Relax for a Hot Sec

Dogs woke me up. The pool vacuum system is full of air. I stayed up too late. I don’t even know why…trying to get my brain to shut off. Too much copyediting and trying to draw and late night brain stuff. Plus today being a holiday…it makes me feel like I should be allowed to stay up late, but honestly, more regular sleep would be smarter. I don’t always do the smart thing, though. That’s probably why I make so much art. I’m not thinking about being smart and going to sleep and all that stuff they tell you to do. “The number one thing you can do to increase your health is to sleep 8 hours a day.” Well. OK. I’m not good at sleep, never have been.

So Saturday morning, I sat the SAQA booth at the San Diego Quilt Show. There weren’t a lot of people at the show, honestly. Although I haven’t been for years, so maybe that’s just how it is.

I’ve been a SAQA member for a long time. Not a super long time. Just a long time.

I sat and stitched…finally was able to start some embroidery on this! I had a quilt top freehand cut and ironed down years ago. Found it, quilted it, and then set it aside for some embellishment. It’s not like I have a shortage of threads. I have 7 million threads. So I worked on it a little bit.

And I talked to people…some I knew, some I didn’t.

I walked around after and looked at the vendors…bought a little bit of machine-sewing thread. Bought some fabric, mostly Australian stuff…

Fascinating patterns.

And I wandered past a lot of traditional quilts. But there were a few that caught my eye…nice use of color in the cactus, Doug’s Cacti by Andrea Bacal.

This was a block-a-day pattern…sort of crazy and fascinating…

All Around the Neighborhood by Rita Anaya, pattern is That Town and Country by Susan Claire Mayfield.

It looks like fun…

See, there are traditional bones in my body. OK. It’s a little crazy. But cool.

You had me at Bite My Shiny Fabric Ass. This is Sew Geeky by Deidre McLeod.

I actually recognize most of those.

I’ve always wanted to be a hooker…a rug hooker. Sorry for the blur. I was tired. Up too early on a Saturday.

This is Seaside Town, hooked by Beth Luker and designed by Karla Gerard. Her patterns look like fun.

Quilts on the Wall was there…with the Drips and Splatters exhibit. I liked this one, The Aftermath of a Meager Meal by Ann Turley.

And this one, Making Cookies by Beth Shibley…

So that was what I liked. Your mileage may vary. As always.

What I have been doing the rest of the weekend? Well I washed and ironed this…

Hopefully a pattern will be available soon on Global Artisans…I noticed they’ll be offering downloads on the patterns as well, which is cool. No need to pay shipping or wait for it to show up.

And I finished Part 4 of the book I’m copyediting and sent it to the author for review.

With Kitten’s (not) help. I also started on the Bibliography, which will be a big chunk of today, plus spent some time yesterday stitching the pieces of the book back together, with a lot of swearing at Microsoft Word. As always. Almost done though! Hallelujah. I’m ready to be done with it.

I tried drawing last night. I realized that I did need to make a new piece for an upcoming exhibit, sooner than I had thought, so stop wasting time and get on with it! Right?

This drawing sucked. But it’s an idea I will work with over this week…hopefully it will make something I like.

We had dinner with the parents…and I did a little more of this…

At that point, I’d spent about 3 hours trying to get the parent email contact list to work and finally sent it out…only 24 bounces, most of which I could fix by going back to look at what the kids had typed in vs what their parent/guardian had actually written. But also, kids, there are no spaces in emails. Or commas. Or hyphens. How do they not know this stuff? Honestly, they don’t use email. Hardly at all. We’ll have to get them to look at that.

Anyway. Here’s a puppy…

He’s not a puppy really. He’ll be 4 on Friday. You can still see his shaved bit. His coyote bites have healed well.

OK, so more copyediting, wash a quilt so I can mail it later this week, take some stuff to the dumpster, make more scones (I made low carb/low fat blueberry scones last night because we have a ton of blueberries…I just froze a ton of them), do a recycled fabric sample, perhaps draw, input grades, maybe relax for a hot sec? Yeah. Probably not. Hot, yes. It will be hot. Relax? Not so much.

Right Through Walls We Made

OK. Well I asked my author for more time. I can finish copyediting on time, but I can’t put it all together well and be confident it’s awesome. Plus I might not be able to sleep any of the nights until it’s due if I don’t get more time. He’s a nice guy, so it shouldn’t be a problem, and I usually do everything early for him, but for some reason, this year and this project have just been difficult. So hopefully that’s OK, because I’m not sure trying to teach 7th graders on no sleep is a good thing. Although I did it one year. Long story. Not a good one.

I did finally finish embroidery number 9 last night…I barreled through a bunch of it around the beginning of school and then barely picked it up for a week. There were reasons for that of course. But she’s done!

She needs a bath and ironing, and then her official photo. All of these are available as patterns and kits at Global Artisans…although it looks like the patterns are sold out right now. I’m also going to be selling some of the finished pieces, but I have to tell you, they take me some time to do, so that means they’re not cheap. This took a little over 13 hours to stitch. Not super fast. Anyway. Moving on. That was the embroidery phase of my art life, I guess. I figure now is the time to try out a bunch of different ways to get my work out there and make money, and although I don’t expect much from this, I still think it was an interesting thing to do. We’ll see how it does in the next year.

While I was stitching, Satchemo had his face squished up against my leg and was kneading me with his claws. As soon as I picked up the phone to take a picture, he moved.

No ma’am. I do not want fame or fortune. I am also amused by the man’s socks. First of all, it’s August and hot. Second of all…that plaid. I’m seriously amused.

OK. I am tired. I did not art last night except for finishing that embroidery. I went to bed early, but it didn’t really work out that way. Oh well. My head is spinning this morning with all the stuff I need to get done. As always. Yesterday I went in early to throw 170 textbooks around. Today is a lot of labeling and sorting, because nothing is easy. And then trying to get my classroom organized. Ha! Such a joke. It’s chaos in here. But they’re coming in to make sure it’s SAFE. So locking all the cabinets up again and hiding the hand sanitizer because my kids might drink it (really?) and now it’s the portable toilet we have in case there’s a lockdown and a gun on campus, well that can’t be accessible to children (the logic is faulty, for sure) and I’m not sure where it’s going, but probably in the prep room with the elephant and the zombies. With that, I’m out. Gotta go talk about Mars. It’ll be good. I was going to read to them, but my co-teacher recorded a video and my voice is starting to go. It’s really better if I let her read. Maybe. I don’t know. Tonight, though, tonight I copyedit. It’s inevitable. And draw. A little. I need to draw a little.

*Beck, Colors

Hauling My Tired Self…

It seems I have forgotten how to sleep. Maybe it was the heat last night. Maybe it was the panting dog who woke me up at 1:48 AM to pee. I’m not sure I had actually slept at that point. I know my brain is in overdrive. I finally got up early because I have to move about 170 textbooks and put them in numerical order and then write them down on a bunch of rosters, all before school starts. Just to clarify, I have to do this for books that are no longer relevant, because my district screwed up and started the textbook process way too late in the NGSS transition, so we have no relevant textbooks. Plus the state of California is in the Dark Ages. We will only use these at the end of the year as a safe place for kids to search up pictures and definitions for ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, because even if you give them a safe place on the internet to do that, you know some kid is gonna go rogue.

Yesterday was still a lot of talking. I’d like to reduce the talking please. And then a 2-hour staff meeting. Note to bosses: we stop listening mostly after the first hour. It’s just too much. Luckily I have the agenda with the links, so I can go back and wander through it when I realize there’s something I was supposed to be doing and I forgot. Usually that’s an oh shit moment. Luckily my team will support me by telling me I should have been listening, because they were on a sugar high with all the candy he provided, and I didn’t eat any of it, so I was crashing.

After all that, I drove to the photographer’s and dropped off two quilts. No, I don’t know what I’m doing next. Well, that’s not true. I got asked to teach a short workshop in November and I need to make a couple of samples for that. I should do that.

I’m also trying to finish this…I’m so close…

It will be done. There’s only a little bit of stitching left.

After dinner, I did a little school stuff and then I copyedited for an hour and a half. I got a good chunk of it done, considering how late it was. I quit at 11, though, and went to meditate. See, I was trying to deal with all that shit in my head, and I did a good job of meditating with the dog on my lap (lapward dog pose)…

And I was looking over some art entries, shutting my brain down, when both dogs started barking like the world was ending (it wasn’t) and my heart rate skyrocketed for I think no reason at all, but maybe a raccoon on the roof? I just don’t know. Nothing worth that level of barking.

Dude. You were asleep.

And you are a tiny idiot…

Seriously, the leaves are not attacking us. Neither is the wind. Or rabbits. The rabbit army has arrived! Nope. Not. He looks cute, but he’s really kinda crazy.

So my adrenaline went through the roof. That might have been part of my issue with the sleep. So much for a quiet calm exit to the bed.

I did not MAKE any art, except for the few stitches I took. I knew this would be a rough week. But I had three things due and now I only have two. This is good.

Here’s where the cat was hiding yesterday. Can you see her?

Cats are weird. But much quieter than those two dogs.

Girlchild posted this yesterday. I was jealous.

Not that I should be eating a quarter of that…

I came home to this weird pack of butterflies…

They were all flying around each other, possibly mating, sure, but then they all settled down on the leaves. They took off as soon as I got closer. Do butterflies hang out in packs? I just don’t know. Something for the Wonder Wall…

OK, work today is all about safety. Yesterday I taught the difference between ‘quiet’ and ‘silence’. Exciting stuff. Tomorrow is Mars though! That is exciting. I will be copyediting some more tonight. And every night this week, I think. I might get to the gym tonight. That would be nice. I might decide what quilt I’m going to do next. Hard to say. I should probably decide what I’m doing with the class samples first. First, this morning, I head out to move books. Hauling my tired self in.

Quilting Will Be Nice…

Even my computer is moving slowly this morning. It’s thinking about perhaps opening that tab, but um maybe um maybe OK there it is. Whoa. Much like my 2nd period will be today probably. Which should be fun, because I’m gonna make them think again. I made them build stuff yesterday, which was mostly OK, with a few notes, like don’t buy really wimpy spaghetti noodles, because it makes it REALLY hard (although still doable, so there’s that)…

And also you will have those three boys who just can’t sit still and you will already be telling them forcefully on the second day of school what having their parents sitting next to them will feel like. Sigh. Today I will sit with those boys and try to work on the supportive relationship that will make or break labs with them for the rest of the year. This group is ready to roll and we’re gonna have to roll with them in some way, shape, or form. I think today is rolly-chair day. I’m really gonna roll! My favorite. Also I need to get the nurse’s office to stop calling and wanting to have long convos during class. Short and sweet, y’all. I don’t got time for all your words! Oh yeah, and the two kids who will miss my class for 20 minutes every day? Um. OK. Not sure what to do about those.

Moving on. I came home and went to the gym like a good adult woman in charge of her strong body and the mind that wanted to read a good book. (It was a good book…the first of the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. Now I gotta get the other three…) While at the gym, I think I had 3 different school-related conversations going on. Until I was reading, and then I ignored all of them.

I didn’t have to cook last night, which was nice. This week has been a lot of people not around at home or my changing schedules, so I’ve kind of been eating the same thing for days, it feels like. I worked a little bit on this…

which is So Close to being done! After that, I quilted for a little while. I didn’t get a ton done, but I got some…

Most of the land parts and the legs…

Just those mountains left, then the torso, arms, head, and sky. That’s tonight. Hopefully. And the background. So I can buy binding tomorrow and get this puppy done. I have No Freakin’ Clue what I’m working on next. I know I said that before. I’m saying it again. Oh yeah, I need to put a Patreon video up this weekend too, but I’ve gotten pretty good at editing them now, so it’s really only figuring out which of the 15 videos I recorded to use. The Man is playing in two shows this weekend, one of which I can’t go to anyway and the other one, eh, I’m good, I have a lot to do…but it means I’ll barely see him this weekend. I guess I will get a lot of work done, including some copyediting and maybe even schoolwork, although I’m kind of putting the quilting first so I can get it to the photographer early next week. It’s all good! I’m also debating teaching a class, just real short, introduce people to how I make stuff…I got asked to do it. I didn’t search it out. I have been going back and forth about whether to do it or not. It’s paid…but that’s not why. I wonder if it’s something I would want to do. That’s all. So I said yes. I think. Sheesh. I’m crazy. It’ll be FINE. Seriously. OK. This day. This weekend. Quilting will be nice.

That Damn Red Shirt…

It’s a foggy morning. It’s quiet, except for the gurgle of the pool filter/motor thing, which has too much air in the system again, so I’m gonna have to email the new guy. I don’t have time to go out there and figure it out. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m gonna go out and make sure there isn’t a coyote snout or a gopher caught in there, but then I’m gonna email the expert who cleaned it yesterday. (No dead animals. I checked.)

I need another three days before kids can come back. It’s unfortunate that I only have 24 hours. I’ll be fine. Really, I will. The 4 AM wakeup so I could put something in my calendar was fun.

The second problem is coming home to a hellacious to-do list. I managed to catch the cat and put flea medicine on her, check who all my resource kids were, wonder Why TF they put so many kids in one period with a kid in a wheelchair (gonna be crowded!), print a bunch of school crap, forget to print a bunch of other school crap (hence the 4 AM wakeup), put a label on a quilt that needs to ship out this week, run a load of laundry so I can wear our new team shirt tomorrow (although I don’t have a bra that is light enough to wear under it, so that’s a thing), cook dinner, and quilt. And try not to kill anyone. It’ll be fine. (As I get a text that I’m supposed to be wearing the same red shirt I wore last Friday, like I do laundry all the time or something. Oh wait. IT’S FATE.)

Who was it that said something about how you can tell if a diabetic’s blood sugar is crashing because she is irritable? And then qualified it with the difference between my normal irritability and that related to my blood sugar. Which certainly if you saw me this morning, dealing with the pool, some red shirt thing (NOT the Star Trek thing where you’re gonna die), two meetings like ASAP, which means I gotta get my ass outta here, you would understand why someone would need to know the difference. FUCK. Now I’m irritated.

OK. It’s all good. I got this. Yesterday’s cat legs under a quilt…

It’s where she likes to hide…

Puppy glad to see me when I got home…

We found another scrapey bit where the coyote might have got him. He’s doing fine. We’re all paranoid as hell, but he’s fine.

I did a little of this. I might run out of the blue. I might not. IDK what color the cloud will be…whatever is left over.

Does it really matter? Maybe. Maybe not.

I did outline quilting around the outside edge pieces, all the way around the quilt.

IT’S SO FUCKING MEDITATIVE. Seriously, it is.

So I forgot to look at a clock until after midnight. Oh well. It’s not like I had to be up early this morning to get my ass to school to meet with someone about someone else who is gonna light my world up this year. YAASSS! Bring it! I’m ready. Where’s my damn red shirt.

The 7,000 Things…

I created a post this morning and filled it with pictures, because I think I thought I would sit there at lunch or in a quiet moment at school, taking a break from the prep crazy, and I would write some short pithy (doesn’t pithy mean short? well, sort of) amazing blurbs to go along with the pictures. Oh yeah. Ha ha. Laugh all you like. It’s 5 PM and I’m writing it now. Welcome to my world.

I was up early, taking the girlchild to the airport, sending her back to Boston, which is her home, as is San Diego. We will miss her…especially this guy…

I had to be at school early anyway. My brain wasn’t working well though.

I forgot about this. One of the professional learning things last Friday was a few sessions on self-care. One of them was adult coloring. Well I didn’t think much of the coloring pages they gave us, so I drew on top of the one I grabbed.

Hey, one thing I KNOW is self care, dammit.

I finally finished the edges on this. Now it can go.

Ah yes. Coming home to sleep. I’m surprised there’s no puppy there.

This is how far I got on this on Friday…

Pretty good for one day. Of course, I was paying attention to all the talking. In fact, I pay BETTER attention when I’m drawing or stitching. So there.

Yesterday’s hawk in the tree outside my office window.

He was eating something. Ripping it to shreds. Hopefully it wasn’t the bunny who hangs out by the pool. That thing is large.

So my goal yesterday was to finish the stitch down on the quilt. I had started on Saturday. Or Friday. I don’t remember. I really only did the border parts.

My Patreon people will get to see me stitching on this week’s video. I’m not sure how exciting that is, because I didn’t sew through my finger. I have before, but not yesterday. So no blood.

This is what Kitten does while I sew.

It’s noisy. I stopped at the halfway mark and did some dinner prep for the parentals. Looks good, eh?

I always forget to take family photos. So there’s three generations of women and a male puppy. Who is turning 4 and is not a puppy at all.

I should remember to take more of those. That’s me, my daughter, and my mom, by the way. In case you don’t know.

Blurriness means movement. Boychild is trying to dehair the parental dog. Katie’s not having it.

She sheds these giant fluff balls. It’s disturbing. For all of us.

There’s dad in the background with an incredibly spoiled dog.

Oh yeah. He’ll miss her.

When we got back, I started on the second half. I was hoping to finish, and in fact, I sped through it…

Stitch down never takes very long, but in this case, it was only 3 1/2 hours. Nice.

The back is always interesting. (Oh yeah…I have some of the embroideries that I didn’t send to the guy who’s selling the patterns, and I think I’m going to try to either hoop them or finish them in some other way, if hooping doesn’t make sense. This is one of them. Although this one would hoop easily. I’ll put them on Etsy when I’m done. Although they were not fast, so they also aren’t cheap.)

See, you can see the other side in simplified format.

Crazy really. And then I cover it up.

This is officially the last big quilt that will have this fabric on the back of it. I had yardage that I found in a box in the girlchild’s room, and I think this is the third quilt that has it on the back.

It’s some batik from ages ago. Yeah, I had time to piece a backing and pinbaste it. Impressive.

AND I went to bed early. Because early wakeup call.

Well then school. I need another three days to be ready for kids. But they arrive on Wednesday. So that’s not happening. Could I have kids in my room tomorrow? No. Wednesday? It’ll be fine. I’m panicking slightly. I have 120 yards of blue tape. My co-teacher might have just bought 78,000 marshmallows. Neither of us should be allowed out into the world. It’ll be FINE. I’ve been saying it all summer. Tonight I’ll start quilting, but first I need to do like 7,000 things and then cook dinner. Plus breakfasts. And lunches. But I’ll start with the 7,000 things. Apparently someone thinks I should PAY for the car I bought. And then people keep emailing me. I don’t know why.

In a Car

I’m not driving and blogging…yet. I’m buried! I spent an hour talking to Southern California SAQA members, which was cool. Need to grow the group, get more like-minded folks.

Then I copyedited (and cried, because there’s a trauma story running through the science, and it gets to me).

Yesterday, I was doing school stuff all day. It’s feeling really overwhelming. I stitched through the Welcome Meeting…

And through our meeting…

Because it kept part of my brain on task at least…

And then I stitched through the season finale of The Handmaid’s Tale, again while crying. A plane full of kids is an awesome sight.

Then I got the new quilt ironed down to the background, which had to be pieced.

And started stitching down.

Which needs to be done tomorrow for me to stay on schedule. No worries! Ok gotta get out of the car.

I Always Need It…

Twenty-four-hour break from most of the world. I did check email. I rolled on social media. But I wasn’t home, where the quilt and the copyediting are currently making me breathe fast and panic. It’ll be OK! Seriously, brain. You can do this.

Hey, Simba is OK. He was attacked by a coyote and suffered a little bruising and one puncture wound…

In his side, not the neck, which means he was doing that roll-away-from-you thing he does when we try to catch his fast roly-poly ass. Good choice, pup.

I suspect they will keep a closer eye on him at the other house now. He was barking before he was attacked, so knowing his tendency to bark at everything that is bigger and scarier than him, he was probably barking at the coyote. He hasn’t stopped doing that, as my one night in Arrowhead proved.

Anyway, so we left a little late on Wednesday to get to the mountains, but we got there…a quiet night…

Some embroidery…

Oh yeah, one more thing that needs to be done by the end of this month. I’m taking it with me today to the first day back to school…it’s all sitting and listening, things I’m not particularly good at on a splendid day, and today is not a splendid day. My high-school history teacher will tell you that this will not be the first time I’ve brought some sort of hand craft to keep me awake during the droning of professional learning, and it certainly won’t be the last.

We got up, I went in to get my boating license (I was the only expired boater), and then down to the dock…where Calli got what she really wanted…water time.

She’s on the leash because her back leg is still gimpy, and she doesn’t swim very well any more. You can’t tell HER that though. Girlchild helped…

We spent the morning there, alternating on the kayak and just sitting around reading…

The parentals will probably be selling the cabin and dock in the next year…so we should enjoy it while we can…not sure what will happen to the canoe and the kayak.

We took advantage of both…

Girlchild probably has a million picture of the dogs…

Our attempt to keep Simba’s wound clean was not so successful. Warm compresses helped though.

Boychild takes off on the kayak as the girlchild and Simba watch.

I love the kayak…

I also love to draw…

I should have been stitching, but couldn’t focus…girlchild in the kayak…

We came back and ate lunch, went to the village briefly, and then went back to the dock. Why not enjoy the water and the breeze?

Cute kids…

Calli was hurting by the end of all of it, mostly because of the climb down to the lake and back out, a few steps (more than a few!)…we all got some reading time in.

My dad was up there with us…manning the dock box and making sure everyone had wine…

I think he’ll miss this place.

I finished the drawing…I think. Working on awkward limb placement is always a challenge, especially when you run out of paper at the bottom…

In other news, here’s my piece Not Less Than at the 22nd International Open at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, IL…

Through the end of the month. Glad she made it there.

With that, I need to make it to school to start the 2019-2020 school year. Wish me luck. I always need it.

I Roll on Chaos

Ah busy times here in the Nida household. It seems I will never have a quiet and simple and organized start to the school year, because well, that’s just the way it is. First of all, I gave birth to the girlchild right before school started, so if she’s home for that, it causes crazy chaos of feeding people and weird schedules and lots of grocery shopping plus trips to the mountains. And then because they put summer school in my room and THEN needed to clean the floors, I can’t get into my classroom (maybe today? hopefully definitely tomorrow or I’m significantly fucked). Plus a copyediting job, a quilt deadline, and an embroidery deadline. I’m fucked. OK. Not fucked. Just busy. And not quiet, simple, or organized. My head is full of to-do fluff. You know when you can’t pick one thing to do because there are too many? I just turn around in circles.

I’ve been copyediting a little a day. It’s hard to concentrate, staring at a computer screen, for that long. But I do it. That’s how I’m going to get the trees trimmed. I’ve also been ironing a little a day. That’s how I’m going to get this quilt done in 15 days. Oh my. 15 days with school starting. Ha. Ha. Crying a little here.

We picked girlchild up from the airport on Saturday night. The dogs were very excited to see her…

She has a friend from school staying here too, so she was gone most of yesterday. I copyedited for a good chunk of the day, but that meant I needed to get out and do stuff…physical stuff. We are down to one dog who can go on long walks, and it’s the little fluffy one.

He’s not the best walker in the world. He gets tired. Then he’s faster on the way back. At one point, the boychild had to carry him because he refused to go on.

Lame. Then again, we were really walking ME, not the dog.

Rattlesnake shed skin caught in a plant.

We saw snake markings across the road at one point too.

This egg…

Those curlicue seeds too…you can see them in this picture. They’re such a pain to get out of Simba’s fur.

We wandered across here to a different viewpoint to see if last week’s fire location was visible.

We’ve had a bunch of small fires locally lately. Fire danger is pretty huge this year after last year’s rain. October is usually the worst month for it though.

There’s the bushwhacking pup.

He does pretty well for a pretty, fluffy boy.

It’s nice to get out. It’s not too hot right now. Knock on wood, because it will be. Like tomorrow.

California horned toad/lizard…a little one…

They’re really hard to see. We only caught sight of him because he ran in front of us.

I did this after dinner. Slow. I’m planning to get a bunch done at the mountains, I hope.

I might need to take her to the professional development stuff on Friday.

My ironing partner…she’s not very good at it. She was running in her sleep.

I feel well guarded.

Then ironing. This is kind of a pain in the ass. I mean, it makes sense to do the whole background before I do the figure on top. Hopefully it all fits…

It seems to be working…although I’m already missing one of the misnumbered pieces.

This is where I stopped at 12:15 last night.

I have a little of the background left to do above this…I have to decide whether to move the stuff that’s already ironed down so I can fit the sheet under the top part, or whether to add another piece up there. That’s probably easier. This is still in the fussy stage.

And I’m not even halfway done. It’s OK. Really. Except I want to be done with the ironing before I leave for Arrowhead. So I’m fucked. NO I’M NOT. I CAN DO THIS.

This is the crazy that is the totally fucked-up badly numbered 300s. There’s some serious crazy in here. I laid them all out. It’s the figure in that space and then the beginning of the other side.

Although I’m pretty sure the arms for this figure are all 400s because I forgot to number them. Duh. OK. Well. Later today. I’m debating the gym. I need to go find creme fraiche. (WordPress, dude, I did spell that right. I just left off the symbols.) I need to copyedit. And tonight is birthday dinner…so that’ll be a little extra chaos in the day. I roll on chaos though.

Oh yeah, I picked up the cards for the show I’m in that opens in September. My piece is on the card, which is always cool.

It’s at Sophie’s Kensington Gallery…I’ll be at the opening. This is the one on Adams Avenue.

Oh yeah, the house above me is for sale again. Three years we dealt with Mr. Cigar Smoke, who was the arrogant son of the previous owner, and their letting Tilly, the dog, down to shit on our property. Long story. They didn’t do much to the inside, but are putting it on the market for an additional $300K. Wow. But this drone photo cracks me up…

Wanna know where my house is? See all those trees on the right with a hint of a pool? Yeah. That’s me. Shade. It’s a wonderful thing in the summer. I guess he gave up on trimming my trees. I hope the new neighbors don’t have three small children (we already have that on the other side…it’s a little loud sometimes), don’t smoke (ugh. That’s been annoying), don’t throw loud parties, or what did the Man say, don’t have country band practices twice a week. Yeah. I’m pretty quiet, I think. We’ll see. It’s not really a family-friendly house as it is. Oh yeah, construction. Can we avoid that for a while too? Seriously, they built one house down below, and then did major remodels on two other houses on this private road that only has 10 houses. Like tile saws and hammering and jackhammering. I could do without all of that. I’m a really ornery neighbor apparently. Not really. I don’t go out and yell at them. So there’s that.

Anyway. The young women have left for the beach, so I need to make a decision. Gym now? Gym later? Copyedit first? I haven’t eaten. I should finish Part 2’s first readthrough. Then go. It’ll be good.

Today 22 years Ago I Was Not at the Gym

Back to the gym. Trying to remember this habit before school fucks it all up. That’s true of eating right, getting enough sleep, and having personal time.

I was not here 22 years ago. I was at the hospital. The girlchild is 22 today! Wowza. She will be here tomorrow, but is enjoying a music and arts festival in San Francisco today.

I have so many awkward pix I could post of her…mostly screenshots from her Insta stories. Um yeah. I think I’ll wait until tomorrow and post something she won’t hate. Or maybe a birth picture! Oh yeah. Not even digital. So old school. Looking forward to having her home. Bought a bunch of kale and avocados.

Yesterday was school all day, even after I made it home. So much to do. But there’s a rough idea of what needs to happen.

We have a white board. This is good.

Going back is hard though. Never ready. I can get into my room next week, which is good because nothing is done.

I stitched a little at my stitching meeting…this number 9 and the last one I’m designing.

She doesn’t have a name yet.

And then I wanted to be done cutting stuff out.

That was the goal anyway, and I could have stayed up and finished, but I’m trying to train myself for back to school, plus I had a ton of stuff to get done today, so I needed to be up relatively early (not early really…but I’m not a fan of mornings).

So I only cut for a little over 2 hours…up to almost 11 hours total.

There’s so little left, but I really wanted to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I have a video call today where I can finish and then sort them hopefully. I still need to copyedit, edit a video, and clean a lot of things. No biggie.