Brain Is Tired…

Oy. Well, it’s a Monday I’m not at work. I do appreciate these longer weekends, an extra day to try to get stuff done. That said, I’ve got two doctors’ appointments today and they’re not in the same place or at logical times, so it’s just drive a long way, do the thing, drive back. Wait 45 minutes, then drive again. Do the other thing. Drive back. Fun times. I think the afternoon is shot. And I’m moving pretty slowly this morning. Brain is tired. Brain is done. Brain can’t be done…I tried to explain, it doesn’t care, it wants me to sit on the couch with the fluffy kitty and read the book. Sigh. I’ll try. Maybe later.

Lots of what I have to do is art related, which is cool. A bunch of shows are coming up, so there are shipments and contracts and deliveries and headshots and all that crap. I’ve done a chunk of it, but just found a decent headshot requested by one, and still need to fill out, scan, and send two forms.

And I still need to be digging up the outside planter area so we can progress on fixing what happened with the water. I have a rough idea of the order of things, but coordinating that with my schedule and contractors gives me hives. Or breathing anxiety. Yeah.

Anyway, let’s start with art progress. I finished cutting things out on Friday night…spent about 2 1/2 hours doing that (it was a rough day).

Nova was very helpful. It wasn’t too late, so I sorted them too…

It’s super fast when there aren’t very many pieces. I think it took about 18 minutes. Boom!

Then Saturday night, I started ironing them together…

I got most of the sky stuff done. Then last night, I got most of the male figure done…

It’s kind of a pain to try to iron bits on the sky like this; I can’t see the parts that are covered by the sky fabrics, so sometimes I iron them elsewhere and then put them on top. I will have to do that with his left hand and his face, so that’s why I paused there. Also it was late and I was tired. It happens. I might finish tonight? We’ll see. Maybe Tuesday night.

I do have an idea for the next big quilt though. I’ve been listening to The Power of the Crone by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; I loved her Women Who Run With the Wolves book in college, and had seen ads for this, which is all audio, so I started listening. She makes me laugh and her language fills my head with images, which is cool. It’s all stories of the crone and the wise woman. I do have a quilt I made with the crone, maiden, and mother–Awakening the Crone; it sold. So I made that in 2014…I think it’s time for a crone/wise woman update. Something with the world how it is now. I don’t seem to be able to separate my art from politics and people suffering. Anyway, it’s percolating. Always good.

Other fiber stuff that’s happening…I finally got my act in gear and started quilting this again…it’s for a friend who doesn’t quilt. I finished all the white squares, which just needed some additional stitches to hold them together, and now I’m doing the sashing and borders.

This stuff takes longer than people think, though. It probably took me a little over 2 hours to do the 9 white blocks, and I’ve put in at least an hour on the borders/sashing. It’ll be more than an hour to finish; I didn’t get quite halfway. Then put the binding on and stitch it down. So if you ask me to do something and I say no thank you, you will know why. I have little time. Just how long it’s taken me to get to this one shows that. I should be done this week, though. That’s my goal. Get it off my plate! I still need to draw the piece for the upcoming FIG show. Didn’t get to that this weekend yet either.

I went fabric shopping for a friend’s baby quilt. She wants cactus and she loves purple, although she said the green, so we’re doing both.

This is definitely a labor of love. I use the same pattern from 2000 for all my baby quilts (haven’t made one in 8 years, y’all…). This one is manifesting good baby health. So this is next on the list. It’s not hard or complicated.

Then a pair of jeans had an issue last week, and I’m not willing to toss jeans that fit and are comfortable otherwise.

No one will ever see this part…

Manifesting some cactus too.

Hiked on Saturday…FINALLY. Although the Man didn’t want to hike in mud, so we did the mostly boring lake walk on pavement.

Geese though. Beautiful and terrifying.

We’ve had no more water come in the house, which is good, so I mopped the concrete (it was really dirty, even after multiple sweepings) and put down these cheap temporary rugs to keep feet warmer until June/July when I can get to carpet.

These were on mega sale. I thought I would dislike them more, but they actually kinda work with the concrete and walls that need painting. Desperately. Yeah. And people want to come visit my ‘studio’. Sigh. It’s my house, y’all…and it’s in disrepair.

I draw at dinner; we hadn’t been out for a few weeks due to things, stuff, band things, whatever. I started this one on January 20, but food came so fast, and then Saturday night, I kept going, but food came really fast.

It’s not that I want the food to be super slow or anything…I think I used to be able to draw faster? I don’t know. Anyway, it’ll take a third dinner to finish this. And since the Man is having dental surgery this week, it might be a while before I have that opportunity again.

The boob thing though. She has a star on her left breast. I sat through a 3D mammogram, which hurt like a bitch, but the tech was fast (she said she was fast) and then the ultrasound didn’t find something that matched the mammogram, so that makes them nervous. Family history and all. So I get to have a biopsy. No appointment yet. Have to wait for them to call me (what are the odds they’ll call today when I can actually take a call? LOW low low low low), then they’re scheduling about 2 weeks out because it’s not an emergency (except in my head, which the radiologist acknowledged during her very perky speech), then 3-5 days for results. Doc already called to find out my preference for notification (call me ASAP, as long as it’s after school; she already knew that bit). So I guess my birthday present will be news of some sort; odds are it will be fine. Knowing me, it’ll be a watch and wait thing, and I’ll get to scan multiple times. They’ll place a marker during the biopsy so it’ll be easy to find. It’s an architectural distortion. Which is a great name for a new quilt, if you ask me. Anyway. I did have a repeat mammogram once before, not for this, and made a quilt for it…also 2014. Bitchy year, if you ask me. 2024 is starting rough…hopefully it will chill out at some point.

We’re reading The Maze Runner in my advisory class…

I’m with her on this, but there has been action. Maybe not before she wrote this comment. It’s hard to read just one chapter a day.

This is me always. I’m not a morning person.

I do have to get my act together though. Gonna shower and make more tea and eat something and do some work and fill out these two forms and scan and email them and then drive off to the dermatologist and then the knee doctor, and at the end of all of it, go to my rescheduled stitching meeting with friends. My stomach just chimed in about the eating something. I think I’m ready to teach tomorrow; I moved stuff around because kids are stupidly not finishing work, and my being gone Friday afternoon didn’t help with that. Oh well. What am I gonna do? Not go to the doctor? Well no. So there will be at least one more (and hopefully no more) appointment that makes me miss school. They should figure out how to be self motivated. Surely it’s time for that. Ha.

Loose Wheel

Hey. I sorta feel like I’m on a skateboard going down a steep hill with no helmet on, and a wheel is loose. Every once in a while, I’ll feel like I’m stable and everything is mostly under control, and then some crazy thing will happen (it actually WASN’T the tornado warning during school yesterday that made me feel that way, the thing that put us on Secure Campus Lockdown…it’s OK, it was my prep period, so I used it wisely to get ahead on lab prep and cleanup), and I’ll feel that wheel wobble like a crazy bastard and my knees try to manage the wobble and maybe I should just sit down over here and read a book for a while.

I actually did that yesterday. Part of that is because I have book club tonight and I read the wrong book and now I’m reading the right one and I’m only 51% finished. I need an hour and 20 minutes. I don’t HAVE an hour and 20 minutes. What I have is a walking tour of the local high school, with rain predicted (more rain, y’all? Really?), plus an ultrasound of a weird arm lump after school that is miles away (the ultrasound, not the lump), so I’m going to have to be packed and ready to run by the time the bell rings at the end of the day to get there. Plus a meeting this morning. Pro is that there is no more water in the house (that we know of)…the boychild and I rigged a draining thing Monday night to deal with part of the issue…

Rain falls from roof into bin, goes out PVC pipe toward driveway. We need another one, but I’d have to sacrifice another bin to it. We’ve been using buckets so far in the other space. Trying to keep water from building up close to the house. I dug out a bunch of dirt, about 4 wheelbarrows worth, but probably won’t be able to do anymore until the weekend. Interestingly, at night, we can see where the previous owners probably had to deal with this before…different wood…so we’re going to try for a better, permanent fix once the rain stops. Not cheap. Not easy. Sigh. I guess I should be glad that I had some money saved up to the one of the bathrooms this summer. Hopefully it’s enough. Or maybe the state/feds will come up with some assistance that I can tap into. Because insurance won’t cover any of it. Fun times.

Meanwhile, I do have another quilt I’m working on. It’s small, it’s a little strange; I’m not sure what the topic is, although if pushed, I would say relationships. It’s not a drawing that planned to be a quilt, which I think is maybe the fun part of doing it. I have been thinking about the next big piece, but my brain hasn’t settled on anything yet. So I’m waiting it out. I’d like to have something big to work on over Spring Break since we aren’t going anywhere. Ugh.

Anyway, I finished ironing pieces down on Monday night…

There are 71 fabrics, which is kind of amazing, since there’s only 392 pieces total. But why use one yellow when you can use eight? That’s my theory anyway. I’m seriously in love with some of the fabrics in this quilt. One of them has maybe a 6×8″ rectangle left of it. Sad. I will miss it when it’s gone.

Wanna see the whole pile close up? Well apparently I did…

Some tiny shit in there.

Last night, I started cutting them out, but I started late because…well…brain. I left school after spending two days trying to find the paper I ordered last week that the office manager substitute claimed had been delivered to my room by TAs (liars). I tracked down the LID to the box after school (no kidding), then made some deductive reasoning based on where the lid was and what it was doing, ransacked a school paper cupboard, and found all my shit (those TAs are on crack). Then went to Pilates, which was the next level up and almost killed me. I’m serious. I’m sure my quads will be talking to me soon about the shakies they got yesterday. Then drove to the photographer’s to pick up my quilt, but I’m waiting on another show to notify, which they should have on February 2, then delayed to yesterday, then yesterday, another email. FUCK people. You know we actually use your deadlines to plan for other entries? I have two shows, no three, to enter, and I don’t even have a name for the new quilt (working on it), but I need an answer from the other show ASA fucking P. Hopefully today. Then had to make dinner and try to revise lesson plans for the rest of the week based on the tornado warning’s effect on yesterday’s teaching, plus not being there Friday afternoon. FUCKING NUTS.

All this to say, I did not cut out much. Mostly because I was staring at a computer and trying to make shit work.

Thanks Nova. I still need to redo my sub plans. Not sure when that’s happening, because I’m fairly sure I’m losing my prep period today to the walking trip (rain means buses, and they’ve only found one bus, and there are probably 350 of us, only 60 fit on a bus on a good day). Fun times. I say that a lot this year. It’s ironic. They’re not really fun.

This is so true. And I say the second part almost as many times a year as I say something about your mom’s egg and your dad’s sperm (I’m teaching genetics right now).

OK. Meeting that will go long and be yuck. Then walking tour. Then hopefully a prep period so I can copy some papers, because I couldn’t do that yesterday due to a possible tornado. Then teaching more genetics, which is going over about as well as a possible tornado. Kamikaze to ultrasound, hope for no rain, take ten years to drive home in traffic. Then book club. On Zoom, thank goodness. And entering two-three art shows. Maybe cutting stuff out at the end of it. Finish sub plans. Sleep.

Sewn Chaos…

And We’re BAACK. OK. I’m back. Tested negative. Going back to school. Already couldn’t sleep last night because brain was in overdrive. I don’t know how your brain works, but when I haven’t done something before, my brain does it for me, like hundreds of times, with variations, until it thinks it has the right way. It’s really annoying sometimes. Can’t make it stop. Pretty sure I do it in my sleep too. It’s useful, I guess, to figure stuff out, but I wish it would turn off sometimes.

Am I ready? No. I went to school yesterday but the colored paper I needed for tomorrow’s lab was not in my room. It was supposed to be delivered there, but no. Not. Uh uh. Sigh. So I copied what I could; it will either show up today or I will borrow from my team. I texted them yesterday afternoon, so I’d know whether to go to Staples for more paper or not. The three different subs in my room were semi-competent. Not much I can do about that. Reteach today and hope we make it through the week with some knowledge. This was all review from 6th grade anyway (not that any of them remember it…sigh).

Soldier on! So I did work on the quilt each night for a bit. I even made it to an exercise class yesterday, which might be proof of either insanity or wellness (I tested negative before I went).

I sorted pieces Friday afternoon…

I think it took a whopping 18 minutes. Love small quilts for that…much as I love the big ones for taking longer.

I had to clean up and put away from the last quilt…

Kitten assist.

Then started ironing the sky…

All blues and yellows to start.

Saturday, I started on the flesh…

There are two bodies in the quilt, so each was out of a separate run of fabrics.

I finished ironing the male figure Saturday night (bottom run of fabrics)…

And the female Sunday night…

I actually don’t have much left to do…

That’s it. Some eyes, some fingernails, not sure what the rest of it is…lips. I see lips.

So assuming I’m still upright when I get home from school and I don’t have to dig out more ditches to move the water, I’ll be finishing the ironing tonight and starting to cut it out. All good.

Luna and Kitten have been sharing the bed…

This is almost the same position they’re in at night, which pretty much traps me. Getting out to pee is a gymnastic event.

This is from one of the books I just finished reading, Crownchasers (which was good)…but I liked “sewn chaos”, even though I think they meant “sown chaos”?

But from a quilter’s perspective, I should definitely sew some more chaos. Ironically, the way I make my quilts is pretty massively organized chaos, but whatever.

OK. Go to school, find pink and blue paper, copy things, reteach, try to figure out WTF they did for three days, make them finish it, go to two-hour staff meeting about a program I don’t use (not because I don’t want to, but because it’s math and reading, not science). Then come home and rest a bit, iron the last bits. Whatever. Read. I have to finish a book by Wednesday…what are the odds of that happening? Not good, y’all, not good.

Problematic…

OK back to normal 5-day work weeks. Pros and cons to those. They feel more normal. There’s less time off. There you are. It’s pouring today, so probably 30% of our kids won’t come to school. Not sure I blame them. I have a good book. I could stay here and be perfectly happy. Except grades are due tomorrow, and no, I’m not done. Fuck me. I tried. But then all the other stuff, mostly art stuff, which is good…but time-consuming, got in the way. So I’m still not done with grades. I might need to just admit that one assignment isn’t going to get done. I have three more classes of this one assignment, and kids didn’t do very well on it, but I’ve already input two classes, so there’s that. Ugh.

This kid. He’s a little strange, as I’m sure you can guess. He’s not the best student, more from a lack of understanding I think, but he’s funny sometimes.

So quiltwise, good progress was made. I finished ironing all the tiny leaves down on Thursday night, after a million hours at school.

And then I started the stitchdown.

I did most of it Friday night…

But I had to be up earlyish Saturday for the annual boob-squeeze (ouch. It really hurt this time.), so I went to bed at a semi-reasonable time. Then got up Saturday and finished the stitchdown…

Cut a backing, washed the batting, went to an art meeting, which was short, but added on by having a cookie with art friends. My theory is that you should get a cookie for each time they squish your boob like that (which would mean I should have had four, but I settled for one really big and tasty one). Then home, and sandwiched and pinbasted.

Then after dinner out, came home and started quilting.

I did a small amount of school stuff on Saturday. I didn’t completely blow it off. I just didn’t spend more time than I had to on it. I saved the crazy panic for Sunday, which included pilates, grocery shopping, making breakfasts for the next two weeks, handing a quilt over to a guy who’s going to put it in a gallery in Japan (cool), putting up the owl box (with help), and doing schoolwork. I graded a bunch of stuff Friday night too, which I try to avoid, but still not done. Rumor is that the staff meeting will be shorter, so I’ll just come home, torture myself with this last assignment, and get it all done. Right? I even cooked dinner last night (and lunches for the next 7 days). I’m tired though. Still.

I did quilt last night too…

I just have the head left to do…

For the outlining. Then the whole background. It’s probably 1-2 hours left. So I’ll finish tomorrow night? Hopefully. Then trim and bind. Done by this weekend? Ahead of the deadline? I need to do a drawing for another art thing I’m doing. Sometime this week. After grades are done.

Tomorrow is also eyeball dissection, which will be a long day. Starting a new unit. DNA extraction on Friday. Another long day. But no long-ass meetings after work this week, hallelujah. That’ll be next week. Ugh. At least I have one week off from that. And the sex-ed curriculum meetings should be done after next week. Knock on wood. Well, not true…I have one mid-February, but it’s just teachers. Anything without the parents. Sigh. OK, I need more tea. I might need galoshes. I don’t have galoshes. Problematic.

It Will All Happen…

Oh my. I knew this week would be rough, but I didn’t know the universe was like, oh hey, here’s some more…but it’s mostly GOOD stuff, it’s just good stuff that takes time to do and you don’t have any of that, so GO!

Anyway, I’m carving out art time on this quilt each night for an hour (or almost an hour, let’s be honest, or I stayed up too late like last night because I got to a spot and I didn’t want to stop.). I’m ahead of my schedule, barely, which is cool. And also good. So Tuesday night, I got her all ironed together except for her face and a few things…

I really was excited about her hair…it turned out so much better than I imagined.

Then last night, after a really long day (union meeting and pilates), I did her face and the earth.

And because I was in the mood and hadn’t done an hour yet, even though it was past my going-to-bedtime, because I’d had to process and upload EM Spectrum lab videos for school, I ironed it onto a background, because it was pretty easy to do.

That said, I’m not done with that…there are about 65 tiny leaves that go in the trees on her head (see where the cat is? Around there).

I wasn’t kidding about them being tiny. And a lot of them. That’s tonight. And then start stitchdown. Of course, that’s tonight after teaching all day (yesterday was HAARD. Y’all need to use your BRAINS…) AND a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting. Ugh. The third afterschool meeting this week. Y’all I am done. And yet grades are due, I had two parents (of the same child) messaging me last night back and forth (do y’all talk to each other? Yes, they live in the same house…did you read last week’s email about how yesterday was the last day I’d take late work?)…this sweet cat was sitting on the things I was grading the other night…

Not helpful at all. Of course, these assignments are crap. My fault. I took them from another teacher, and I think they are workable, but my kids are Google junkies, they don’t process the info, they just copy it, and the rubric is awful. Completely useless. So I’ll fix that for next year. Hopefully. Not like I have time to do anything but write a note on the calendar about that, which is problematic, because the teacher I got them from will eventually see that. O. M. G.

The tree guy is on his way here so I can show him the two branches that still need to come off…

Apparently the highlighted picture was not enough. Also he wants his check. More importantly.

Here’s the soap that’s currently hanging out in one of the teacher’s bathrooms at school.

That’s about right.

OK, shoes, more tea, my brain, go to school. Tree guy first. Torture kids with an academic assignment today, but maybe I’ll get time to grade. I’m definitely rethinking tomorrow…they can do it on their own. I’m not walking them through it. Eye dissection next week, new unit, fuck me, I need seating charts. OK. Deep breaths. It will all happen.

Bring It…

I did not fall off the face of the Earth…I just had a ton of stuff to do. And if you’re my school district, trying to figure out where I went this weekend, the answer is NOWHERE. I didn’t travel anywhere. I really didn’t. I did take a necessary day off though, and they don’t like that, especially before a 3-day weekend. I had a sub though, which is a plus.

There was a lot of art this weekend, which was good and necessary to the processing of my brain. There was also a lot of schoolwork this weekend, which was unfortunately also necessary to my surviving the next month or so. This week, definitely, because I am entering the hell of 2-hour meetings for the next three days, all school-related. Sigh. Not looking forward to that bit. And some medical stuff, which is what it is, and can’t all happen after school hours, much as they’d like it to.

So the quilt in progress went from all ironed to fabric Wednesday night? I think…

98 fabrics…in just under 9 hours of ironing.

Then Thursday night, I started cutting them out…

Finished Friday night? Again, maybe that was Saturday night…yeah, I think I’m off by a night on all of this…

That took a little under 7 hours…I was on a roll. And then Sunday afternoon, I sorted them…

Sunday night, started ironing together…

And this is last night’s progress…

With all those 2-hour meetings, it’s gonna be a fight to get an hour in each night, but that’s my goal. More than an hour, actually. I have about 200 pieces left, so I’m figuring I’ll be done Wednesday, iron to the background Thursday, start stitchdown by Friday. Tight deadline, but I’m going for it. Have I mentioned grades are due next week on top of all those meetings? Yeah. And Saturday is shot to hell by a mammogram and an art meeting. There is no down time.

Ooh wait, here’s the cutting-out I did on Thursday night. Hmmm. Maybe I finished ironing fast and then cut stuff out?

I’ll ask Nova. She might know.

Setup for a class I took this weekend…

Loads of fun. Totally recommend taking classes that aren’t related to what you’re doing at the moment.

I also went to an opening and an artist talk, and I have photos from that, but no time to process right now. Because I need to get to work, need to beat the tree trimmers out of here.

Friday night’s dinner drawing…

Cute sister cats…

This current quilt is small enough to ALMOST fit under one teflon ironing sheet.

IDK when I’ll have the brain power to do something bigger this year. I’m supposed to be doing a drawing this week as well. Deep breaths. Might have to wait until Friday to have the mental space for it.

My succulents are making cute little flowers…

I hadn’t been paying attention to the plants with all the other crap going on.

I hate that.

Also finished mom’s snowflakes, so this went back to her for embellishment…

Then it’ll come back to me for sandwiching and stuff. Not sure what stuff entails at the moment. Haven’t touched the other quilt I’m doing for a friend…it’s been a rough week. It’s still a rough week.

OK, work today, something to do with light and UV damage (I feel like I should know what the something is), then a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting, then I get to cook tonight (woo!), then more ironing. Full-on survival mode this week. Bring it.

Saving the World from Nothing*…

I used to listen to music every morning, and whatever song I was listening to at the end of writing this blog, I’d go find some part of the lyrics that spoke to me and that would be the blog title. Certainly probably better than most of the blog titles I come up with now. Don’t get me wrong; I love writing the blog. I certainly do it more for me than you, and my future self appreciates me documenting shit so I remember what I did last year or the year before, or how January going back to school really felt (it’s always hard; I’m always tired). For documenting the art process, it’s also good for me to remember where I was at on a certain piece. I’m not sure when I stopped listening to the music…I have a guess, but it’s been a while, and maybe I should bring it back…if just for the title inspiration.

So I’ve now survived one work day with kids and one without. Both were fine. Although the one boy who told me I should smile more probably wasn’t ready for my impassioned sexism speech. I’m OK with that. I started with a lab, which seemed to shock the kids…not sure why. I also have been trying to do more of what we did with 7th grade, when I had a partner to plan and we tweaked things for years to make them easier on us and more varied for the kids. I’m hoping I can keep it up. It takes a chunk of creativity on my part, and I don’t always have the extra energy for that for the day job AND art. Although yesterday’s prep period was a crazy headgame of trying to get 7th-grade teachers all their stuff (I found the damn paint swatches, hidden under another lab in a weird tube of periodic tables we never use and my co-teacher on leave says I should toss. Fuck. I will do that when I get to school today. Really. I will. If no other emergencies pop up.). I was watching a video yesterday of a teacher at our school who posts on TikTok etc, and she’s showing her typed plan of how to use her before- and after-school time and her PLAN (ha! Really? She has a plan period she can actually USE? WTF) so she’s uber efficient with getting things done, and I almost cried. I mean, I guess having 7th- and 8th-grade meet on the same day each week is part of that, but it doesn’t leave much time with all the other crap I need to do. Not everything fits into a cute TikTok video I guess. She’s selling her rainbow template on TeacherPayTeachers, so all the more power to her.

So artwise, I’m really pushing the ironing. I have been coming home and trying to start the ironing before dinner time so I can do more than an hour a night. So I managed almost 2 hours both nights, which is good…I’m thinking I might be able to finish tonight. Maybe.

Monday night, I got up into the torso and finished all the things that were green, which is all the fleshy bits…

Here’s all the skin in the upper torso laid out…

And here’s all the things that are attached to or on her flesh that AREN’T green, like her heart etc.

The piles are logical. I start out with everything in number order, in piles of 10, but when I’m pulling the flesh out and piling it on the fabric, I’m sorting the others into what they are, so I can just pick up one pile and iron it all at the same time.

Here’s a video of the setup…I stand between the table and the ironing board and turn from one to the other…one of the benefits of a room that is relatively small, I guess.

Then last night, I started in on all those little piles…

I made a rainbow snake. I was looking at the drawing and thinking, well, I often make green snakes, but the main figure is already green, so that won’t work. And any snake with black in it won’t show up against the really dark background, and brown was just out…the legs are all brown. So rainbow it was. Rainbows make my brain happy. I also realized there is very little pink in this quilt. Usually the figures run in the pink to brown range, but this one is reminiscent of the Supreme Court goddess, all earth colors, because I wanted to explore that a little more. Maybe the Supreme Court quilt had way too many normal-colored people, because I’m rolling in purple and earth stuff, maybe a rainbow person is next. Although the next one is a collaboration, so who knows what that will look like.

Meanwhile, I guess I really do need that template from that teacher (not)…because I spent 45 minutes after school processing videos and pictures of the lab we did for all the absent kids (lenses and refraction). And that was NOT on my to-do list until I realized it needed to be. The slides exist now, so future self will be happy, but fuck me, this year is full of this crap.

I came home and meant to (a) go to the gym (too exhausted after trying to find my insulin at any pharmacy, and getting dog food) and/or (b) read my book, but I opened my computer and processed planning shit for about an hour before reading one chapter of my book, then getting my exhausted ass off the couch and ironing before dinner, which luckily I didn’t have to cook.

Today? Today the kids are going to do an independent assignment so I can do some planning. I’ll roll my chair around with my computer and check in at tables while working for a while at each table. Tomorrow too. Tonight is pilates and IRONING. I do have to cook tonight, but it’s easy. So IRONING. Finishing. Hopefully. Also hopefully finding insulin.

*Long Way Down, Robert DeLong

Never Gonna Dance Again

Woke up to Careless Whisper by Wham!. Not sure what to think about that, on the first day back to work in 2024. Can’t get it out of my damn head though. So there’s that. Hey you know there’s 74 days until Spring Break! You know the worst part about coming back is when you don’t feel rested and refreshed, and everybody is all asking you if you feel rested and refreshed and please share one relaxing thing you did over break, and I’m like I READ 78 BOOKS BECKY precisely because that was my escape from not feeling rested and refreshed. Also I’m just a cranky old lady sometimes, and today is one of those times. Not enough sleep. Not enough shit got done. As always.

Speaking of not enough time, I really am trying to up the ante with this quilt, getting it done in an insanely small amount of time. How? Grabbing minutes when I’d normally do something else. I had 45 minutes yesterday afternoon before driving out to an art meeting, so I ironed instead of lesson planning. I had 30 minutes waiting for the Man to get dinner ready…same deal. I got the room cleaned Saturday in the hour before going to see his show, and when he sent me an updated start time (later), I sat down and got half a really complicated exhibition entry done. It’s good, but it feels like I can’t ever just sit down and relax. Hence my post-break feeling of no, not rested, not relaxed. My fault, but semi-necessary at the moment. I’m not letting another year of school fuck up my ability to make art. I’m gonna figure it out.

So I had everything laid out and ready to go on Saturday…wait. Stop. I need to be chronological about all this.

First of all, on Friday, I ran a million errands. I even wrote the blog late because of it. I spent about an hour staring at this asshole…

Which is the slow annoying one, because our faster one has been broken down most of the fucking school year, so we’re stuck sharing this with the front office, who keeps telling us we’re not allowed to use it. Uh huh.

Fast forward to Friday night (I did other stuff, very little of it art related)…I drew at dinner.

I was in a pretty positive mindframe at that point. Except she is holding her head. Legit position. Then we went out to see a friend’s band play…

Sonic Moonshine…ironically, we’d be back here on Saturday night for the Man’s band, Radio Thieves. But some drinking and dancing happened, probably too much of both.

Saturday dawned early, as it always does. I had a quilt guild meeting, so I worked a little on her face.

Slow stitching forever! Might finish in 2030.

Then came home and focused on cleaning up the art space, putting fabric away, even cleaned the floor because there was something on it that made it very slippery in one area (don’t wanna know what) and I was afraid I’d fall and break something. Like my leg. That would make life fun right now, right? Oh wait! Before I cleaned up in there, I had to deal with this. So we have this older friend who isn’t a quilter, but she had these blocks she cross stitched, and then I sandwiched them for her and she quilted them (the white threads are all my basting threads)…

And then I couldn’t deal with the sashing on a quilt-as-you-go, so we mailed it to a friend who used to live down here (she’s retired) and she put it together, mailed it back to me, and then I took it BACK to our friend and she hand-stitched all the sashing sides down (I taught her ladder stitch…she’s really NOT a sewer). Then it came back to me and I put the borders on and shoved some batting in there on Friday and Saturday, and then I removed all that fucking basting thread I put in last summer or whenever it was (2022? this has been going on for a while).

See pile of threads in the top right? So that happened before and after the quilt guild meeting. I needed this to get off the ironing board so I could use it for ironing.

Then I quilted one of the white squares on Saturday…

And one on Sunday. Yes, I could just do it all in one go, but it would take a few hours and then I would feel like I got nothing of my OWN done, and I cannot abide that at the moment. Nope. So my goal is 1-2 white squares a day and then the damn sashing and borders. I’ll get there. It just won’t be quick.

Then on Saturday, I laid out the first 100 pieces (after cleaning the whole room, floor, etc).

It’s not a big quilt.

Then I went to see the Man’s band play (more dancing, a little drinking, learned a lesson there I guess).

Home again. Spent Sunday getting ready for school, but also carving out time for ironing. I’m in the mid-100s, I think…something like that.

I got almost 3 hours in yesterday. Good times. You’d think I’d have more ironed, but there were a lot of little things going on and they took some thinking.

I also went to an art meeting and sewed down (during dinner) 9 of the 48 circles I need to stitch down for my mom’s thing.

See, I AM doing all the things. I’m just cranky about most of it. Except the ironing for my quilt. That is joyous and not cranky at all.

I’m sure everyone has seen some cool art or fabric in a TV show and screen shot it…this is the wall art from an episode of Suits.

Fascinating. I had some stuff burst into my head from this. Too bad I have to go back to school today instead of nurturing my Art Brain with some drawing time. Luckily there are no kids today…just adults and the bullshit the district wants us to do. Am I still burnt out? Oh yeah. I am. Do I have some plans for keeping myself from fully burning out? Uh huh. I do. Watch this space. Still got that damn song in my head.

Gloom…

It’s dark and gloomy this morning. That California storm finally hit us last night, but not super hard. We’ve had over half an inch of rain and a tiny bit of thunder and lightning…nothing like up north. Enough that I don’t have to water for a few days though. Enough that I don’t feel a need to leave the house today. Wait. I need binding fabric for this quilt…I want to finish it before the 26th so I can contact the photographer and give him more time…and the fabric store I usually shop at has heinous hours these days. Which they say they aren’t changing. So it’s today or tomorrow, and tomorrow is more complicated. I did finish stitchdown on Wednesday…just sat down and did it all after writing the blog. That is one of the things I miss about teaching before COVID…coming home for the weekend and spending ALL DAY Saturday just doing art stuff. It’s hard to pull that off these days. I always have to do all the stuff I didn’t get done during the week. Stitchdown took a whopping 2 hours and 44 minutes, then I sandwiched and pinbasted that night, so I put in 3 or 4 hours.

Delightful. I still haven’t finished putting up Christmas stuff. Or wrapping it. Or putting it together.

But the tree made it into the house.

Yesterday, I was doing other stuff all day…it took 3 hours to put labels on two quilts, clean them up, iron them, and pack them up for shipping. They’ll both be traveling until 2027, I think. Hopefully I’ll see them in the traveling exhibition at some point. So far, they’ll be too far away. So I did that all morning.

Then in the afternoon, I had a couple of Zoom calls, one with stitching friends, so I started work on this thing…

So this is Sue Spargo’s Tinsel block of the month from 2022. I wasn’t going to do it, but mom likes Christmas stuff, so I signed up. I thought I’d just make it for her, but realistically, I wouldn’t finish until 2030, so I did all the applique, gave her three blocks last Christmas, three for her birthday in February (a little late because I got sick), and three for Mother’s Day. She did all the embroidery, which is the fun stuff anyway, right? Then she handed them back to me in September or October.

So yesterday, I trimmed them all.

One of the fun things about this is that the seam allowances sometimes get a little tiny. Luckily, I’ve done quite a few of these and know how to fix that. Sometimes you need to re-embroider something over the seam allowance…like that bottom tree branch on the right, and the bottom of the pot in the middle one…plus the blue bits at the top of that tree. No worries.

I pieced them on Zoom with my stitching friends.

Then there are some bits to be appliqued and embroidered after it’s all together.

Then put the borders on and applique some of the dots…I’m actually changing up the border embroidery. Mom likes it better too. I’ll give it back to her for the border embroidery, hopefully next week, and then she’ll give it back to me to be quilted and bound. Then it’s hers! It’s only taken a year plus. I’m the slow cog in the wheel, as always. I have another quilt here from a stitching friend who finished her part…so next week, I’ll put her borders on, quilt it, put a binding on it, and then hopefully hand it off before the end of break. That’s the plan anyway. We know how plans go.

Meanwhile, I did start quilting last night…did a little over an hour…

I’m going to continue with that this morning, with the plan of buying binding before the quilt store closes today. At 3. Too early, y’all. I probably won’t finish quilting all of it, but I can finish the outlining. I don’t want to be stuck without binding on Christmas Day. Yes. Ironic. There’s a break between morning and evening stuff, though, and a hike and some stitching is the best way to fill it. I know what I want for binding, and I don’t have enough of it in my stash. So shop.

I also finally framed and hung the last two Quilt National posters.

I had to email and pay for shipping to get them, because I couldn’t go to either opening…timing plus cost plus COVID. Annoying. Maybe I’ll get into another one to fill that space on the right, and I’ll make it to THAT opening. Sigh.

Simba’s eyelid seems to be fine. Hopefully the growth will not come back. He’s a good boy.

OK, so I’m outline quilting until it’s done, probably another hour or two. There’s thunder again. And more rain. Gloomy as shit this morning. Then to the quilt store. I have a friend and her son flying in tonight, so I am braving the drive to the airport this evening to get them and drop them at their hotel. Then quilting again tonight, hopefully, at some point. It’s movie night first. I think. Tomorrow is grocery shopping for Christmas, plus a hike, I hope. Finish quilting. Get a binding on probably Sunday? Not sure. Sunday is when family stuff starts for the Man, then mine on Monday. Y’all know how that goes.

Anyway, enjoy your holiday however you can/need to. I know for some it’s not enjoyable, so do your best. Read a book. Drink some spicy something-or-other. Cuddle up with a blanket if appropriate. Southern hemisphere, do what you need to do. Make some art if that’s a thing for you. I’m working on a fellowship application due January 4. Plus all the other things on the to-do list, including grading, unfortunately. It has to be done. But also doing some things that make it easier to get through the have-tos.

Shopping and Shipping

Just listening to @underthedesknews about university admissions and the Supreme Court…legacy admissions could be out! I’m good with that. And that is how I am spending my Winter Break? Listening to social media news? Nah. It’s been a little chaotic so far. Let’s start with quilt progress, which has not been as much as I’d like, but whatever. I’ve been ironing…here’s Friday night’s progress…

Then Saturday night…

And Sunday night, when I stayed up way too late…

Because I was ALMOST done and then I felt like I was too tired for the last half hour so I didn’t actually finish. So yeah. I thought I’d be done ironing yesterday, but I forgot how much time having both kids around takes, and you wanna hang out with them, so there isn’t as much time for other stuff. So I suspect I’ll be done tonight. Hopefully. Stitchdown tomorrow. Quilting by Thursday? Maybe. IDK.

I’m still not done with shopping and shipping, and that will be an issue, so I need to get my act together on that front. Ah well. I did do some today…and passed by these weird things…

On the walk to the used bookstore.

Poor Santa in a cage…

So Saturday, we went on a friend’s birthday hike…

It was warm for December…high 70s. Warmer than you would like. But a winery solved that issue afterwards…

Sunday was family stuff…

I finished one book on Saturday…

Light fiction…I finished a harder one, nonfiction, on Sunday. Well on my way to finishing one a day? OK, probably not…

Sleepy cold kitties. We are also babysitting the puppy so that she doesn’t chew her foot off. She’s been pretty chill. Apparently she is depressed because of the cone and the wrap on her foot. She tore part of her claw off. Whoops. Silly girl.

Yeah, that’s been going on for a while. Needs to stop.

OK, I need to do some schoolwork and set up the tree so I can get the cats out of the needles and maybe clean some stuff. And figure out the rest of Christmas. Ugh. At least there’s no school in that. I can appreciate that.