I Know a Place That’s Safe and Warm from the Crowd*

Why did I not get much done last night? Well, we got to sweep water out of the garage and then move some stuff around because of that. I sat down to read for about 30 minutes, a new book, and that time expanded. Because books are more interesting than grading assignments. Then Valentine’s Day, we go to the total dive we had picked out to avoid the nice-restaurant crowds, and their cook hadn’t shown up. Hmmm. So we drove to dive-ish bar number 2 and ate.

After all that, all I had the mental space for was trying to draw the start of the next quilt. AGAIN. I’m trying to enlarge (and slightly change) a drawing I already did and kept thinking it would be easy, but my brain and fingers aren’t cooperating. Every single face has been off.

Here’s the original (too small and not quite right) drawing…

I want to fix what’s on the face a bit, and then have her shoulders above the dirt, and do something totally different with her hair and the sky. So really, it would be easier to redraw it larger and then fix it there. But I haven’t been able to get the face right…

Attempt number 2 has some things going for it, but I don’t like the shape of the nose at all…or the hair.

Although it doesn’t look as bad in the light of the morning. Sigh. Nope. That nose.

Attempt number 3…didn’t make it past this stage.

Nose is wrong. Eyes too small. Mouth wrong.

I’m not usually this fussy. I usually just go with whatever I draw, figure it’s fate or something.

Attempt number 4…

Fucking A. So I like how the face is going, the stuff ON the face, but totally hate how long and narrow it is. Eyes are too small, needs a forehead.

So I’m debating going to the copy place and just enlarging the first one, but then putting it underneath a larger piece and tracing what I like. Because I really like the eyes and nose and mouth in the first one. And I’m trying to repeat that and maybe that’s not worth this much time. So I think I’m going to toss the smaller sketchbook in my bag and hit the copy store after school.

Other things: I’m sad about Opportunity, the Mars Rover…I’m sad about the wall and people’s obsession with that instead of solving the other problems with immigration. I had to take Benadryl last night to deal with the stupid post-CT rash from the contrast dye…it’s not going away without help. So this morning, I’m totally groggy (on one of those damn things). And it’s a lab day, so that ought to be interesting. I’m glad that the rash is somewhat better. I’m sad that Monday is the last day off of school for the next 8 weeks. I’m going to totally enjoy the fuck out of Monday then. I’m glad the heavy rain from yesterday stopped before the garage totally filled. I’m superglad that years ago, we put everything up on shelves and off the floor. I’m also glad that the branch that fell off the tree in the backyard onto the very spot where Calli likes to pee did not hit her or the house or the deck. Yes, trimming that tree is on my list…when I get the other crap paid off that needs to be paid off. I’m incredibly glad today is Friday. And I can see blue sky this morning. I’m also glad that I found some of my more expensive diabetes supplies on Amazon. Fuck the pharmacy man. They gougin’.

All right. Off to school. Gonna steal some of the boychild’s Spring Roll Bowl from my Monday night dinner (’twas good) for lunch. It’s spicy, so hot flashes will come…but they’ve been coming anyway. Oh yeah, and yesterday I got a llama. Or an alpaca. I love it. I bought the flowers…our special-ed kids are doing these pop-up shops for coffee every week, and added flower delivery yesterday…

Very nice job on the teacher’s part…oh yeah, I got a chocolate from one of my special ed kids. He can be very nice. I guess they all can be. Laughing about that. Good thing to remember today I guess.

*The Lemonheads, Into Your Arms

More and More Complicated

I am functional at the moment. My eyes are open. I’m showered and fully clothed. I even have apples and oatmeal in front of me, ready to eat. The cats are fed. My lunch is packed and in the fridge. My brain, however, is hovering on naptime. Serious naptime. You know that feeling when you’ve been on a plane for like 10 hours and you feel totally squished and too upright and twitchy and all you want to do is LIE DOWN. With a pillow. On your side. That’s kinda how I feel right now. Which is really unfortunate, because I have to go to work and then a union meeting afterwards, so that’s like hours of Not Lying Down and No Pillow. Ugh. No fun.

Last night, I graded a bunch of things, and I ended up with half a TV show I wanted to finish watching before going off to quilt, so I tried to redraw this again.

Nope. Sometimes I start over and over again until I get it right. It’s still the nose…and the mouth. The eyes are better. One time I started about 5 times until I got the first eye right. I really needed a better pen too. This one was old and dragged on the paper. It needs to flow, run wild, move like water across the page. Double nope. It didn’t. So I’ll try again.

Finally off to the quilting…

The Figure 3 head has a bunch of pollution-type stuff going on.

Previously, Kitten had whacked me…hard…three holes in my hand. Not sure why.

So she sat over there and refused to look at me. Calico cats are definitely clear about “You’re doing it wrong.” Although I was trying to get the computer mouse and not doing anything to her at all. So there’s that.

Cat done. Head done…

That’s a big head. I did start this Big Head series way way back. I had a few quilts that were just head and shoulders, but huge. I had less detail in my quilts back then. I seem to be getting more and more complicated. In so many ways!

So my new thing is to stop quilting and then my brain is wired so I have been organizing the photos on my computers, moving them into appropriate folders. I have stuff going back to 2014 that is not organized. There was some shit going on then that made it hard to look at certain months of photos, but I figure I’m well past that dumbassery now. But then I can’t stop organizing. There needs to be a logical stopping point and it’s usually doing an entire month, but that’s a lot. So I went to bed too late (AND I didn’t even finish the month). Plus sometimes it’s hard to figure out which quilt I’m working on if it’s just Wonder Under or pieces of fabric. So then my brain is engaged again and that’s not a good thing. Sigh.

Right now I really want to go back to bed. And then draw. Neither is happening. Oh well. They will eventually.

Dreaming of Water…

So I have no running water. Apparently my pipe way way way down the street, but AFTER the meter, so it’s my problem, is broken…has been probably for days. Not that we could tell here, unfortunately, so I probably have a $3000 water bill coming that I don’t wanna know about right now. It’s interesting because the neighbor down the street widened our private road when he built his place, and in doing so, moved my pipes. Like 2 years ago? And that’s the road that’s now broken with my pipe underneath it. Working on getting some info on that, because seriously, I don’t think they should be breaking if they were installed correctly, but more importantly, I need water. I took a shower at my parents’ house, because I have to go to work today, like a normal person, although there will be two people here who also might need water at some point. I’m hoping the plumber calls back soon…because I’m leaving for work in about 20 minutes.

Yes, my stress levels are a little sky high at the moment. It’s a lab day at school too…so lots of management and behavior checks, plus reminding them NOT to pour all the water into the sugar. Ah chemistry. Plus we’re supposed to be going on a hike with a group tomorrow morning, and I’m trying to decide whether to cancel. I don’t want to, but I might have to.

I found out about the leak while I was at my monthly stitching meeting, getting very little done…

Seriously, I did the stems/leaves under the lion and next to the house. And I didn’t even finish. Stress does not help me stitch. Stitching helps with stress.

I came home and meditated (in real life, I actually did, because generalized deep breathing was not helping)…I did some school stuff too, because yeah. That never stops. And it’s not like I could fix the pipe right then anyway.

After meditation, I couldn’t quilt. That requires a significant amount of motor control that I was missing, but I needed something to try to shut up the panic brain, the one that’s trying to fix everything (just STOP…you can’t DO anything right now)…so I started trying to draw the larger version of what I need for the next quilt.

I briefly debated just enlarging the existing drawing, but there’s things about it that I wanted to change, so I went bigger and different, but not a lot.

But the new nose really bugs me and now I want to change the hair too. I’m going to try again. But not right now…right now, I’m going to go to work and attempt to function without exploding, and hopefully at some point a plumber will get involved and maybe even fix this clusterfuck. Who knows.

That’ll Do

Ah yes, dogs and rain. One dog doesn’t mind, trundles out in all weather, although needs a friend when it’s dark. She gets scared. The other one runs out, pees as fast as possible, sometimes still on the pavement, then yips to come back in and refuses to be toweled down. Kind of an asshole. The other hides when it’s raining, pretending he doesn’t really have to go out for hours on end, until he’s desperate. Totally an asshole. This morning, the good one, the one who doesn’t mind weather, had a poop fail. Gaack. My morning, nauseated. Oh well. I don’t really need to eat breakfast. Oh wait, yes I do. The little one, the one who hides, ran out and did his thing with no complaints. He must have been desperate. The other one, who’s leaving tonight (the cats will appreciate free reign over the house again…reign, not rein, right? In this case?), did a lot of barking and scratching at the door. The rain will stop soon and hopefully that will help.

Yesterday was a mess. The lab went well, although rushed because we had short periods. We’ll catch up today. I came home and went to the gym, which is good, but it kicked my butt for getting anything else done apparently. Well, not entirely true. I did a bunch of computer stuff, booked a hotel for our LA trip in May to see Amanda Palmer, excited about that. Sent the girlchild food money on her school account. Very exciting that. Sent out a bunch of emails about photos for an exhibit I need to put on a blog for an art group. Finished my book. Well, that was at the gym. I meditated. That was good. I might have fallen asleep quicker? Or that might just have been how tired I was from not sleeping the night before. Worried about a student. Can’t do anything about it, of course. I’ll worry until I know something, and the fun part about that is that I might never know. I still worry about this kid I had when I was a student teacher in 2001. Seriously. I wonder if she’s OK. Can’t remember her name, but I still wonder. Worry.

So did I make art? Well, sort of. I was trying to let my brain stop running like it was on fire, so I reconciled the daily calendar, which was a clusterfuck until around 10 PM…up until then, I had one thing crossed off and 72 things clamoring for my attention. I moved some stuff further off than today, talked to the guy about some things and moved them into a different list, and just plain old moved some to the weekend. Sigh. And then I drew. I knew I couldn’t make any progress on the quilt last night…not enough time or energy. I needed a good 2-hour block (maybe tonight?). So I drew a little picture…

Still working out the ideas for the next quilt…this drawing stuff helps quiet my brain down.

I wish I could sleep like this guy…

I don’t think he worked very hard yesterday, but here he is. He probably has fewer responsibilities.

OK. Well so yesterday wasn’t a great day for achievements. Today can be better. Just don’t think about the 2-hour workshop after school. Today I pinbaste. That’s my only goal. Well, and eat right, drink plenty of water when I have access to a bathroom (problematic), have healthy conversations with 12-year-olds, get some grading done, and drive safe. There we go. That’ll do.

It’s All Possible Right Now

‘Tis Saturday morn and the wind comes and goes, some large droplets splash down between the tree branches, always hitting my glasses. Seriously, they never miss. I hear the sounds of a big dog slurping an entire water bowl up, which means she’ll need to pee soon, and the whisking of the last 4 eggs in the house. Boychild must be making breakfast. Note to self: buy more eggs. My breakfast? Triscuits and pub cheese with horseradish. I can’t be bothered to be more creative. No eggs too. My blood sugar is some weirdo anyway. It doesn’t behave the way it’s supposed to. At some point, I’ll have to go back to the doc to figure that out.

Yesterday was exhausting. I’m not sure why. Maybe just because it was Friday. I had to prep Monday’s lab ahead of time…probably better to be prepared anyway. This chemistry unit is high maintenance…the kids are engaged, fully, but it’s a mess to clean up and a pain to set up. We try not to do labs three days in a row…it’s too much. Put a weekend between them. Or a day of something else. That said, they did awesome with the Oobleck…very few issues. I’m glad.

I worked when I got home…got through one assignment and inputted about four. This is the weekend of work, for sure. I need to get closer to caught up. That’s the plan. It’s supposed to dump down rain, so that should help.

Grading happened on the couch with this little one grunting in his dreams…

The little gray one trying to climb into my lap or onto the computer…

And eventually settling down. Boychild fed me something that looked like it would be weird from the ingredients, but as always, was quite tasty. That’s when my blood sugar went whackadoodle though, by no fault of the meal…it was well below the carbs I should have been able to handle. So I got on the bike and continued to read my book for 45 minutes or so. After that, I was too damn tired to do any sewing. That’ll be later today.

I did draw though.

Because I didn’t want to feel like I hadn’t done anything dammit. I hate that feeling. I’m not going to have that feeling today. First I’m going to shower like I’m leaving the house. Then I’m putting my pajamas back on. Then I will grade stuff and prep for next week, followed by finishing the stitch down. I might venture out. You never know. It is supposed to rain a lot, but whatever. I need some plants. I might do that. I might even do another drawing. It’s all possible right now.

High Life Filtered Through the Lo-Fi*

So I was entering a show last night, deciding what to submit, resizing photos, and picking details, and I realized how political or in-your-face some of my more recent quilts have been. Usually when I enter a show, I’ll put one or two of those pieces in, but then have a “safe” piece for the juror(s) to pick, just in case. They don’t always pick that one, which is nice…it’s how Rooted in America got into at least one show, for sure. I appreciate jurors willing to ignore possible controversies in honor of the message or the art. I didn’t do that for this show, though, and that’s OK. I really am OK with not getting in…even though I get cranky about it in the moment. I want my work to go where it’s appreciated. I don’t enjoy making the news cycle and/or twenty thousand people messaging me about why my work should or shouldn’t have been pulled from an exhibit. It irritates me that people are that narrow-minded, of course.

So this quilt is not political. It’s mental. OK, it’s about what goes on in our brains when we’re dealing with the world. In my world, I deal with about 140 OTHER people’s kids and all their stuff before I can deal with my own. Or sometimes at the same time as I deal with my own. Certainly some days it is easier than others…apparently my whole team was losing their shit on Friday, and I had a totally chill, mellow day. Might have been what I gave them to do that day, which was its own version of self care. Today though we are still doing a lab, which is usually pretty good, because they are engaged, although this one uses fire (controlled by me), and one of my guys might lose his mind today over that. We’ll see.

Anyway, it was a long day yesterday. Two-hour staff meetings suck. My brain turns off about halfway through, and sometimes earlier. It was also a difficult topic, although we skated over the worst of it and focused on what they did afterwards. Honestly, the most difficulty I had was when I realized I was that much older than everyone at the table…I actually was a working adult when Waco happened…no one else was. Sigh. But I find it’s easier if I draw through the long meetings, no matter what the topic is…so I did this.

Interesting. Keeps me from falling asleep anyway.

So I just had to get up and take a paper pattern away from the dog. She gets anxious in the morning for no apparent reason and wants to eat paper. It could be a book, a pattern, a napkin, piano music, or whatever (her favorite is pads of post-it notes). She’s annoying. She has a bone right in front of her. I fed her and petted her and discussed her life choices. Sigh.

So after the meeting, I came home and cooked…gonna have to rethink that meal in terms of blood sugar. So complicated some times. But I tried this, romesco. It was like a mellow broccoli.

Runs a bit toward cauliflower. Honestly, it looks cooler than it tastes. But it looks fascinating.

Then I entered the show, did some other stuff I needed to get done, and started stitch down…

I can’t really tell you how much I’ve gotten done in fractions or percentages. I have everything under the arm with the fishes done, on the right side…so the bottom half of Figure 1, Figure 2 mid-chest, and then one arm and wing of Figure 5. That doesn’t sound like much, does it? Well it’s not. That’s why. I didn’t have any issues with the machine last night…I just started late.

Tonight I’m going to need to work a little bit on school stuff, plus more errands. Last night, I had to go to the bank with a bag full of pennies, plus some cash for a down payment on a quilt, and final payment on another quilt. So I’m depositing this weird concoction of stuff, and one of my former students is training to work at my bank. So weird. I didn’t recognize her face (well, it once had hijab around it and now it doesn’t), but I did recognize the name. She remembered a detention for gum, but also remembered that I always give kids a chance to spit it out…they only get detention if they blow off my request. She laughed. So that’s OK. Anyway, that’s what I get for teaching where I live…these little moments of connection with kids now that they’re grownups and trying to figure out the adult world.

So there’s hope for them! OK, off to school and a long day, with stitching at the end of it though, so that’s cool.

*Foster the People, Worst Nights

I’m the Master of My Sea*

Still adjusting. I think I manage school fairly well, until I get to four days before grades are due and now the cat has to go to the vet even though she’s fine because they won’t give her the meds unless she goes once a year and the doc office is calling three times in 30 minutes while I’m teaching and one assignment has to be ingested and slurped (seriously) by three different apps before I can grade it and I’m so incredibly not ready for next week, but this week isn’t even over yet and somehow I just ordered 5 limes in my produce box and I don’t use limes for anything and I have to remember to pay for the girlchild’s college which changed due dates and Whythehell did I end up being the point person on all the college/kid stuff in the world heaven only knows and I think there’s something else I’m forgetting because there aren’t enough post-it notes in the world.

I can deal with all of that. What I really want is more time to work on this quilt, because there was plenty of time when I started it and there is not now.

That said, I’m closer. I finished cutting everything out last night…

It only took me 22 1/2 hours. It doesn’t usually take that long. I’m not even halfway through, I think. Probably not. I might not get this done in time. Oh well. It will get done. And the next one is a giant blank space in my head, so there’s that. Aack.

Although now that I think about it, last night’s drawing is a step in the right direction. Seriously. I just figured that out.

Yeah, last night, after doing some of this…

(can you see the girlchild?) at a gym I never go to, because mine is being remodeled…

I came home, cooked my own dinner, graded a bit, and then sat down to cut stuff out, but reached for the sketchbook instead. Because. I should. And I like it. And why not (here’s why that quilt is not getting done, eh?). And I drew this…

And I just now realized this is the start of the next piece…I just need it bigger. And more of it. OK. This is good. I love it when I have these incredible insights in the morning, when I don’t even have tea in my brain yet, but it’s wandering off and figuring all the shit out without my conscious help. Yes!

OK, and then I cut stuff out, but it was 11:30 PM when I got to this…

And that’s one to two hours right there. So I didn’t start. Because (a) I had to be up early today for a parent meeting and (b) I knew if I started, I’d come home to a cat butt in one of those boxes with a bunch of tiny pieces all over that furry butt, and I didn’t want that. So tonight. This is on the bill. There might be other things too. But this for sure.

I finally finished my cover page for the new unit…took me long enough.

I think I did a pretty good job on Iron Man.

All the rest of the stuff in my head is some existential crisis of people and interactions and who’s here and who’s leaving and how long the ones are here will be here and whether there will be others to take their place and some of them will be far away for a long time and some need to at least get out of the house and some said they’d be around and then argue about what that means and and and. I’m in a mood. I’m tired. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and that’s my own fault plus a job that just does that to you no matter what, so you have to get control of it and make the world your own. Working on it. It’s like when I’m trying to get 24 7th graders to meditation breathe, and they’re wiggly as hell and you’re like, just CLOSE YOUR EYES for the 17th time and then they all do (except one, because there’s always one) and you’re even sitting right in front of one, knee to knee, because he can’t do this without that, and you breathe in the nose for one two three four and out through the mouth one two three four and you only get three breaths in, but that’s enough, because all of a sudden it’s quiet except for that one girl who wouldn’t close her eyes and now she’s flipping her hair all over the place in that way that only a teenaged girl can and the rush of her hair through the cloistered air in the room makes a sound that disturbs the peace.

That’s my brain for today.

*Imagine Dragons, Believer

Time Is Squished

The electricity is supposed to go off in 46 minutes. Or so. The local electric company warned us, so we could save our delicate electronics, which apparently includes this computer. It’s OK. Really, I’m supposed to be leaving for work around then anyway. Someone asked why I write every day before work anyway. I didn’t used to write every day…I wrote every three days, mostly on a schedule. Before that, I wrote whenever I remembered, which wasn’t often. That’s before I kept a weekly art journal too, so things change. I wrote every night before I went to bed for about a year, getting very little sleep, because it actually helped me fall asleep to get it all out of my head and typed out onto a screen. Now I find it helps me set the scene for the day. Clears the crazy from whatever was in my head overnight (last night? sleep. That was what was in my head). It also lets me make a plan for the day for how to get art done. What to do, when and how to do it, what else I need to get out of the way to do it. There’s purpose then. I don’t always get done what I say I will get done, but the intent helps me to do.

I still need to get my cover page colored for work, by the way. I got through this part of it yesterday…

The rest won’t take long, but today and tomorrow are still high-energy teacher days. I came home last night and graded some more, because grades. Always grades. Looking back, although I finished an assignment, I guess I thought the girlchild would still be up when I was done, but she had gone to bed. Sigh. Really I should hang with her instead of grading.

So I cut things out for a few hours…with the dog…

Everybody else had gone to bed or disappeared into their rooms, doors closed.

I was so close. I don’t have very much left. I really wanted to just stay up and finish it, but it was already almost 12:30 and I teach middle school. And they require mental energy. I need to be awake to handle their crazy and even their not crazy. So I went to bed. I was sort of a responsible adult (a real responsible adult gets 8 hours of sleep a night, and I almost never get that…certainly not on a school night.). And I will finish tonight and hopefully get it all sorted. Then start ironing it together sometime this weekend. In between grading stuff. And hanging out with people. And planning for next week’s lessons. Yeah. Time is squished.

But first, I’m going to go around and unplug all my sensitive electronics, so the power surge when everything goes back on (hopefully before I get back home) does not kill everything I own.

I miss drawing every night by the way. But grading took its place. Sad but true…will try to get it back…at least partway.

Adjusting…

Well. OK. Over break, the amount of room in my head that I allow for school issues, not grading stuff or prepping lessons, but the role we teachers play as counselors, motivators, substitute parents, besties (not really), motivators, disciplinarians, doctors, psychiatrists (without any training, of course), and all the other jobs we do…I reduce that amount in my head over break. It’s nice to walk away from it and not go to bed worrying about what this kid said or how they behaved or what they did or what you know is going on at home or how their behavior means probably this is what break was like for them. It’s nice to not wake up in the morning to emails that are huge red flags for mental illness or a mental break or something significant that you will have to persuade someone else to take action on, because you are just the teacher, one of the many teachers, for this kid who is obviously (to you) on the brink of something possibly really bad, or another kid who you think has reasons for what they’re doing, but sometimes other people don’t agree and you watch the kid continue with who and what they are and hope that by adulthood they have figured it out. Because I can’t fix all of it. And that’s one of the hardest things about being a teacher. Wanting to fix it and not being able to…and sometimes not even having enough extra space in your head to help that one over there, because they mostly seem OK and no one else thinks there’s a problem.

All that. After one day with the kids. Oh yeah. Why I don’t sleep well.

But what did I do yesterday? I drew this…

I still need to color it. I’m behind. I was grading all the late stuff that showed up yesterday. Getting things into the gradebook. Like a responsible teacher. I tutored after school. It uses up all of my mental energy usually, but I needed to deal with some grading stuff at home, so I did. For an hour. But I popped out the backyard to get this.

It’s usually hard to get the sunset on my side of the hill. I did notice the dead branch the tree trimmers behind my house dumped on my hedge. Great.

I made a huge pile of vegetables for dinner. Good stuff. Note: roasted persimmons are tasty. And I cut this stuff out. More of it.

Two or three hours more of it…

What’s left to be cut out? Those fleshy bits in the top box.

Getting there. Maybe tonight? Hard to say. I really need to grade another assignment tonight…but it’s hard to come home after all the energy gets used up and find more energy to stare at assignments. I know I should. I just don’t know if I can.

This week is always an adjustment…with sleep, talking, standing, energy, emotional energy, food, peeing! (teachers understand this). I should remember that and give myself a break for not solving everyone’s problems today. (ha! or anyone’s…really…)

Art Tonight. Long Day First.

Back to work is a whole different world. Luckily, we started yesterday with no kids…professional development (I use that phrase lightly) in the morning and time to “plan” in the afternoon (aka get my room under control). That part was nice, because usually we have to either come in really early on Monday or come in the weekend before to set up and make sure we have everything. For instance, I forgot that I needed more folders because I misordered back in summer and got some with no metal prongs, and that ain’t gonna fly. I think I thought it MIGHT fly back in the summer? But no. So I have one class that will feel all left out because their new folders won’t arrive until Thursday. Well, Friday for them. They will survive.

Our district has this focus on healthy and happy kids, and although I don’t think that’s a bad idea in general, I know that for some people, happy isn’t really a thing. Being told to be healthy and happy can be really frustrating, like if we just tried a little harder, we could be those things, but when you know people who don’t have happy in their vocabulary, but they are content or passionate about something specific, then you balk at that word. And healthy is another issue…I have multiple students with health issues that are out of their control, and to force this concept of healthy without qualifying it…it’s not something I agree with. I’m more into being the best person you can be, wherever that is in the spectrum. Contribute positively to the world, whether it’s person by person or worldwide. Take care of yourself and your people, whether friends or family. Because some people’s families suck too. Anyway. I drew yesterday, but it wasn’t fun or interesting…I kind of think of this as teacher busywork, because I think the district already has decided what our best practices etc are, and they just want us to feel like we’re part of the process.

But I’m pretty cynical about school districts too. Maybe it really is meant to be collaborative. At some point, though, when the groups are made up of 30 people…I don’t think we’re doing anything productive with that. Others disagree with me. That’s OK.

So focus on the afternoon, when I got shit done. That was good. And it means I am more prepared (well, my room is) for today. My brain is still not on fleek. (wrong use. Totally.)

I booked out of school as fast as possible and headed out with the dogs and the boy to try to get an hour in. We failed to do all three miles (light fading and coyote incursion imminent), but we did close. We could have gone further probably. Plus we almost got the car stuck…even better.

Insert interesting pods…

And ferns I’ve never noticed before…

We were standing up slope with the dogs as people went by…I’m sure they’re there all the time.

When I got home, I graded for a while…trying to get caught up. Always trying, never succeeding, until June, when the final grades are due.

Then I cut out stuff for four hours straight. Because I couldn’t deal with anything else.

Definitely progress showing here. The box in the middle is all that’s left. It doesn’t look like much, but there’s a lot of little pieces in there. It will take a while. I’m honestly having a hard time getting my head into this. So that will change when I start ironing, I’m sure. And maybe once I get back into the routine of school. Maybe. Right now I’m not feeling it. But feel it or not, the work day starts in 42 minutes, so I’ve got to get going. Art tonight. Long day first.