That’s My Plan

Apparently it’s Saturday. You know how you blow off all that work anxiety that appears the week before we go back to school? Take a bunch of art/craft classes so you don’t have time to think about the fact that you’re going back. It’s very relaxing. I should do this every year. Somehow. Because finding classes to do right before break ends is always an issue. This has been nice though. It’s the last year of Craft Napa, and I took two crafty classes with Libby Williamson and one improv quilting class with Irene Roderick.

I haven’t gotten any ironing done on the other quilt due to all this stuff, but it’s OK. I’m enjoying all of it. The first class was a collage-type lesson that went through painting with ink on CraftTex and then stitching around those, cutting them out, and making an image on a paper-collaged canvas. I started out by making flowers and leaves like everyone else, but then went into Nida territory. The teacher was Libby Williamson, crafter extraordinaire of many materials and techniques. I think she sees random materials and then tries to figure out how to make something out of them, which is a great talent.

You can see flames and maybe a face over there on the top left.

I then collaged the background. Now you will see where I diverted from the class subjects…because I ended up painting over a lot of the background. I wanted the papers to show at first, but there wasn’t enough contrast between the face and the background. Since I had started with the person on fire (sorry LA…hoping the fires are getting more and more under control as the weekend continues on), I figured I could make the background go along with that. I stained the bottom with red ink, fairly diluted. I started with the clouds very light, so the paper came through, but it didn’t look good, so I went for a much more opaque and graphic look for the clouds.

I do want to write all over the red still…haven’t done that yet. I had leftover flowers that didn’t work with this image, so I made a second smaller one…

Which was a bit more like what the rest of the class did. And it’s nice. I like it.

Yesterday, I took improv quilting with Irene Roderick. I’ve taken improv classes before, but got stuck on making things (triangles, strings, stripes) and not the creative part of it. This class focused more on the creative part…and that finally made sense to me. I’ve never gotten past a pile of parts before, and they didn’t excite me. I think focusing just on black and white (and NOT color) and just doing one thing at a time and fitting it into what already existed…that worked for me. I have a solid start to a quilt top here…

A top I actually want to finish. So that was cool. It’s totally NOT how I usually work, which I appreciate. Stretch the brain! Try new things! I’m in another class today (waiting for paint to dry, literally), so those photos will have to wait.

I also finished the first block of Rooted, which was Sue Spargo’s block-of-the-month lite version for two years ago? 2023 I think? I’ve had them stitched down for a while; getting to the embroidery has taken a while. This is after Thursday’s stitching meeting…

And last night, I finished while at my parents’ house for dinner with my bro and my nephew.

One done! Eight to go! Yeah, nothing is fast. These are pretty easy though.

So the pro of all these classes this week is that I can barely consider school. So the anxiety is gone, plus I have the added benefit of the meditative qualities of making for three days straight. Peace and love, peace and love. I’m sure I’ll panic soon. I didn’t finish grading…almost did! They’re due in like 10 days. It’ll be fine. I need to pack up four more quilts after class today to deliver to a friend who will deliver up north (not near the fires). And then once all this is done, I can start ironing and quilting my friend’s quilt again. It’s been chaotic in this room this week. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not ready to go back, but I never am. Maybe it’s enough to just accept that, go into it with calm and determination to make art. Still. Anyway, that’s my plan.

Incognito Year…

I’m running on crazy time now, y’all. I was going to write on Monday, but oops, stomach flu or food poisoning…and then this morning, the rescheduled appointment from early Monday morning, and now it’s almost 10 PM. But hell, it’s still Wednesday. When I get off schedule, I get really off apparently. So yeah, how are things going? Ha! Can’t get the bees out of the owl box…all the bee peeps are on Winter Break. Can’t get the house or yard done because I spent Monday completely out of it with the remains of the whatever-the-hell-it-was, Tuesday much of the same. Today I’ve been better (food helped), but felt like I had to do EVERYTHING and that everything took FOREVER to get done. Not really of course, but days seem to go much faster over break than they do in real life. Which starts Monday. With a vengeance. A possibility of an 11-hour day. Fun times, y’all…fun times.

So Friday night, I ironed…I think that was the first leg. Nah. I straight up have no idea what I ironed, but my app says I did? No photos either. I also did a little clay, underglazing mostly. And put this this together with all the requisite borders.

No, it’s not done. There’s 16 big embellished flowers for the borders. Bowie thinks he might climb it. This is Sue Spargo’s Homegrown, a block of the month I started in March 2020. No joke. Last night, I pinned some things down to it, also with Bowie interest.

Back to the other quilt. Who the fuck knows what I did on it Friday night. On Saturday, I did nothing on it, because the Man’s band played the House of Blues and I was there from 7-11 PM.

Sunday night, I ironed the lower half of the other leg…

Monday night, I was half dead, and last night, I did the other half of the leg…

It remains to be seen whether I’ll get any of it done tonight. I’m knackered. Not sleeping well, worried about the bees and the world and fires and going back to school. Not halfway yet. And I start three days of Zoomie art classes tomorrow, so that’ll fuck with my ability to get art done. Plus my bro is in town again. So family stuff. It’s all good. It’ll get done eventually.

I did finish the binding and sleeves on the bird wool quilt today. I’ll have to take a better photo sometime and post it. That’s the 12-year finish.

Clay stuff…been glazing some small things, then working on the second level of the crazy sculpture I’m making…

I made boobs today. Although they need some forming. I needed them to solidify slightly before I started banging on them.

Also, just like in real life, they are top-heavy. So it does fine here with 12-15 pounds of clay holding it up, but on its own, that piece just falls over. Right now, it has a roll of paper towels holding it up. Hoping to get back to this on Friday or Saturday. Need to pack up four quilts first, plus take classes each day.

Here’s the day I was sick. I got up, thinking I could make it to the doc appointment, even took a shower. Crazy. Not going anywhere. Slept until noon, when I tried to drink Gatorade…

Not sure it went uphill from there. I think I managed 3 bites of rice at dinner. Anyway. I’m mostly recovered now, but my stomach still wants me to remember. So small bites and not very much of anything. But better.

These two enjoyed three weeks together, but now she is gone again and he is bereft.

Oh wait, no he’s not. He has the boychild.

This old lady has had a hard week. No one medicated her when I was sick, and her body doesn’t do well without her meds unfortunately.

She seems better today.

She does like a sunny chair. Might be a fight for it tomorrow.

Woke up after Monday with questions, lots of questions.

I don’t think that’s changing all year. In fact, I’d like to set up an incognito window for me for the entire year. Maybe I can just watch from the sidelines and pretend I don’t have a horse in the game? I realize that’s totally and completely not possible. I have thousands of horses in the game, dammit.

The current book I’m reading briefly mentions the town I lived in for a year…

Found that amusing. It was in the boonies, that’s for sure.

OK. So. I’m tired. I have lots going on tomorrow…and the next day and the next day. I do want to iron, though. Tough call. Also classes will be in here, in my studio, so stuff has to be cleared up enough for that to happen. Hmmm. There’s also some chance class will be rescheduled. Our teacher is not in a fire zone, but the wind has caused internet and electrical outages. The fires in Los Angeles, by the way…my goodness holy crapitude. I remember seeing fires up in the hills above where we lived when I grew up south of Pasadena. I know Eaton Canyon, hiked it and other areas up there. It’s hard to watch all of it burn. Damn wind. Climate change. WTF is Trump saying about letting the clean water run? Man is on crack. Maybe he needs the incognito window more than I do.

The Year Changed…

I somehow have lost a week. The year has changed. I have not posted my memories of 2024 nor my goals and hopes for 2025. I missed the boat completely. What happens to me if I do not consider everything that 2024 brought and 2025 might bring? I dunno, but I don’t seem to have the brainpower for it. Although I redid my big long huge CV/resume/whatever the hell it is yesterday and I know that I was in 12 exhibits last year and I made 6 quilts and 10 bug things that aren’t really quilts. I read that an art quilter I follow made over 60 quilts and I can’t fathom that, but probably she’s not working full time as a middle-school teacher. So that’s another reason I have a hard time with the review/gratitude part of the year ending. It makes me feel inadequate until I have some interior brain argument about what people are capable of and that’s why I picked a fucking retirement date last summer. Oh yeah. I remember now. So in 2025, I hope to make another 6 or so quilts and get into another 12 or so shows and keep messing around with clay and trying to keep my day job from inserting itself into my recharge time more than it already does. No change. I actually usually do resolutions in August, right when I’m about to go back to school. It makes more sense as a teacher to think about those things then rather than in the middle of a school year. I am glad I have next week off, because I have to get 6 quilts out of here in the next week or so for delivery to shows. So some of that will happen today.

I’m quite happily ironing the first big quilt of 2025 together now…

I forgot how fun and relaxing it is to iron stuff together. I had been putting it off because it seemed hard, but it isn’t. Time-consuming? Yes. Fussy as shit sometimes? Yes. Absolutely relaxing? Oh yes.

I’ve got the dirt done, with its furry beasts, body bags, bullets, and skull.

And I’ve done one leg. That’s it. Well, it has a snake on it. So there’s a lot to come. I’m well into the 200s…I’ll be here for a while.

Then I finally quilted this beast, which I started in January 2013.

No joke. Those bird blocks went to almost every soccer game in the girlchild’s last two years of high school. Two years ago I started quilting it, and then it sat. So here it is…

Just need to do the handstitching of the binding and sleeves, and it’s done. Twelve years. Impressive. Can’t say I don’t finish shit. I do eventually. This is Sue Spargo’s Bird Dance, by the way. I called it Bird Crazy for years.

I also needed to get to the next step on this one…trimming all the houses…

To the same size. A few are a bit short, as always. Wool stretches. But the center piece is definitely too small, so I’m not sure how I’m going to handle that. I have ideas.

That’s the layout. This is Sue Spargo’s Homegrown, which might have been started in…hell, IDK…wait! OMG. Started March 16, 2020. The day they sent us home for two weeks because of COVID. Little did we know. Oh my. I’m laughing. So this one is just two months’ short of being 5 years old. I did Folk Tales in between the bird one and this one. And there’s another bird one I did too, Chirp…both Folk Tales and Chirp are ready to be sandwiched and quilted, but this one needs to be put together so I can do borders, so it’s a good year out from being finished, if I’m lucky. Anyway, I have a Zoom tonight and I will sew things together and try to figure out how to solve the problem of the center being too small. It’ll be fine.

Right now, I’m going to pause in the writing (you won’t even notice) because I need to pick up a quilt and then head to ceramics and pick up meds because my online pharmacy ran out of insulin again (they did last year too). But I’ll be back and you won’t even notice I was gone for three hours. Like I said, here I am. Sigh. But in a fairly rancid mood…thanks to health insurance and pharmacies and ugh. It’s fine. I just lost an hour to whatever stupid shit happened yesterday that I didn’t do. I’ll have meds on Monday. The only medication I really freak out about is insulin. And that’s the one with the biggest issues. Ah well. Done now. I ate lunch and read for a bit, and that helped.

I found my SIL’s heart…she had asked for it back in November and then I ‘lost’ it (read, hung it up and put this drawing over it and completely forgot it was behind there…

In fact, I didn’t even see it when I first pulled the drawing down so I could iron on it. I saw it last night, because the Man came in and was talking to me, so I was actually facing that direction. Sad but true. So I need to finish that and mail it to her.

New Year’s Eve was a little low key. Nice fire in the fireplace. Tried to draw and watch a movie. The movie was horrible. The drawing wasn’t entertaining enough…

So eventually I went in and put the binding on that bird quilt instead. I did make it to midnight, no worries. Unless I’m sick or exhausted, I stay up that late on the regular…unless I’m working. Then I have to be up between 6 and 6:30 AM, so I need to start heading for bed at 10:30…although I haven’t been good about that lately. Huh.

I think he’s smiling.

But he’d had a 4-mile walk and a bath because he pooped on himself and then vomited on himself. I wasn’t there. He was certainly tired out.

I’m actually finally kicking this thing.

KNOCK ON WOOD. My sinuses aren’t completely clear, but mostly. I’m not coughing stuff up any more. Time to go back to school and get sick again, right? Sigh.

OK. Well I have a bunch of stuff I need to get done, mostly in the quilt realm. I added to my CV last night, but still need to finish and submit the application by Monday. Lots to do, lots to do. Looking forward to three art classes next week though. Fun times. I appreciate the time off, but it’s too bad the job is so hard that the time off feels so absolutely necessary. I don’t have a solution to that.

Ah Sleep…

Humpday this year seems to be Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Hardest day of the week. This week, they’re all hard. I am tired. I know, it feels like I’m always tired. But I’m Friday tired this morning and it’s only Wednesday. Doesn’t help that the last two days have been LOOONNNGGGG. Ah well. Yesterday was a 12-hour day for school, which is a lot. Sat through part of a school board meeting to protest their paltry 0.5% offer, when they have 8 times the necessary reserve and a chunk of money from the state that would cover our increase and more. Our health insurance costs will go up more than that, so they’re essentially giving us a pay cut. But you want me to work more, work harder. Do it for the kids! I can’t do anything for the kids if I can’t pay the bills. Don’t they always tell you to put your own oxygen on first before you put on your kids? Anyway…this is after a bunch of people left, because they kept moving when public comments were…

There were more before. Outside even. There’s been more in previous meetings…it’s the damn holidays, we’re all exhausted, and the school board needs to see that we’re listening to how much they value us. My school has lost like 4 teachers mid-year, which almost never happens. They need to see that. Plus the 6th graders who went away three years ago (they sent them back to the elementaries), half of them are now coming back to our school, which has no empty classrooms. Crazy stuff.

So that was yesterday. Student IEP at 8 AM, at school by 7:45 AM, out of the school board meeting at 7:45 PM, home, on the couch…because I stood for 3 hours.

To Nova drooling all over my shirt. She was happy.

Art stuff: I finally finished ironing everything to fabric…I stayed up a bit late because I knew there wasn’t much and I just needed to get it done.

That’s 24 hours of ironing. Now I can cut things out. Kitten was trying to help…

Not very helpful. The night before was no art, but I did get this Bowie/Simba connect…

And I did some ceramics…

Some sort of mutant cat that was too soft to fix at that point. It’s not really going in there…it’s going on a knee, but it was a good place to store it to harden up a bit. I’m running out of room on my shelf, but all the drying shelves are totally full, so I can’t move her out. Yet. Give it time.

Yesterday’s early morning…

I got to sleep in 30 minutes this morning…tomorrow is another early start though.

I love this kid’s dino drawings…

They don’t know it yet, but I’m keeping this. Which I guess leads right into this…

Yup. I’m a crow. I admit it.

And this is really where I’m at.

I have so much stuff I want to get done before break so I don’t have to do it on break, but my brain is mostly nonfunctional. I got some homework graded in class yesterday and will aim for more tomorrow, but by 6th period, all I could do is stalk kids on our tracker app and add the sentence starters to the slides for them because they weren’t even doing that. That’s what we get for trying to do actual school work this week. What kind of dumbasses are we?

OK, notes about electric motors today, then finish the academic thing, because most of them didn’t. Pilates after school. I have to cook. I already emptied the dishwasher. I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open right now. Not good. Cut things out then sleep. Sleep. Ah sleep.

Rest Will Come…

So not ready…for any of it…school, the holidays, festive crap. We have our school holiday party after school today. Woo. That is the energy I’ve got for that. I have stuff that needs to ship, but I should have done some things yesterday that I didn’t (whoops), I did do some things that ended up being more expensive than they should have due to stupid rules about coupons, ah well. Today and tomorrow are significantly chaotic. It might calm down after that? But I can’t ship these two things without some input from me and others, so that’s problematic. The school years that take us right up to Christmas are the hardest…no time to prepare, get stuff done. And all the stuff I might have done over Thanksgiving just didn’t happen. That said, I rarely ship to the Seattle crew on time, so this is no different. Five days of school. I’ve gotta come home each day and be efficient.

Artwise, I did OK this weekend. I made time for it, at least, which is better than some weekends. I ironed all three nights and almost finished…this is Friday night…

Finished the word bubble and the brain thing.

Saturday, I got all the tree trunk and branches done. Ran out of some fabrics (they weren’t big enough), so I improvised. Hopefully well. You never know.

Last night, I did all the other tree parts: leaves, flowers, berries, stems. Plus some birds and a nest. Some owls. All I have left is a spaceship and a castronaut. Not a typo. Maybe 20 pieces though. I just was already running late and this week, it’ll be hard to be short sleep this week. Too much going on. Gotta get kids to finish shit. Ha! We’ll see how that goes. Ugh. I did finish grading all the late work. Amazing how many kids turn it in blank. Don’t read instructions. Don’t watch instruction videos. Just half ass it. Fun times.

So tonight, I’ll finish ironing the last 20 pieces and then start trimming. I’m about a week behind where I thought I’d be. I won’t be finishing this one in 2024, I’m pretty sure. Ah well. It’s fine. I’ll have an early 2025 finish instead. There are pros to that.

I didn’t go to ceramics on Friday, because (1) I was exhausted, (2) I needed to be available for someone, and (3) they were having a potluck when I’d be there and I wasn’t up for that. Someday I’ll be up and available for a potluck. Not sure when. So I went Saturday. I was the only clay person there…lots of glass people all off in the glass space. It was nice. I worked for about 2 hours…first to make a volcano (like you do)…

But mostly to put a shelf inside this piece, which is the base, so I’d have something to support the next level…and then to start the next level.

Kinda nuts.

That’s the tallest I can fit on my shelf…so I either need to put the base on the drying shelves (but keep working on it?) or…wait, that is what I need to do. But I need to make arms too and the upper torso. So I honestly don’t know how I’m moving from here, because I don’t have any more room on my shelf. I’m going after school today, so I’m gonna have to figure my shit out. Hopefully there’s room on the drying racks. Might need to let the top stiffen up a bit before I take it off and try to build off of it. Dry a little, but not so much that I can’t build. And the arms have to either rest on the knees or go around them. So that’s a challenge if I have two separate pieces. Yeah.

I worked on the coral as well.

Nice texture.

Friday’s shenanigans.

IDK who wrote that, but this is not the first person I saw sitting there (that’s my coteacher).

I could’ve sworn this was a book teaching cats to knit, but no…

Literally, it’s patterns of cats that you can knit. Still cool though. I don’t have that kind of patience. I have some kinds of patience, but not that kind.

This seems very real for the next few years. Or at least days.

Middle school kids. Ugh.

And this…really…should always be true.

Even if it is spelled wrong.

OK. (takes a deep breath) It’s gonna be OK. Kids are gonna start their academic thing about MRIs. I’m going to grade that pile of homework while they do that. My coteacher and I are gonna get the lab set up for Thursday and get the first week of January, maybe two, set up and copied. I’m going to go to clay and make some decisions. After the school holiday party, which is on campus and involves no lubricants. Then finish ironing, cook dinner, head to the airport to get the girlchild, who will be home for the holidays. Pro: the barky little asshole who was pissed about the raccoons on the roof and the coyotes in the distance can sleep somewhere else for a few weeks. Boychild is being laid off today as well for three months, so everyone is around. The house is a disaster, there’s no Xmas stuff up at all, and I don’t have the time or mental space for it until maybe Saturday. All good. Maybe Thursday actually…unless I’m still grading things (ha! Of course I’ll still be grading things. WTF are you thinking.). But for now, find a sweatshirt that’s dry and clean, make more tea, and go to school. The rest will come. Literally. REST will come.

If I Had Time…

Definitely feeling the knee and the hip this morning. Cold. Worked out last night. Apparently walked a lot in class yesterday. All the things. That torn meniscus that refuses to heal and my insurance says will just heal (really? when?) is a bitch some days. Fun times. I’m rolling on exhausted. I try to go to bed early, but then dogs bark and people come to bed late and then at some point, a kitten whacked me in the face with a claw (no damage for once). So I put the blanket over my head and now my eyes are all swollen. I need to sleep for like a week. Still. It’s like I never catch up. I started this year trying to improve my sleep, and I feel like I’ve done my part, but adding a kitten to the mix didn’t help. Ah well. He is a sweetheart when he’s not whacking me in the face.

I can’t get the old lady Kitten to come out and take her meds in the morning. Too cold. Doesn’t want to come out of her cave of batting. Not sure I blame her. I talk to her and she slow blinks at me and I slow blink back and we can do that for 20 minutes…she still won’t come out. I can leave some of her meds in the cave and she’ll eat them, but the big pill isn’t going down her throat without help.

OK. I’m behind on shopping for Christmas, I need to pack and ship a quilt, I need to ship gifts north, I need time to deal with all this, plus do grades and exercise and maybe read my book, which will be returned to the library in three days. Hmmm. Prioritize all that. Book first, of course. Well. Maybe grading first.

I’m still ironing.

Lots of colors still happening. This was barbed wire and a fire around her head.

Last night, I started the visual disturbance section, which I am sort of psychotically trying to make accurate…something only I see…so like who would know?

I spent too much time trying to get my ethernet to work last night, so I didn’t get much done. I have about half of the 1000s done. It’s all visual disturbance. And I really need to pack that quilt tonight before I iron, so maybe I’m not grading tonight. Unfortunately. I’m on a roll and want to get it done. The kids are being remarkably clueless about what they need to complete to not have an F. Totally braindead. Fun times.

I did ceramics on Monday…

Getting close to having this base done and needing to figure out how to go up. Minor issue.

Normally, I’d go in on Friday, but they’re doing a potluck and really I just want to sit in the quiet and sculpt things, so I might have to do that Saturday instead, around a dental appointment. I’m sure it’s fine to go to the dentist covered in clay.

When I left ceramics, some footprints that weren’t there before appeared…

The footprints of a cat who hangs out in a ceramics studio, I think. I’ve never seen him on top of a car though.

This is how my knee is feeling.

I’m not sure if I’m the jackass or if the Man is. I feel like my pit crew should be more than just me? But maybe not.

And this…I don’t know why this is a problem.

I would be totally content in this room. OK, I’d probably straighten up a little. If I had time.

Gratuitous picture of Simba…

More magnet labs today; almost done, hallelujah. It’s been on on on for days. I need a break. I need them to just be working for once. Not a lot of that happening at the moment. Friday…but I have to sit through a training first. And I have two teacher groups I’m supposed to work with? At the same time? About different things? Yeah. That feels about right. I need a nap already. I have a meeting after school and I’m cooking dinner. Too many things. Pro! The bank figured out that I was inappropriately charged for someone else’s gym membership and actually refunded me the money. How did they figure that out? I told them. And then they told me I had to contact the vendor, so I spent too much time talking to bros in gyms. Even the boss was a bro. But it’s solved now and I don’t have to call the bros’ money launderers. Um. Whatever they are. That was a positive bit of mail yesterday. Yay! Kitten still hasn’t come out for her meds. Sigh. Maybe this is her next step of the decline. Double sigh. Heading off for school. Gonna pour a bunch of tea down my gullet and see if that helps.

Sitting All Weekend…

Yup. That weekend was short. I need more time. I need a day off. I did work all weekend, whether I was grading or sitting at a craft show (or both…at the same time). Pro: I finished grading that hellacious assignment. I talked to a lot of people who liked my art. It was fun, although long. Con: I got nothing else done. At all. Well, we grocery shopped last night. I think I’m ready to teach today…mostly. I need sub plans for Friday’s literacy training. I didn’t actually DO any ceramics on Friday or Saturday like I normally do. If I hadn’t had the grading, I might have considered it…but I really needed to get that assignment done. So I can do the next one, really. Sigh. For Winter Break, I’m somehow managing to give myself a pile of packets and two academic assignments to grade. Stupid. Oh well. I should’ve finished these over Thanksgiving, but I was sick the whole week. So there we are. Speaking of sick, I did telehealth on Friday (fuck that sub doc for saying wait a week or two…I was definitely going downhill again…dizzy, fatigued, ugh.). And this doc gave me more meds, told me to call again if I wasn’t better by Monday. I am getting better…again! Sigh.

So Friday, I came home from work, packed up ceramics, and made a price list (insane really). Then drove over to the studio and set up. Came back and made dinner, then ironed. In exhaustion.

I was still trying to catch up with all the stuff that is on or part of the body that is NOT the flesh colors. There’s a series of hands on her leg with scenarios. So I worked on those.

Then Saturday, I was at the ceramics studio from 9-4. Yes, mine is the tie-dyed table.

Honestly, I didn’t have much stuff…I was more doing this as a test, maybe an experiment. I thought it would be more like showing my work than trying to sell it. I didn’t sell anything and I’m OK with that. This planter that might have been a mug…almost everyone picked it up.

It’s got over 10 hours in it. It’s handbuilt and then sgraffito. Probably could have used more glaze in the skin-colored area, but I don’t mind it. Anyway. I didn’t expect to sell anything and I didn’t. I did grade both days (Sunday I was only there from about 1-4). This was my view…

The whole weekend. It was fine. It was more entertaining than sitting at home. I might have been more efficient at home, because I was always talking to people, but it was nice to get the kudos.

Quite a few people came through…probably a hundred on Saturday. Not sure how many on Sunday. And we were the furthest location out on the map, so that’s not bad. Anyway, I don’t know that I would do it again, but I’m definitely going to try to put some of my more sculptural stuff in art shows.

I need more time to do all the things I want to do.

So I ironed Saturday night…

I ironed a cat. And some other stuff…finishing up all the stuff on the leg, I think. Can’t remember.

Then last night, I spent most of the time ironing flowers…

There are so many different fabrics in this thing now. I definitely finished the 700 and 800s…or close to finished the 700s…and some of the 900s were flesh, so they’re already done. The brain too. So I think I’m in the mid-930s. More than half, but a solid 650 pieces to go. The brain/visual stuff, not sure how I’m going to go on those. I see some very specific colors in real life. We’ll see what I decide. Soon. Maybe tonight? We’ll see. I’m already exhausted. Someone was barking at 4:30 AM. Not a fan.

That would have been nice. Really, the more I grade now, the less I have to do over break.

Their grammar as well. Ah well. Can’t expect people to read after high school, right?

Sigh. So here’s to holiday prep (I have not done nearly enough), spending all weekend doing something you hadn’t really planned on (as usual), and finishing stuff so it doesn’t hang over us for weeks (like this last project). Yup. That. Teaching magnets this week. I think I can handle that. Ironing at night…unless I’m doing other things. I think I thought I’d be done ironing this thing by the middle of last week? No, this week. That’s not happening. I’m aiming for the weekend. It’s all good. I appreciate the hole I can dive into at 9:30 every night, the hole of fabric-choosing. It’s a good hole. Apparently I’ve spent over 16 hours ironing so far. All those fussy little details…makes sense. Probably got another 7 to go. One a night? Yeah.

Excuse Me As I Run…

My photo app is currently updating. I think it’s stalled, much like my brain…hopefully it’s just slow internet and not holiday/school panic like my brain. Hard to say. Sleep has been difficult this week, and I’m really feeling it…plus the sinus infection, feeling that. Definitely worse again. I may call today and see if I can get a telehealth appointment instead of waiting another 3 days to a week, like the sub doc wanted me to. Sigh. Also coyotes, could you be quieter at night? My little dog can’t handle the singing. He has to join in. And then growl under his breath for the next 20 minutes because you offended his sensibilities…whatever those are.

So yeah, I signed up for the SD Pottery Tour and I wasn’t really sure what that meant and the pro is that I got my act in gear and finally drilled out the four holes I’d been avoiding for the last oh IDK 5 months? And figured out a way to hang the quilts in these two pieces. Not sure how I feel about them, but they’re done. And I figured out hours and prices (oh my, no one will ever be able to afford my ceramics…sorry…I take way too much time).

I love how FREE is huge and red.

I’m at Get Centered Clay in La Mesa…with a bunch of people who have a lot more to sell than I do, probably at much more reasonable prices. The reality is, the stuff I choose to do is incredibly time-consuming (I know this shocks you), and that’s just the way it is. I’m not expecting to sell anything at all, but I will be there on Saturday, grading in the background (because that’s what I needed to do on Saturday anyway), and Sunday, I’ll be there at some point in the afternoon, because my Sundays are nuts.

So drilling glaze that dripped into holes takes much longer than you’d think it would.

In case that’s something you needed to know. Sewed baby quilts to wire, used wire to hang from holes inside clay pieces.

Need better pictures with natural light, but that’s 11 PM for ya. Not totally sold on this one, but it’s all a living experiment, right?

Learning from the mess you make. I have some pots and a bowl and IDK if I’m taking the $500 mug, because that’s nuts, and one sculpture that’s kind of crazy. Plus figuring out how to provide prices and a tablecloth and how to set it all up, because it’s on a table and not hanging on a wall. And I don’t do sales like this for my quilts ever, because they’re weird, so yeah. Out of my wheelhouse…and down the block really.

Yup. This was not on my list for the next three days. But I’m doing it! So there.

Meanwhile, I did iron on Wednesday night. I decided all the innards would be rainbow colored.

Yes, that’s officially where I’m at right now. I didn’t get to the uterus. It will predictably be pink and purple.

Hopefully I will be ironing tonight because I will have figured out all the other shit and will have set up for the show. I will not be getting enough sleep this weekend to make up for what I missed this week. Just a heads up.

Yup. The dumpster is on fire and I’m sitting in it. Also don’t ask me about Christmas gifts or decorating for the holidays. The White Elephant thing for school made me hyperventilate. And it’s optional.

I finished reading Babel. Loved it. Here’s this from the Epilogue…

Holding that going into 2025. Hearing about what men are saying to women about when the big dumb orange lump is inducted in January. Speak up, y’all. When hinky shit is happening in front of you, speak the fuck up.

OK, magnets today, should be good, although yesterday was a braindead cluster in 3/5 classes, so that doesn’t help. Still down two teachers on my team. Down half a brain at least. Trying to mentally do too many things. Oh yeah! It’s my 10-year anniversary of meeting the Man. I’m sure he’s thrilled I’ll be spending this evening at ceramics, although we didn’t have anything planned and I think I’m cooking, so there’s that. Excuse me as I run screaming into the rising sun.

Some Possibility for Yelling…

Ugh. So the last three nights of not sleeping well are starting to hit now. It’s not something I choose to happen…it’s just either my brain overthinking shit or the Man and the cats and the dog taking up space in many ways. I’m sure I’ll hit exhaustion level again soon and be able to sleep through cats leaping over me at 3 AM and dogs rearranging themselves perpendicularly to me in the middle of the night so there’s nowhere for my legs to go. Not quite there yet. The morning meetings don’t help; having to lose that last 30 minutes…that’s hard. Ah well…no more of those until next Thursday…knock on wood. Definitely feeling it this morning though. Yesterday, I could still bully through. Today? Ugh. No. Would like to go back to bed. Still fighting the sinus stuff…my doc is out this week, so the sub doc (who may or may not have reviewed my file…wanna take bets?) said to use Flonase and Sudafed. Um. Yeah. For like weeks now. It’s fine. It’s better…just exacerbated by talking all day. Just like my knees are aching from walking all day. We’ll all adjust.

Cool art news…My Body. My Choice. got into Form not Function. Over 350 submissions and only 20 got in. Glad it was her.

She has traveled well. Maybe she continue. She’ll be at the Floyd County Carnegie Library Cultural Arts Center in New Albany, Indiana, from January 16-April 12. May that go well.

The ironing stage of this quilt has been slow. I mean, I’m doing an hour every night, but I’m not very fast about what gets done in that hour. This was poison oak and brain parts, I think. Oh, and a string of Christmas lights…

Last night was the esophagus, arteries, the heart minus the flower bouquet inside it…

And the cloud parts on the leg, but not all the stuff inside them. I still have stuff in the 300, 400, 700, and 900 boxes that hasn’t been ironed. Plus all the innards where the belly is cut open. I have one intestinal fabric chosen, but the rest is still an unknown. You can see the colors are piling up…the cardiovascular reds. That green/yellow mix is what I picked for the esophagus…I’ll try to repeat some of that down in the digestive system. Reality is not really where I roll. So I’m not halfway done…still. Getting there? Slowly. Tonight will be a challenge…there’s a lot going on. There’s a pottery tour this weekend and I’m hoping to put a couple of ceramic pieces in. We’ll see if that happens.

I’m still slogging (happily) away on this one…

The clay (and I) were being slow and sluggish last night. I basically did the ribs and another fish on the foot on the right. I need to do the other leg, add a few more details, and then figure out the top half. Or third. I might have to do this in three pieces…not sure the head will fit otherwise. I can’t get up to the highest drying shelves (not tall enough), so I’m trying to figure out how to make it in pieces again. Like the last two, but bigger. And odds are, I’ll use underglazes on this as well, so that will be time. I can move it to the drying rack for that though. I only have a smallish space for storing stuff. The racks are really full right now (pre-holiday rush?).

We’re doing electricity in school right now. I was trying to demonstrate static electricity with the balloon sticking to the wall…it only worked 2/5 times though.

Frustrating…last year, it worked every class. My exhausted self…this one bright kid…what are we supposed to write if it didn’t work? Well here’s why it didn’t…something is not neutral or not enough electrons transferred to make it work. It’s all invisible, so I have to figure out why it didn’t work when it should have. The wonder of science. Maybe he’s not cut out to be a scientist? The current academic thing I’m grading…I can get through 11 assignments in an hour. I have 128 kids. The easiest ones to grade are the kids who didn’t do any of the academic parts (but almost all of them did something because they started in groups) or the kids who totally got it (2 so far). It’s interesting that the things we teachers think should be easy, the kids flail on. Makes us feel like bad teachers sometimes. Although we know WHY they fail…and it’s usually a combo of laziness (just wanting to copy things) or a lack of problem-solving or reading instructions. The average reading level at our school is 2nd grade. So everything has to be so obvious. So far no one is failing, but there are a lot of beginning-level answers. I’d rewrite it for next year, but I won’t be teaching 8th grade next year. I won’t be back to 8th grade until I do the combo year again in 2027. Hopefully the other teacher will have made it awesome by then!

To continue on Monday’s commentary about the 10 commandments. That wall is there for a reason…

Sigh. No news from my district about teaching sex ed this year. Who the fuck knows what that will look like. I expected to hear from the committee people about how we were going to meet again, yadda yadda. Nothing. Radio silence.

This amuses me.

Too real. Also I need to get my act together on the gift stuff. Ha! Not sure when.

I love this…

It’s my angry self…the part that just wants to finish my book this morning. Not happening. Gonna go sit in a meeting instead. Not cutting heads off with swords…yet.

OK. Meeting. Then teach…static electricity labs today. Some possibility for yelling there. Depends on the ability to listen to instructions. Confetti and salt are involved. Plus balloons. Then pilates. Home briefly, to ceramics meeting, home again for dinner. I would say grading? But I don’t think there will be brain power for that after all that. So let’s just say ironing will happen? Hopefully. Get those damn intestines done.

Anywhere Close to Well…

First day back to school after 9 days off. Nine days where I was mostly sick. Am I well? Nah, the sinus stuff is still there, lingering, after 7 days of antibiotics…the second round. Fun times. It’s OK, we have 3 weeks of school (which feels like some sort of psychotic carnival ride usually) and then another 3 weeks off. It feels survivable. Although I never did finish grading. I did a bunch, but not enough. Ah well. Looking at the calendar…sigh. It’s fine. I woke up this morning to my blood sugar randomly crashing too, so that’s always a great shaky start to the week. I’ve got food in me now and managed to shower after 10 skittles. Weird, I know, but it works. All the other things…the glucose tabs, the juice…they don’t work as well. Or as fast. I don’t have an hour to waste in the morning before school. I should take some juice to school, though, because I’m still off. Frustrating.

So our Thanksgiving on Friday went well…food was good…

Girlchild did well…

The turkey turned out good…so I’ll be eating turkey sandwiches for a while. I freeze it and this is how I survive the 3 weeks of school. I even remembered family pictures…

Kind of a miracle. Yes, Dad commented that we were doing this in case one of them were gone next year.

Damn straight old man. Damn straight.

Friday night, I spent 90 minutes finding a lot of the flesh pieces…but not all of them.

It was midnight when I stopped…Saturday night, I found the rest and ironed them all down…

It’s pieces from the 200s to the 900s, but not all of them.

Last night, I started going through the rest of the pieces that are ON the flesh…the eye, the nipples, the toenails. That kind of stuff. I didn’t finish…this is still left…

But I am in the color now! Oh there was a snake in there too…

And there are a bunch of other pieces in the 300-900 boxes that I haven’t ironed down. Actually, I think all of the 800s are? Or the 500s. Something like that. So less than half, no matter what. A LOT? But not a lot really. I did make a decision about what color to make my brain. PINK! Not my favorite color, although I use it a lot in my quilts. It will pop. That will be good.

So expect me to be ironing for days.

I made it to the ceramics studio late on Sunday for a while…worked on the leg things.

Interesting to translate from fabric to clay. It takes a long time in both, that’s for sure.

Pills, pill bottle, syringe…

Fish, dying coral, sea waves on the other side.

Some lovely fungus in my yard. I put wood logs on either side of the sprinkler so workers wouldn’t break it and now it’s all fungusy.

Pretty stuff.

I’ll be teaching the science of rainbows in January.

I will not ever teach the 10 commandments…although there are some bits of it I wish politicians would follow.

Ah well. Whatever. Gonna take some meds, make a turkey sandwich, find a juice box for school, maybe two, then head off to whatever I’m teaching today. Tonight, I have book club and then more ironing, after a bunch of staff meeting stuff. Maybe I’ll grade something. I really should. Sigh. We’re back. Short break. Totally needed it to get anywhere close to well.