That Matters…

Yes, I’m writing late today. I took the morning off to attend an art-related Zoom that is usually difficult for me to go to, due to that lovely day job, but the kids are walking to the high school today in the morning anyway, so I’m not missing a lot of instructional time; I’ll be back to give a test to my afternoon kids, which totally thrills them, let me tell you. So I slept in (a little bit, because let’s be honest, my body thinks I should be up at 6:30 all the time and so it just wakes up and I don’t fall back to sleep easily). I’ll shower in a bit. I might put a second coat of paint on the deck wall (I was working on the deck and plants last night in the dusk light and it was not easy, but it needs to get done and it’s always dark when I get home these days). I’m definitely inputting grades…yes, taking time off from work and still working is what teachers do; why do you ask? And hopefully I can start grading that other academic assignment…I’ll be coming home from work and doing that for sure. Unfortunately.

Luckily, there is progress on the quilt front. It took 11 1/2 hours to trim all the pieces…

And then I sorted them the same night…

Scribble was not particularly helpful in this process. As you might imagine…although she eventually chilled out and just watched.

Nova was chilling on the couch.

Then last night, I started ironing the whole thing together.

I did almost 100 pieces in an hour. Pretty soon, it will all be small pieces and progress will look much slower. I’m not expecting to be done quickly, but I’m hoping to get some big chunks of weekend time in the next few weeks. I need it all ironed together and to a background by February 15, then finished ASAP. Ha! OK. Doing it.

I also made it in to work on the bowl…mostly underglazing at this point.

I think I have two more colors I want to put on there, but also, I wish I had painted inside the mouth. I might just do a tongue and not worry about the background, but it looks weird now, so not the best decision I’ve made this week.

Also probably not the worst, y’all. And it’s only Wednesday; there’s still time for worse decisions. I am liking the bowl though. It’s fun.

I’m finishing up teaching digital and analog signals this week, and found this mix tape in the box of cassettes I brought to school.

Yup, my brother made that.

Trying to explain to these digital kids that you made a tape to share your music with your friends or a relative and it was like a gift, and how you thought about them when you made it, and then when you listened to it, you thought about the person who made it for you. They don’t get it. Sad. But things have changed. They share TikTok videos and memes. Maybe it’s the same?

Yesterday, I left school quickly and came home to work on the deck in daylight. I have part of the house wall that really needs paint, and I wanted to do that before I started pushing plants back up against the wall. So I did a little sanding and one coat of paint last night, as the sky turned into this.

My eucalyptus tress still look sad. Hopefully they’ll be fluffier by summer. I have too much of a view of my back and lower neighbors’ yards at the moment. I could do without that. But the sky was nice. I moved three plant shelves back toward the railing, but also realized I don’t remember where everything goes. I’m sure it will be fine (she says). I’ve moved a few anyway that needed room or to dangle. Some things need some major pruning or replanting, so that’s a different issue.

I’m thinking about using this when we teach natural selection…but then the kids will think it’s a choice.

Honestly, I don’t know how much natural selection we’re going to get to this year, thanks to the school board fucking up our schedule. So frustrated with this year. I can’t even look at the calendar for April without stressing. My blood sugar has been super reactive this week. Not sure what changed except everyone around me is sick and I’ve definitely been fighting something off since Saturday, but I’m not sick…and my blood sugar is an asshole. Things that normally don’t shoot my blood sugar high…well, they are. So it’s just gonna be high this week I guess. Sigh. I have pilates today; hopefully that will help. I don’t feel more stressed than last week, so who knows what else it could be. Random shit…brought to you by my body.

Discombobulated is one of my favorite words.

I never considered what bobulated would be.

I try to do this every day.

It helps.

This thought also helps; but it’s also depressing.

Economic shutdown Friday. I can’t skip school; it’s not fair to the kids. There aren’t enough subs. I already have plans for Friday night to support a friend; the money was already spent, though. We are going out after, but I’m pretty sure it’s an independent place. Not a Cohn-owned monstrosity. I’ve got my eyes open for what’s happening Saturday. One rep emailed back. I don’t actually need to hear from them. I need to see them vote and start yelling. Get Noem out. Get out of Minnesota. Get out of everywhere. No ICE.

This is boggling.

So unsustainable. Then again, our need for money and power always is unsustainable.

This is an issue.

And frustrating, because they think we don’t think too. SCIENCE! I didn’t even post the measles graph for 2025. Measles cases went from like 238 in 2024 to over 2000 cases in 2025. Thanks RFK for being an ignorant dickhead.

Imma leave you with a sleepy kitten.

She’s a good baby.

OK, I need to shower, set up some stuff for school, get on a Zoom, maybe paint a wall, grade some stuff, input some grades, then go to school and give a test, go to Pilates, come home, grade some more after reading some of my book, and then iron. Busy day. Even “taking time off” (whatever that means). But art is in there and that matters.

Drippy Icicle Lights…

I know, I know, it’s late. I had stuff to do this morning. I made wontons. I took a shower. Really that’s it. Oh, I talked to the girlchild. That was nice. So no, I didn’t blog this morning. Honestly, I love a 3-day weekend, but I’m not sure what the hell I do with the extra time. The bathrooms and floors still aren’t clean, I didn’t finish grading stuff, I didn’t finish inputting grades, I certainly didn’t finish putting everything back on the deck. My to-do list is still a shitshow. My green pants still aren’t wearable. This is crucial. I hope to fix this tonight. And the grades inputting. Maybe…no, I’m not doing a floor…c’mon, it’s almost 5 PM and I have a 6:30 Zoom? OK, maybe a floor or a shower. We’ll see.

Meanwhile. MLK. I watched a couple of excerpts of his speeches…man that man could talk…so beautifully. Made me tear up…especially in light of Minnesota…and Greenland…and Norway…and Venezuela…and another ICE killing. So did I do right by MLK today? Probably not. But I did talk to the plants I was moving about how the new pot would support them better than the old one. More about that later.

In the quilt realm, I did OK though. Friday night, I managed over 2 hours of ironing (I stayed up late).

I got the fleshy bits ironed down. Scribble was still not helpful.

She’s a sweetheart actually. After ironing the fleshy bits, here’s all the stuff that goes ON the fleshy bits…eyes and hearts and veins and lungs and trees.

OK, trees is weird, I know, but there was also ivy and a snake.

Saturday was my deck/ironing day (no school!), so I ironed for over 4 hours and got most of it done…all of it except the sun and the owl.

Sunday, it took another hour and a half to finish the ironing…156 different fabrics.

All in a bin…

So I can spend the next few days (few???) cutting all the pieces out. Usually that’s faster than picking fabrics…less brain power, less thinking. So now I’m hoping to be done with the cutting out by Saturday? That might be ambitious. The Man has a show Friday night that I’ll be at, and I have a meeting Saturday afternoon, and two meetings Sunday. But maybe if I hope to be ironing it all together by next week…because I need an ironed-together quilt top by February 15, but if I could get closer to done before that, it would be awesome. I will not be done by February 15, just to be clear, but I will definitely be ironed together by then. Total ironing to fabric time? 15 hours and 17 minutes. Longer than normal. Lots of little decisions to make.

I also did some underglazing on the bowl on Friday after school.

Clay is SLOW. I mean, I guess my version of quiltmaking is too. So there’s that.

I hiked Saturday afternoon…3 miles.

It was delightful.

The weather has been strangely warm. But nice. Spring is in the air…yes, it’s January, but it’s also Southern California, so the weeds are proliferating and the yard is a jungle and I could do yardwork every day for 8 hours and never catch up.

Speaking of yardwork, so the boychild and I replaced the deck railings, which were disintegrating. We replaced one of the railing posts too. So I had to move all the plants away from the railings. It’s been on my list for over a year to go through all the plants and repot things that were falling over or out of control, and to just generally clean up the space. But as I do that, I find more things to do. That space under the window…there used to be a planter that hung from the wall, and I don’t remember if we installed it or if it was here when we moved, and I don’t know why two of the slats are missing. I do know it all needs painting. So I pulled everything away and washed it down, and tomorrow, when it’s dry, I’m going to paint it.

Before I move the plants up against it. If I were really good, I’d replace those slats, but IDK what wood that is and it sounds more like hard work, considering the planter is going right up in front of it. So that’s a delay.

Here’s the long view toward that area…

All those planters were up against the railing before, but a lot of them need help. That plant in the front is leggy as hell. I’ve trimmed it before and it does well, so I’m going to do that again.

So basically, in two days. all I got done and set up was this small section of the deck…

Which is all the Man and the dog care about, so that’s fine. I’ll do the rest as I can. Or I’ll get tired of it and move it all back without cleaning it all up. We’ll see which Kathy wins out. I do like plants, but I run out of time.

This was funny…this is Instagram.

Almost 12 years, y’all…I didn’t know Insta had been around that long, but I guess it makes sense. They suggested I add a reel a week. A reel of what? Me talking to my plants? Scribble biting my hand? Yeah. Maybe.

Now for the screenshots that talked to me in the last three days…this one, for sure.

Although maybe I am a very hungry caterpillar. Hard to say.

W.T.F. I am boggled. Fuck the EPA.

Sigh. Why do people think this is OK? How do you live in this world and be OK with this? I guess it’s OK when it’s not you and your family being affected by it? Except they all are. Now we all are.

I could totally get behind this (I am actually part Danish)…

But this thing worries me…

I just looked up my insulin and it’s from Malaysia/India…which explains the emails when I had an issue with one of the pens. But I don’t wish death on the other insulin users, and I don’t want to worry about shortages for insulin users. Plus didn’t that orange fuckup tell us the meds would be 150% cheaper? Waiting on that too.

More people need to think about how this works…

Ecosystems include humans, even when we’re stupid and think science doesn’t matter.

I love this too…

I hope it goes away before it destroys the environment…although it may already be too late.

OK, well I go back to school tomorrow…teaching geese and canaries (sound waves and wave energy), then digital and analog signals. Spent some time with that today. Wrote a rubric that I remembered about at 2 AM. Thank you, school brain. Spent some time today finding a bunch of analog and digital things to show students (records, old video cameras, old cameras, cassette tapes in big wooden boxes). Fun times. Tonight, my local guild has a Zoom with Jane Sassaman, which sounds lovely. My book is due to the library Saturday and it’s for book club on Monday (a week from now). I’ll finish it; it’s good too. I have three Zooms this week (it’s a lot) and who-knows-what-else for school that hasn’t come to the light of day yet. Deep breaths. My neighbor above me still has their drippy icicle Christmas lights up and I’m not mad about it. It’s very relaxing to watch.

Lots of Smoke…

It’s been a long week…and a short week. I will have gone to work all 5 days, but only 4 with kids. It has felt like a million though. How is my right eye already twitching again? Some of the stuff we get asked to do is boggling. In general, the kids are OK, they’re mostly listening and doing the things…but like we had grades due next Tuesday and someone higher up changed it and never told us it changed? I’m still doing grades this weekend, because I don’t have time to do them next weekend. I made plans, I have multiple meetings, I have things I’m doing. I have what might be considered ‘a life’. Mostly that’s cleaning things and trying to make art and finishing books, but that’s OK. Trying to find recalcitrant cats at 11 PM (he’s fine; he was hiding and wouldn’t come out when called…because he’s a cat…and either he’s sick or sulking, not sure which).

Speaking of 11 PM, I’m supposed to go to bed at 10:30, and I do try, but I’m also trying to finish grading everything and iron for more than an hour a night, and at some point, you run out of time. I finished grading the second academic assignment from December last night, and I didn’t run over my allotted grading time, but it was close. I think yesterday was a 10-11-hour day. Ugh. Just for school. Ironing was another 80 minutes. So apparently I was hallucinating the other day about being 300 pieces in…I wasn’t. I am NOW…a little over. The ironing of all the tiny things that all need to be a slightly different shade of gray? It’s taking a while. Here’s Wednesday night’s progress…

So slow…so many little pieces. I did a Chevron sign and a BP gas sign…some other stuff too.

And here’s last night…

I mean, I think I added 8 gray fabrics to the pile, but it doesn’t look like much more…I did the Exxon sign and some smokestacks, and a bunch of smoke clouds, but that’s about it, and it doesn’t sound like much, but I made it into the 320s I think. Lots of smoke. NO. I’m still not halfway. BUT I have a 3-day weekend (during which I have to finish progress report grades, finish the deck railings, replant some stuff, and move everything back) to finish ironing everything to fabric. I’m getting close to the large goddess figure, and I haven’t entirely decided how to color her. I have ideas. I don’t know which one will work. It requires more brain power than I have right this minute. Hopefully I’ll have it tonight or tomorrow.

Or not. OK, today, I’m teaching sound. I didn’t have the energy last night after 5 parents contacts and a bunch of other stuff to set up my classroom for today, so I need to go in and place the cup/string telephones and find cheap rulers for sound boinging and who knows what else I forgot. I remembered the packets. It’s been a very ON week, lots of me talking and doing. Eventually there will be more of them doing things, but we didn’t really get there this week. So that’s part of the exhaustion. I’m hoping to have the energy to go to ceramics after school so I can start glazing that bowl, because I have a cool artsy idea for what I want to work on next so I want the bowl done and fired. Then home, read, eat, iron. Pet a dog and some cats. Chill out for three days. Well, I need at least one hike in there. Maybe two. And some sleep…that’s been problematic all week. Need more of that. Always.

Fabric at the End of It…

I’ve officially survived one day with kids; it was notionally a chill day but felt like a lot, which isn’t surprising. I had to put back a lot of things I put away so the Winter Academy could be in our classrooms (I’m not done with that yet), plus deal with a lot of kid stuff (they were pretty chilled out except for that one…there’s always that one). It’s just a lot…going full on for the whole day, so much stimulation, so much talking, so much ON. It’s exhausting. We have a 3-day weekend coming up, which is nice, but grades are also due, so double-edged sword there. I came home after running errands and graded and had an art Zoom meeting and graded some more. So this ALL ON thing doesn’t stop when I get in the car and go home. I realize it COULD? But then I’d have to be at school even longer, and I had to really force myself to stay the extra 10 minutes last night to finish one class of late turn-ins. I have three more classes of those to go; it’s not a lot…it’s just details. I should be able to finish them today. And yes, I came home and read my book with a kitten for a while because I needed that.

Monday, after 17 thousand meeting things (I got nothing done that I needed to get done on Monday…seriously, I left after 4 PM with a half-assed table of contents copied and not much else accomplished), I went to ceramics for the first time since before Christmas. I always think, oh, it’s a break, Imma get SO MUCH clay done. And then I don’t. It’s frustrating. And with this quilt deadline hanging over me, I’m hard-pressed to spend a huge chunk of time there at the moment anyway. I did pick up my frames…

I like them, although one of the greens burned out a lot on both frames…and it looks like they shrunk a lot more than I thought they would. A 4×6 photo fits in the top one if you trim the corners…you’d have to trim it a lot for the bottom frame. I should be better about measuring things. But I’m not. The final satin glaze was definitely more successful than the last few I’ve done. I’d consider reglazing some if I didn’t think it would be an exorbitant cost. But now I know.

And then I worked on the bowl some more…luckily it’s been pretty humid and wet, so it didn’t dry out too much.

I know I had some specific plans at some point, but I don’t remember what they were.

It’s not perfectly round; it’s definitely handbuilt…and even though I used a mold, it’s still not really even symmetrical.

I’m OK with that. I think I’m just going to start underglazing it. I have an idea for the next big art piece and I want to start it.

The quilt is progressing slowly.

I mean, I’m getting lots ironed at night, but it doesn’t look like much because it’s all tiny things mostly. Except for the ground and the water. So it doesn’t feel like much progress. I am trying to iron more than an hour a day. My goal is to be done ironing to fabric this weekend.

Scribble follows me at night (when she wakes up), so she’s in the studio now, checking out progress.

This is after last night’s 90-minute session. I did iron a tiny Scribble-like cat, but then looked at her more closely. Her coloring is complicated. I need a bigger cat to iron to get her facial details to work. A 1″ drawing is not a good place to start with her.

I finished the first 300 pieces plus a few out of the 300 box. So not halfway, but I probably will be tonight. Lots of fussy details in the next 100 pieces too though, so maybe not. Lots of buildings and logos. Sure enough, our school district is pushing teachers using AI in planning, and I’m pushing back. I do use it occasionally, but it’s not as useful as they’d like it to be.

Scribble sometimes comes to bed with me…

But she’s not always ready for actual bedtime. Unlike me. She’s a pretty gentle kitten though. She looks evil and vicious, but is not even breaking the skin. Just gently holding my hand in her mouth and paws. Sweet baby.

I appreciate the cuddles.

This is my medieval animal, apparently.

Seems appropriate.

OK, meeting this morning (ugh), then teaching about waves (ocean first, then sound…sort of? Not entirely sure what I’m doing today…will figure it out as I go). Hopefully my voice holds up…it was shaky yesterday. I’m still holding mucus from the flu…can’t shake it completely, so that doesn’t help. Lots of tea and throat-clearing. I may give in and take cold meds. Then pilates after school (I’m already tired) and I’m cooking dinner tonight (leftover lasagne I was smart enough to cook and freeze over break). Plus grading and then ironing. LONG day. This is what being back to work is though. LONG days. Fabric at the end of it. Good thing.

Head on Straight…

OK, officially a school Monday, but no kids today, just 3+ hours of listening to people talk about stuff that doesn’t help me get my classroom ready for tomorrow. It is an easier start than going right back to teaching, though, so I appreciate the afternoon, where I can make sense of shit, especially all the shit I didn’t finish. I actually did OK. I didn’t grade two assignments. Everything else is in the gradebook. Considering the number of days I was out of it with the flu, I did well. I didn’t really get a break from school entirely though, because I graded almost every day…just a little, but I did grade. I’m sure there’s a way to avoid all of it, but I mostly suck at that, so I’m glad I had time to get some art done…definitely spent more time than usual on that over break, although I only made it to ceramics once. Which sucks. Not sure what the status of my bowl will be when I get there after school today. Ah well. And I never saw my frames come out of the kiln. Hopefully they’re OK. It would suck if they weren’t.

So I spent a goodly chunk of time Friday night and Saturday cleaning up the office, moving stuff around, trying to make space. I did pretty well, although I distracted myself with culling through the two orange drawers and one of the three red drawers. I go through the fabrics I’ve been collecting since 1990 and if it’s something I haven’t used much of, I chop a fat quarter off of it (I usually buy 1/2 yards) and put it in the donate bag. Then when I have enough (whatever that means), I box it up and ship it to a couple of charity organizations. Gives me room for more fabric and more choices. Plus I get to see everything I have in the stash, which is sometimes surprising. Then I tried to put away all the fabric from the last quilt.

So everything gets messier for a bit and then I can see straight and can start ironing fabrics for the next quilt…which I started Saturday night.

I hung the drawing and started setting out the Wonder Under in numerical order by 10s.

And then I start ironing to fabrics.

Top left is the background fabric for this quilt. I’ve mostly been doing dirt and some water so far. A volcano. Some oil spills. I’m still in the 0-99 box, but I’ve pulled from the 100s too. It’s been a slow start, but it often is. There are lots of little details that all need to be different colors. But I’m doing it now…just hope I can be done with the ironing to fabrics sometime next weekend. Tight deadline for this one.

In other news, my 6 quilts made it to Virginia to the quilt museum in Dayton. That show opens later this month and I’ll be there for the closing activities in March. Put it on your calendar!

In other awesome news, despite having to paint in the rain, the cold, the humidity, and the wind, the boychild and I finally got the new railings on the deck.

I need to do some touchup, and then all those plants go back up against the railing (so I don’t have to look into my neighbors’ yards. I started this plant bonanza during COVID to block the view (and sounds) of my neighbors…at the moment, it’s a little out of control, so I need to do some more work in the next couple weeks to replant and move stuff around a bit to make it more organized. But the railings are done! Ish. Mostly. You know how that goes.

This lasted about 2 minutes.

Scribble wants to cuddle, but the big cats are hesitant. It’s cold here at the moment (well, it’ll be 79 degrees later, but it’s in the 40s at night), so they are more conducive to cuddling, but mostly with humans and not each other.

Yeah this.

My ICE quilt will be in Virginia. It’s not the first quilt that I’ve put ICE in…it probably won’t be the last. It also probably won’t be the last quilt with a tattered American flag and a body bag in it. Unfortunately.

This is also too real…

My district today is pushing us to use more AI for planning. Wasting more water and electricity…plus dumbing us down. Don’t get me wrong; it can be helpful. It’s just problematic in more ways than it’s helpful.

OK. 3+ hours listening to the things. Then working with my co-teacher to get the next two weeks planned out (hopefully, because I need to copy a table of contents for tomorrow) and making sure our classrooms are put back and functional after Winter Academy co-opted our rooms. Then run some errands…my store had no yogurt and no deodorant for me (ah, allergies), and I need more paint. Then ceramics! I’m hoping I have the energy…last year, I took a nap after this first work day. I’m cooking tonight and I should probably grade some of the two assignments I didn’t get to…and then I’m ironing, hopefully into the 100s and further. The nice part about the next 6 weeks is that we get three 3-day weekends…and then March is a vast expanse of hard work until Spring Break. Progress report grades are due next week too, so that’s a little stressful. But the extra Mondays off do help. I’m hoping they help me get this quilt done. And keep my head on straight. Ha! Well, I can hope.

Peace and Joy…

Hey. It’s the last day of the school year…of 2025. School has changed a lot in the last 25 years…I realized this as I was watching a keystroke video of a kid editing their test after school earlier this week, so I could let the parent know that they will still have an F after I grade it for realz. Luckily, mot kids had to submit during class, so they couldn’t do the cheaty thing. Well, she had to submit during class too, but unsubmitted later, and I’m sure saw the message that said I wasn’t accepting them any more. Fun times. I miss the days when…OK, never mind, kids have always found some way to cheat. Back in the day, I allowed a notecard for tests (before I went all standards-based) and kids would try to bring a big card or more than one card. It’s not like we teach them to study…and for my current tests, they don’t need to study. They do need to turn their brains on…longer than it takes to ask AI the answer. What’s mindboggling is that I showed that class a similar video of a kid cheating, and she still did it. Ah well. Some of us learn all the things the hard way.

The quilt is progressing! I got it pinbasted on Wednesday night with the help (not) of two cats, one kitteny.

I pinned fast. Because cats. Then last night, I started quilting…

An hour in. Still on the first bathtub. I’ll be here a while. Hopefully done by the end of the weekend. Finishing early! A miracle. Maybe. Knock on wood. Which means I need to figure out the next one, because it’s on a tight deadline. School is gonna need to back off a bit…a lot. I’m not sure how that’s gonna fly, but I’ll have to make it work.

Lots of kitten pictures…lots of kitten sitting ON me.

Definitely have a lap cat…at least for now. Nova is also a lap cat, and was a little offended by having to share. Scribble doesn’t care about the others; she will sit wherever she wants.

It’s the right attitude for this house. Each evening, I try to read for a little bit before I have to do all the other things.

There’s a lot of furry beasts around when I do that. Sometimes there’s a dog too.

He also doesn’t care when I have other beasts on me. Honestly, it’s the best part of my day sometimes. I mean, I like making art too, and they sometimes come in when I’m doing that, but it’s loud right now with the sewing machine and Scribble doesn’t like that, but she was in here with me when I was ironing.

I’ll have to add her to a quilt soon, in the great tradition of Nida’s cats living on in her art. Her face is going to be more complicated than Kitten’s was. The hardest part is making sure they show up on whatever background there is. I did one quilt with Midnight (an old cat of ours) and because she was all black, I had to add like an aura around her so you could see her. She rocked the aura.

Yesterday, I had to pick up a quilt from a closing show and then do some holiday post office and shopping stuff. Shockingly, both places were empty, mostly I think because everyone and their mother was on the freeways.

It was a 2-hour trip in the long run. Traffic could have been worse. Maybe. I did get this treat of a view…

The palm trees at Costco/Ikea. Nice.

OK. Today. Is a test. Ha! And they turn in a packet. And I have to lock up my room because stupid Winter Academy will be in here and they steal stuff and break stuff. It’s annoying. Plus they’re going to clean my floors. I’m not putting all my shit back for the academy people. They can live without it. Not my problem. Hope they know how to set up the projector. I’ll leave the tech on the counter, but they move my teacher desk for floor cleaning, so I can’t leave it where I normally do. Frustrating. I shouldn’t have to go in over break to set stuff up for other people. I have a packet to grade, a homework assignment, two easy just-record-the-numbers assignments, and two academic assignments. I started grading one of those last night. While they’re testing today, I’m going to try to finish the homework papers and clean up. I’m not fully planned for the week we come back, which sucks. Our prep periods got sucked away this week.

I’m fully looking forward to three weeks off. I’d like to reinstate a drawing a day, but realistically, it’s been hard the last few years to pull that off. Pre-COVID me could have done it. I need to finish this quilt and start the next one. I have a million yard and household things that need to be done (always). The girlchild is home for a quick week. I just want to get some extra sleep and exercise too. That would be lovely. I need a reset. School has been a bitch. Not the kids…they’re relatively decent this year. Just the rest of it. The rest of it needs to fuck off. And with that note, I’m off to work. Maybe there be peace and joy at school today, unlike the last four days.

A Giant Experiment

There are three days of school before we go on break. There’s been some crazy shit (there always is), some crazier than usual. My blood sugar responds to stress, and yes, it is responding to stress. And cake. That was my fault. To my credit, I ate it in two shifts. On Monday, after the holiday party, which was really just a confession and food (is that the definition of a party?), I had to get on the stationary bike for an hour. It’s OK…I finished my book. Although my knees did not appreciate it the next day. They rarely do though. It’s weird…we usually have spirit week before break and dress up most of the days, at least wearing Santa hats and pajamas, and that’s not even happening. I think everyone is just trying to survive. That may be true of everyone honestly. Christmas is coming up and it’s crazy. I still don’t have a box for the stuff I need to ship. I keep forgetting. I have a to-do list but it keeps getting impacted by school. We have three days to get at least the first week of lessons done and we don’t have enough time to teach everything before the state test because the school board did a stupid thing and got sued and now we have to teach stuff that’s not on the test before the test and I can’t even tell you how frustrating that is after we spent hours this summer backwards planning from the end of the year to make sure there was enough time. And now we’re fucked. No one paid me for those summer hours and no one will pay me for the hours it will take to rearrange stuff to fit the school board’s fuckup. Summer self did that work because she knew that May/June self would really appreciate it. And now both of them are pissed off. “It’s fine,” the District says, “It’s only one year and then you can go back to whatever you normally do.” Great. You gonna pay me for the extra planning this year? Nah? I didn’t think so. Plus I have to do more training even though I helped write the damn curriculum. I guess all that is January/February/March’s problem. She’s already irritable about it though. December self just wants the first week or two planned and maybe to have a table of contents for the unit that doesn’t have to be totally rewritten halfway through. Big dreams.

Meanwhile, this is the third morning in a row I’ve had to show up early to school for something…luckily, I think it’s the last one in 2025! Maybe. Knock on wood.

I did finish all the stitchdown on Monday night…stayed up late to do it, which pairs well with getting up early.

Stitchdown is generally pretty fast…this was 4 1/2 hours. Last night, I cut the batting, washed the batting, dried the batting, washed the floor (it was gross), and cut and sewed and ironed the backing. Then it was 10:15 PM and I knew it would take an hour to pinbaste this thing, so I didn’t do it. Did I go to bed earlier? Nope. Totally not. That would make too much sense. I just didn’t want to crawl around on my kneepads for an hour…I’ll do that tonight after yet another early morning and a long day. It’ll be fine. Quilting by tomorrow. Done by? I don’t know. I need a binding fabric…I know I don’t have enough of anything for that.

Cat integration is going really well. These two play during the day (and the night).

Not touching yet, not curled up together…but I know Scribble wants that. Bowie is kind of an asshole (that phrase is said so many times in this house), but he is still kittenish and appreciates the racing around. Scribble bites gently, plays gently (with us), doesn’t hook us with claws, purrs a lot, loves a lot, squawks, and is a sweetheart.

Ceramics! I got this one out of the bisque fire yesterday…

Then glazed both with a clear glaze…hopefully the colors will hold. We’ll see. They do darken in the glaze fire, but I’m hopeful. They are both frames for the wall. I haven’t figured out construction for frames for just standing up. And I forgot to check how much they shrank. Oh well. It’s all a giant experiment anyway.

When I left the studio, Bartholomew had just showed up for dinner.

He’s definitely got more than his share of nine lives.

OK then there’s this…

This might help. Sigh. We don’t solve problems well as a species, but especially here in the US. Dumpster fire has taken over.

OK today. It’s a catchup day. The kids will hopefully get everything done, we’ll do a lab tomorrow, a quick test question Friday, turn their packets in, and go away for three weeks. I need to finish grading last week’s homework and start grading the academic assignment they just finished. Whatever I get done this week I don’t have to do during break. That would be a plus. Pilates after school, then I have to cook (normally I would have done that last night)…oh wait, I did do it last night, but just for me. Then pinbaste, kneepads on. Maybe setup or start quilting. We’ll see. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to some time off too.

Appropriate Responses…

It’s totally foggy this morning, foggy and chilly. It’s also the last Monday of school in 2025. I had a fairly successful weekend, but whenever I picked up my phone, some horrible disaster had happened somewhere…mostly with guns…and I had to stop and take a breath and wonder about the world and humanity. I may always wonder about that. And guns. And how people get so angry that guns (or knives) seem to solve that problem. And then a reminder that Sandy Hook happened yesterday, 13 years ago. I remember that day. That’s why we have gates and fences and locks and were told to keep classroom doors locked for a good long time. We had active shooter trainings before that though. When my students ask, “when will I ever need this?” during lockdown trainings, all I can say is, “I hope you never do…” but the odds are increasingly against that. Who thought celebrating Hanukkah on the beach would require gun avoidance training? Or taking college finals? Those things should be gun and violence free (despite how you might feel about final exams in general). According to CNN, the shooting at Brown “followed at least 75 school shootings in the United States this year. So far in 2025, there have been at least 391 mass shootings and 13,929 shooting deaths nationwide.” Insane.

So in that vein, I finished my Forgotten Words Project phrases. They just needed to be stitched down. I’ll mail them later this week.

My goal this weekend was to finish ironing the quilt down and get a goodly chunk of stitchdown done. I needed to make a video with the quilt for a meeting I’m missing on Zoom this week, and that was going to be easier if I could hang it up, so it needed to be completely ironed to do that. I spent a few hours on Saturday getting that done and making the video (and finding speakers since my subwoofer broke/died and I couldn’t edit the video without sound).

I guess I ironed Friday night too. She was too wide to hang up well…

I usually go vertical more than horizontal. My original plan was three bathtubs…that would have been insanely wide.

And then Saturday night, I stitched down for over 2 hours and got a huge chunk done.

Last night, I finished the larger bathtub with all its rugs and stuff.

I’ve got at least an hour to go tonight after book club. Then sandwich, pinbaste, and quilt. I’m on track to get it done with time to spare, which is good, because shipping 6 quilts is stressful no matter what, and I need to do another quilt fairly quickly. Plus however much free time people think I have over a school break, that’s when I do all the things I don’t have time for when I’m teaching, which is almost everything. Including mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms.

This week is a mess, for sure. Here’s the drawing I kept trying to get done before dinner arrived the last two Saturday nights.

I may give up on it. These aren’t really meant to be finished beasties anyway, just a way to keep the drawing hand in.

Scribble does know how to be IN the kitty tent…

Mostly. She’s been playing with a few of the older cats, definitely speaking her mind, eating more, purring lots, sleeping, and basically underfoot or on lap. Good times.

I guess this is how we end today…

So true. Sanity and kindness too. Those would be nice. Today is…sigh. Someone set up an 8 AM parent Zoom call, which is good, because she wanted to meet at 7 AM and that’s not something I do. Then finishing a test. Two of my co-teachers are out for good reasons; hopefully the kids will be too tired to malfunction. Then a staff meeting that was supposed to be a holiday party that got cancelled due to lack of interest (and probably morale, honestly). At least that will be short. Then book club later. Plus stitching stuff down and dealing with Christmas, because holy hell, that’s rushing at us like a train out of control. The fog is still out there. I’ll have to join it in a second. May today be full of love and peace and appropriate responses…across the board…

Strangely Warm…

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.

Alive and Pissed Off…

OK, I thought it was Tuesday, but it’s Wednesday. I was so tired after school and pilates yesterday that I just lay on the couch and considered how it was only Tuesday. Really that was the fault of the pilates teacher…and my body. My knees mostly.

I’m ironing. I’m trying to iron a lot. I need to finish this piece. I think I’ll have time during break, but then all the Xmas stuff happens, and I’m fucked. So here’s where I was at on Monday night…

It didn’t look like much. I did the edges of the bathtub and the words and the flag; there’s stuff hanging off the top as well, but not much.

Last night was a little more impressive…

I got the lamp and some portion of the water done. There’s things floating in the water and then obviously the body in the tub (this one is alive and pissed off), so there’s a lot going on here. I’m about halfway through. I’ll be in the water again tonight and then maybe even tomorrow. I’m hoping to have it all ironed down or close by the weekend, so I can start the stitchdown Saturday. I have a big block of time. Maybe. At the moment. Also need to fix a bunch of things and deal with Christmas stuff.

I’m not putting a tree up until I’m home during the day, because…kitten. I did put some lights up on the deck so that’s festive. I have more lights but no timer…and it requires a ladder and a hammer, which I have, but I need to do it in daylight hours and I won’t be home in the evening in light until Saturday. Ah Winter. So many other things to do. A little panicky about that, as always. I’m teaching more magnety stuff today, hopefully less handholding than the last few days. They really do just want me to write the answers for them, and I won’t. Also, getting kids to talk in some of these classes is torture…or to talk about science instead of whatever they want to be chatting about. Crazy stuff. But maybe I can get caught up on grading before the next big assignment? It’s a goal anyway. Union meeting after school tonight and then about 17 errands, depending on what’s still open (not the post office unfortunately). Then did I mention ironing? I did.