Do Your Thing…

Hello December. I am not ready for you. I mean, that’s not entirely true. Some part of me is “THANK GOD IT’S ALMOST WINTER BREAK” while the rest is, “You dingbat, you realize that means you need to get the holiday season under control.” It’s already a mess, both this week with all the meetings, oh wait, more next week. I said no to one thing yesterday, and all my childhood training as a girl was straining against it. YOU SAY YES unless you have a damn good excuse. And then you worry about the excuse being good enough. The excuse was my sanity. No, I do not want 8 more adults tramping through my class with behaviors and distraction issues on a Monday morning. I have enough going on.

I need to deal with shopping for the holidays, plus all the party things and meeting things. Plus school and grading and kids cheating off each other and parent meetings because kid behavior is still stuck in 5th grade. Too much.

Anyway. I have been ironing every night, although that has turned into staying up too late. There’s a fine balance with my sanity at the moment. More sleep MIGHT help? But not making art will NOT help. So I lean. Wednesday night, after 2 hours of sex-ed curriculum meetings that I found fairly frustrating.

I ironed a climate-devastated island down. And some other stuff.

Last night…

In the middle of the night on Thursday, after not being able to fall asleep for HOURS (not joking), my brain decided to make the main figure purple. I tried a variety of color combinations out in my head (when I gave up on sleeping and figured I might as well try to get something done) and purple won out. I’m actually not sure if I have enough of that last lightest fabric to iron those pieces, but I’ll try. Honestly there isn’t much left of the color before it…I didn’t think I’d have enough, and I did, but I have devastated that stash. I went to bed 45 minutes late last night, so I’ll have to do the lighter color tonight. I stopped because I knew if there wasn’t enough, Art Brain would want to figure that out NOW dammit and then I wouldn’t have gone to sleep ever. As it was, I slept well, unlike the previous night.

More ironing tonight and tomorrow night. Although there’s some stuff I have to do tonight for tomorrow’s quilt guild party. Plus a trip to Home Depot for science materials. Fun times.

A brief Nova moment.

The cats are appreciating Annie’s departure apparently…except Luna has no one to mad dog except her sister now.

My reward after the first 2-hour sex-ed committee meeting was this bag of melted circus animal cookies.

A cookie orgy. Still only 140 calories! One giant blob of cookieness.

Every time I see a list of banned books or books DeSantis doesn’t like, I’m like “Add to list”. You should do the same.

OK, parent meeting this morning…not looking forward to parent denial on this one. Then a lab all day (WTF was I thinking?). Then duty after school and that trip to Home Depot. Read my book, prepare dinner (I was smart and made and froze lasagne during Thanksgiving break), probably grade some stuff or prep some stuff, then iron. Probably gonna fall asleep hard. Oh wait, do the things for the meeting tomorrow. Can’t forget that. Should put it on the calendar. Then I MIGHT remember to do it. Ha! OK December, do your thing.

Let It Percolate…

Deep intake of breath. It’s only Wednesday. (laughs hysterically) OK. Well. The pro is that because I finished grading stuff last week, I have come home from school the last two days and done NOTHING school-related. The con is that yesterday was probably the last day I could do that. TWO DAYS Y’ALL. I made it two days. Better than I’ve done all school year, actually…well, when we went camping…nope…I didn’t make it two full days then, did I. Sigh. Last week, which I had OFF, didn’t make it two days. I did also read yesterday, though. I’m reading a really good book, at least it is so far, and I’d rather do that than a lot of things. I’m looking at today, with a two-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting after school, and thinking…when the fuck am I going to be able to read my book? Important question. Maybe lunch. That could work. I’m feeling antisocial.

Artwise, not having to work at night has meant a little more art time. Although yesterday was a cluster, because I had pilates, then had to pick up cat meds (again, my fault, picked up the wrong ones on Monday), then came home and packed up the dogs because the males are back from the UK and all dogs go to the other house on Tuesday! Yes, I slept dog free last night. It was delightful. Although cats can be just as annoying. Also, I’ve been having really vivid, very strange SCHOOL dreams, not about being a teacher, but about being a student. Ugh brain. Why.

Anyway, rejoice in the ironing! Even if it is slow. Because my brain is sluggy mush. Monday night, I finished cleaning up all the fabrics in the studio and started ironing…first, I lay out 100 pieces. And there’s often an animal in there with me. Annie did the typical ‘lie in the middle of the floor so Kathy has to walk over her a million times’ thing.

Good dog. I didn’t get very far on Monday…

Lots of color, but tiny little pieces mostly.

Last night, I did a little better…

I went all out on the water…

Sometimes I pick fabrics because (a) they bring me joy to see and (b) they’ve never been used before. (b) is not true for that hand-dyed fabric, or for the ones on the top right or top left, but the other two were untouched. That’s one issue with having a LOT of fabric is that you tend to reuse the same ones over and over again, and then buried in the back of some bin is some glorious thing that you’ve forgotten you owned. I’ve been culling fabric to donate and have found some very interesting stuff. That’s a good thing. No, I’ll never use it all up. That’s not the point. The point is having all the choices.

I swear, someday I’ll go on an artist retreat and I’ll only be able to bring one suitcase full of fabric, and it will kill me to create that way. OK, not really…it just feels that way.

Anyway, after all that, I don’t even have the first 100 pieces ironed. I’m slow this week. On many things. Although my crowning achievement this week is finally successfully using the new reimbursement system our district has implemented…despite the instructions having no basis in reality. I’m feeling good about that. Finally getting reimbursed for stuff I bought in August. September is next! Don’t laugh. I might cry.

More ironing tonight…I’ll finish the island and then move on to the main figure…I haven’t decided what color to make her yet. I have some crazy ideas. Not feeling the flesh tones at the moment. Too many of those in the last quilt…although the goddess made out of the earth tones was fun. Won’t necessarily work for this one. We’ll see. Let it percolate all day. See how much energy I have at 6:30 when I get home.

This is what the dogs do when I am not home…

Smart really. Not today, though…it’s all cloudy and cold. OK, need to finish breakfast, make lunch, get out of here to copy a bunch of stuff for next week. Then talk about electricity all day, something I barely understand. Good stuff. Well at least I am learning new stuff, yeah? Lab tomorrow, hopefully. Although also another 2 hours of sex-ed curriculum meetings. Ugh. Almost done with those. They say. Not sure I believe it. Then read some of my good book and iron some stuff. Yeah, I know I said I would work after today’s meeting, but I suspect I’ll be in one of those ‘damn school already took up too much of my time today’ moods. Yeah. Wouldn’t surprise me.

It’s Totally Me…

You know, I was never a good sleeper, even as a kid…I remember lying awake as the dark turned to light. Last night was no different. By the end of the week, I’ll be exhausted, so I’ll fall asleep quicker (knock on wood). Also the dog won’t be in the bed…he is part of the issue sometimes. Then again, so is the cat and the Man, and last week, he was gone hiking, and I still couldn’t fall asleep. That was the heat. Right? It’s not me, right? Oh, it’s totally me.

I had three art group meetings this weekend, two on Zoom. I’m glad to be in these groups…they bring exhibit opportunities and peopling opportunities, however much I suck at those. One group is talking about moving meetings from North County San Diego to Orange County…sheesh, it’s already an hour’s drive, more if I go to a friend’s house to drive with her and others…add another 45 minutes to an hour. Ugh. Lost day. This job makes it hard to lose a day. I graded Saturday morning before the first meeting…it was in person out in Ramona. Every jerk on the road was going to Ramona. But it was cool to see the art in person for potential new members. Fiber, craft, they all look better in person.

It was warm, though. I tried to argue for a fiber person on the image jury, but I got sort of shot down. Hmm. We are the minority in this group, for sure.

I had to bounce out of one of the art group Zooms early to go grocery shopping, but the other one was kind of cool. I did work through it. Day job never ends. SAQA So Ca/NV has had a hard time keeping a consistent group going for years. It’s frustrating. There are so many quilt artists in the area that it just seems silly that regular meetings aren’t happening. I tried pre-COVID and it was a stretch to get three other women to show up. The Zooms are another option, although 50% of them will be during the workday, so that’s out for me. Ah well.

In current quilt news, Friday night, I put the drapes behind the justices and ironed the whole thing down…

Big and complicated. She’s actually not that big. I think it’s 67″ h x 54″ w. Something like that. Anyway, next up is stitchdown. I had a plan to start Saturday but that got stymied by a last-minute invite to a Halloween thing. So we went…

We hung out with the Man’s fam and ate free food and drank free alcohol, including a whiskey room (I did not partake) with fancy bottles (you just pick by bottle shape, yeah?).

We found this friend, who apparently doesn’t belong here…

Traveled on a boat to get here? Or maybe momma did. Or grandmomma. It’s silly to think bugs stay where they’re supposed to if humans don’t.

We won absolutely none of the prizes or opportunity things. It was fun, though…a different way to spend the evening for once. Hence no stitching. I think we got home around 10 and it was too late (and I was too tired) to start. So last night, I started…

Deep in the swamp. I figure it’ll be at least 8 hours of this, so all week. Maybe more. There’s stuff this weekend again, yet another art meeting, possible book signing, the Man has a show, and grades are coming up, so I’m panicking a bit about getting all that done in time. But I’m trying for this week to be done, pinbasting by the end of the weekend? We’ll see.

Cats get to sleep so much.

So jealous.

OK, head down, get everything done. I have a quilt errand after school (not my quilt. Just an assist.) and then grading. Grading every night, I think. Not gonna get done magically unfortunately. Planning too. That’s a thing. And I need supplies. So many things on the to-do list. I finally replaced the blown lightbulb in the bathroom…it only took 6 days. It wasn’t horrible to take showers in the semi-dark. I cleaned floors, but not the shower…it needs it. Cleaning really does fall by the wayside. Sigh.

OK. School. Meetings. Errand. Grading. Art.

All of Them…

Hey. Friday. Hey, I’m glad to see you. I’m not sure where you’ve been hiding. The other days just haven’t been as friendly as you. Thursday tries really hard but it’s not the same. Although my workload won’t be any less. I still have a pile of stuff to grade and plan that is beyond overwhelming, but I’m doing a little at a time and I may actually feel like I’ve conquered some of it after the weekend. Maybe. Or it’ll be Monday and y’all know what they’re like. Too much, y’all, too much.

So I had hoped to be done ironing last night, and I would have been, except Art Brain objected to the background behind the justices, so I had to scramble a bit. It’s OK…the scramble took 36 minutes so far. When I tell people I keep track of my time to make these, I’m not sure what they think. I have a tracker. I turn it on when I start and off when I finish. I track each task, which is really useful when I need to figure out WHEN THE FUCK I can move on to the next step. Seriously. I’m at almost 29 hours on the ironing and there’s probably another hour. I guessed 30. That’s pretty good.

Anyway, on Wednesday night, I finished ironing all the bits I thought I’d be ironing…

Cool! I thought. I just need to iron it to the background. But a friend had suggested the drapes in the Supreme Court might be burgundy (they’re not, but that’s another thing). I had originally thought to put just a lighter blue behind them, but the idea of the drapes coming down from the goddess’ arms really appealed to me.

I pulled the image off the teflon sheets (a task unto itself, let me tell you)…

And laid it on the chosen background fabric…

I have changed the background fabric on other quilts, but not often. The difficulty here is if I go lighter for all of it, there are issues with other parts of the quilt. But that blue is too close to the justice’s robes.

So I started looking for drapery fabric for behind them…

And this seemed to work.

So last night, during my stitching Zoom, I pieced the background and laid the image on top of it, and ironed the bottom half down…

And I’m thinking, I’ll just freehand cut a piece to go behind the heads. But what about the feet? Shouldn’t the drapes go all the way down to their feet? This is getting complicated. Plus it needs to be fused. It’s too big to NOT fuse it. Huh.

So I grabbed the drawing and drew the drapes, and then traced them on Wonder Under, trimmed them, and ironed them to fabric…

Which you can see in that video. Tonight, I’ll trim those pieces, slide them behind the other pieces, and iron the rest of it down. Then I can start stitching…which I’m estimating at 8-10 hours. So hopefully I’ll be pinbasting next weekend. This weekend has meetings. Next weekend now has meetings. Grades are coming up again (when are they ever not?). My life is not my own.

Here’s the part that’s not ironed down yet…

And a cat. And here’s the background pieces…

Although my process looks like chaos, it is actually very controlled. Parts of it anyway. The fabric choosing is a crazy thing that happens in my head.

So this pile is (a) pieces that stand on their own and will need to be ironed down tonight and (b) random pieces that never made it into the quilt because (i) I lost them and already recut them or (ii) I don’t really know where they go.

Not that big green piece. I think that’s from the previous quilt. I think it was the wrong color. I have a hard time throwing away the orphaned pieces. They’re useless. Those two skinny red pieces, those were the wrong color. Somehow when I ironed them to fabric, they ended up red instead of white. So I recut those. The money all has a home.

So yeah. That’s where the quilt is at. It looks awesome. I know you can’t really tell from the photos, but hopefully tonight, there will be a whole quilt top photo. Definitely worth the time.

Meanwhile, the Man keeps thinking he’s hearing/seeing a cat on the roof, for over a year now. He’s out on the deck at night and hears it and calls to it and it won’t come down. He gets fleeting views, nothing definitive. I’ve asked, are you sure it’s a cat? Oh yeah. Totally. Last night, after I went to bed (I did hear the banging around for this), he heard the cat (let’s just do this…’cat’) and put some food in a bowl and shook it around and called for the kitty to come down. He put the food down and…well…watch this.

Um. Three. Three Not Cats. Nope. Those aren’t cats. Not surprising. We’ve had raccoons before. They are cute, but not feeding any more of them. Probably explains the ‘cat poop’ in the backyard that the dog is totally interested in too. And I think that’s the dog’s bowl, so that should be interesting when the dog comes back. Hmmm.

Anyway. Mystery solved. Those are young ones too.

Work today…finish all the things. Do all the things. Get the kids to do all the things. Find all the things. Grade all the things. Get all the things ready for next week. ALL OF THEM. At least my observation is over. Doesn’t matter how long you’ve been teaching, they stress you out. So that’s done. Just a shit-ton of grading and planning left. Art meeting tomorrow that’s a potluck…these also stress me out. I am not a good potlucker. Some people are. I’m not. Ironing tonight. Hopefully stitchdown tomorrow. Need to deal with the house, clean floors, get a quilt to another stitcher (but I need to get thread for that too). Yeah. Crazy busy. But Friday.

Not So Quietly…

Hey. This week. Yup. It took 4 hours yesterday to read through 2 classes of claim/evidence/reasoning (CERs). And it was pretty disheartening. It’s OK. I’ll hammer them again. And again. We’ve reviewed twice. Doesn’t seem to stick. Must be doing it wrong. Try again.

The Man actually comes back today after hiking all over Catalina. It’s good, because I’m tired of being the only human in the house. Maybe someone else can cook or feed a cat. Wait. We’re not cooking cats. Cooking food for humans. THEN feeding cats. That would be nice. The dog has been such a weenie about my being the only human that he is the Boofy King at night. I started playing white noise on my phone to try to drown out whatever he was thinking about barking at…it seems to have worked. Anyway. He’ll be a happier dog tonight.

I’m still ironing, but I’m so close to done, I can taste it. Monday night, I worked on the flag…

And the coathanger. Here’s the side view of the whole top…

I have one background fabric for the whole thing, but I’m not sure it will work in the justice section…it might need something lighter, but not too light…so I might be doing something there. I’m not sure yet until I get it all onto the original background and see what it looks like. It’s always hard to judge here because I iron onto a white teflon sheet and that is a very different look than when I usually use a dark background. Those black robes may need something different. I have some ideas in my head for how to deal with it…might need an all-new color, but my local quilt shop closes at 3 PM STILL, even with COVID long gone. Super frustrating.

Then last night, I ironed Ruth and her wings, plus that diploma.

I’ve got two relatively small things on the end and then that’s it. I’m done. Well, the background needs to exist. I’m debating stopping at another quilt store…it doesn’t have a massive selection of fabrics, but I have an idea of what might work instead of what I have, and it’s near pilates…wait, no, it closes at 5. Sigh. Working quilting people…what do you do? Buy everything online? I find it really hard to buy fabric online effectively. And it won’t get here quickly enough. Sigh. I might have to wait until Saturday. Ugh. You don’t wanna know how cranky I’ll get with no art in the evening. And I’m already pretty cranky this week. Too many adults doing stupid stuff. Copier issues. Lesson material issues. More things piled up…I realized last night when I was trying to fall asleep (good timing, brain) that I had 17 little stupid things that needed to happen this week and I had done maybe 1 of them. And I will probably forget them today.

Just losing my mind over here. Not so quietly. And the weekends are chock full of places I need to be, things I need to do.

Foggy this morning. Makes it easier to see the giant-ass spider webs before they are all over your face.

Grumble. Not a fan of all this right now. I want more time, more help, more support, fewer things I have to do, more time for art, someone to change the damn lightbulb in the bathroom because I forget until I’m trying to take a shower in the dark. Maybe someone could vacuum. Maybe stop asking me to do more things. I want the other people using the copier to realize they are not special and their copies are not more important than everyone else’s. I want time after school to go for a walk. I want a quilt store that realizes some of us work during the day…just one day a week, stay open until 6 PM for goodness sake. Or even 4:30. I could probably get to the other one by then on a good day. Today is not a good day for that. SIGH. Yup. Cranky.

Minor Panic…

Somebody barked all night. It wasn’t me. I realize the coyotes were trying to break down the door, so it was justifiable barking, but still. Hard way to start a school week.

I remembered this morning all the things I was supposed to do this weekend and didn’t. Whoops. There will probably be more. I had a to-do list…it just didn’t have all the things on it. Typical. I did do a lot of art things, which isn’t bad…it just comes back during the week to bite me in the ass. There are things that are much easier to do on the weekend, but now I will have to try and shove them all in after school instead. Sometimes Art Brain wins.

I ironed Friday night…after a 2-hour curriculum meeting and the Visions opening of Interpretations. Here’s my obligatory selfie with my piece…

Usually I have photographers with me, but everyone ditched me this weekend.

I ironed the rest of Brown Jackson and then Kagan.

After the artist talks on Saturday, which were really good…I love hearing artists talk about their work, even if I totally wasn’t prepared for it…I came home and ironed for like 3+ hours. I should have done some other stuff too, but I didn’t. I wanted the justices done.

So that’s what I did. Toldja. Art Brain won. Then there was an artists’ dinner and I hung out with my friend Dinah Sargeant, who I hadn’t seen in ages (stupid COVID) and juror Dolores Miller, and had some pretty amazing conversations about art and life.

After dinner, you know what? I ironed some more. Pre-COVID, I used to just iron all day on Saturday when I was making a quilt. It was fucking delightful. All in all on Saturday, I put in 4 1/2 hours on this baby.

Got myself into the 1700s.

I only had an hour last night…had to work yesterday. Plus went to dinner with the parentals. That was nice. Hadn’t seen them for a while.

Finished the goddess and started the last bits on top. I’m about halfway through the 1800s…so about 200 pieces left. My goal is to be ironed down this week and stitching down by the incredibly busy (technically four meetings, no way can I do all of them) weekend. I have almost 25 hours into the ironing so far…it’ll be close to 30 by the end. I’m still debating the background fabric. I might need to fuss with it a bit to get it to do what I want it to do. We’ll see.

The Man is still hiking Catalina…today is his last day of hiking…I think.

He seems to be enjoying it.

This cat is a bed hog.

This cat puked in probably 17 places this weekend.

Fun times.

And here is my retirement goal.

OK. Today is what it is. The end of the project where they work quietly and I can get stuff done. The beginning of three major things that need grading. I’m so tired. In general due to dog barking last night, but also of school. I guess October burnout is a real thing. I always felt like that’s when it felt like things eased up a bit, but not so much this year. I’ve got a minor panic riding in my belly. It’ll be fine. I’ll figure it out. Just not probably today. More ironing tonight anyway.

Bread Dough…

It’s Friday at last. This week is like bread dough that overflowed the bowl and then blooped down the cupboard and is stuck in all the cracks and will take forever to clean out. Three months from now, I’ll still be finding dried-up dough bits in the cupboard cracks. Of course, that’s if I make it through the day. I will. Of course. Hoping for no fight after school today to break up. Hoping kids actually try on this project and don’t just speed through it. Yesterday was actually pretty chill once I got them started. I need to get all of next-week’s stuff ready to go, so I need today to continue to be chill. I am completely exhausted and kind of over-emotional because of that. Sigh. I just want to sleep for three days straight. Not happening.

The pro is that it’s the opening weekend for Interpretations, so there’s an opening tonight at Visions from 6-8 PM (I’ll be racing to get to that from Day 2 of Sex Ed Curriculum, which hopefully will go better than Day 1 did). Then artist talks are tomorrow from 11-1, then there’s an artists’ dinner that evening. My lovely anxiety pops up for that, because I don’t know if I know anyone. And those situations always make me nervous. I’ll be fine in the moment, I’m sure, but right now, it feels like work. Here’s my piece Same As It Ever Was…

It’s a fun one. Born of a weekend away plus Roe V Wade falling.

Man is hiking the Trans-Catalina Trail this weekend, so he leaves today and won’t be back until Wednesday. So there’s stuff I’d normally get help with that won’t be there. I have my first school observation next week…the plan is mostly written, because I’ve taught it before, but the last bit needs some work and I haven’t had any time for that. Fun stuff.

I did iron the last two nights. Dragged my ass off the couch, my brain out of stupid cat videos, and stood in here and ironed. Wednesday night, I managed Coney Barrett…

She was somewhat complicated. Last night was harder, only 41 minutes of ironing. And I spent part of that organizing all of the 1300s. So only part of Brown Jackson got ironed down…

I gave the three justices who appear to remember they represent people brightly colored robes. Based in black, but not all black. All their arms are stretching down to hold an umbrella over the people, protecting them. Hopefully I can finish her tonight, but it’s not looking good. I have school all day, then duty after school, then a 2-hour curriculum meeting about reproductive anatomy, then a 2-hour opening, home probably by 9 PM. I suspect collapse at that point. I hope I’m wrong and I can iron her face, but it doesn’t look good. As it is, I need to leave in 10 minutes for a parent meeting that I hope goes well. But probably won’t. Sigh.

It’s fine…I’ll find time to iron at some point. And sleep. And finish my lesson plans. And get the room set up for next week. And and and. Getting closer to having all the justices done…that’s good.

Super Flat

I’m gonna just start writing. Nothing is downloading properly, so who knows when the photos will show up. Not a lot going on anyway, just some justices being ironed super flat, although I couldn’t really get Kavanaugh to flatten out. Damn him. Gave up on download and used email. Who the fuck knows why certain technology works sometimes and not the others. I don’t. But I do know lots of workarounds.

OK, so Monday night, I managed a healthy chunk of ironing time and got Thomas done AND Kavanaugh’s legs.

Well really just his shoes and a bit of his ankles. Fun fact, none of the justices’ feet are accurate. I kind of decided what kind of shoes I thought they should wear, even though, of course they’re wearing solid black dress shoes with their robes, so Kavanaugh has on some ratty blue tennies with dirty white socks. Felt appropriate. Alito is totally wearing leggings. I can think what I want. Thomas has some flash red shoes.

Last night, I got a late start…a combination of pilates AND trying to work AND make dinner AND actually have a relationship with the person I live with…which just means talking to him by the way. I am perfectly capable of not talking to anyone once I get home because the day has trashed me. So I had 41 minutes of ironing last night and that meant going to bed late and falling asleep while meditating and being woken up by the dog barking like a hellbeast. Woo! Not recommended. And I only got the rest of Kavanaugh done…

He’s got beers though! Next up is Coney-Barrett. Also all their names and ties (or accoutrement) are in rainbow colors, because I can and will fuck with them in that way. Especially Amy. She doesn’t like rainbows by the way. In case you don’t know.

Here’s a side view with Kitten…

Who has been hiding.

I pulled that drawer out because someone (probably her) peed in it and I’m trying to get the pee smell out of the fabrics (it took some doing) but I haven’t put the drawer back because I need to refold stuff and I haven’t had the time (I need an assistant) and plus there’s a cat in it. So yeah. I don’t think she’s feeling well because she keeps finding holes to hide in. And/or to knock everything down. She got hair all over the blue drawer and now refuses to sleep in there. Also she threw up in there, so that’s another drawer I need to clean out. Also might be why she won’t sleep in there. Yes I have tried cat beds. She’s not a fan.

Man. Old cats. We love them, but they are not fun to clean up after.

OK. Today, teaching will be hard. I already know that. I had some insight as to why my kids this year were different. They are like sloths on anything that takes more than a day. Should be fun with the upcoming project. I don’t know what it means going forward, except that, as always, some days will be a slog. Hopefully this one will not be too bad. Ha! I end with the lowest class, worst behaviors. They’re not horrible, but they’re not great when it gets hard. So yeah, that’s today. Not really looking forward to it…girding my loins and all. Also a union meeting, so today is the first of three days in a row with 2-hour-long meetings after school. Which wipe me out, honestly. Not fun. But I’ll be ironing tonight. It’s nice to have this goal of a Justice a night…makes it easy to force myself to get to a certain point, but if I want to go on and iron someone’s feet because I have time, that also works.

Still wishing wars didn’t happen and innocent people weren’t being hurt by anyone else. Wishing doesn’t change anything though…so people are gonna have to do the work. Peace to the world.

It’s the Spider’s Fault…

So Saturday night, or maybe it was Sunday morning, I kept waking up and trying to puzzle out what day it was. Did I have to be up early for school? Was I ready? Had I planned? What the hell? It’s true I did absolutely no schoolwork on Friday night or all day Saturday, so I get the panic, but Saturday nights should be clear of most of that, right? It’s 2 AM and my brain is trying to figure out what clues I have for what day it is…no dog, so that’s one of three nights a week. What did I do the night before? Ah, there’s a drawing, so it must have been a Saturday.

There’s more in the finished drawing…it took a long time to get the food. Pro: more time for drawing. There’s little enough of that going on these days.

I had a quilt guild meeting on Saturday and worked a little more on my incredibly slow stitching from 2020? Or was it 2021? Can’t remember.

My brain thought about staying and doing the post-meeting activity, but I really just wanted to get back and iron the Supremes. So I did.

Well, this was Friday night…after a long semi-difficult day that ended with my 56-year-old self trying to figure out how best to break up a fight without getting injured myself. Fun times. I think I came home and slumped on the couch for two hours before I started functioning again.

I did eventually find the missing ‘C’ on Sunday night…

Then Saturday afternoon…

I spent a couple of hours doing the goddess’ legs and toes and all…

Then went for a 3-mile hike by myself…the Man was not feeling well.

Sunset is getting earlier. I was just about OK on time…

It was warm at the start…despite being October, it was in the 90s during the day. But by the end, there was a cool breeze…and this sweet little California Horned Toad/Lizard…

I love these guys. They’re hard to see, so it’s a treat to actually see one.

After dinner, I ironed some more…here’s Gorsuch.

His ‘O’ disappears later. Not sure where. I’m sure it’s here. There was a spider that I think dropped from the ceiling, right on him (ironic?), so there was some scuttling of things to catch it, then forget I had caught it under something and recatching it. I suspect the O succumbed to all that scuttling. I’ll find it. Or recut it. It’s the spider’s fault anyway.

The whole piece so far.

There’s a lot going on in this quilt. I also ironed a bunch of money that’s floating around all those justice’s heads…

Sunday there was less ironing time. Almost 3 hours on Saturday was delightful. Sunday was just over an hour…

The ‘O’ is gone, but there’s Alito. It takes about 70 minutes to iron a Justice. It’s mostly the fingers and the face…all the details. I iron the ears, then the eyes. Then pull the eyes off and do the rest of the face so I can place the eyes well. Stitching will help with the details too.

I’m in the 1000s, about halfway through them, so also halfway through the quilt. I figure a Justice a night…but I’ve got a hellaciously busy week. Three nights with 2-hour meetings. Today’s 1-hour meeting got canceled, and I get to be in charge of the department meeting, so I suggested grade-level was fine, get your stuff done. We don’t need to meet. We already meet Tuesday and Wednesday during prep.

I worked from about 2 PM until 9:15 PM, with an hour’s break to make lunches for the week, and another hour’s break to make dinner and eat it. I didn’t finish. I never do. I did get some major stuff done, though, so I can at least get through this week and the start of next week. I think. Not quite. Gonna use my prep and after school today to make more sense of it…and to make copies. The Man will be gone for 6 days to hike the Trans-Catalina Trail this weekend. AND it’s the Interpretations opening and artist talks and artist dinner at Visions this weekend. Super busy. Two weeks behind on grading homework, but I should be able to get through that this week…we’re doing stations, plus writing a CER (that’s high-maintenance), and then doing a project. So I should have some free time in at least SOME of the classes to get work done. Using time efficiently. Sit next to the kid(s) who need help, but grading at the same time. We all do it.

Hello Kitten. She’s still here. Older by the minute.

I had a drawer of fabric that she (or someone?) peed in so I spent some time this weekend trying to get the pee smell out. Not quite there yet. Frustrating. They’re usually really good about that…which is why I think it was her. Losing control a bit. Giving her lots of love while she’s still here.

OK. Donuts and voting this morning. Teaching. Collisions and momentum. Tried to find a good simple video about conserving momentum that wasn’t too mathy. Wasn’t successful. Could be problematic. Almost done with my book, so suspect I will be doing that tonight. Hoping anyway. And ironing. Thomas is next. He’s complicated…in more ways than one.

Hearts and love to everyone trying to survive in Israel right now. More wars. Do we need them? More death? Sigh. Religion and hate make such a mess of things. Sending good healing and loving thoughts in that direction, hoping it helps. Maybe if we all do it, the warmongers will get hit so hard by the blast of good feelings that they’ll just stop. We can hope. I certainly don’t have any better solutions.

Building It in Pieces…

Hi world. This week has been rough. Lots of busy moving crazy racing. Not a lot of relaxing. Ironing every night though. I did much better the last two nights. Because grades were done. That helps. It does mean I’ve been ignoring school a bit (except when I’m there). It’s OK to do that. Not forever, because it will catch up and hit you upside the head, but just a bit.

In quilt news, I’m still ironing. I’ll be here for days. But it is progress, much easier to see than when I’m tracing or cutting things out. Wednesday night, I finished two pedestals and started a third…this was after finishing Thomas’ and starting Alito’s…

Finished Alito’s and started Gorsuch’s…

So you can see the progress on the whole thing…

Building it in pieces. Last night, I finished the Gorsuch pedestal and carefully removed the ironing sheet from behind that bit (I only have three big ones, so they need to be reused)…

So much detail that needs to come out in the stitching.

Then I started on the other side with the stuff below the pedestals…

I lost both the N and the C for a bit, but found the N (it was numbered strangely). I’m sure the C is hiding somewhere. Or I sneezed at the wrong time and it’s under the couch, in which case, I’ll make another one. Here’s the big picture at the moment…

I have the sky folded over so I can iron down all the stuff that goes under it. Y’all, this is tiny fussy fiddly work…and I love it. Seriously, this is one of the best parts of making the quilt, watching it come alive with color. So I enjoy it, even though I’m exhausted at the end of the day. I do look forward to doing more of this than I am at the moment. More art, more quilts.

I got great news yesterday that My Body. My Choice. tied for Best in Show at the No Boundaries exhibit at the Virginia Quilt Museum. The show closes tomorrow. That quilt was last year’s hard-to-make, hard-to-live-in piece. I guess this is this year’s equivalent.

Yesterday, in an attempt to return to pre-COVID art shenanigans, I went to a friend’s opening at the San Diego Mesa College Art Gallery. This is Grace Gray-Adams and a piece from 1972 that I loved…

That’s underwear and this is the period…

Love this show, Glimmers of Grace. Definitely worth a trip out there, even if I looked ‘shell-shocked’, as a friend described me. I was tired. I came home and worked on school stuff until I couldn’t anymore, and then I ironed.

Oh wait, this is also hers, from 2010. She found this paint-by-number Mary and then replicated it and had her friends paint them.

So beautiful.

Sometimes my students are hard, although this year is much easier on that front than last year. My advisory is so quiet, only the mouthy ones speak up, so I made sure the vote was unanimous, on a Google form, so everyone’s voice got heard. We had to create a class vision (I have a hard time with these), but after all the yelling about money and cars etc, this is what they voted on for why they go to school…

And I swear, every time I read it, I get tears in my eyes.

I can do this year. I can. I may not always be graceful or happy or calm about it, but that’s maybe just how I roll. Today? Oh today is chaos. Assembly day, so short periods, with stations, one of them a lab with balls. And collisions. Yeah. Could be bad. Plus standing for the last 90 minutes of the day watching the assembly. I already have a headache. Should go take meds, hydrate. Loud noises coming. Then home to iron and read and sleep. And maybe relax.