Honey Put On That Party Dress*

Weekends are for recovery and preparation. I’m in the recovery portion now. Still not enough sleep, working a headache, medicating with caffeine, trying to avoid the work stuff, have to read a traumatic book chapter for a staff meeting, already got some holiday shopping out of the way, have more to do in person this afternoon, have to avoid a parade though, and then there’s an art opening tonight, and maybe I’ll be joined by my guy, who was up at an ungodly hour and off to work, so he’ll be exhausted. Typical Saturday in December, yeah?

I forgot to take my sketchbook to school yesterday, so I could copy that drawing right after (that’s the easiest and most efficient way to do that…I like to NOT waste time when possible). So I came home and grabbed it and left the dogs and copied. I enlarged it 250%…it made the smallest pieces a sane size, but some of the big pieces are too big. I can fix that with more pieces (details!).

Oh yeah, and I entered a show last night. I forgot that. I did that before I copied, because I was afraid I would forget. Work my butt off on a quilt for a deadline and then forget to enter. Sounds like a bad dream.

So I started cutting all the pieces apart and trying to fit them back together. This puzzle is confusing because of all of the heads spiraling around.

See, that head piece is too big for one piece of fabric, but I’ll fix that after I add to the right side so I can draw the rest of it.

All taped…full size to the left (well, minus part of a head and a whole ‘nother head)…original drawing to the right.

Somehow I managed to miss copying the bottom left corner. Can’t explain that. Tiredness?

So hopefully today, I’ll add more paper to the left and maybe the right and definitely the top and maybe the bottom. Why NOT make it huge? Well, I do have to finish it, yeah? And there is some size restriction. But I’m in the mood to be big and bold and swallow it all.

That might be a good title for it. I’ve got plenty of time to figure that out.

Calli isn’t sure I have enough time. Yet she’s the one who’s always sleeping wherever I’m working, so she knows I do.

This freaky guy. I was combing his behind-ear hairs.

Apparently that means a goofy face. What a dork.

OK, going to attempt life. Or work. I guess my life is work. But a lot of it is good and worthwhile work. Even when it stresses me out.

*Tom Petty, Mary Jane’s Last Dance

She’s on the Dark Side*

Ah those 10-hour work days. They just whack you upside the head like a brick. The plus is that when I finally got home, I refused to do any more work. I really don’t feel like I have to after all that. I’ve done enough. I’ve done my duty. So I turned the sprinklers off (big rain today), fed a cat, ate my dinner, read my book, and vegged out for a while on the couch, trying to find some semblance of brain power. Difficult that. Brain just shuts down at some point.

I need to get caught up on grading again, of course. It’s been a rough week for that. I definitely wasn’t doing that last night.

So what I ended up doing from about 7:30-11:30 was drawing. I found the first of the head-swallowing drawings, done during a staff meeting last February.

It looks more like yelling than swallowing, but that’s how the whole idea started. Then I did the other two I posted yesterday, which are a much larger version. I think this small one is about 6×8″, while my larger sketchbook is 14×17″. Can’t fit that thing in my purse. Harder to hide at a staff meeting too.

So while I was drawing last night, I kept looking back at the others, because there were things I liked. I tried to be purposeful about where I put stuff so I could fit more heads in. I waited to draw all the in-between stuff, including the arms and necks and cats and stuff. And in the end, I got to 4 heads…but I want 5. I need to enlarge the drawing anyway, though, and add some stuff on the top and finish the 4th head, because it goes off the edge, so I think I can fit a 5th head in there. Odd numbers are better than even for some things.

So here’s last night’s attempt.

It’s good. This is the one. I can make this. I want to make this, more importantly. It needs more stuff, but that’s after I make it bigger. Which I’m not doing today, because I have to drive all over the place tonight and it’s raining, so I don’t want to attempt paper sketchbook transport to copy place in the rain in between this errand and that meeting. Tomorrow will be fine. Enlarge, draw the rest, and start to make something new. I’m ready for that.

He was so bitey. But he was cold, so he snuggled. For a while. Sleepy baby.

This was after I combed out a lot of the knots and scritched his butt fur. So that makes him less bitey and more happy. It’s not a bad evening, sitting on the couch with a furry creature or two, drawing for hours. I can’t complain. Even better that it only took two nights like that for the drawing to wander out.

OK, another early morning. Tired of those, that’s for sure. But hanging out and stitching tonight. Plus picking up the quilt and photos. That’s a good thing.

*Massive Attack, Angel

I Should Get Moving…

Well I have graduated to eating turkey sandwiches for breakfast as well as for lunch. I don’t think there’s a problem with that. I froze a bunch of it, so it’s still good. And the oatmeal/fruit thing I ate yesterday didn’t last all the way until lunchtime. I love being dizzy in 4th period. Not. This blood sugar thing…you never get it right, that’s for sure. Change a medication? Relearn everything…from how your body reacts to how to get it through TSA lines. Fun stuff. I may get sick of turkey sandwiches at some point, but they still taste wonderful at the moment. Good thing.

The school days are long at the moment, punctuated by meetings and panic over meetings we didn’t know about and more panic about moving the meetings that were when the meetings we didn’t know about now are so that we can still do ALL the meetings, followed by emails that remind me that not all parents keep track of their kids in middle school and maybe more of them should. Gotta answer some of those today. It feels like Friday and it’s so incredibly not.

The quilt did go to the photographer yesterday, though…so that’s cool. I beat out the other two quilters who are entering the same show…so I’m not TOTALLY at the last minute…just mostly. This sunset while I was sitting in stopped traffic to GET to the photographer was totally worth it. It looked much better in real life. Camera phones cannot handle intense skies…at least mine can’t.

Then again, I think my phone is close to the end of its useful life. It crashed yesterday, randomly. And then popped up a message that I couldn’t read before it disappeared…something about my phone crashing unexpectedly. You’d think there’d be a way to read those messages…but apparently not.

So I was home late and did a union thing and shit I still need to do the union email from before break (ugh), but then I ate late and then was reading my book and then finally decided I should do something. DO SOMETHING. Don’t just sit there. Do. I could quilt a wool quilt (ugh, too tired). I could just sit and embroider on the Folk Tails (Tales?) quilt, but that doesn’t get me to making another piece of art, even though my brain couldn’t handle much more than that last night. So I pulled over the last big sketchbook, which dates back to 2014 (I haven’t been drawing as much in the last few years…more pointed drawing, drawing with a purpose, rather than just random stuff, at least in the big one), and I was going through old drawings, seeing what spoke to me. And it was the heads swallowing heads thing. I started with this one (this is just most of it…not all of it)…

And in some ways, I still think this is the best one. Wait, I think there’s a smaller one somewhere. Huh. Should find that. It might have been the first.

Then I did this one…trying to fit more heads in.

You’ll notice I didn’t fit more heads in. I’m strangely obsessed with trying to get more heads in on the page…this one, well, there’s nowhere to put another head, unless it’s swallowing her elbow, and bizarrely, in my head, it’s all about heads swallowing heads. Don’t get all middle-school on me, people. Heads. Like people heads. Not penis heads. That’s a whole ‘nother type of quilt…one I get accused of making, but really don’t do. Maybe it’s about life or other people trying to swallow us up. I don’t know.

So that motivated me. Looking at old drawings. While half lying on the couch and falling asleep at one point, I tried again…

Maybe 3 is the maximum number of heads I can do on a page this size. I should have put the bird somewhere else and had one swallow from the top, and then I could have fit a fourth head in there.

This is a strange discussion, and yes, it’s all in my head (oh dear)…there’s certainly something going on. I need to draw more of these, I think. There are things I like about each drawing…but none of them is right yet. Five heads is the magic number, but I don’t think I can get there on a page this size.

With that, I have meetings until 6 PM tonight, so who knows what I’ll be capable of by then (not a lot). I should get moving. Really. I should.

To Arizona and Back Again…

We’re back. Quick trip. More driving than anything else, I think. It was worth it…I wanted to see the whole Things That Matter exhibit in one place…although now I think I might be able to see it in St. George as well! On the way to Zion for Spring Break anyway. We’ll see.

So I had some pieces left to cut…my plan was to cut in the car, so I set this up…double-boxed. I’ve done this before. It’s a little crazy, but it works.

Arizona is so flat. This might even be the flat part of California.

Cutting while not driving…

We try to do 2-hour shifts…after that, you need a break. This section was pretty, through the Sonoran Desert National Monument. It was the short way around Phoenix to get to Chandler. We never went into Phoenix.

So we went to see the official opening of the entire exhibit of Things That Matter, an exhibit I was invited to be in last year. The preview exhibition, which didn’t include all the work, was at Visions Art Museum in Spring. I really thought I had done a good job of taking photos at that exhibit, but it turns out I didn’t take hardly any…and this trip was no different. Honestly, my phone camera sucks for this stuff, and the sun was going down and causing issues with lighting. So go see the exhibit or get the catalog on Amazon. Because I suck.

But here is Virginia Spiegel’s Boundary Waters 90 on the left and Pamela Blotner’s Miss Pustelschwein Regrets, a fascinating piece.

Deidre Adams‘ Connections and Susan T. Avila’s Time to Relax, which needs a front view to see the words.

My piece Not Less Than, with Rachel Meginnes‘ Don’t Tell Me It’s Raining, then Catherine Kleeman’s Clean Water and Linda Colsh’s And the Deep River Ran On, on the other wall.

Paula Chung’s PTSD: Betrayal…amazing stitching in this piece.

Betty Busby’s Let Your Light Shine…

And another view of my piece that includes Susan Else’s amazing and terrifying When? on gun violence in schools, and Alice Beasley’s very cool From Russia With Love.

Obligatory photo with my piece…

Elena Stokes‘ Horizon XII-Peace and Quiet…

And another Blotner piece, this with Elizabeth Addison…Hanuman’s Journey.

Please remind me if I go to the St. George installation to take WAY BETTER PHOTOS. Sheesh. And all the pieces. Seriously.

So then we ate and went back to the room and I finished cutting out the quilt pieces. California, Massachusetts, California, Arizona. Impressive.

It took 13 1/2 hours total. Kind of long.

Back in the room, interesting accent wall, especially this bit, which is totally out of reach, even if you’re standing on the bed.

But don’t hang anything on it with a coat hanger. Warning noted.

I drew…this is a baby start for something that’s in my head and is much bigger and fancier. Or more detailed anyway.

I haven’t been drawing much lately. Need to work on that.

The next morning, after a solid American breakfast, we drove back.

There was crankiness. Sigh. 10 hours of driving does that. I finished the owl’s eyes though! And the giraffe, but I forgot to photograph him. I still need to finish the hut for that block to be done.

Now that I’m home and ready to work on the quilt that has to be done in like 7 days, the wool stitching is not really a priority. So yesterday afternoon, I sorted all the pieces…

Less than an hour for that…

And then I started ironing…a snake before dinner…

Then the landscaping starts…hard to do because the water goes over and under the feet, and the water is in the 0-100s box and the feet are in the 400s box, so there was searching and I lost a toe so I had to recut it.

Then a couple of birds went together…

And the background behind them…

Here’s where I’m at so far, with about 150 pieces ironed…well, more because of the toes.

There’s a hill behind the legs, or two hills really, that have to be done, and another bird in the sky. My goal today is first to bang out the 17 errands I need to do, and then iron until the cows come home. Except also go to the gym, make dinner, and grade at least one assignment. Not a small list. But I’m glad to be ironing. It would be good if I were done with ironing sometime tomorrow and then stitching down. I think I need to be quilting by Wednesday. Seriously. You think I’m joking. I’m not. But first, groceries. There’s no food here. Can’t sustain artistic focus without food.

The Sun’s Zooming in*

Go vote. Now. Unless you’re like me and you already did…dropped the ballot envelope off at the library on Sunday. Everyone associated with my house has voted now. Good stuff. May the force be with us.

I’m at home. Grades are done, unless those two girls with non-working websites email me before I leave for the ultrasound. I did in fact get up early to eat and drink stuff before the deadline. We’ll see if it helps. I then tried to go back to sleep, but no. Dogs. Cats. Brain awake. So much for sleeping in. I suck at it.

I do still have grading to do…it never ends. I have to write sub plans for the days I’ll be in Boston. But what I really want to do, besides walk the dogs, is finish ironing.

I started late again last night, mostly because of grading. Ready to pick out flesh…I went through all 6 boxes of pink and finally found the right transition between 4 and 6 in the last bin.

I laid out all the fleshy pieces…

And I started ironing them down. It’s a weird puzzle I do…

How do I save the most fabric but fit all the pieces on there? Like that.

It was after midnight and I looked at the clock and thought, ugh. Gonna have to be up early. So I left the last two fabrics for this morning.

The box is getting fuller.

So that puts me in the 600s, but I have all the innards and hair to do. Mostly bones and cardiovascular stuff. So that’s also this morning. Or afternoon.

This was yesterday in class…

We’re piloting a new unit and it’s difficult. Mostly because I don’t have access to all the electronic stuff, and then my kids don’t either, plus I keep getting myself absent, and this curriculum is not at all friendly to guest teachers. Or to taking a rest from talking, for that matter. Lots of direct instruction.

Anyway. I’m going to shower and NOT eat or drink anything for a while and then go get this thing done so they can show me a picture of the alien in my gut. And then work and iron and all that stuff.

*The Clash, London Calling

I’m Useless but Not for Long*

I woke up this morning, having slept through lots of noises and daylight arriving and I feel like I didn’t move all night, I was so tired, I must have been like a block of sleepy concrete that weighed down the bed and refused to let pillows and blankets move, until the first dog whined, and then it was awake time.

Quilts=Art=Quilts opens today and I have a piece in it…this is You Pollute Me…

It’s actually not a very big piece…just long.

I’m grading Unit 2…lots of them. I didn’t actually bring them home, because I have three days next week, maybe four, when the kids are supposed to be working on stuff independently (ha!), so I should be able to grade them in time at school. That’s my goal anyway.

We’ll see what reality looks like, won’t we.

Last night was tiring. But I got the field trip permission slips all trimmed, checked, and double-checked, so I know who’s going and who’s not. I started a spreadsheet for the chaperones as well…and I did seating charts for Monday for the project week, which will drive me nuts, but they do have work to do, so hopefully they won’t be total assholes about being with their friend. I’m always boggled by certain groups…when a fairly high-level girl agrees to work with a boy who does NOTHING. Sigh. Oh well. They don’t always get to pick their groups, so I guess I’ll balance it out. Put all the lazy non-workers together next time.

But the dogs last night…this was after I came back from watching the band play. Calli heard fireworks before I left and it was still upsetting her. The other two just wanted closeness, I guess.

That’s Calli’s nervous face. At this point, the fireworks happened three hours ago, but she was still panting and breathing hard about it…

And here she is with her head on my leg. Yes, I petted her lots. I told her she was a good girl and it was OK. It just doesn’t seem to help any more. Oh yeah, and here I am cutting out yard 4 of Wonder Under…

Four yards in, one to go…

Hopefully that gets done today…along with the humongous pile of other things that need doing, which are giving me palpitations at the moment: grade one assignment, start looking at the next unit which we’ve never taught before because I’m going to be gone for two days in the beginning of it so I have to leave something they can actually do with a guest teacher, plus find and sew on D-rings for a quilt that has to be delivered next week, and do another blogpost for the fiber art group I’m in, plus laundry and deal with compost bins and vacuuming and cleaning floors and groceries and cleaning up in here so I can start ironing, because if I don’t start ironing soon I’m not going to get this quilt done in time.

Deep breath. Maybe more than one. I’m overwhelmed. I know that. What my brain and body really need is a 7-mile hike today. And I’m not going to get that.

So I did go watch the man play disco, of all things, last night. Not their genre. And I drew this…

Definitely influenced by the music. I’ve been to this venue, crashing this same party, at least three years in a row, and I recognize the wait staff and one of them waved at me. I’m amused. Anyway. There’s art. I did do art. I did school. I slept. I’m going to make a list and conquer its ass. And then hopefully get some down time. Get out of the house time. Maybe some exercise. Definitely dinner out with that guy I’m barely going to see in the first two weeks of November. Yeah. That.

*Gorillaz, Clint Eastwood

I Feel the Chemicals Kickin’ in*

I left school yesterday and went to an art opening instead of straight home. It was a good choice, even though I’d walked so much during class, dragging trays of sand and water back and forth from the classroom like some sort of crazy piece of construction equipment (couldn’t the robotics class make me something that would do this?). And tutoring where this one girl I was trying to help with the most confusing math website ever, and I would ask her questions and she would say “No English” but she knew enough to tell me she speaks Pashto. OK. I can’t do that. I tried German and Spanish and she looked sadder and sadder, and I stared at the math website, trying to figure out what it wanted, but it made no freakin’ sense. Teacher fail.

Today is another, different lab, this one with crayons and hot water (could be a mistake…nah, it worked pretty well last year). We’re frantically trying to plan the project that starts next week. I feel buried and overwhelmed. Still. Ugh.

So the art opening was at Grossmont College and is up until Oct 26, and includes two artists I like, Cheryl Tall, whose piece here is Casa de Manos…

I never made it back into the room with her work to take more pictures…you’ll have to go check it out. Very impressive.

And then Gloria Muriel…whose mural art has been on here before. But this is a tiny little watercolor drawing. This is Deer Memory.

A much larger piece, Woke Up From a Mayan Dream…

And Florentina, which is smallish and beautiful.

Despite my exhaustion, it was a good stop to make. Home to an empty house (well, there were cats and Katie)…I graded stuff for a while. And then started numbering this thing. I took a break in the middle to check in with the musical guy who lives here (he eventually showed up after practice)…but then finished up before bed. I wanted to be under 1000 pieces, just for my own sanity (there is a deadline on this thing), and I was.

991 pieces. Unless I fucked up somewhere and double-numbered something or skipped a whole bunch or just didn’t number it…all of which I do on a regular basis, so I don’t know why I set such importance on that number. But 991 pieces it is. It sounds more doable than 1001. Just barely. It’s a place from which I can estimate time.

I’m also hoping that I numbered it more logically than usual. I did all of the background and then the body and then the swirls of water. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

I did try not to overembellish things…keep it simple. Well, for me. I didn’t need to put all the lines in the turtle. I didn’t need to put more lines in the hillside. A bush can be just one color. I can simplify flowers. Then I do the deer’s eyes and that all goes to hell in a handbasket.

She’s not huge…about 38″ wide by 60″ high? Something like that.

Anyway, I can start tracing Wonder Under tonight. Then there’s probably 10-12 hours of tracing to do. Maybe by the end of the weekend? Hard to say. Depends on the next few days…

Oh yeah, I got my staff ID yesterday. Mine is better than yours.

Really the best part is when I have to use it to get a teacher discount and I pull this out (or any of the last three) and the cashier tries not to show their hilarious dismay. Yup. That’s the best part.

OK, let’s do this day.

*Neon Trees, Animal

I Think I Need a Sunrise*

Rough lab day yesterday. Apparently reading instructions is not required. I guess I didn’t make that part clear enough. Don’t worry. I will today. Lab skills in the hands of 12-year-olds. Plus mud and water and knowing what NOT to put down the sink. Back to the mantra of “If Nida didn’t tell you to do it, then don’t do it!” It’ll be fine. Sometimes 7th graders are the most frustrating creatures on the planet…and sometimes they are awesome. Today maybe we’ll hit awesome. I can hope.

Staff meeting after that…I draw to occupy my brain.

Seriously, if I’m really tired, this keeps me awake. If the meeting is stressful, this keeps my brain at an even keel. Works for me. Mindfulness and a Sharpie.

Then science meeting after that. Racing home to find enough daylight for this walk with the furry beasts. They need it. I need it. I don’t know if the boychild needs it.

But he comes along anyway.

We pass a new vineyard in the neighborhood.

And he finds this skull.

Pretty sure it’s a raccoon…no lower jaw, missing some teeth, definitely an omnivore. Yes, I carried it home and washed it out, and now will take it to school. Even though I don’t really teach biology anymore. It’s still cool. Maybe someday I’ll unearth that skunk skelly I have down by the garage.

Dinner was already in the crockpot (that I had to buy yesterday), so that was easy. Oh yeah, I did that. After dinner and all that, I started drawing…and then this happened. Katie is needy. And bitey.

She misses her real parents. We mostly suck because we don’t give her cheese and we don’t walk her twice a day. Like they do. Maybe they will come back for her some day (don’t worry…she sounds pitiful, but my parents will return eventually and continue to feed her all the cheeses).

OK, so I added a faucet and some overfishing and a Humboldt squid, because apparently the squid are totally happy with warming oceans, plus some oil drums and spillage.

Leading into ocean acidification and bleached coral and the requisite dead fish.

Then I finished the waterway and the hill…trying to keep it simple…for some definition of simple.

But then debated and put sky behind the bird, because I was thinking about how to make things pop and knew dark background would be an issue for that bird and the water below, so now I have an option to work with that.

It’s done. I actually finished around 11:10 PM, and thought about starting the numbering, but I was tired of standing at that point, so numbering will be tonight. I’m a little scared of how bad it will be, but whatever. It’s done now. If I don’t finish it for the deadline, I’ll still finish it and it will still be awesome.

OK, gotta be at school early to let kids measure stuff on their test makeups. I’m hoping they behave well enough that I can get some other stuff done at the same time, instead of starting the day playing babysitter. We’ll see.

*Augustana, Boston

How We Will Run, We Will…*

You know, when you plan to cook a meal with your slow cooker and then you forget that you broke it back in June when you were carrying it back from school, where it had pancake batter or something else in it, and you never replaced it, because you didn’t want to pay for shipping, but you never actually wrote it on any to-do list anywhere to go somewhere and buy one, which pretty much guarantees it will never get done, well then you will have to drive BACK to the hellish mall where you just were to go grocery shopping so you can buy one. You will also have to stand in line behind someone who doesn’t realize you’re holding a huge box because you couldn’t be bothered with a cart and she’ll just be hanging out on the thingie (I’m sure it has a name CONVEYOR BELT…that only took 20 minutes to come to me; ~~I’m just not remembering it right now~~) where you put the stuff you want to buy until her husband tells her what a dick she’s being. I’m often confused by how unaware people are of those around them…physically and otherwise.

We have a new slow cooker. It’s fancy…has 4 levels of cooking instead of 2…and a nice lid that snaps on. The previous one lasted longer than my marriage, much longer, so that’s a good thing.

In incredibly sad news, Paul did die yesterday as a result of his injuries. His wife was my co-teacher in science a few years back. She has three small children and his income was all they had. I’m posting the GoFundMe again here, as she will need all the help she can get. She’s a quilter, although more traditional (a batik fiend, though), and I have used some of her scraps in my own quilts. I think she introduced me to my first real-live game of Cards Against Humanity, so there’s that.

Yesterday was full of work and busyness. I did catch up on a lot of school things, but I still feel buried. I guess I should become one with that feeling. After 16 years, you’d think it would be easy. But no, there’s a constant sense of panic and Oh Shit going through my head. I don’t know if that ever goes away.

As part of grading…

Yes I corrected his spelling. After snorting tea out my nose. Of course cock faults. Sigh.

Calli…tired…

Kitten has a slightly new hiding place. Not as far in the hole as she usually is.

I didn’t get to start drawing until after 9 PM, as always. I added a rosy boa in the bottom right.

And then went into the water’s edge on the left…Great blue heron, California least tern, crap I don’t remember the last one…

Western snowy plover. The plants are harder to do without a million pieces.

I sketched in the last water plume up above…it comes from her head and down into that empty space. That’s for tonight.

That and finish the hill/sand, and I’ll be done. My notebook has lists of plants and animals for each ecosystem area. This is more realistic than I usually do. Hopefully it will turn out well. I’m hoping to finish drawing tonight and maybe start numbering. I need to get it all traced this week. I think. All I can really think about right now is a nap though. Not a good sign.

*Rusted Root, Send Me on My Way

Unless This Music’s Thumping*

First of all, I have a friend whose husband was in an accident and is currently in a coma. She’s young, three kids, the youngest is still a nursing babe in arms. If you are so inclined, she’s going to need financial help no matter what happens…just to keep her head above water for a bit. The GoFundMe is linked here. She was my partner in teaching science a few years back…I know how amazingly strong and creative she is, but I also know how devastating this is for her. Please help if you can. If you’re one of my quilting friends…a chunk of fabric came from her before she moved to Morocco for a while a couple years ago…in fact, this piece, By All Means, is entirely made from her fabrics and some of her rejected blocks for a show about recycling materials.

Because I don’t piece stuff. And I get a lot of pieces of fabric from people who are getting rid of stuff. Anyway, it’s hard to know how to help in this situation, and I’m not a prayer person…I’m just sending telepathic bolts of Get Better Dammit toward Paul…but know that what she really needs is money right now. And a miracle, if you believe in those.

Anyway. Sigh. Bad things happening to good people.

Friday night, I went to my stitching meeting, but drove back through a lightning storm, arriving home to a bunch of frantic dogs…well, really only one who was truly frantic. This was around 11 PM, when most everyone was sleeping (one cat, three dogs), except for Calli, who was still trying to dig through the floor to get to a non-thunder place.

She kept going until around 1:30 AM…ugh. This one just barked at it, but was unperturbed. He barks at everything.

I didn’t get much done on this at the meeting…just butterfly bullion knots. First I did the sleeves on the quilt that needed to go to the photographer.

I tried one of her mom’s shirts on Calli…I don’t know if it helped…but this was a calmer moment than the ones before.

I had a ton to get done Friday night, but mostly I held the dog.

Oh yeah, I’m fascinated by these moons. I keep buying them. I don’t know what I want to do with them. You can find them here. I figure I will make a fabric home for them at some point…

Anyway, so I got nothing done Friday night. At some point, I remembered that I had planned on some hand embroidery on this one…the one that was due to the photographer at noon. Now could I have emailed him and asked for more time? Of course…but I didn’t. Because I need to get going on the other one. I got up and started stitching.

I had about an hour and a bit…and I used every minute of it…

Nothing fancy…just added texture and color.

I like doing this. I should do more.

That requires me to finish quilts earlier than deadlines though so I can spend time doing that.

Anyway, it’s at the photographer. I ran some errands, and was home for about 25 minutes, long enough to eat lunch…then off to the first opening of the day…

This is at the Boehm Gallery at Palomar College. You can see my two quilts hanging on the back wall.

It’s a very cool show with lots of interesting work. Below is Kathleen Mitchell’s glass piece Rough Childhood. Mammogram is the quilt on the left; Part-Time Oasis is on the right.

These two bird women by Maria de Castro are beautiful. Hoopooe on the right, Hawaiian Neme Goose on the left.

Then Cheryl Tall’s piece O Happy Days in front of my quilts…

There were many more pieces in the show…it’s up until November 8, I believe.

Meanwhile, the girlchild is still playing soccer, in case you were wondering…but I only see bits and pieces of it online.

I was grading stuff at that point, finishing that heinous assignment that’s been plaguing me for weeks. It’s done! Then I got an email about parking that reminded me that I had signed up to see an exhibit at Sparks Gallery Saturday night, since I knew the man was playing in yet another show that I couldn’t crash (guest list only)…so I drove downtown to this beautiful sunset.

The show was a fundraiser for Space4Art, which has a new property and is trying to get money to build an affordable space for artists to show and live where gentrification won’t kick us out. What a concept, San Diego…instead of closing them all down or turning them into million-dollar condos.

I really liked this piece, Untitled (Anti-Analogy) by Tml Dunn.

And of course, my friend Linda Litteral’s huge long work from her Meditations series displayed in the window…

Now if I’d had more energy or drive, I would have driven down to Bread and Salt for the Latin American festival of art…it looked awesome. But I knew I needed to draw. So I came back and inked the stuff I’d penciled in on Thursday night…

Still working on this section…added some more stuff in here…

Took some brain breaks to hang out with Kitten, who ventured out because the dogs are at me ex’s house with the boychild…

She helped me draw (not)…

Still more work up here…although I headed down to the legs first.

Not done with those…and so I have more nature stuff to go in the bottom and to the left, and then to decide what to do with the upper right. We’ll see. I put in about 2 hours of drawing with a lot of sitting around being tired. Two nights running I’ve gone to sleep horrendously late…not by choice, but that’s just the way it was. This week will be interesting. I’m taking one day off to help with something…so maybe I’ll get caught up on some work in between that. But I also need to finish the drawing and get going on this quilt.

But first, groceries and parent email for school and shower and probably not in that order. And I’m hungry.

*Cake, Love You Madly