Damn Eyelid

Hmmm. Well. I sorta forgot to write for a couple of days. I mean, I usually blow off Sunday anyway, but I’m pretty sure yesterday was Monday and today is Tuesday. In my defense, I’ve been busy and out of a normal daily routine, which is probably why the writing didn’t happen. I haven’t hit relaxation mode yet, and honestly, probably won’t over this break. I just have too much work this week.

In good news, there’s lots of kitten interaction, if only to try to figure out where they’re hiding or to introduce them to the other furry beasts in the house. And I should sleep more on a week off. I really should. Oops.

OK, so Saturday, I ironed for a while…this is Figure 3…all done.

Saturday night, I went to watch the man’s band…and two more bands…

Lots of 80s punk…and the man playing as Exene from X.

Like you do. I was tired after all that and went to bed early. Can’t get the sleep or the eating under control this week so far.

On Sunday, I had tons to get done. Unlike some…

Sundays are always too much stuff. But then I got most of Figure 4 done…

At some point, I realized it was well after midnight…that’s a lot of fabrics…

I was almost done, but it would have taken a lot of time to really get done…that’s it. That’s all.

So that would be Monday.

Monday started at the DMV. I needed to get my RealID and I figured now was better than waiting until the last minute…although I made the appointment two months ago, and this was the earliest I could get in. When I got there, they told me one of the pieces of documentation I had wouldn’t work, even though it was on the list they sent me. Luckily, I had another piece in the car (that expired the day before, but apparently they didn’t care about that), so after 45 minutes or so, I was done. I read my book. Good use of time.

A really good use of time was the 4.3-mile walk we did with the dogs…

We missed one trail but eventually found another one heading the same way…well, not that one…

That was the most relaxing thing I’ve done so far.

Outside. With dogs. And boychild. Plus no grading.

The grading is stressing me out. I keep thinking I’ll just do one part of the larger assignment a day, but that’s not necessarily working. And I won’t have enough days…because I’m assuming Thanksgiving through Sunday are lost days due to family gatherings and travel. I really don’t want a lot of these assignments transferring over into December. It’ll be hard enough to get through those three weeks. Plus grades will be due again. SIGH.

Better to be outside.

And it was a good day for it…supposed to be rain starting tomorrow. Lots of it.

Back to kittens…

They have totally different personalities. And they still need appropriate names. Apparently Sharp and Pointy are not options.

This bag was very exciting…

I just watched for a while and drank my tea.

Back to grading, I persuaded Kitten to come out and be sociable, and then she saw the kittens.

She’s still not a fan.

We lost kittens a few times yesterday. They climbed into the drawers from under the table.

That’s now a thread AND kitten drawer.

I finally made it into the studio around 10:30 PM…with the last bit of the ironing to do.

But I got them all ironed down…

Almost 14 hours…the chaos of fabric piled up…

I stayed up way too late.

There we go. 134 fabrics total. The box on the bottom right is the four different flesh runs.

Going for some variety. Every figure got their own red heart fabrics too. Anyway. The next step is to cut them all out. I also have over 3 hours of videos to watch today…not kitten videos, but students. It might kill me, but I’m aiming to finish it…in between buying snow chains and a turkey and making it to my pilates class. The right eye has finally stopped twitching, but I’m still grinding my teeth. Deep breaths. And more exercise. Wait. Dammit. That eyelid just started twitching again. Aargh.

Today I Am a Lemur.

Happy Halloween y’all. Today I am a lemur. Tomorrow I will be a cranky old lady yelling at kids about their candy wrappers, but today I am a lemur.

I did blow off all school things yesterday after 3:40 PM and hiked…

Iron Mountain on Halloween was windy and chilly.

But beautiful. I almost fell twice, but a bush saved me. I don’t move well when I’m tired, and doing labs all day made me tired.

Also my classroom is a total disaster, but that’s what homeroom ~~slaves~~ er students are for.

I came home, cooked food and ate it, and sat around for a bit. Then I stood up, because I am crazy, and I kept tracing the new piece off the crappy photocopy.

I needed the old photocopy to help with some areas. You can see how much bigger (and BETTER) this one will be. I’m adding and changing a few things. Not a lot. My instinct is always to add more details, but this thing is already complicated enough.

There’s most of it…there’s the earth stuff in the background to finish…it was after midnight at that point. Ugh. I’m tired today. It will be fine. I’m giving a quiz and setting fire to things. It’ll be good. Tomorrow I’ll post pictures of the newest quilt.

The Dog Ate My To-Do List

I got to sleep in. It was glorious. Well, the old-lady dog needed to pee at 8, so I did that, and then went back to sleep for an hour. Lovely. More please. But I have work to do as well…so up and at ’em! I had a brainstorm about a thing we need to do for science last night as I was brushing my teeth, so I ran in here and wrote it on a post-it note and then fell asleep thinking about it, so of course, woke up and made it more of a thing than it was on a post-it, while texting another teacher friend about a kid and all the kids and how we get to a (tired, honestly) point of just reacting and we have to step back and reflect, which is what teachers do all the time, but this year, it’s just exhausting and nonstop. So without weekends and breaks and promising yourself to go home and NOT work and trips to the gym or a hike or whatever it is that floats your boat, we’d all go nuts. Although I promised my students I’d finish grading all the makeup work AND the essay thing this weekend. Which might have been a mistake, because I have a quilt to do.

I got up, I made my lists…which is funny, because Calli got left alone for a while yesterday while the boychild went to get approved to hike (broken toe fixed! mostly!), and she decided to take it out on my listmaking strategies…

The dog ate my to-do list. It’s OK. It was the old notebook. Most of the useful stuff had been transferred over into a new one. I do like HAVING them, though. I don’t know why. Just because. Documentation of the crazy. She was anxious.

I’m supposed to be keeping track of my actual work hours this week for school…I’m dividing it up into planning, prep, teaching, grading, duty, and meetings. We’ll see how it goes. The plan is to reduce some of it and get that time back for me and what I want to do. It’s impossible to track the thinking time unfortunately. There’s a lot of that going on.

When I got home, what I really needed was a walk. And the boychild can do that now, so we grabbed the dogs and went…

We’re getting close to Daylight Savings, when doing this will be much harder. I hate that. So I’m trying to use time now…

The dogs are a little out of shape. I might be too…a week of being sick and not working out at all seems to have had an effect. I’m still stuffed up a little and not fully healthy. But I’m mostly better.

I did grade a little last night. I also read a little. But mostly I stitched shit down. When I felt tired, I got up and heated up my tea. Then I came back and stitched some more.

I can’t say this part is particularly exciting…but it’s a little meditative. You’re just moving the fabric under the needle and trying to decide where to go next in a logical manner.

I actually planned to try to finish all the bottom section…and I did do that and more before midnight hit.

Including the butterflies…

So today, I’ve already paid all the bills, scanned the contract I needed to email, transferred some of my retirement funds to different funds, did a little bit of planning for school, dumped the batting into a pile of hot soapy water in the bathtub, and am listening to the weekly podcast for how to get more fucking efficient in my work day, while I type this blog. I’m also eating my breakfast while I type. Because I need to finish stitch down, take a shower, clean the tile floors, sandwich the quilt, and start actually quilting. Because the photographer wants it by next Saturday (oh dear. OK. Yikes.) It’s a good thing I have no need to sleep, right? OK. I’m going to get on that now. Move the batting. Start stitching. Shower. I’m gonna get this done.

Handed to a Resident…

So last night, I’m sitting there watching part of a movie and part of something I’m grading (very exciting, both of them) and my phone tells me a package has been delivered. In some ways I love this, and in some, ugh. Too much. But the link says the package “was handed to a resident.” Really. Hmm. I look around the room. Not me. Not the guy on the couch next to me. Not the boychild in his room. Not a single dog has barked (this in itself is strange). I check the front door…nothing. OK, we have this weird other door that people sometimes try to use as a front door, mostly because I need to build a fence…there used to be trees blocking access and they had to be taken out for the septic system redo. Anyway, out my bedroom door, there’s the package. Delivered to a bunny maybe? Because no one else was out there. Interesting. Good thing the sprinklers had finished. I guess the plus is that we actually found it. I do appreciate the drivers who photograph the package where they left it…sometimes it helps me find it. Otherwise, I might be wandering around in the dark, wondering where they thought was an appropriate place rather than just walking up the steps to the actual front door.

The weekend in review. Sigh. Yeah. Well. I walked the dogs on Friday…I’ll be glad when the boychild’s toe is healed enough for him to come along. There were no coyotes…

but there were two people with loose dogs. I hate those people. I don’t care if your dog is friendly. Mine aren’t. Put your damn uber-friendly (one of them was a pitbull dammit) on a leash. For the coyotes’ sake and mine.

I did seem to tire them out, which was the plan. Me too…

I graded a bunch and went to bed early. The week kicked my butt. Then got up early and drove up to LA to see a sick relative…

Going up wasn’t bad. Coming back was sort of hellacious. I made it back eventually. Smelled the fire up there. Ah, memories of growing up in LA.

Saturday night was some art, some food, and then collapse. Super tired. And then up most of the night with what turns out to be a cold. Hoping I didn’t get my relative sick too…I thought I was just tired Friday and Saturday. Apparently I was coming down with the Ick that everyone else has. I got up early on Sunday and graded. I wasn’t sleeping anyway.

Kitten hung out with me on the couch. No dogs. She likes it.

Sunday, I napped, I worked, I grocery shopped, I laundered, I prepped lunches and breakfasts and then cooked dinner. Did I say I napped? Yeah. I did. And then I ironed for 2 1/2 hours.

Added a bird to the seashore…ironed the Torrey Pines’ cliffs…

Another bird…

A deer…

Well, it will be a deer, once its face gets where it should be. So this is where I’m at…well, a little past this. My ocean is definitely wider than the ironing board…kind of a pain, actually.

I did manage to iron the hills/mountains to the right and then a sun and cloud.

Deer in place…

So I got most of the way through the surrounding landscape…just a hill in Anza Borrego to go. Then the flesh. All the 200s are ironed down…almost. I’m running out of time. As always. I will figure it out. I always do.

Today I feel like crap. Mostly crap. I have meds. I have tea. I will want a nap during one of the two staff meetings. Maybe I will just do that.

My Tired but Happy Feet

OK. So I hiked over 6 miles last night and it was good. Yes, it was after a full day of walking all over the freakin’ place, fetching ice and water and index cards, cleaning up stuff, trying to get kids on task. Today is the last day of these stations. Hopefully we will all survive it. I did manage to get videos for all of the labs, either on the interwebz or by recording my own, so there’s no kid who can claim they didn’t get to a station so they didn’t get the info. The grade file opens today…so we have until Tuesday at 2 PM to get through whatever gets turned in. Although it doesn’t matter how many times I tell them. There’s a listening issue right now. And a doing issue. Some learned helplessness going on. It will be apparent on progress reports…and some kid will tell me I never SAID it was going to be their grade. Ha! Well then.

My feet hurt this morning. My blood sugar is also really low. I need new boots. I may also need to adjust my insulin again. I already reduced it once after the hot flashes stopped and the blood sugar numbers seemed to calm down with that. I don’t trust all that not to come back though. I love that my doctor/insurance give almost no assistance in this process. But the insurance company sent me an email yesterday telling me how to stop smoking. Um. ??? Really? Because I never have. They want to reduce costs? They should better support their diabetes patients who want the support and maybe stop sending useless emails.

Anyway. I guess the day health insurance does what I want is probably the day I die. I don’t have much faith in them. I just remember the conversation I had with them about when they offered flu shots (only during work hours)…although they’ve changed that. Duh.

So we hiked Iron Mountain.

There was a storm rolling in from Mexico, the tail end of one of the tropical storms or even Hurricane Lorena. I’m not sure what we’re getting at this point. It was beautiful out…not too hot, clouds everywhere. As always, some people are super speedy.

I’m not. I used to be. The sun came out and disappeared and then wandered out again.

This is a night hike eventually, so we all had some sort of headlamp or flashlight. The sun actually went down while we were on the back side of the mountain.

I’ve done this hike a million times. Maybe.

Looking east was beautiful too.

Although west was definitely more dramatic…

Oh yeah.

I hike with a Meetup group. I’ve hiked with them for about 6 years, I think, on and off. Now it’s more off. But five years ago almost exactly, I did this hike with them. It popped up in my photos.

That’s kind of a cool thing.

I was nervous because I thought I’d have a hard time going up. The last hill climb I went on was a while ago and I had to stop a lot…but there was elevation involved in that one. This one isn’t that high. And I did OK on the climb.

From the top…

Or at least it doesn’t start as high up as the other one did. When we came back down, we spread out and did a silent (sort of) hike. There were many scorpions…

And a few people had black lights, because these suckers are fluorescent…

Saw a tiny snake and a few tarantulas, and then this spider, who I’m pretty sure is carrying all its babies on its back…

Someone else had a better picture of it. They haven’t uploaded it yet.

Here’s a better scorpion picture though…

And my hiking group…

It was a good thing. I came home and ate dinner at 9:30 PM though. And then processed some videos for school and created a post for those.

Only then did I iron. And only for an hour.

Mostly I did the sun and the clouds. I was too tired to even do the rain, the lightning, the stars, or the moon. They should have been easy. But it was almost midnight and I was not-so-shockingly tired.

More ironing tonight. Although I have to grade stuff too. Maybe not tonight? I don’t know. Right now, I don’t feel much like doing more work than I already do.

OK, off to work again I go. Me and my tired but happy feet.

Like Following Them…

Day 2 today of thermal energy/pressure labs. Yesterday was…um…OK? My co-teacher may not agree. It’s not easy. I hit 10,000 steps right after lunch just fetching water and ice. I had about 10 kids who live on the edge…the edge of my having to stinkeye them. One may not survive today. We should have done some more group labs before we got to today; they still have a hard time with instructions. Like following them. Not entirely atypical for this age, but frustrating in the moment. Hopefully today will be smoother. Ha! I’m not sure why it will, but it will need to be. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be hiking tonight, so that will be interesting. I’m pretty sure my legs will complain about being tired. OK. Well. Nothing new there.

I did tutoring yesterday too, spending some quality time (ha!) with some very interesting kids. As always. We have an assignment due tomorrow that is HARD. It’s really not as hard as some kids make it out to be, because they want the answer key and there isn’t one. So they want me to tell them exactly how to write it (What’s the ANSWER??? whine) and I won’t, because it’s an assessment. I gave them a format and about a million ideas and three labs and a couple other assignments as evidence, and I’m not doing that last step for them. It’s painful, but a learning experience, for sure. All this is exhausting. I’m not sure if it’s more or less exhausting this year than any other. I just know I’m exhausted right now.

Yesterday, this spider hitched a ride to school. I always wonder what they’re thinking as they’re bouncing along in the wind. And then whether they get off when at school. There’s a nice bunch of plants there that they can live in…

It might be better than my driveway…who knows?

I was actually too tired after dinner to work on anything. It was my brain, though…I couldn’t decide between stitching and working on the Unit 2 calendar. I knew I should do the latter, but I didn’t want to. So I did nothing.

Eventually, though, after dishes were done, I went in to iron. I keep forgetting to take in-process pictures. I did finish the second September Patreon video as well, where I try to explain how I pick fabrics.

At the end of another two hours, this is what I had used…

A few more browns, greens, and grays. A mule deer is in there. I didn’t actually get much done, depressingly enough. Just the righthand side of the landscape…some bushes, dirt, a river, the deer, some hills, and a mountain. I’m not sure why it took so long, but it did. I’m in the 250s. Only. ONLY. Sigh. The pile is growing. That’s what matters. I don’t think I’ll get any of it done tonight because of the hike, but who knows.

Here’s the rest of the 200s…all clouds and a sun and IDK what else.

I see a star. There’s probably a mountain in there too. Then the body! I wish I could say I’d be done ironing soon, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe by the end of the weekend? After I grade that assignment. The one that might kill them.

I haven’t posted my SAQA auction piece that I bought yet. I need the light to be better than it has been, but it’s already hanging on my wall. I like to buy pieces by people I know…this one was by Natalya Aikens and features recycled materials.

I buy one piece a year to support the group. I can’t handle making one…they’re too small.

This guy this morning…I’m hoping the boychild comes back and deals with him…he’s on the living room ceiling.

He’s bigger than I like to try and catch over my head. On a bumpy ceiling. On a ladder. By myself. I feel like that’s a recipe for disaster.

OK, back to school and Day 2 of labs. Meditation at times. Getting my act together. Then hiking a mountain. Which by the way, I hiked on the same day (or day before?) 5 years ago. That’s interesting. I need to remember a headlamp and my poles. And food. That would be smart. Water. Water is also good.

It’ll Be Pretty Chill…

Everyone slept better last night. Everyone peed when they were supposed to. Everyone laid down and stayed asleep, or at least were quiet about their issues and didn’t wake up mom. Well, there was definitely a cat playing with a catnip toy that I heard at one point (bat bat bat tiny bell ringing). Mom ears hear everything eventually.

We started school yesterday with no internet, no phones, random bells, which was fine, because we didn’t need the internet yesterday and keeping the front office from calling me is a plus. Like every period. Stahp. Please. So they couldn’t call us. Amusing. It was all fixed by 3rd period, though, so then it was like normal, which really just means there are a bunch of kids with tech issues that they didn’t solve and they think excuses them from work. And the front office keeps calling. I need to start making those tech phone calls. In my spare time. I don’t seem to have any of that. I did finish grading all those videos last night, which is a plus.

I made it home after a meeting and recording a couple of videos for class, and we walked the dogs. I look forward to these trips out into the semi wild. Plus exercise feels good. I’m sorry for you if that’s not the case. Even when it hurts, it feels good.

We watched a turkey vulture swooping around, looking for something dead.

It was really close at one point and quite large and beautiful. I’ve always been fascinated with birds. They end up in a lot of quilts. A turkey vulture is actually in the newest quilt.

There’s a coyote in this picture. See if you can find it.

It was closer when I first saw it. Interestingly, last year, on the same day, we also saw a coyote…but I think it was the other place we hike. I don’t think these guys noticed…

Although sometimes the little one refuses to go any further. I think that’s laziness more than coyote super-sense though.

The big girl is much recovered after a summer of iffy hips. She’s still iffy, but she’s moving pretty well for an 80-year-old.

So I have a piece in this exhibit…it’s a traveling exhibit, so it will be all over the place.

It’s cool that my piece is second from the left. Here’s the actual link so you can read about the quilts and exhibit. My quilt is about Bill Nye, because I teach middle school science and he’s done some good work about climate change.

I finished grading videos at 10:20 PM. Then I cut stuff out. I cut out one yard on Sunday night and two yards last night…

That’s four yards to go. Not bad. I have a SAQA stitch-in meeting tonight at the El Cajon Library from 6-8 PM (you don’t have to be a SAQA member to be there). I’m taking some of this with me. Maybe I can get done by Thursday. I did buy background fabric on Saturday…well, I bought 4 different options, because I couldn’t decide.

Gotta go to work now. Was gonna post Full Moon art pictures, but I don’t have time! I never have time. Oh yeah! I am teaching that workshop in November for sure. I’ll have to post that info too. It’ll be pretty chill. Shockingly. I spend all day teaching 12-year-olds how to sit up, get their heads off the desks, actually DO something, and even THINK, ah the torture. Handing out some fabric and explaining how to iron and stitch it should be easy. Ha. Well. Maybe.

Why Do We Care?

Imagine asking a classroom full of 7th graders this question. Then telling them they’re not allowed to say they don’t. Most of them were up to the challenge of figuring out why they SHOULD care. Some were shallow and just said because of their grade. But some dug deeper. Good conversations.

Then later, I see this…

We’re teaching the states of matter. Here’s why they care…so they can fuck with TSA. I’m betting she didn’t win this one though. The government isn’t great with science.

It was a frustrating day. Reteaching what classroom discussion looks like. Why we don’t all yell at once. Why yelling stupid shit is not productive. I’m behind in the teaching content part because there’s so much behavior teaching. We’ll get there. We just didn’t get there yesterday. By the end of the school day, I was more than a little frustrated with what was showing up in my inbox. They added two kids to one of my biggest classes, making it a potential issue when we’re doing labs. And then fucked with our schedule. We’ll make it work, but there’s no reason why we couldn’t have known about this hiccup a month ago. That’s the frustrating stuff.

So after a 2-hour staff meeting that was mostly a waste of time (I thought), I needed to be outside, moving. So we walked the dogs…

It was our first test of Calli on a full-length hike since late June, because of her hips and leg. She did awesome…

They’re staring at the boychild. I’m not interesting.

There’s still blooming flowers, despite the very little rain…just one day a week ago.

Desert flowers like their sporadic water.

I did a little on this. Tonight I will send the email…I think.

I found out I got two pieces into a show that will be in Liberty Station through January. There’s a first Friday opening every month, starting in October. That might be painful for me. Fridays are tiring. But I got into a show!

Today will be tiring…Back-to-School Night. Ugh. Not my favorite event.

I did start tracing, but only got about an hour in. Maybe I’ll be finished by Saturday? I doubt it, but it’s something to aim for.

If I get an hour in tonight, that will be a plus. OK, off to keep kids from doing stupid shit with water and balloons. I know, it sounds problematic. Welcome to my world.

The Whole Week on Me

Long weekends are nice…even when they are long weekends that are filled with work of all kinds. Hopefully some of the work will be artistic. That’s the plan anyway.

I picked up my quilts from the photographer after school…and then spent way too long trying to name one of them. I had a really good name at one point, but I didn’t write it down anyway, so it’s lost. This is Each Piece Belongs…

It’s about 51″ square. I finished it relatively fast, considering all the other crap that was going on.

This is Desert Daughter, which I was working on earlier this summer and then the binding sat around unsewn for quite a long time until I realized it was easier to take two quilts to the photographer at once.

She’s 40” w x 34” h. I’ll get both of them posted in official places on here soon.

When I got back to the house, we kamikazed out to walk the beasts. I think in the long run, I need to transition back to walks on Mondays instead of Fridays. Fridays are tiring. Mondays are too, but I don’t have the whole week on me as well.

It was definitely warm out.

Some guy was wandering around with a backpack that had what looked like arrows poking out of it and a device that is not a pickaxe but looks like one to the ignorant, such as me. Boychild gave me a rundown on pickaxe-like equipment (it was not a pickaxe), which makes me wonder what he does in his copious spare time. We so rarely see people on this hike, and this guy was especially strange.

I had a to-do list a mile long last night: entered a show, packed up a quilt to be delivered today, wrote a bio for today (well, edited one), printed it, washed this and ironed it…then thought about the samples for the class in November, pulled some stuff out and then realized…

How deeply buried the stuff I needed was, and gave up. Tomorrow I will try again…or maybe tonight. This class thing is outside my wheelhouse. Not entirely, but it’s not how I normally roll. I’ll get there…it’s all about trying new things and seeing whether they can help support the artist as she ages. I can’t teach forever, but odds are, I will still need more money coming in for at least 10 years after I retire. Which is scary, sure. But at least I have some options. The Man says he’ll be a Walmart greeter. He is much nicer than I am, so that could be true.

I do have a drawing that I need to post on Patreon today. I had started it earlier this week, but last night, I sat down and watched some Orange Is the New Black and finished it up…with puppy assist.

Patreon patrons will be seeing this later today. It’s about the Amazon rainforest burning. Sigh. Stupid politicians who do stupid shit. Or allow stupid shit to happen.

OK, heading off now to the San Diego Quilt Show to sit in the SAQA booth this morning. Stop by and say hi…I’m bringing some embroidery with me, in case I have stitching time. A girl can dream.

I Did Not Sew Through My Finger.

First partial week of school in the books. Certainly there are some challenges we can see, and I sort of already feel incredibly buried in all the minutiae and the demands of life around it, although some of those are things I take on, of course. My brain right now is trying to hold on to 17 different to-do threads, mostly involving finding one thing and emailing someone about it. It’s disconcerting.

I posted a picture yesterday afternoon on Instagram of a new thing we’re doing this year called a Wonder Wall. I didn’t make it up…it came from here…but I really wanted to tap into the natural wonder that kids have about science that sometimes the standards kick in the ass. Like here’s what we HAVE to teach, and here’s what you really WANT to learn about.

Like skin walkers. And why humans can’t lay eggs. So we started yesterday with a brain dump (although my co-teacher called it a brain drop) on paper, which almost killed some of the kids, OMG, 8 minutes of writing questions, do you hate us? Hey no. You can do this.

WHEN CAN I GO TO BED. I ask that all the time. I actually model it and sometimes kids copy the questions I’m writing because writing and thinking are hard and I’m really much better at it than some of them. And then they had to cull it down to 1-3 questions to write on the post-its. At the end of the day, I stood and stared at it…

Why ARE there too many questions in your head, child? I’ve always had too many questions. I started in every class with talking about easy questions like what’s for lunch (I should know; I made it) or when is class over (that’s on the wall), and then talked about questions that I might know the answer to, like why am I so short, followed by the more difficult stuff, and for this, I always pick one of the more mouthy boys (and if they’re mouthy and I know their names on the third day of school, you know I need to connect with them), and I say I’ve always wondered what would happen if we took MY brain and put it in THEIR head, who would they be? Would they be me? Would they be a combination? And they kinda freak out. I’m OK with freak out in here.

This thread though…

All the ones about death. I teach in a Title I school. I teach many immigrants and refugees. I teach traumatized kids. I know all these things. And yeah, the “Why am I still alive” kid is on my radar. I actually know which kid that is. Most of them I don’t. But he made a point of telling me it was his. And then running away. OK then. We’ve got some work to do.

The next step? They pick a question and research it and produce something for me. We’ll work on that. First I’m going to have my homeroom try to organize them in threads/piles (a lot of kids copied my Why am I short? question)…because right now, it’s a little overwhelming. And we’ll have to train them to think about this shit. But it’ll be good. The core of teaching science is helping them think critically. How do we answer all these crazy questions in our heads? How do we find stuff we care about? The one kid who wants to know about what it’s like in jail. Huh. Well. You can find that out. I’d rather you know that in your head before experiencing it for real. It might persuade you not to do certain things. Probably they’re asking for a reason…parent in jail is pretty common around here. Big project.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to get everything done at home too…on my list for next weekend (this weekend is buried) is to get these plants organized and transplanted as needed. The one that escaped and is heading across the steps…

It needs to be planted out. A lot of the succulents have escaped pots or outgrown them. Need to work on that.

We walked both dogs when I got home…

We did a shorter walk, but even with that, Calli was limping by the end. She seems OK today though, so she may just be out of shape after almost two months of very few walks. I don’t think the back leg will ever be fully back. But she wanted to walk and she liked it and she didn’t whine so I think we’re good. Maybe not 3-mile good, but good.

Boychild saw that. My head was down, watching for lizards. We came back and I read for a bit, researching the Amazon rainforest and wondering (I need my own Wonder Wall) why so many dumbass politicians are in charge right now, and what will be left of the planet in 30 years’ time and holy crap the boychild was cooking dinner, so the dogs sat with me.

Doggy time is the bestest time.

The Man’s band played at Petco Park during Beerfest last night…they were very excited.

I did not go for once, mostly because it was sold out, but also the first Friday of school is exhausting and they started so freakin’ early, I don’t think I could have made it there anyway. Today I am also blowing them off, because I have to finish this quilt and this book. I quilted for three hours last night…finished the outlining…

Face before outlining…face after outlining…

Much better. And I did most of the background, but around 11:30 PM, I realized my eyes were drooping and I didn’t want to sew through my finger (I’ve done that) because I was too tired, so I quit, even though there’s only about 30 minutes left on there. It’s 30 minutes I’ll be doing this morning, then going to get binding, washing it, and putting it on. Done early! Woo! A miracle. Now I just have to get everything else done. No worries.