 plus hours of trimming. Not bad. I probably have a little more than an hour left. My goal is to trace for 30 minutes and to cut for 30 minutes. Work on both for a bit. Bribe myself to do the standing. Because right now? I need a nap. Granted, my brain is still protesting the time switch AND it’s Monday AND I didn’t sleep much last night.
The assembly on Friday was an inflatable SkyDome. It was nice…
Also somewhat fuzzy around the edges. Dark in there. It was a good intro to the space unit. Lots of walking to get there, plus crawling into the thing, and then out. I took a semi-nap during 3rd period, I was so exhausted. Any day now, body. Sigh. Fifteen school days until Spring Break. I might sleep for the first five days. It’s possible.
Kathy Nida 