Hello all. It’s Wednesday, although my brain is convinced it has survived more than two work days this week. It’s wrong…well, unless you count the weekend, when I also worked. As always. I finally finished all the bindings on the dye paintings…with everyone’s help. Here’s Nova…
Who headbutts things and then drools on you.
I started embroidery (finally!) on this one last night…
Probably take forever. I was going to do more applique on it, but that would have meant getting off the couch and I was well past that. I will still DO the applique, but I need to prep for it earlier in the evening. Probably not tonight. Today is a mess. We’re going on a field trip to the Midway (big military boat; my favorite thing really…ha), then we’re back in our rooms for two periods and I still don’t have air conditioning (it was 97 degrees outside yesterday). Then pilates and cooking dinner. Ugh. I’ll be half dead by the end of it. And I’m grading like crazy to hopefully limit what I have to get done over break.
I went to the ceramics studio last night and took this half-assed photo of the bowl ready for glaze fire.
It took me almost an hour to do the glazing. I’m hoping it turns out well.
The Forbidden Words Project quilt is done…I have three words/phrases in it.
Let’s see if I can find them…
The girlchild might make it to the opening where this will debut up in San Francisco. It’ll travel…hopefully I’ll see it at some point.
Yesterday was crazy hat day AND tattoo a teacher (fundraiser)…
What’s funny is that I went to the ceramics studio after and forgot I had the tattoos and got some weird looks until I remembered.
Good times. Getting them off was a bit more challenging, but I think we’re good.
This is where we’re headed. Again.
I’d like to bring up the guy who said my comments about the Repugs/MAGA need to throw women back to the 1900s were a conspiracy theory. After I bring him up, I’d like him to explain what’s happening now and how I was wrong. (not happening; it’s fine. It’s not like I wanted to be right.)
And this. Sigh.
Keep voting y’all. And caring about all the people. It’s what we’re supposed to do.
If you’re a teacher, this is my day: it is Friday the 13th, a week before Spring Break, we have an assembly, and it’s supposed to be 94 degrees. And my air conditioning in the classroom is still not working. It worked for one day and then turned off again. Managed to keep it under 74 degrees yesterday with the use of a fan and opening and closing doors to other people’s A/C. But really not sustainable. So fix that shit! At least there’s no full moon though. Pro: short classes. Con: trying to get a thing done with short classes. All the kids who were absent yesterday when I explained how to do the project are on their own; I made a video of the explanation. I have to check every kid’s paper today before they can go to the next stage (this is the fun part). I’ve have no chance to grade the packets all week. I think I have half of one class done. HALF. Fuck me. I need that done before break.
In other news, I’m still working on four quilts at one time. I got the bindings pinned on Wednesday night…
Except for one, because I forgot to zigzag the edges of the seam. Yes, I do that. Crazy sewing training. Then last night, I started the handsewing of the binding.
Simba did not help. I did not finish even one quilt. I got about 3/4s of the way around. On most of them, maybe all of them, I’ll wait to sew the bindings down until the embroidery is done. I don’t want to embroider through the sleeves…that would make them nonfunctional and be very silly. Some people are probably wondering why I did the binding before the embroidery. Because I don’t have the creative brainpower at the moment to decide what and how to embroider. Hopeful that shows up soon, but currently in exhaustion mode. Wish me luck with that.
Last night was my monthly stitching-in-person meeting and I managed more of the raccoon.
Cute; not hard, but fun.
I had Nova next to me and Scribble decided to be on my lap and then bite Nova’s neck.
I swear, Nova is the most submissive cat sometimes. She just sat there, like “this is my fate”. So weird.
This is true.
And I know what I’m gonna do with it.
OK. Seriously, today is not a trivial day. Plus two meetings and trying to wrangle the sex-ed packets between grade levels. Last night’s parent info meeting was also not trivial. More parents than we’ve had in years, maybe ever. Long. Thanks to the translators. After school, I have to book out of there to get to the dentist to get my stitches out…finally. They’re driving me bonkers. Then hopefully I’ll feel OK enough to go to ceramics. More bindings tonight (handsewing…sitting on the couch, staring at the TV in between stitches), and sleep, beautiful sleep. Although the dog hasn’t been letting us sleep in past 7:20 AM. Ugh. Hopeful. I am ever hopeful for that extra hour.
Oof. It’s Friday, yes, short week, yes, but holy crap, these short weeks have packed a punch. It’s almost a relief to go back to a normal week (except next week is so not normal). What is normal anyway? Not sure. It’s rained on and off all week and been cold (hey it’s Southern California, but it was 40 degrees here when I woke up…yes that’s warm for a lot of the country, but I don’t have the clothing for that…well, I do, but not to leave the house). I busted out my Ugg boots last night. I got home in the rain, pulled the trashcans in, in the rain, got really wet, in the rain, peed the dog, still raining, and totally damp, I wanted to just put my pjs on and curl up on the couch. But no! A friend I haven’t seen in person for 22 years was in town, so I gladly drove through (guess what, the rain) not-so-bad traffic actually (considering the rain) to hang out with her, another friend, and another on Zoom for a few hours. I got some raccoon done…
These are super relaxing to work on.
So is binding. It’s just the same stitch around and around.
I got the binding done on Wednesday night and then both sleeves on last night…
Not really helpful cat.
Great image, yeah? Well it goes to the photographer tomorrow…
Also a great photo. With my hand in it and a pile of trimmed ends of the threads from the stitching. But it’s done! The first quilt of 2026. With the next ones ready to go…a departure from what I normally do, but I’m excited about that. We’ll see how it goes, how long the excitement lasts before I want to do something different. Or the same. It’s hard when I’m teaching to find the brainpower to branch out into different techniques and processes. I spend so much of my creative energy at school trying to plan and solve problems, that sometimes I come home and there isn’t much left. There are things I can do without a lot of conscious thought, like trace, cut things out, even pick fabrics…but the original creation, the drawing, that requires more thought. And these next ones, however many I do (I have four ready to go) will be completely different…well, not the first stages. Those will be rote…stuff I know how to do…but the later stages will be very different from what I’ve been doing. Excitement? And anxiety. Woo! I don’t know that I need more anxiety at the moment, but it’s creation anxiety, and that’s not always a bad thing. I guess watch this space?
Here’s Nova giving me a judgy look because I yelled at her for eating the kitten’s food.
I did call her chonky. Rightly so.
Well no ceramics tonight unfortunately; this is my normal day though. I have a meeting during my prep (silly parents) and then I have a long meeting after school that will require brain power (make more tea) and will probably go for a couple of hours or longer (hopefully not longer). Then clean up that quilt tonight, iron it flat, get all the damn cat hair off of it. If there’s time, I’ll start the next thing, although I may just fix my pants. I’m hoping to go to a bunch of art shows tomorrow…I have three on my list; two while I’m delivering to the photographer (already almost there…might as well keep going) and one in the evening that I will drag the Man to…it’s fine. We’ll do dinner after. Plus I need to grade a million things again. We’re almost at the end of the trimester, which is stressful. And next week is a shitshow ending with eyeball dissections. Woo! But hopefully sleeping in tomorrow a little and doing some fun things to make up for all the work? That would be nice. And I’ll have some grading time on Wednesday and planning time on Monday to make up for the LACK of it at all other times. Yeah. It’s Friday. Let’s do this.
It’s Friday. I don’t think I got anything done in the last two days. I mean, I’m sure I did something, but not enough. Never enough. And this weekend is a long one, but chaotic as fuck. And because I didn’t get anything…well, not enough done in the last two days, I will have to do everything faster. And maybe just not sleep. That might do it. Might be able to get it done.
Even quilting…missed one evening…for a good reason, but I had plans to get through some grading and quilting and it just didn’t happen. So no, I am not done quilting…not even close…I did get the outlining done.
Looks good. Then I started the background quilting, which is a pain in the ass.
I did all the tiny fussy areas in the center bit and then started around the edges. Imma be here for a while.
I’ve been buried in meetings, so I made it to ceramics for 10 whole minutes on Wednesday after one meeting. Yesterday there were three school-related meetings and I didn’t even get home in between those and my stitching meeting, where I started the next Sue Spargo block of the month embellishment. These animals are gonna be fun…
Plus I’ve had two early mornings, which fuck with me. And tonight will be IDK how late, but it sounds like I might need to go over two hours early. Ugh. It would be fine if I could sit in the bar and grade while the band sets up, but then what do I do with my computer after? I’m actually considering this y’all. It’s the Man’s band’s last show in the version they currently are. The drummer is leaving, one of the guitarists and the lead singer already technically left. They’re gonna have to remake themselves, but everyone is coming back for tonight, so it’s going to fill up quickly. That said, the Man usually has a bag of stuff backstage. Maybe I can just hotspot the computer and grade for a while and then shove my computer into his bag? It might work. I know, it’s a crazy thing to do on a Friday night, but otherwise, I’m just sitting there for two hours until the show starts. I can’t even go out and sit in the car or something, because they’ll just stop letting people in at some point. Aargh. OK. It’s a plan.
Yesterday’s drive to stitching…the sky was so much more stunning than a phone camera can ever capture.
And then I turned north and just kept seeing it in my rearview mirror getting redder and redder and then just fading out. The sky is fascinating. I used to teach the color part of that…but this year, this year is absolute shit for that. Maybe the last 5 years. Sigh.
Here’s Annie and Simba at the other house. Apparently not allowed on the couch?
Man, Simba looks old there. He’s 11. He’s not really old. Just a baby.
OK, apparently I did a lot of meme-hunting instead of all the things I should be doing. Disassociating. In the way of my people. Honestly though, with all the crazy shit this country is doing, it’s a miracle I can get my head around any of it. This one…except I do love me some sci fi…
And I had to explain this one to my students yesterday when our warmup question about spying came up (we’re reading Maze Runner in Advisory and the docs are spying on the kids with these weird beetle blade creatures).
Crazy world. Sick world. I mean my phone did want to tell me yesterday about the places I’d been and what categories they were.
So then there’s the Epstein Files…or more importantly, all the (mostly men) people who should be arrested.
Do it! Let’s protect some little kids for once. It’s about time…even if they’re grown up now, they still deserve protection.
Sigh. Did I tell you about my high-school acquaintance who was like “the American people don’t care about the files; move on.” WT everloving fuck. I want to talk to your wife. Now.
Exactly. And watching Bondi yesterday? I can’t. These people. And I don’t know what a quilt about this looks like and it’s possible I’ve used that imagery of telling the stupid people in the bubble to stop while we protect women and children and they look stupid, but oh, maybe I can do that again. When the art you’re making is pissing you off…I really need a short break from the part where the topic of it, the content, makes me angry. We’ll see how that goes.
Or both. At the same time.
OK. Meeting at school, in my room. Last-minute. I asked someone else to handle all the organizing and he did jackshit. Love that for me. Then I have an assignment for the kids that is pretty low-key for me. I’m hoping to bang through the homework assignments from last week and maybe work on the academic one I tried to grade Wednesday (I got halfway through). Then duty at school, race home (pick up prescription first), eat, pack quilts, go to the Man’s show, collapse into bed. Up tomorrow, gotta quilt but also have to drop off quilts and do other stuff, hopefully hike, chaos to-do list, scares me, mostly work but also digging and who knows what else. Shit, I need to set up a lab today too. Ugh. I don’t think there are any more bins for that. Huh. Will figure that out. Maybe. Unless they make me sub my prep again. Hopefully not (that was yesterday).
Pro: I slept solidly last night (because I was exhausted…wait, I still am exhausted). I got to hang out with stitching friends last night. I didn’t grade anything last night. It’s Friday and I’ll be ironing a solid chunk of the weekend and then stitching.
Don’t ask about school. I might lose my mind. Not kids (well, sometimes kids). Just all the other moving pieces. And there are a lot of them and some of them are stupid. In case you’re wondering. I know why I became a union rep so many years ago, but it’s hella exhausting.
I also have a book that I need to finish reading by tomorrow at 2 PM, when the library whisks it away. There are 78 people waiting for the book, so if I don’t finish it (which might happen), I won’t see it again for 5 weeks and then I’ll have forgotten the already tenuous link I have to the story. I could just stop reading it, but I have a hard time with that. I think I should stop and then there’s a few pages of clarity and interest and I’m back in again, but…realistically…I have 3 hours left in it. And that’s a lot. And I have a lot of other things that need to get done. So we’ll see. Sigh.
OK ironing. I ironed late last night. The night before, I did much better.
I got the whole bathtub water thing done plus all the things floating in the water and the legs.
Last night, I finished the torso and both arms, which are fussier than maybe they look.
I’m in the high 700s and I’ve pulled a few 800s, so honestly, I’ll finish tomorrow and get it ironed to the background and hopefully start stitching it down. I’ve got a new deadline that popped up that I need to get started on, so I’m pushing through on this. Deep breaths.
I had a plan for the next quilt that was kind of a break from the heavy political stuff, but it looks like I’m diving back in. We’ll see what that looks like. I’m letting my brain percolate it as I finish this one, because I’ll have to leap right into drawing sometime in the next week or so.
Stitching last night with friends…all I did was couch down the fly stitches.
It took forever. It was nice to hang out and chat about travel and other stuff though.
When I get really busy on art stuff and school, I don’t have a lot of extraneous pictures apparently. Even of cute kittens. Here’s Scribble sleeping on the bed I bought for Simba a year ago so he could be comfortable out in the living room (he prefers to lie on my leg or on the couch behind my neck).
I think one cat slept on it once. So it just sits there. Maybe it will be Scribble’s. She’s a sweetheart. Doesn’t sleep with me every night, but comes and says hi every night. Very purry and kneady. Follows me around. Holds her own with the big kitties.
OK. I’m giving a test today, which hopefully will be quiet and calm and shut up. But you never know. Also it’s still strangely warm here, despite being December, and that seems to be affecting brains. Some kids think next week is already Winter Break (it’s not). Some kids will be gone even though they know it’s not Winter Break. We got two new kids this week and their names are almost the same but flipped in order, which is beyond confusing. So I’ll probably have them in the same class period and will never figure out which is which. I think a teacher’s brain only has so much capacity for learning names in one school year and I may have already reached it. Also limited patience. Yup. Reached it. But it shouldn’t be a hard day…not a lab. Just management. And then duty after school and ceramics and I need to buy Drano and a light timer. I don’t have to cook dinner. I do need to read for 3 hours in the next 30 (ha! That is so not happening). I need to hike tomorrow. I need to SLEEP. But not right now. Right now, I gotta go.
Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.
Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.
OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night
Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.
And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.
I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.
Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.
Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.
I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…
Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.
I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.
I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.
It looks nice.
I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?
That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.
I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.
Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.
He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.
Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.
Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.
This is me always.
The night is better.
I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.
Because we all wanna know.
Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.
Heyo. It’s Monday. And a week of school and art and whatever else I can fit in begins. I had a great weekend camping up in the mountains, although it was definitely chillier than I thought it would be the first night, thanks to a wind advisory. 50-mph gusts took it down to the low 40s, with a real feel in the 30s. Definitely colder than I had planned, although I brought all the long underwear, thank goodness. The second night had no wind and was quite nice…still chilly, which is a nice change, but not so cold you can’t feel your hands and feet. We were lucky to be in a part of the campground with no small children, mostly quiet dogs, and no partiers, for once. It was delightfully quiet.
It was a nice campsite, plenty of shade; in fact, on Saturday, after our hike, it was a little chilly in the shade. I kept moving my chair so I could doze in the sun, which is unlike me.
We did a 4-mile hike north on the PCT from the campground.
At some point, you get a hazy view of the desert below.
It was actually kind of warm, except under the trees. Four miles seemed about the right amount. I’ve been hiking 3 miles every weekend, but the Man hasn’t, so this was more than my normal and way more than his.
It’s a beautiful place to hike though…lots of trees and blue skies and fresh air…a few people, but not a lot. So peaceful.
That golfball thing on the Man’s head (well, it looks like it anyway) is the Air Force Radar Station. I looked it up. No, we didn’t visit. Probably not allowed. I wonder why it’s white, though. It could blend in more and be less obnoxious.
I drew both nights by the campfire…it’s kind of a tradition of mine. Staring into the flames, headlamp on, seems to help me just draw these days.
So many days at home, I’m only drawing for a specific piece or purpose, instead of just drawing for the sake of it. I used to have time for that, even with the day job. Now, it just doesn’t happen.
This will turn into something else. It was a solid start.
Still working in the bathtub range.
Less political. Which I suspect the new quilt will not be…less political, I mean. I have three bathtub quilts I’ve made over the years, and they’ve been more personal than political. I find it hard to make anything these days that isn’t political. The number of insane acts and policies and pronouncements makes it impossible. The loss of freedom for so many people can’t be ignored. I don’t have solutions that don’t involve coups or alien invasions unfortunately, and since Antifa doesn’t actually exist, I have to draw what I want for the world and make it into art. Draw what is and what should be. So these were prep for the next piece. The bathtub quilts will be in Virginia at the Virginia Quilt Museum starting the end of January. I’ll be there in March for the closing ceremonies.
The first night was already cold, so we were already starting the fire at like 5:30 PM. It was still daylight, so I was stitching on this little tree. It is a tree. Can’t remember what kind…obviously Sue Spargo and very stylized.
Here it is the second day…
The Man was napping…I did a little of that and some reading too. I appreciate the time to just sit and be with the things I want to do. I did bring grading with me; I don’t usually, but I’m in panic mode. I graded one week’s worth of homework in the car on the way up and finished it Saturday afternoon. I then came home Sunday and did a ton more. And no, I’m not done. I’m buried. Sigh.
This was the cold cloudy windy night…
The moon was very bright both nights, which was nice.
This was the beginning of the book I was reading.
Too true. I did all those things this weekend. Except commit felony homicide and move a body. And here’s a quote from the book itself.
I wish I really loved the book (I don’t…it’s OK, but not really my thing). I did love some of the phraseology and ideas. I have another book by the same author…this was a book club book. I’ll read the other one and decide if she’s just too cozy for me. I don’t mind SOME cozy stuff, but this was a bit too much. I’m not even done with it and I’m really done with it.
Here’s my level of cozy at the moment. Gotta love some Richard Scarry.
And Ruben Bolling did it well.
OK. We’re still in roller coaster design today. Hopefully the next three days won’t be hellacious. Thursday was a bit much, but I have hopes that once they start actually taping stuff together and testing it, it will be very focused and I can get some grading done. We’ll see how that goes. Then a 2-hour staff meeting that could possibly be an email. And ceramics? Hopefully. I’m delivering my quilt to the photographer tomorrow and when it comes back, shipping it off to the new owner. Which is good, because I have bills to pay. Sigh. Money stuff is stressful. What’s new, right? And then hopefully, I’ll start drawing the new piece. It’s going to be big, but it has to be finished in December, so it can’t be huge. Keep that in mind, Kathryn.
It’s pajama day at school today. It’s also supposed to be 90 degrees. Not sure those two things go together. But I am in pajamas. Flannel. Yup. With pockets though. I have a lighter pair, but they don’t have pockets. Yes, I know how to sew…clothing even…I could easily add pockets. In my spare time. I got none of that. In good news, the parentals are home, safe, not ill, and their lovely aged very deaf dog is back to their responsibility. In bad news, the day job continues to give me acne, bad sleep, and canker sores. I’m sure it will get better. Someday. Not this week though. This week is our first real lab and IDK how that will roll…this is where we can really see what last year’s teachers wrought upon us…that and the first long writing assignment. My hopes are not high. I realized (we realized?) last week that this group is not particularly independent, even when assignments are. I couldn’t grade anything, prep anything, even sit and help a kid I know needs it and won’t ask for it, because of all the kids requiring help who just didn’t listen to directions or quashing attempts to be social when supposed to be working. It was exhausting. Yes, there’s always some of that, but this was too much. So I brought home all the grading I’d been trying to do all week and did it at home…much faster. But eating up my time. Not OK.
Quiltwise, I knew I needed to do some embroidery on a couple of ICE vests that were too small to cut out words for…so I did that Friday night.
I was exhausted; I went to ceramics also and then my parents for the mail, so even though I had mostly prepared the night before to sandwich and pinbaste that night, I figured I wouldn’t have the energy. The boychild went to bed, then the Man, and Art Brain persuaded me to mop the floor, iron the backing, pin it to the floor, finish drying the batting (someone pulled it out of the dryer not dry…yes, I know who), iron the front, and then pinbaste the whole thing around 11:30 pm.
Absolutely some level of fucking nuts.
But honestly, much easier to do with everyone in bed. Dogs, cats, people out of my way.
Saturday night, I started quilting…
Made it through a healthy chunk of the dirt…
Then last night, I did the little people and most of the ICE agents dragging children through the swamp.
I’m sure I’ll be doing this most if not all of the week. And then I realized, how the fuck am I gonna buy binding? The store I usually shop at is open stupid hours and I’m going to LA on Saturday for basically the whole day. I’m not sure how I’m solving that problem yet. I’ll figure it out. Shop somewhere else, probably. Fewer choices in fabric unfortunately. Oh well. If you’re never open when working people can come in? Then they won’t come in.
This was the bed when I tried to get in it on Friday night. Eventually some moving happened.
Cute though. The Man is in there and those are all his babies.
I’ve been hiking every Saturday, late afternoon, about 3 miles, so I can eat a dinner I choose, instead of one my body allows.
It’s also relaxing, mostly. There were a lot of people this last Saturday. Less relaxing. There’s a fine line between hiking safely as a woman and being annoyed by all the people on the trail.
I drew at dinner…this was a two-dinner drawing.
The faster they serve the food, the more dinners it takes to draw.
Speaking of drawing, some of my students are truly amusing.
The arm gestures of Josh. So cute. Yes, I realize they drew a dead person, but it’s also a stick figure.
Girlchild is in Japan…I’m so jealous.
I asked what was going on in this photo, and apparently it’s joy.
This is not very iconically Japan…
But she looked more cool. So we get daily photos and videos of cool things in Japan. I’m very jealous. It wasn’t really on my bucket list (I was last there in 1967 at the age of nine months. OK it might have been 1968.), but maybe it should be?
And in political news…
Yeah maybe I should start saying that. What is your problem?
This is too true.
Sadly so. Also so much disinformation about this. I’m sad for his kids and wife; I’m also sad for the family of the shooter. I’m sure this isn’t what they wanted for him. But hey y’all…it was a white, religious, right wing extremist. Not the democrats. Not a trans kid. Not a woman. Not a person of color. Can we focus on the bullshit coming out of all those politicians’ mouths? And the guns…can we ever say the guns are the problem? I’m boggled by the about-shifts in social media with some of these people.
And this…with teachers and professors being fired over statements about Kirk. My partner says the world is a better place now. Is that a fire-able offense? Dowd is divisive? Seriously? I’m boggled by the rhetoric and the bullshit. Maybe I shouldn’t be. But I am. And the ignorance of history. That too.
OK. Well, all that aside, I do still have to teach middle school today. Energy! Still. Transformations of energy. Writing about energy. Using more than one vocabulary word in a sentence. Writing complex sentences. Things most science teachers don’t teach. Welcome to a literacy school. And two teachers who are readers. Then two different meetings after school. I’d like to go to ceramics, but I’m also trying to go to my quilt guild meeting, because Lea McComas is speaking there. It’s on Zoom, but it’s not the same thing. So IDK how the rest of the day will go; I just know I’ll be quilting at the end of it.
Well today started at 4 AM as a 5-skittle morning, thanks to my blood sugar alarm. Better than Saturday night, when the alarm kept going off because (according to the guy on the phone) my antibodies were attacking the filament of the continuous glucose monitor and I would just need to wait it out OR the monitor was faulty and he’d send me a new one. Sounds like something my antibodies would do. I love that all my medical staff is trying to figure out why my body doesn’t do what they think it should…when I ask about the early AM crashes, they move things around, meds, when I take my insulin, etc, and damn if those crashes don’t keep happening. Fun times. Yes, I do keep skittles in a drawer next to the bed; don’t you? I’m down to one crash a week, which is…um…still annoying as fuck. But maybe we’ll figure it out. Maybe they’ll start doing more science on women and how their bodies are different than men’s (ha! Oh holy fuck, not for another…1243 days? Is that fucking right? And that RFK guy? He’s a scientific dearth of information. He doesn’t understand anything since the early 1980s, I think. He certainly doesn’t understand how the food pyramid works (that we don’t use anymore). Froot Loops at the top of the pyramid…YASSS, because we’re not supposed to eat a lot of the stuff at the top you dumbass and you’re not supposed to eat a lot of Froot Loops! We’re all gonna have brain worms at the end of this. If Biden or Obama had put a guy in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that was this incompetent, the Repubs would have lost their fucking minds, but now they’re all for it. Crazy shit. Absolutely batshit. Go get your measles shot if you’re like me and only had one as a baby. I feel like that’s gonna be our downfall.
Anyway. This was an arty weekend, as well as being a weekend full of trying to get my work head on straight. I have a bunch of pictures from the Oceanside Museum of Art opening that I don’t have time to deal with today (maybe Wednesday), but we did go to that and I’m glad…it was really cool to talk to some people there. I also ironed things together…here’s Friday night…
Didn’t get far, because I also had to lay stuff out…here’s the first 100…
Laid out in groups of 10…check out the tiny bones on the bottom. And then I had all these that separated…
This is after I paired up a bunch of them…so I’ll figure this out as I go. I’ve already found about four of them, but also had to retrace another 10 or so, which is annoying. Ah well…this is what happens with tiny pieces. And one of them that I retraced, I found it in the next box, so sorting is also sometimes tiring and hard and I fuck it up. Fun times.
Saturday night’s ironing…
With a closeup…
So you can see the skeletal hand that will look way more awesome when it’s outlined in stitches so you can see all the bones. Some level of insanity there. Then last night’s ironing…
I’ve ironed about halfway through the 200s, I think? There’s a pile of stars to go on that flag, and then I start on the little people who are kneeling on the edge of the flag. This is not fast, but it is pretty rewarding, because it’s the first time I get to really see it in color, besides in my head. I really love the red African fabric I used in the volcanic bits…it shades from bright to dark and looks really good. Yes, fabric makes me happy.
I also spent a shitload of time trying to get my classes organized and the basic shit documented. I didn’t finish grading, because there were two harder assignments and I wanted to save those (aka, not grade all weekend). I did read all the kids’ surveys though, for the first time ever. This kid is a snarky one…
Also, so many of them want to not work at all this year or at any time in the future. So that bodes well for the country…not really; I don’t have huge expectations for 13-year-olds. Also the kids who don’t want to be scientists; they want to be engineers. Um. Hello. What do you think an engineer does? So amusing. I wish them all luck in their futures.
I finally finished appliqueing all the border flowers on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown…
Looks really cool. Now I have to spend the next two years embroidering them all. No really. I don’t think this will be fast. It’ll be amazing when it’s done, but it won’t be fast.
Saturday was hot (real feel 103 degrees), but I need to walk/hike on Saturdays or I can’t eat what I want for date-night dinner…and we were going up to the museum show, so I had to go at like 3 PM, which is earlier than I would normally hike anyway, but still hot. I headed for the hike that was closer to the mounting rain clouds, and I did have a breeze and eventually it cooled off a bit.
I only did 2 miles instead of 3 because of the heat, drinking water and dribbling it over my head the whole time. The Man almost texted me at some point because he heard thunder (I was already in the car on the way back) and thought I should get the fuck off the trail. Yeah. Nobody else was out there, for sure. It worked, though. And so that’s my thing for Saturdays, when I can pull it off. Go hike so you can eat stuff.
This is too true. The pendulum of shit they do care about makes no logical sense.
You care about our health, but you get rid of programs that feed children. I guess it’s OK if they starve as long as they’re healthy about it.
The Man took this picture of his bug-eating plants…with an actual bug NOT being eaten.
Impressive.
And here’s my sweet, very hot, very panty boy.
He’s been a pain at night (because he’s hot and then he makes me hot and then he pants and I can’t sleep through it). But he is a sweet baby.
Speaking of not being able to sleep through it, our baby owl is still here.
So the deal is that they squawk when they’re hungry, expecting mom/dad to provide, which they were a couple of weeks ago. I saw a parent deposit a mouse/rat/small rodent on top of the box for the baby (much squawking ensued), but last week, I saw the baby in the tree outside my office, squawking very loudly about catching their OWN rodent and tearing it to bits (predator birds are impressive in that way), so I know it can catch it’s own food. In the past, we had a pair of babies and then triplets, and the mom/dad chase them off at some point so they get the fuck out of the nest and go take care of themselves. They would still come back sometimes, but not sit on the box and squawk all night. This one is an only, and IDK if the parent is the problem, not chasing them off. We’re pretty sure last year’s parent died in the box (not sure why, but we had two skeletons and one was definitely adult-sized and one wasn’t). We never got a fledged one last year. Maybe someone poisoned the rodents? Who knows. So owls return to the same nests every year, pretty much, so maybe this is one of the previous babies as mom? And she’s enabling the SHIT out of this baby. I’ve heard her a couple of times in the last week or so, screeching away, and then the baby leaves for a while, but keeps coming back. Last night, it was gone for longer, so maybe we’re close to being a big bad adult owl, but it just cracks me up that some parents let their babies live at home and take care of them for so long…I joked that housing prices are so high in San Diego that the baby can’t afford to move out. Too true.
OK. School. Teaching about AI today…responsible uses of it and unacceptable uses of it. It’s not going away, so I’m going full disclosure and how you will fail my class if you use it to take a test. Fun stuff. Then a 2-hour staff meeting after (ugh) and book club tonight on a book I didn’t love. But ironing after. And I think it’s supposed to be cooler today. So that’s a plus. Real summer hasn’t hit yet. We’ll go over a hundred degrees for some time in the future. Not looking forward to it.
Hmmm…there’s nothing like waking up on a Monday morning, getting ready for school, sitting down to the computer, and realizing there was something you were supposed to do over the weekend and you totally forgot about it. Oh yeah. I totally remember how school feels. Like that. Like this morning. Damn. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. There’s always tonight. Sigh. Even yesterday, I knew I had work, some work, and normally I would have done it in the afternoon, but I didn’t feel like succumbing to school on the weekend yet, so I didn’t do it until 8:30 PM. Not the best plan. Oh well. It’s done now. I will go write this other thing on the to-do list (which I made Friday and did not look at all weekend). Also, there’s nothing like food prepping a variety of breakfasts to get you through the next two months, and not wanting any of them when you get up in the morning. Score! Fun times.
OK, first full week of school with kids. Always a challenge. I think I mostly prepped today’s activity on Friday, which is good, because Advisory is only 6 minutes and I have to be on duty at 8:30 and I’m rolling late already. On Friday, I was amazing! I made it halfway to school before I remembered I hadn’t taken my insulin. OMG, yes, I had to turn around and drive back, so I didn’t have the day prepped, and first period suffered. I too suffered. I’m going to take my insulin right now. I used to take it at night and it was much easier to remember, for some reason. Morning brain foggy? Sure. That’s probably it.
I am still chugging along on the trimming…closer to done. Here’s Friday night, when we were going to go out to see a band, and that totally didn’t happen…
I can see some of the main figure pieces in there. Saturday night, I cut some more…
Saturday, we vacuumed the whole house, washed all the cat bedding, and I got the special pleasure of washing all the cats. Fleas. Ugh. The meds the Man was using were totally not effective. More meds are coming, but blech. It was a lot of work. So I’m glad Nova still loved me enough to sit with me. She made the most amazing yowling sounds during her bath. I think I started cutting out the flag there.
Sunday night, I’m definitely in all the little people and the gravestones.
And some veins and stuff from the main figure. I can see the bottom of the box, but I still think I’m two or three days away from done. I have almost 12 hours in at this point.
I went to ceramics on Sunday afternoon (hence part of the work chaos)…I need to get this part of the torso in the kiln, so I need it to stop breaking. Fuck me. Here’s me with everything laid out to reattach and reglaze.
Luckily, there was only one other person in there. She was spread out even more than I was. I have over 75 hours into this piece. Crazy. That’s the head in the front, under the plastic. I’m hoping to work on it today. But also to finish fixing things. I think there’s only one unattached thing right now (knock on wood), but some glazing needs to happen. Depends on how crowded it is. Hard to do with a lot of people around.
I did a little stitching down of things on Friday…with Nova’s droolio help.
I am really hoping to get these all stitched down soon. Too many other things to do. I delivered two quilts for a show up in Newport Beach on Sunday…the show opens September 12, but I can’t get there for the opening (it’s a Friday night…can we talk traffic?). So I cleaned those up, put a label on one, cut slats, packed them up, etc.
I hiked 3+ miles on Saturday…trying to make sure my blood sugar stays down for date night! And they moved the trail…
I hadn’t been here for a while and the entire middle section of the trail moved…not a little bit, but a lot. Weird. Maybe there was a sensitive environment over by the river that they were trying to protect? I could probably figure that out eventually.
This crazy ass caterpillar was in my yard this morning…it’s apparently a Rustic Sphinx moth…
Or it will be, if a bird doesn’t get it. It does seem like it’s ready to cocoon itself. Massive.
OK. School. I’m already getting texts this morning. Fun times. Teaching safety today. Then going to ceramics, then doing the work thing I forgot to do this weekend. I took pictures of all the kids and I need to put names on them. Ugh. It’s fine. I do it every year. It’s just time-consuming. Useful though. Helps me learn names and faces. Time to go. Get out of here. Go to school. No really, go.
Kathy Nida 