Tag: hiking

A Situation Made for Pie…

This is my 3,660th post on my blog. That’s crazy. I guess I can add ‘writer’ to the list of shit I do. Although that might have already been on there, notionally. I’m writing less often than I used to. I’m not sure what changed (a pandemic…but I don’t know why it affected my writing time). As of 11 days from now, I’ll be tied to a computer from 8-3 every day, and I can see that having an effect on my ability and willingness to write a blog every day. I may shift to afternoons? Or I may go back to quick and pithy (I’m not great at pithy) every day but Sunday. I don’t know. We’ll have to see how everything rolls. School is starting earlier for me…but I don’t have to drive there most days, so it shouldn’t matter…it’s a little earlier than I would leave to drive to school. It’s a lot earlier than when we started online in the Spring. I’m thinking kids are gonna be braindead in the first few periods every day. Me too, probably. Too many school thoughts right now. That’s actually not abnormal for this time of year.

p.s. If you have kids in school and their district is saying “Teachers are much more prepared this time around. Everything is ready and they’ve been trained.”, um, yeah. No. No, we’re not. We’re not trained, we don’t have access, we don’t have everything ready, and we’re not prepared. We’ll roll, we’ll be there, we’ll have stuff, it will look good, it may even look awesome and work well, but we’ll be panicking every morning and night trying to get there. A lot of it is trying to figure out HOW to do what we used to do or something better. We don’t know what will work yet. We barely had things working before, and now it’s all changed. So be kind to us. You hate us, you love us, we save your kids, we are the worst ever. This job is so hard, y’all. Be kind. Stand up for your kid if necessary and get them what they need, but be sure you are being supportive on your end. I’ll probably have 150 students. Online. I’m scared. I’ll handle it. I have the most awesome team and co-teacher ever, so I’ll handle it. But it scares the crap out of me.

OK. So in other news, I’m still tracing Wonder Under on the newest quilt. I made it to the halfway point and beyond last night…

Of course, the kittens tried to eat one of the lungs on the drawing…

In the center of the drawing. Of course. I fixed it and now I cover the whole damn thing again with boxes in between tracing. I keep thinking they have matured and don’t do stupid kitten things any more. I would be wrong. They are not quite a year old. They still do stupid kitten things.

I also cut out all the Wonder Under for Grow…

This is the small Patreon reward for one of my patrons. I’m hoping to pick fabrics today or tomorrow for it.

I’ve mostly been working on trying to get a bunch of stuff ready for Etsy. It takes longer than you would think. I got this on a hanger…

I have a few more to do that way, both quilt tops and embroideries. And this one has its backing on…

I’m still working on the others…these are all the hooped pieces in process.

I’ll get them up on Etsy as soon as I can. I can’t decide if it’s more efficient to put them all up at once or to do a few at a time. My office companions are really no help at all…

You can see the stack with backings ready to go.

I did a little of this one…

And I also sewed most of these squares and rectangles on…

I think there are four left to go, and then they all need embellishment.

I’m in a mood today. I can feel it. I hate that feeling. But it is what it is. For now. It will hopefully change.

Every time I go get the mail or go out to water the front yard or dump stuff in the composter, the dogs chase after me and guard the door until I return…

The caterpillars are still growing.

I’m still waiting on chrysalises. Chrysali? Hmmm.

Sleepy time…

I am never alone…

And my chair is often co-opted.

This is Katie…

Katie is my parents’ dog. She’s visiting as they finish up with selling their mountain cabin. She came and then had vomitous and diarrheal events all over the place. It was fun. She’s on meds and has had fluids but still has diarrhea. I feel sorry for her, but that’s what you get for eating dead things. Dead things that aren’t cooked anyway.

And if you haven’t checked out the girlchild’s podcast…there’s armadillos and Obamas in this one.

Somehow dead things that aren’t cooked reminded me of that. It’s on the i-family of podcastery now too.

So yesterday, I had a hike planned with two co-teachers…socially distant and all that. I’ve done two pieces of this preserve…but not the West Vista loop.

So we started out…it was warm and there was a climb…

But it was outside and there were vistas and birds and plants. We did a lot of this kind of distancing…this was a shade stop going up.

I think this was the view from the bottom person, my science co-teacher…

Actually, that’s a different batch of shade. We liked shade. And interesting trees.

With brand new acorns…

These are not the oaks I have in my yard. But those oaks were there too…plus poison oak, which isn’t an oak at all…and lots of dry and dead stuff… I have Black oaks. These are live oaks? I would have to go grab my book to make sure.

Because well it is August. Black sage…

We hiked slowly but talked a lot and looked at lots of things, so that was good. Including vistas!

I’m pretty sure up there is the Clevenger Canyon hike I did with the man a few years back.

Another interesting tree.

It’s a nice hike. We had asked a random hiker man in the parking lot which direction he would go, and I think he was right. Do the big hill at the beginning, and then it’s downhill a lot and then flat a lot.

So we started at the N (Nature Center) went out to the right and up, then the loop around the top (0.9 and 0.5), then down toward Highway 79, and back to the Nature Center. The Nature Center is not open because of COVID, but is a cool spot from 12-something, so you can use the bathrooms after 12.

Next time, we’d bring sandwiches and have lunch at one of those picnic spots.

We saw turkey tracks and cows and birds…like this Harris hawk…

We think it’s a Harris hawk. Vistas and distance.

It was just under 5 miles in about 3 hours.

I enjoyed it.

We’re trying to figure out how to fit some sort of trail talk into our science curriculum…a video of us talking about rocks in the county and showing them to the kids.

Ecosystems and elements and photosynthesis. All around us. How rocks change…

And why…

And what they’re made of…

This is the hardest part…we have great ideas, but sometimes making them happen gets lost due to time constraints. If I have to be on a computer teaching a class, how do I have time to go record these videos? We’ll have to figure that out. Maybe every Wednesday, we kamikaze out of the house and school buildings as soon as school is out and meet somewhere for that week’s video.

We’re both really busy. We’ll have to find a way to make time.

We can always drag the history teacher with us. She didn’t seem to mind.

This is me trying to figure out what this used to be…

I am a curious sort.

This was another thing…electrical lines. We had ideas…

For earthquakes? Fires? Nah. Just too hard to dig a full footing in this soil…lots of little ones are easier.

I came home and we did food and I did work and some stitching and tracing. The cats are wary of Katie still…so this happened.

Three layers of calicoes. They’re all staring at Katie.

And this morning, doing school stuff…

I wish I could nap like a cat.

Well today is mostly gone. I’m hoping to get some artwork done and some more schoolwork maybe. I’ve done a bunch. There’s always more. And hopefully some decent food. I did get a pie yesterday, but I have to cook it. There’s dinner! Um. OK. Not the healthiest. I’m tired, I’m sore, and I’m cranky though. Sounds like a situation made for pie.

Hard Doesn’t Mean Impossible

I have a headache this morning. It’s partially caused by the concrete trucks and related noise from nextdoor’s new pool construction. I can’t really escape it, so it’s driving me more than a little bonkers. The rest of it is school-related. It seems I really shouldn’t go back to a classroom until there’s a vaccine or this virus disappears into the ether (hello COVID conspiracists…I am talking to you. Now leave. You won’t like it here.) I’m hoping not to disappear my job in the middle of all this, but since they were gonna co-opt one of the two bathrooms on the floor for my private use, and honestly, as healthy as I usually feel, any time you show me the list of high risks for COVID and I see mine on there, I get wibbly in my tummy and run to check that all the beneficiaries on all my accounts are still my children…well, I guess it totally sucks to be that person, but I am that person. Online teaching is not my favorite, but for now, I’m doing it with my team, so I will survive, as will we all. The going-back-in-person thing is the bad juju for my body. I also can’t afford to not work. I am glad that hopefully I will be able to do my job without the exposure. We’ll see. I’m thankful that it’s a possibility. I just don’t like it.

Monday night, my brain was just not working, for whatever reason, so I just cut and pasted the other drawing I had enlarged…

There will be too many COVID quilts from me? Maybe. It’s not done…but it’s the right size at least.

Last night, I got my act together and traced all the Patreon reward pieces on Wonder Under…

So that’s what 111 pieces look like. This is for a Patreon patron who gives me a significant amount of money a month, and I appreciate her support.

Then I started tracing Wonder Under for the COVID Daughter quilt…

I finished the first figure, which was about 100 pieces. It takes about an hour for 100 pieces. So I have about 7 1/2 hours to go. I stayed up way too late, mentally debating next steps for work and consequences and fears and all that good stuff, and now I am tired and headachy (my own fault) for lack of sleep. Bless those concrete trucks for their lovely noise. I have issues with noise, if you haven’t noticed. I can ignore children screaming (mostly) and lots of other noises, but construction noise drives me bonkers. Also the humming of fluorescent lights. And you tapping your fingernails together. Ick. Anyway, art progress has been made. I do feel remarkably (or not) unfocused about everything. My school team met yesterday for 2 hours and banged some shit out, and now I feel overwhelmed. That is normal for this time of year, though, so I’m rolling with it.

I bought a bunch of devices for hanging some of my finished small pieces (quilt and embroidery) that are not going to Patreons. My goal today and tomorrow is to get them finished on the devices, photographed, and uploaded to Etsy. The fence wood should be coming in Friday or Saturday, so we can finish the fence next week, right before school starts and I’m online for 7 hours a day (ugh). Progress with tasks.

I worked a little on this one…

The yellow is hard to see. Should have used the blue. Ah well. Blindness caused by embroidery.

I took a long walk yesterday to deal with some of the crap in my head. This was an unexpected addition to this spiky plant I’ve been walking past for months…

And there’s the view of the giant-ass hill I can either go up or down (there are two other hills I can also go up or down…I end up going up one, down this one, and then zigzag up the last one).

Walking tries to clear my head. It’s not always effective.

I try to stay off of Facebook to avoid the crazy shit, but there it is…

First of all, spelling. But I have friends who are good people who can’t spell, so OK. Second of all. Um. Antifa. I really don’t get why people think this is a thing. I consider myself anti-fascist. Now straight up, I studied all these -isms in school, but I had to go read up and make sure I was remembering correctly. Like who isn’t anti-fascist? Besides dictators and their best friends? And Marxism/Socialism, I know those scare people, but it’s just talking about capitalism not being the best for all the people, and maybe we should take care of all the people. I don’t understand why those things are scary. Because you earned your money by pulling up your bootstraps and everyone should have to do that? Well, I’m not telling you which friend this comes from, but I know she doesn’t work for a living. Hasn’t for a really long time. Her husband does though. Must be nice. No really, it must! But capitalism means that some people can’t get a leg up in society, especially with all the racist crap that’s embedded in our society about who gets jobs and who gets to live where and be paid how much. I didn’t respond to this woman because I knew she wouldn’t listen. I do unfriend a lot of these people, and I hovered over this one, but it’s useful to have one or two that I think are nuts so I can read their crazy. Also, protest doesn’t have to be peaceful. It can be angry, especially when us dumbass white folks aren’t listening. For years. But also, Portland isn’t burning down. So much drama.

OK. So there’s cats. They’re easier to deal with…this one is pretending to be flat.

She’s not very good at it.

This one has decided she will climb into the upper shelves of the closet and sleep on my quilt roll.

She dumps a bunch of stuff on the floor every time she clambers up there.

Here’s flat Nova again…

Dayum. Cats sleep a lot. Probably they are lazy and won’t hold down a job, which is why capitalism doesn’t work for them.

Stretchy Kitten. Goddamned socialist. Look at her suck at the tit of my hard work.

Update on the bird poop caterpillars. They are larger. And they have migrated to the stem/trunk of the tree.

I’m keeping track so I know when they go into chrysalis mode.

I’ve been reading here, on the deck…but it is where the concrete trucks are today.

Right over there. Causing headaches.

Yup. That. OK. So I need to do art things today. And school things (videos of mandated reporter and injury stuff and pest management because we will not even be in our classrooms). I might even give up and go take pain meds for the headache. Then try to be chill with my self. Honestly, I cried a lot yesterday and in the middle of the night about work, and I will probably cry again. OK. I have a job (for now). I’m not dying. I’m not sick. I’m not happy, but that’s a normal thing. It will all work out somehow. I should be glad I have some level of choice, even if it’s a hard one. Hard doesn’t mean impossible. It just means not easy.

Cat Butt Incursion…

There’s a cat butt keeping my keyboard from being in the right place. She squeaks every time I try to shove it further toward where it’s supposed to be. Man, I’m tired. Yes, I stayed up too late. Why? Well, ostensibly I was working on art things, but also was watching the end of the second season of Hidden and wanted to see the end. Way too fucking late. Bad summer behavior.

First of all, I FINISHED THE DAMN QUILT. There was a lot of binding.

And I did all of it. And then dropped the whole quilt on the couch.

I haven’t figured out the time it took yet. But I did email my photographer for the last two quilts. Hopefully he’ll be OK with that.

So there was about a 24-hour time period in the last few days when I was going to be teaching an unknown elective for this school year, but then that went away (oh good). I suggested social-justice quilting and pole-dancing, but since my principal was too scared to actually even contact me and tell me about the elective, I also thought he wouldn’t go for either of those. No worries, all, I would have just taught art. I’ve done it before. It would be hard with the online aspect, but not undoable. Just busy as shit. But it’s OK now…that’s gone.

But because of that, I needed a hike in nature…even though it was by myself.

Sweetwater Wildlife Reserve…with its vernal pool that is quite boisterous this summer.

It was hot…

Always happy to see the flowers…

I did 3 miles…

There’s a bunny out there…

Dear School: Knock it off. Seriously, so many of my hikes are because of outside stress. Yesterday included 3 hours of an online union meeting about what is coming. So stressful. Other people can work from home, but we teachers are lazy? Ah sigh.

What else? I’ve got Patreon things I’m working on…the last embroidery…needed a different transfer color…

And also worked on the quilt pieces…Calli was helping…

The Wonder Under was traced and cut out, and I needed to iron it down…and then I cut them out.

I was doing this well after midnight.

So all three are ready to be ironed together and onto something. That’ll be this afternoon.

I also cut all the backgrounds for the Tattoo quilt and ironed down the pieces for the first block.

I’m doing hand applique. I don’t know why. But I am. And then I added the borders to Folk Tails…

There are a bunch of squares and rectangles that need to be appliqued on and then embellished. And then I’m done with this one. Done seems like a good thing.

Hey, do you do Pilates with animals? I do.

Simba loves his dinosaur…

And here he is, getting involved in Pilates…

So I realized last year that I posted a bunch of meme things about stupid shit the President said last July. So I’m hoping if I post all these now, then I will hopefully see them a year from now and life will be easier. Or different. Or less Trumpy.

Maybe I won’t even remember any of this because of the crazy stuff that will have happened since then.

That one too. And then in a year, we’ll have more data about this…

Maybe DeVos (hopefully) will be gone by then.

And this. Will we still be wearing masks in a year? I suspect so. I hope not.

Well there’s that. So I think that’s all I have for today. Oh wait! The girlchild now has a blog, Reformed Veg, where she writes about food and gives recipes. And she has a podcast with her friend Alessia about…um…well, I’m not sure what it’s about, but it’s currently on Spotify and some other platforms and will eventually make it to Podcasts on the i-devices. It’s called Rideshare. I’ll try to figure out how to share a link to a podcast here before the next blogpost. If you follow her on Insta, it’s in her profile. That might be easier. There’s the Insta…

OK. The day disappears as I get all this stuff done. And now I should do more. So there. I will also need to study more CPR before tomorrow morning’s actual test. Usually we don’t have to do a test like this, so I’m nervous I’m going to forget something. Plus it’s early in the morning because I didn’t get to pick the time. Which sucks. So I will NOT stay up until 1 AM tonight. Or later. I won’t. First I’ll eat lunch.

Sitting in an Empty Mall

So I need new glasses…lenses actually. I went to the disinfected eye doctor successfully and got a new prescription, and the lenses are ready, so now they need an hour to pop them in my glasses. Fun. It’s an indoor mall, so it’s closed, but a few people are here and I’m sitting on a chair, blind as a bat, with the iPad about two inches from my face, typing this. My mask is on and I’m pretty sure I’m cross-eyed. This is the level of paranoia I will have at school. No. I will be more paranoid at school. I will be sitting in my classroom by myself for 7 hours a day in less than two weeks, yelling at anyone who tries to come in my room. Depressing and lonely. It is staying alive though. Hopefully.

So I’ve been getting a little art done. The days slip away so quickly. This binding will take a while.

I actually really like this part of the process…it’s relaxing, although the pins (and cats) are pokey.

There’s 470” to do of the binding and the sleeves. That is 13 yards. Really? Shit. That’s a lot. So Sunday I did two sides…four to go. I didn’t do any last night. I was working on Patreon embroideries. I finished one on Saturday or Sunday night (can’t remember which)…

Damn either she’s blurry or my eyes are getting worse. I’ll wash and iron and rephotograph when I can see. And when the blurry-eyes-tryna-focus headache goes away. I also started this one…

And finished it. Note to self: design more simply. That woman with the rainbow hair was complicated.

This was after dinner, when I was contemplating what to do with the rest of my evening.

Definitely needs a bath and attention from an iron.

Saturday, I managed to get the man to go with me on a walk at the beach…

We just hung out at Dog Beach…not a ton of people and a nice breeze.

We actually ignored the real beach and walked where there were fewer people. I enjoyed it. IDK about the man. His foot has been bugging him and his work is stressful. But he did it and that’s something. I know outdoors is more important to my moods and sanity than his. Although I think it would help him too, I know everyone has to be making their own choices willingly for that good outdoor feeling to work though.

With that in mind, my science co-teacher and I headed to Sunset Trail in the Lagunas yesterday for some much-needed planning and venting.

It was a little warm, but we did a fairly short hike…with her dog, Watson…

We both had masks and Watson’s leash is the requisite 6-feet long to help with visualizing appropriate distancing.

This is one of my favorite hikes. Not hard, great views.

We stopped for a while and took some notes about how to do school this year. Science will be a challenge. And then her shoe died.

The entire bottom sole came off. Folks, here’s my shoe PSA from someone who has had plantar fasciitis multiple times…new boots every 500 miles. New other shoes when the wear is obviously changing your stance. It’s OK…she’s going to REI today.

Water of the Woods…aka the cow pond…no cows today.

Watson got too hot or just plain tired after a while (note: his limit is about 2 miles, maybe more if it’s cooler), so he got a ride.

He didn’t seem to mind not walking…

Lucky dog…

Weird tree growths. We have ideas for videos from the trail and the kitchen or garden for school. It will be hard to implement those while sitting in my empty classroom. I’m going to apply for field trips. For me and my co-teacher. Even walking in the neighborhood of the school and looking for relevant stuff would be better than sitting in an empty room.

We have another hike planned for next week, adding another teacher to the mix.

All good things. Part of my sanity.

Right now, Calli wants to go in the pool, I have a bunch of quilty things I need to work on, but first, I’m eating a late lunch. I made pancakes with leftover sourdough starter earlier and froze them. The hardest part of going back to the physical classroom is not being able to get stuff done at home. It all gets shoved to the weekend. Grading comes back with a vengeance and all gets pushed online, so more computer time. Like I wasn’t already staring at a screen enough before. But it keeps us safer, so we will do it. I have to laugh at the people who thought we were only working 3 hours a day before…well, they’re welcome to try to do my job before they say how it should be. Hoping I get it all figured out in the next few weeks. This is the most unprepared I’ve felt since the first year I taught. Nice feeling.

Head-Clearing Events…

The big old lady dog is currently harassing me because she wants to go in the pool, but the pool guy was just here today and dumped chlorine in there, so it’s a no-pool day, lady.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will throw the pine cone in and you can fetch it. Four times, because more than that tires you out too much. This is the joy I give you in your last months, old lady. Water. Pine cones. The occasional piece of bread. Enjoy.

So Saturday was a tense day. I couldn’t get my head out of school. I finally went out on the deck and drew for a while…

This is the place where I should spend more time sitting. I forget. I was honestly feeling too tense to even draw. It was slow. I was pulling it out like extricating a tick from really juicy dog flesh.

I gave up at one point and went for a 3-mile walk. Hike. Not sure what to call these.

Head-clearing events. Came back, we dealt with dinner, which is more and more annoying. No, I don’t want more takeout. Sigh. Takeout it is. So I worked on this for a little bit.

Not hard. Just time-consuming. And then went back to the drawing, because I didn’t have the energy to quilt.

It’s pretty good, actually. I’m not sure what I’m doing on the other side, but it will be bad. I think. We’ll see. It took the walk for me to decide what needed to go on the top.

I also managed on Saturday to adjust sound to a portion of a video clip, the part where the dogs started rampantly barking.

Oh yeah. Them’s some barks. Success! This program is not always easy to use. Thanks to Google and YouTube for always having the answer. Or at least directions.

Last night, I did more of this…with the little boy.

He is sad that the girlchild is gone and mopes in a variety of places.

I also finally started quilting the background last night. I did one whole long side, plus a goodly chunk of the background at the top, on one side, but not above the angels. If that makes any sense at all.

I can’t say that I have 2 sides done, or even 1 1/2, because mostly I did stuff in the middle, but not all of it. If you get what I mean. There’s more. Lots more. Possibly no end in sight. No, not really. This is a good place, because the end is just right THERE. After three more sides and some more crap in the middle.

We keep finding dead things on the property. There was a dead baby bird. I don’t know where it went. Then this dead baby rodent, probably mouse or rat…

And this poor dragonfly…

It’s funny, because most bugs are yucky, so why aren’t dragonflies? Why are they so not yucky? Are they really that much prettier than a beetle? I just don’t know. Neither does Simba, but he was happily rubbing his head on the dead rodent before the boychild removed it.

So much for dog tastes.

The milkweed has gone to seed.

I didn’t see any self-seeded plants pop up from last year’s batch. Too bad. I wonder if I should collect and plant some? Or just let it all be natural. I’m inclined toward the latter. It’s easier.

I posted this on the SAQA So Ca/NV Instagram.

I was looking around at my own purchases. I’ve bought mostly online. I’ve been in two stores, one for the background and hopefully the binding on this beast. We’ll see. I haven’t tried them yet against the actual quilt. Then the siren song of fabric near my Pilates studio…masked and hand sanitized. I don’t usually buy very much fabric online, so that’s been different. That’s probably true for a lot of us though.

OK, so it’s late in the day. Boychild and I put two posts up for the privacy fence we’re building. I then ran errands, returns mostly, couldn’t get the wood and concrete I needed, so I came home. I’m doing a Zoom Pilates class, which is a little nerve-wracking. I did them from recorded classes before, but never live. We’ll see how it goes. Then off to buy more concrete so I can finish the two posts tonight and we can do two more tomorrow. I’m tired now. I also did a full klutz trip and fall in a parking lot today. Scraped up one knee. Got up, realized an entire car of older ladies was watching, so I did that arm thing they do at the end of a gymnastics routine. I’m sure there’s a name for that. No scores were posted. Yes, I am that weirdo. Hopefully quilting tonight. I want to be done. I want to do something new. Something smaller too.

Damn Society and Its Norms

Yo. I started this a while ago, but boychild ended up on the roof and tools were involved and somehow I was also involved. That’s all you really need to know, except that the cable is now attached again and the palms are mostly trimmed. I also probably have a lot of dirt in my hair, which is awesome, because I had already showered and I have a dental appointment today and no, I’m not showering again. I also have about 17 million errands I need to run, which is nerve-wracking, because you know, virus from hell abounds. San Diego is a mess and I’m kinda glad I sent the girlchild away, because at least she’s in a sane place where people are not dumbasses about masks and sheltering in place, like WTF the beaches on the weekend? Anyway. Sigh. So there’s that.

I did drag the pup to the vet this morning too…he has to get his teeth cleaned so we don’t have to pull more like we did before. Brushing teeth isn’t really successful with him for so many reasons. He was sure we were going for a special mommy-doggy walk this morning…

Poor baby. So sorry. He cried when we pulled up to the vet and then climbed into my lap. I felt horrible. First I ship his favorite person to Boston, then I put him in the crate to sleep last night because the bed isn’t big enough for all the furry beasts who want to be on it, then I don’t feed him breakfast this morning, and then I take him to the vet. I am pure evil. I will give him love and treats when he returns.

So the 4th was pretty quiet here. I copyedited a bunch, and I made my first loaf of sourdough…

Just when most people have given up on it or have truly gotten into their bread groove, I’m just starting.

It needed about 5 more minutes, but it tastes wonderful toasted. Plus our parchment paper sucks, so I’ll have to work on that. Better parchment paper or more flour. Parchment paper is mostly edible.

I also went for a long walk on the 4th…locally, not in the wildlife reserve…although that might have been smart. It was super hot though…

I haven’t tried going back to the gym yet. They opened with limited times and slots last week.

For now, this works. I could go use the machines and then go across the street to the reserve and hike, instead of doing the cardio there. I still need a better face mask for exercising. Working on it.

It was a bright and beautiful day.

Really, I just needed to get out and walk off the week’s stress. After that, we ate dinner and drove over near my parents’ house for a better view of one of the few sanctioned fireworks displays…not that the neighbors didn’t set off a bunch of illegal crap. It’s a good thing nothing burned down. Everything is so dry.

Yesterday, I watered the dog…

I only let her swim a little bit. She gets too tired. But it also cools her off. And then we sit on the deck together (and even the little boy comes out to be a guard dog for all the bunnies on the property)…

It’s all good. Last night, I took some time and stitched while watching the last episode of Unforgotten, Season 3. I got the stuff stitched down for these two blocks, from Sue Spargo’s Homegrown Block of the Month…Kitten did not help. Yes, my windows are crooked.

I’m OK with that. This is mindless stuff, but also achievable. I’m into that right now…stuff that doesn’t take a lot of brain power.

Even this is like that…I stitched down for a couple of hours, with the fan pointed directly at me. Which reminds me, there are two fans in this room. I should plug the other one in too…

This room just gets warm. I should replace the sliding glass door for something more efficient. It’s old and hard to move. I have to go outside and fuck with it and then come inside, and worry about the cats getting out. Sigh. Anyway.

I got all of Figure 3 stitched down, and just need to do the landscape where the gravestone is and up behind her. Plus then finish Figure 2 and the two angels and the skelly and and and. There’s plenty left. I don’t think I’m halfway through yet.

Well, my dental appointment just got moved up two hours because people are canceling…interesting that it’s all last minute. And my laundry needs folding and the palms need trimming and I still have those 17 million errands and I haven’t copyedited anything today. Plus lunch…WTF am I going to do about that now? Sigh. OK. Well, it’s better getting the dentist over earlier and going to get my TB test right after, and then we’ll see what I can handle today. I’m tired as hell from not sleeping well last night (it was hot and I was anxious…welcome to my summer experience). I’m going to go make more tea, put a bra back on (damn society and its norms), and then figure out how to get shit done. Hopefully there will be some copyediting and artmaking at some point. We’ll see.

Not a Fast Process…

I’ll finish this post Saturday, but right now, Friday night (actually Saturday morning, because it’s after midnight), there are four people in four different rooms watching four different things: one music, one anime, one racial justice, and one door-is-closed-and-I’m-not-bugging-him (and if I text and ask him, he won’t answer, or he’ll just say WHY. Legit question). You can guess which person is watching which show if you want. I’ll never tell.

OK, it’s Saturday for realz now. Yesterday was weird. I did another retirement meeting…mostly making sure I’m on track (I mostly am…some changes need to happen…one of those changes is NOT somehow finding an additional $26K a year to save somewhere, despite their always recommending it). I had an online art opening webinar, which was cool and weird at the same time (next time, I will remember to have embroidery available so I’m not just staring at the screen for over an hour. I like to listen…but not stare at people’s faces for so long.). You can watch the virtual opening here for For the Love of Gaia, a show about climate change that’s being installed at the International Quilt Museum in Nebraska, available for viewing in August in person. It’s not a short video, but most of the artists talk about their work (I’m at 34:45). And then I walked. I needed to be outside for a while. That’s a pretty common issue for me. Boychild and I had transferred a chunk of the wood debris to my parents’, but the dumpster was full, so my tasks were done (well, are they ever done?), and I just wanted to walk. So I did. And about 5 minutes into the walk, I saw this on the ground…

Hmmm. There is a lot of trash on the side of the road. Some of it is masks and gloves, but other stuff that’s just dropped or falls out of the trash truck is all there too. Hard to say where this came from. Normally I pick up some of the trash, but I’m scared to touch most of it these days. I think this one qualifies.

There was someone on my side of the road at one point, so I crossed over to a side where I don’t normally walk. I always thought this was a bush like the ones we have all over our property, but it’s not…not with that thing.

The name of ours is escaping me at the moment. It’s a word I constantly lose from my brain; I’m not sure why. Probably I will remember it before I finish writing this.

In the art world, I’ve been working on this embroidery…

And I had an in-person, socially distanced social meeting today in a park, and I kept stitching on it.

There is nothing fast about this process, but it is relaxing. I need some of that. Exercise helps too, and being outside, but at the moment, I seem to feel really stressed out. So more of the not-stressful things please and thank you.

I finished ironing all the bits together last night, with the two angels complete…

They will be hanging out in the sky…

With their mask, O2 supply, and nasal probe (no, that’s not a paintbrush…). Plus a few Covid-19 virions as Enemy #1…

I need to piece the background and then iron everything down to it. I have 21 hours into the ironing so far. This is ALSO not a fast process.

On top of that, I’m working on these still…

I have the first 14 blocks done…

I need one more by tomorrow. The next batch will be the same pattern, but with the colored portions on the opposite pieces. That probably only makes sense to me. I need to piece more improv bits to do that. I thought about doing that last night, but was braindead. Ironing was easier. Improv while tired is not a good plan.

And dots…I should be done today, but I didn’t do last night’s and I want to add two more. But here is Thursday night’s dot…

I had to find more beads for it.

It looks like a Christmas wreath.

So I’m a little behind. I had a stitching meeting on Thursday, so I got more grass embroidered on this…

I started at the bottom and am only adding fly stitches. All the other greenery was already there. I’m about three rows up? I think? Although looking at this, I think the lion needs some too. Plus I found a mistake. I had sewn the tree in the bottom left on its individual block, but when it got sewn to other blocks, I added the top fluffy bit. I did not remember to stitch the sparkly shit around it, though, so that got remedied.

It’s probably a good thing I’m re-reading this quilt (aka stitching stuff all over it). It does mean it will probably never be finished.

So California has a resurgence of the virus. I feel weird leaving the house. The social distance meeting I went to today was the farthest I’d driven away from my house in over three months. And I think it was OK. Exercise still feels scary, so I’m researching a good mask for exercising. I think that would make me feel better about being in the pilates studio. There’s a fine line here though. Am I doing more than I was in the beginning? Highly possible. This week, I have two different vet appointments. The following week, another vet plus dentist. The week after? Haircut and eye appointment. I need to keep the vet appointments, but they are very good about limited contact. I can cancel hair and eye if necessary…hell, I can cancel dental as well, but it’s been a while since my last cleaning. These things are harder to do when school is in session, so I often push them into summer and breaks. We still limit our grocery runs and other errands have largely fallen by the wayside. I have some gardening to do, so I might need to run out for plants, but it’s easy to stay away from people in that situation. I saw at least three teachers from my school were hanging out at the beach together, nowhere near social distanced. Sigh. All young.

I just took another hour break in writing this, trying to get a new version of Microsoft Office to install so I can copyedit. I figure my 2013 version is a little old, so I’m hoping this will help me with some of the issues I had last time with conversions between my version and my author’s version. We’ll see. At some point, I’m probably going to need a new computer as well. I’m not there yet.

Here’s Kitten, guarding the drawing. I hung it back up to help me place everything.

The bottom is in three parts right now, with a few other bits and pieces floating around, plus those angels and virions. You can see how big it is here. Well. It’s bigger than that. A little crazy.

Speaking of crazy, this kills me. It’s just so wrong. I know it’s not the first time…

Change needs to happen. I’m doing things on my end. Vote, y’all. Don’t let this sink back down like we have school shootings. Until the next one. Don’t.

Yeah well. And masks. Wear them too. I still don’t have the patience or mindset for making masks. I probably could…I just don’t want to. This is one I ordered from Melly Testa…

A fellow artquilter. I actually ordered two styles from her, because I lost two of the ones I had here. Hopefully I will be better with these. Plus, when you purchase an individual #MellyMask through her Etsy, you are purchasing two masks, one for yourself, and one that she will give away to local essential workers. That makes me feel even better, because I can’t even manage my own masks, let alone masks for other people. They are really well made too and comfortable.

OK, it’s Saturday evening now and I will be spending some time with the man, plus doing some stitching. Tomorrow is the last day the girlchild will be here; she’s been incredibly helpful with cooking and shopping…probably saved my butt during the last three months of school. We will miss that and miss movie night with her as well. I always wish we had more time. Tomorrow, I will try to remember to take pictures of her socially distanced with her grandparents and with me before she goes. I also started copyediting today, and I want to just bang that sucker out in the next two weeks, so that’s a goal. And, as always, I have those art goals intermingled with exercise and taking care of the house. Strangely, being stuck at home has made it easier to do some of the garden and yard things I wanted to do, but there’s still a lot of cleaning and organizing in the house that I usually try to do over the summer. Plus quilt plans, yeah? Shows are coming up and I need to think about my artmaking priorities. The topics that are speaking to me now? Pandemic, still, of course; antiracism and how that would look in a quilt from a white woman; and the ever-present climate change that is just as desperate an issue as it was before. OK then. That’s not a demanding list of ideas at all.

I Will Wash Dishes…

Is anyone besides me getting a certain satisfaction out of the simple task of washing dishes? There’s hot water, there’s the order in which to wash so that the greasiest dish doesn’t destroy the water. There’s stacking them in the dish rack (mine is ancient and disgusting, but apparently nothing else will fit my sink) in some sort of logical manner, there’s the soap bubbles, there’s the satisfaction of things being dirty and then being clean. It’s so simple. Distracting. A thing I can do successfully that doesn’t just become something more all of a sudden. OK, it’s true that sometimes I’m annoyed by the dishwashing, but it seems in these pandemic days that dishwashing is one thing I can do and do relatively well, and if I fuck it up, I can just wash that dish again.

I am still so tired these days. I’ve been off school a week and usually it takes me two weeks to get into summer…plus we built a fence, which is why I’m late writing this. We were hoping for like 2 1/2 days and it took 3 1/2…although we still need to clean up. This was at the end of the third day…

We ended up being 4 boards short, so I had to make a run to two different stores yesterday. Of course.

My concrete footings are stupendous. Really.

And then a day later, when I’m sneezing randomly, I wonder if I now have COVID thanks to Home Depot.

OK 24 hours is probably not realistic. We did actually finish up the last bit after this photo. Fifty feet or so of new fence. We still need to get rid of all the old wood. And then build a privacy fence in the front yard. Later. In July. Seriously. I’m fenced out.

I’ve ironed a little bit…Tuesday night? I think?

Yeah, I think that’s the night I stayed up way too late. Angel number 1 in progress.

I have a quilting meeting in 13 minutes. I’m thinking I’ll work on this. Is the skin color good? Dead angels? I was trying for a dead look. We’ll see when I get the heads done how it really looks. I’m liking the dots though.

I’m still doing these, albeit very slowly.

I’ve got 10 done, and 2 more cut out and ready to sew…

And the fabric ready for two more. Then I need to prep more stuff to do the next 11. It’s OK. I’m on time. I think.

And dots! Monday night was the one to the left of the pink ball.

It had lots of colors in it.

And was pretty fun to do.

It’s more colorful than that in real life. All these nighttime photos.

Then Tuesday night’s…I didn’t have the energy to make the tool for it (out of card stock), so I just winged it…just under last night’s…

It wasn’t hard, just a little fussy because I was too lazy to find cardstock and cut it.

It turned out OK anyway.

And then last night’s…to the right of the pink spool…

I had to go bead hunting again.

And a cat lay upon it for a while…

Note cat hair. I think there are 3 left. Then I can work on other things as I try to figure out how to hang this. And where to hang it.

What else? It’s interesting…I don’t really leave the house much, but I do feel weird about leaving and being out. California’s viral numbers are going up. Damnit. Well. We’ll see where we’re at after 4th of July. People are stupid.

Ah yes, I walked on Tuesday…it was nice…

Weird seed pods…and cudweed on its way out…

Someone is still painting rocks.

I have one at school that says Be Brave…that one on the right was there before…now it has a friend.

I’m not sure what the friend is supposed to be.

There were crows on my walk…all on the path and then started hopping up to the fence…

Then the tree (I missed when there were 10 up there)…

I couldn’t see anything on the path that looked crow-worthy, but what do I know?

Last thing, I often order little stitched things I like (and then hoard them, because IDK what to do with them), and saw this one from Mixed Color, a talisman (we all need more of those)…

The Guardian. Now I need a plan for all these embroidered bits I have from all over. Really. I have some very nice ones, a good variety. Crazy quilt blocks? With more embroidery? I like that idea. Will work on that this summer. First I will need to find all the bits, but I can start with this one. Calli approves.

We made wontons again last night. Girlchild leaves Monday, but I have this recipe. I could make these on my own.

Calli did not get wontons. Poor Calli. Looks like we are dealing with cancer on this sweet girl.

She’s not in pain. We see an oncologist next week to see what’s best for her. She’s a good girl though.

OK, I need to do some ironing and sewing and ffs sleeping at some point. Be good! Be safe. Wear your mask (I’ve lost two in the last week…no idea where they are in the house…but they are somewhere in the house). Stay healthy.

Hello Summer 2020…

I’m moving slowly today. Mentally and physically. School is officially out. I might have actually slept normally last night (after a 10-minute meditation app in bed, trying to persuade my brain to shut up), although I definitely remember parts of that repeating dream I have about being in a huge airport and trying to keep track of all my stuff, going back and forth to find things I’ve lost, tons of people, no masks, just weird-feeling. I’m three days behind on the Sue Spargo dots for the first time ever (I’ll catch up this weekend, no worries), I feel like a train hit me, and I’m trying to negotiate with my copyediting job and failing miserably. It’s OK…he wants to give me more work and I guess I can do it, and it means more money for tree-trimming, but I’m feeling like I need a break between school and more work, and I don’t think I’m going to get that. Oh well. I’ll do what I can.

Hello Summer 2020! Aren’t you a fucked-up mess! My summer plans include reading, hiking, quilting, building two fences, planting shit, drawing, embroidery, and sleep. Also there will be multiple school-related meetings and stressful emails, and a copyediting job or two. It will feel much shorter than normal summers. There will be no travel or weekend shenanigans, except within the confines of this house. My god! More of this house. Hopefully there will be a lot of quiet, but when you’re surrounded by little kids, it’s unlikely.

I do plan to finish this quilt in the next few weeks, although there are many hours still to go. I ironed this Wednesday night, putting me over the 50% mark. I’m hoping to get more of it done today and tomorrow.

Sunday is the start of fence-building, so that will take up a chunk of my time and energy.

I’ve also been working on a stitch along with my guild. I know I don’t usually piece, but I do know how…

This is improv piecing, and then after that…

We move onto the piecing an actual block…

The pattern is Abstract Arcs by Cotton and Bourbon. As of yesterday, I’ve made two whole blocks.

It’s OK…I’ve made the improv fabric for about 6 more, if I get around to piecing those today. I’m doing two blocks (so far) in each color run. There’s some plan to what I’m doing. I think. I won’t have enough blocks if that’s all I do, but I’ll go back and do something to get the remaining however-many-I-need, because I can’t count and so I just do until I have enough.

I also finished this during a meeting…

And started this one of my own design…

during online graduation yesterday. We also did a drive-thru graduation at school…

Masks on, supposed to be 6 feet apart…so many feels about this…

(sign says, “The year shit got real”)…so as 7th-grade teachers, we usually don’t get to be involved with graduation at all, so this was a nice change to see all the kids, even though they were in cars. But also, some people not wearing masks and not distancing appropriately…that stuff makes me feel really weird and anxious. I suspect we will see some illnesses coming out of this or out of all the drive-thru graduations. San Diego is on the border of having to shut down (at least partway) again. We’ve had too many community outbreaks in the last week, but still they open nail salons and massage parlors today (oh man, a massage sounds ideal for my completely trashed neck and shoulders). So I guess we will spend the next two weeks wondering if we’re sick or not. I hope not, but every time I do something that seems borderline risky, I come away thinking, oh hellz no, not doing that again. Except I work with these people and teach with them, so there’s only my own stuff I can control.

Things I can control over summer? Hike time…although we only took the little boy dog…

The old lady is having some issues…

Great weather for a hike though…not too hot, but nice and bright, although smoke/haze in the distance…not in this picture, though.

Afterwards, he needed his body checked for spiky things and ticks…

The old lady has something growing on her face that might be cancer, so we are worried…

She is old and lumpy as it is…hoping it’s just an infection and easily treatable, and she has no noticeable symptoms, so we are enjoying her dorky self still.

The old lady cat got herself stuck in the strings from the balloons I brought home yesterday.

She ran with the balloons after this. Pretty funny. I didn’t mean to bring balloons home. It just happened. It was safer than letting them go.

While I was ironing the other night…

What’s she staring at? This guy…

Gecko house. It’s very exciting for the cats.

She’s currently waiting for me to get out of this chair so she can sit in it again…

I left for two minutes. Seriously.

OK, also a woodpecker! Can you see it? Crappy through-screen pictures…

OK, I have pilates today, although I am still conflicted about that. It’s helping my back and neck though, so I’m dealing with it. Hopefully we can all stay healthy. Also plan to read my book and piece some more and maybe iron some stuff. And sleep. More sleep. Ugh. No school though. That’s a plus for right now. Nice to have a break, reflect on things that worked and things that didn’t, consider the things we won’t have control of over the next year or so, and figure out how to accept all of that.

Whatever DONE Means…

Hey Monday. I know there was a weekend, but I didn’t really feel it. I think it’s because I don’t leave the house any more. So work days feel like weekend days feel like work days. But it’s almost done, the school stuff. Well, whatever DONE means. I won’t have to do any more Advisory classes (until August). I do have more meetings this week, so there’s that. But grading things and chasing down scores on 11 different programs will be DONE.

I’ve been trying to listen to podcasts…I do really well for like the first 7-10 minutes and then my brain ignores everything that’s being sad. It’s possible that I do this during staff meetings as well. (Sorry. It’s true. My attention span is not great.). Just so you know, I do better at listening if I’m stitching or drawing. So I do try to do those two things during staff or other meetings. Even social stuff, I zone out unless it’s in person. I think it’s just how my brain works…it wanders off into art brain mode, which is trying to draw, design, color, and ignores everything else around it. I’m not sure that’s getting better with old age. Oh well.

Right now, I’m hot-flashing, but my feet are cold…so I want to take the slippers off, but the feet still feel cold, even though I’m on fire. Sigh. My mom tells me these will never stop. I feel like they should. They did go away for many months, but now they are back. It could be stress. Last year, they were horrendous from early May to the end of July. So I have another two months? Ugh.

Meanwhile…

Um. I’m totally the one on the left, except it’s all in boxes that might be labeled. Sort of. Not like on the right though. Nothing matches. Nothing is cute. It just is. I have to go back in to school on Thursday and deal with the last of the stuff. I got an email today from our AP who is leaving to be a principal that my room isn’t done. Sigh. The sarcasm he brings is needed, as is the male role modelness. Oh well.

One of my readers emailed me Saturday or yesterday about workers comp and COVID and how my district might deal with sick teachers. I’m hoping the union has some control over how the district handles it, but as my reader said, the optics of NOT taking care of your sick teachers when they got COVID coming back to work? Well, let’s hope people still care by the time that happens.

Speaking of teaching, IDK who thought Architect could be a verb, as in Architect Your Life, but that is fucked up, because it does not even make sense. Y’all: architect is a noun, but it “is increasingly common to hear it used as a verb, though usually in business or technical situations where jargon is very common.” I hate jargon. I especially hate teacher jargon. I keep having to look shit up and I’ve been teaching for a long time, and they keep changing it all. I cannot keep it all straight in my head. So this coming year? I will be an architect architecting. Even WordPress doesn’t think that’s a word. I architect, you architect, we all architect. Sigh.

OK, so I have a team lunch (with kids on Zoom) in 7 minutes, I have my Santa hat ready for holiday dress (don’t even ask, it’s a teacher thing, but it has nothing to do with architecting), and then IDK what’s happening after that.

And I’m back. Lunch is over. I should finish writing this. I’ve been ironing a little each day…hopefully more today? Maybe? Got into the torso, but needed to iron the heart separately…

None of this is fast, but it is engrossing…

And then put the heart where it belongs…

So I think this is where I got to on Saturday night…

She’s the largest figure in the quilt.

Then Sunday, I worked on arms…this one has a bat hanging from it, a reference to the first animal they blamed for COVID. I ironed it separately…too many small parts…

And then attached it…

If you’re one of my patrons on Patreon, I show some of this arm and hand in the video that will be posted later today. And then I did the other arm…

I’ve been ironing for about 9 1/2 hours and I’m halfway through the pieces…I think…wait, no I’m not. I’m in the high 600s. Close though. She just needs a cat and her head. Then on to Figure 3.

Also still doing dots…Saturday’s is just above the top spool.

It was pretty easy…

I don’t have much of the sparkly Dazzle thread, so it always has to be pink or red.

And last night’s…to the right of the yellow thread…

Is very similar to one we’ve already done, but with more space.

Getting closer and closer to done.

It will then take me two years to remove all the cat and dog hair from it.

I also picked the fabrics for the pieced thing I’m doing…

Because there isn’t enough crazy shit going on in my life right now. I needed something brainless. Although I have some stitching I’m doing that’s relatively brainless.

OK. What else? I hiked yesterday…well, walked around the neighborhood, which includes some good hills.

Sometimes I go up that one. Sometimes I go down. Always looking for new flowers…

These were all in the trees…

Messy but beautiful…

The neighbors are still building a pool. Did I mention that already? Dig Day 2: BEEP BEEP BEEP. Sigh.

Damn cat sleeps through everything.

Must be nice…

Old lady dog does too…

OK, note to self…this is gonna be hard for this old lady to see at night…

CAN ONLY STITCH ON THIS IN FULL SUNLIGHT.

I amuse myself. OK. I’ve got exercise, ironing, and a book to finish. It sounds like Summer vacation is getting really close. Tomorrow is meeting hell, but today is done. All good. Enjoy.