Happy Foreseeable Future

I am very lucky to have today off. Well. Luck. I will still be working. I’ve worked the last two days; why not continue? I’m sick as well, a minor cold at least, but enough to make the working harder than I’d like. Mostly Saturday. I fell asleep on the couch, which is a perfectly healthy thing to do, even when you’re not sick. I need to grade a couple of higher-level thinking things today, plus plan more for the rest of the unit, because I feel like I’m really far behind and can’t get my head around any of it. As usual. Ugh.

So let’s think about things I do have control over (or do I?)…ironing! I’ve managed that despite the cold, although this weekend has reminded me that in the past, I could’ve ironed ALL weekend and done fuck-all with school because it didn’t take up this much of my life. So there’s that.

Friday night’s ironing…

I ironed a small green fishboy. And an embedded phone…in a leg.

Then Saturday night…

We did not go out. I wasn’t feeling great. I don’t remember what I ironed at all. There’s a bunch of little details going on all over this thing.

Sunday night I remember!

The incubator with everything in it and attached to it. I had to recut three pieces out of Wonder Under because I had numbered really badly with the overlapping tubes from the uterus to the incubator, but it’s OK. It’s done now. Some of this is just difficult to figure out in terms of what colors and how to portray what I want to show. But all that is good for me. It would be easier if I didn’t have to also figure out what to do with the light waves portion of the current unit and then next unit about space, which I haven’t even looked at. Yeah. Freaking out about some of that for sure.

So much better to think about what I’m ironing next, which is a flask (glass) with liquid in it, always problematic…reflections and all. Ironically…just like what I need to teach next. Yeah. OK.

I’d really like to be done with the ironing this week. We’re going to LA/Riverside next weekend and I’d like to be cutting things out (much more transportable)…although I have enough to cut out that it doesn’t matter if I’m done or not…I have plenty to take with me. It’s more a matter of needing to finish this one so I can move on to the next two.

I lost this piece. Then found it. Then lost it again, spent 10 minutes looking for it, couldn’t find it, decided it didn’t matter, then found it again.

It’s fucking tiny. In the scheme of this quilt, it doesn’t really matter, but the fact that it’s reappeared more than once means it does matter. So I know exactly where it is right now and will be ironing it down to something immediately before it gets lost again.

Simba guarding my leg…

Kitten rubbing her head all over things I’m grading…

She was doing the same thing a year ago. A year ago, I went to QuiltCon, which is not happening this year, because it is much further away (Atlanta). Too bad. I’m still debating Quilt National…it’s a long way, a pain to get to, expensive (the biggest issue), and during the school year. Near testing. Ugh.

These guys are friends again.

It’s nice when they’re friendly. Sometimes they’re not and it sucks. It’s mostly Luna having issues. Nova is pretty chill.

This is one of my students. She’s an English-language learner, but it turns out a lot of them don’t know what Dry January is…

Which is a good problem to have, I guess. Not sure if I should just ignore this and move on, or…?

Yeah that. Explains middle school appropriately.

OK, well the car is at the shop for an oil change and some other crap that may or may not need to be done, the boychild is officially laid off for at least three months (CalFire is weird), I have a shit ton of work to do (nothing changing there), I have a dermatology appointment so they can tell me I should’ve worn more sunscreen as a child (there wasn’t really sunscreen when I was a kid…it was SPF10 and lasted 5 minutes for a paleface like me). And I’ll be ironing later tonight. Again. For the happy foreseeable future.

Problematic…

I have once again, for the millionth or so time, made it to Friday. I would like to congratulate you, as well, for making it, although I know for some of you, Friday is just another day and not the last day in a school week that has already kicked the shit out of you and there’s probably more to come today that you don’t know about. Yet. Then I get a blessed 3-day weekend. There are things planned on the weekend, unfortunately, because I have two books to finish and a brain to mend (and possibly a body as well), plus three thousand things to grade and another four to lesson plan.

There are 49 days until Spring Break. In case you were wondering.

I made it to stitching meeting last night…I was only home, between helping to break up a fight and cleaning up a ton of lab stuff with my co-teacher, for about 20 minutes: peed and fed the dog and then got back in the car and drove north to hang out with my stitching friends. Which is always good. Our Google-search term of the month was ‘spray cheese’, something I don’t think I’ve ever had. Because apparently the Super Bowl is this weekend (did not realize). Also we solved the problem of the cats pulling down all my shirts in the closet; I just need to implement it. And everyone is making beautiful things, and I can’t show you what I was doing, because Sue Spargo hasn’t published it yet, but basically I’m doing the applique on the wool blocks and then giving them to my mom to embroider (she gets to keep the quilt once it’s done). Her birthday is next week and I’m supposed to have three more done, and that isn’t happening, but maybe one? We’ll see.

Wednesday night was sort of chaotic: got home late from the union meeting, then read for (probably too long) a while to settle my brain, then cooked late, ate late, then worked for a bit on school stuff, trying to fix the things (always fixing the things), and then went in to iron and realized I needed to enter a show or I wouldn’t have time to enter it at all, so I did that and THEN started ironing.

Which is why I only got about 41 minutes in.

I did the metal work on the leg and breasts. I did not get to the arm/hand, because it was in a different box and was a million pieces and I needed to go to bed. So I ironed something else small. An electrical plug and socket? Is that what you call the thing it plugs into? I think I call both of those plugs. That’s problematic. And probably wrong. Ah well. Don’t have the brainpower this morning to correct that shit.

Then last night, I had stitching until 8 PM, then picked up dinner for me and the Man, who worked late and was exhausted as well, then we hung out and ate for a bit, then I (guess what) did more work (answering an email from petulance) and THEN got up and ironed for another 41 minutes. I lied. Last night was 44 minutes.

Doesn’t look much different, does it? I ironed a uterus, quite a pretty one, blue and pink and red. And I don’t remember what else…oh yeah, a tattoo of a yin/yang symbol. Not much. Damn this is slow. Day job. Fucking day job. I’m still doing bits and pieces of what’s on the flesh in the torso and legs areas, but I’m close to done. And then I’ll be in the 600s box, although I’ve done some of the 700-900s already. I think the face was in the 1200s. And I still haven’t made a decision about the coloring of the extra arms, so that’s problematic. I think one wants to be teal, but I started looking for a run of light to dark teal last night, and that might be harder than I would like. We’ll see. I wanted bright and I might need to go dull. There might be an argument for dull as well, since that’s someone else’s arm and/or a 3D-printed arm and maybe teal is not as good as a gray blue that reminds one of dead things.

Still thinking that through. In case you were thinking I just randomly pick colors without thinking deeply about them.

These are the last two cover pages for science…

I’ve actually had a hard time getting these done this year; not enough time to draw and color them in class, so they just never get finished. This got further along than the last 7th-grade unit though. That’s a plus. Mostly because a bunch of the squawkers were absent and the rest were chill and working.

Fun stuff. Needs color.

Today I need to finish grading the roller coasters so we can pull them apart for next year (need to reuse the bases). Some are already falling down, but I did get video. I’ll have to process that this weekend maybe. I need to rethink forcing them to label things for next year. Not sure how I’ll roll that. But I should put the notes about it in the lesson-plan calendar, because otherwise I will fully forget about it.

Today’s a pretty chill day in both science classes…well, elephant’s toothpaste in 7th grade, but just notes and a weird video in 8th grade. Need some chill after the last four days of chaos (mostly outside the classroom, but it reverberates inside). Also taught my 4th period the word ‘hellacious’. I’ve found it very useful over my lifetime. Want to pass that wisdom on to the young ones.

With any luck, I’ll get a ton of stuff done at school today, then come home and read for a while and iron for a while, and then figure out how to do the work this weekend AND do some relaxing and sleeping so I can get through the next week. One week at a time? We might be there. One day at a time sometimes. It’s wearing…on all of us.

120 Pounds of Baking Soda…

Erg. Huh. Really. No. I really can’t. I’m in a week that should have been easier than last week but is proving not to be. Maybe it’s all the chemistry labs we’re doing (I have 120 pounds of baking soda in my car right now). Maybe it’s the roller coaster stuff on top of the chemistry, or trying to plan a light unit when I literally have no time in the day to find the brainpower to do so. It’s hard to say. I do know, and can say, that I am back in that overwhelmed place. I get out of it for a day or two, feel like I have a handle on things, and then it all blows up.

Solution? Exercise regularly. Remember to eat and take meds. Sleep. I slept all the way through last night, which is how I know I’m exhausted already even though it’s only Wednesday. And last, but certainly not least, make the art. That’s how I close the day. Hopefully for an hour…last night, it was 48 minutes. I started late. I was making seating charts for today’s 8th-grade seat switches, plus trying to figure out the revise of the wave unit. The other teacher is a week ahead of me, so he’s telling me what to change on the fly and I’m doing it. Best I can. I think I still need to punch holes in the table of contents for the new unit when I get to school, and put papers out. Didn’t have time yesterday. They moved my physical therapy appointment so that fucked all the timing up. Plus I had to go buy materials for 7th-grade demos because Amazon fucked that delivery up. At some point, I made it home, and the Man was cooking dinner, singing, and dancing (because he’d had time to relax, have a beer, watch some videos) and I was so exhausted.

Anyway. I started ironing flesh on Monday night…

I wanted bright. And bright it is. Overly pink. Usually I try to pull all the flesh pieces in one go and iron them all at once, but I have flesh in boxes 300-500 and 700-1300. So I pulled a goodly chunk (up to the neck) and ironed those, and then last night, did the arms and head. Lots of her body has metal instead of flesh, so it didn’t take as long as it normally would with a figure that large.

That was Monday’s pile…and then this is Tuesday’s pile…

Definitely bigger, even though I only added those 7 flesh fabrics. I still need to do all the stuff that’s on and around the flesh…some of which is here…

Those are hair, teeth, arteries, metal bits, embedded phones, the little creatures she’s holding, pubic hair, etc. I didn’t pull them all out of the bins because there wasn’t room. Besides, in the 1300 box, there were only 2 pieces that were flesh. The rest is all electronic or whatever. There’s also two extra arms that I need to deal with…I’m not sure how. I think they should be different colors. At first, I thought they would be flesh-colored, just a different shade of it to stand out, and I may still do that. Like where would you get spare arms in the future? Dead bodies? Or would we synthesize them (probably 3D print them, yeah?), and if so, wouldn’t we make them different colors? That would be much more fun. So that’s rolling around in my brain for tonight or the next night.

This is a fun quilt to design and make. It’s hard, because I have some dark angry stuff I want to deal with too…cop killings and beatings and political bullshit and trans rights because I just finished a book and I’m just irritable about all of that. But I know it’s also OK to make a quilt that isn’t about all that. I also know that some people never get to stop thinking and worrying about that shit and that sucks. It’s Black History Month, if you haven’t been paying attention. The Man and I finished watching Kindred (in small chunks…it’s hard to watch), and now I’m reading it, and wondering how this amazing author (Octavia Butler) grew up in my childhood neighborhood and I never knew about her until I was an adult. That all the books they gave us to read were all male white authors, our mostly female white teachers handing those to us. I had more variety in college, because I took classes about more diverse literature, feminist and queer and people of color were writing too, no duh, why didn’t we see any of it when we were younger? When it would have made a bigger difference? So many of those kids I went to school with didn’t read a thing after they left high school. The 1619 Project is next. Take advantage of the offerings this month–book lists and movies and documentaries–and open up your mind. Add to the to-read and to-watch lists. Make time for that.

OK. Now I need to go to a meeting I forgot about (didn’t click the YES button on the calendar invite…I think whatever device I was on was having issues), get my classroom ready for the day, clear one lab and prep another, plus 17 thousand other things I haven’t remembered yet (hopefully they’re all written down somewhere), plus deal with an email that just popped up confirming my eye appointment (what? I don’t have an eye appointment), then union meeting after school where I have to sit too close to people (I have issues with that; like being on the edges), and then cook dinner. Guess my state of mind after all that!. Yeah. I suspect I’ll be curled up mentally into a tiny ball. And then making art.

Fastly Better…

Whoaaa. Yeah. Morning feels. I tried to catch up on some sleep this weekend. I’ve had to take some allergy meds to try to deal with the reaction I had to adhesive tape on my knee, and the ones that aren’t supposed to make one drowsy do apparently make a small percentage of people drowsy. You know whenever you read that a small percentage of people will have a certain reaction? It’s me. Often. It really is. I’m the one in a million on many meds, and it is truly annoying. I finally went to urgent care on Saturday afternoon, because the next doctor’s appointment I could get was March 9 and she wouldn’t do anything without seeing the rash. My doc is popular? Yeah or medical clinics are short-staffed. Everyone is short-staffed. Where are all the people who used to work those jobs? If they’re all in Tahiti on a beach, I’m jealous. Hopefully they are pursuing their dream of a teahouse in the mountains somewhere or hiking the Andes or counting penguins in Chile or something. If they’re just sitting at home watching Netflix, sigh. Whatever. I can’t control all that. I can’t even always control my irritation with trying to make a doctor’s appointment for something that’s keeping me up at night.

Ironically, even after urgent care (which was helpful: new allergy med that has not been making me drowsy but isn’t as strong), the cream I needed for the rash would not be available until today. Of course. So I’ve made it through two more nights of not-quite sleep, trying not to rip the skin of my leg. It’s fine. It is slowly better. I would like it to be fastly better.

This weekend went by too fast. My right eyelid is twitching like crazy still. Maybe worse. I did get in about 4 hours of ironing though…more would’ve been nice, but I needed to grade stuff…and grade stuff I did. Head above water, but only barely.

I ironed Friday night…

After going to Liberty Station for a closing reception. I ironed arteries and a rakunk, I think. A rakunk is a hybrid skunk-raccoon invented by Margaret Atwood.

Then Saturday night, it was a bunch of bugs…

DNA bugs, a cyber/robotic bug, and a regular bug. Because there will probably still be some regular bugs in the future. They seem to have a staying power that we can’t beat.

Then last night’s ironing…

More bugs and some slime things grown in a lab and some skull flowers. I like inventing things. I’m still deep down in the dirt though…getting close to ironing flesh, but not quite. I think I’m in the 300s still…no wait, nope, still in the 300s. This is gonna take a while. I’m OK with that. I enjoy this part. It’s fun. I average just under 10 hours a week on whatever art thing I’m working on. Most nights, it’s just an hour, but I did an hour and 20 minutes last night. I had less this weekend than I wanted because I started doing my taxes…out of fear, honestly. I need to know now if I will owe money. Ironically, I made more money on copyediting and selling quilts last year than I normally do, and there may not be enough deductions to help me. So I’m panicking a bit. I’m not done though. So there’s more stuff to do. Time-consuming for sure.

Friday night’s closing reception was for this show…

They’ll be up until the 24th…and then hopefully my two will be going to Grossmont’s Hyde Gallery. We’ll see.

We stopped by Visions Museum of Textile Art for the new shows hanging there. I didn’t make it to the opening day, but this was nice. There are four different exhibits…one with Alex Gano’s fascinating work…

It’s paper and fabric…very cool.

Then Jeanie Kashima’s work about the Topaz Internment Camp, where she was born.

Ree Nancarrow’s environmental work…

This shows the changes in the environment at this tundra pond from left to right: lower water level, more sediment, supporting different plants and animals than before.

And then part of the Full Deck of quilt artists, which has been shown before, but is always enjoyable. Especially this one by Katherine Brainerd…

I also went to my quilt guild meeting and stitched a thumb and three fingers…

Finished up one science unit last week and already graded it. Finishing the other one tomorrow and will need to grade 18 roller coasters as well as the packets and academic stuff. Plus a makeup quiz that I finally got around to writing. Need to finish writing sound labs and get set up for magnets and chemistry labs this week. Exhausting trying to keep it all in my head. The car needs oil, I need the cream for the knee crap, that’s all after a 2-hour staff meeting today. I could do without that. Anyway, the taxes get done a little at a time; same with the art. I’m glad to have the art to keep me going. Wish I could do more of it.

Oh yeah, this…

I do climb on counters to reach stuff. I also often use a stepladder. I hate kitchen cupboards. I can’t reach things.

Also this…

Not sure what Steve did, but there we are.

OK. School. Prep labs for today. Get ready for stressed-out roller-coaster builders. Use my time wisely. All that.

Leaning into Bright and Crazy…

Ugh-a-rama. I did not go to the gym last night. Instead, I sat and read my book for 45 minutes. It’s quite good. Light from Uncommon Stars. You think it’s just a violin story until the aliens show up. I figured I earned it. This week has been exhausting. They all are. Barky dog at night though made it harder yesterday. He was better (slightly) last night. Then I graded for 2 1/2 hours (I did not earn that. I just have to do it.). I graded all the late and redone work from the last two weeks. It was a good thing, even though it was irritating to have to do that many more hours after I left school. It was only a 10.5+-hour day. I was standing in my room at 4-ish and couldn’t focus on anything, and one of my teacher friends was there, saying, hey, are you going home? I’m thinking, no, I should grade something, and I was so tired, so I didn’t. Came home, made cup of tea, read for a long while. THEN graded things.

It is Friday though. That’s good. I need a break from the stupid behaviors. In positive news, I had sent an email to the resource teacher for a bunch of my kids, and it resulted in those kids completing some work and their grades coming up. Yes! That’s what’s SUPPOSED to happen. For the first time in forever. So I feel good about that and will spread praise among those who need it (apparently including the teacher) so that it continues. And then add a regular email to my to-do list so it keeps happening. The work never ends.

So ironing is also happening, which I love doing. This is not something I have a hard time getting off the couch to do usually…and the best part is that I’m visualizing this quilt as bright and crazy, so I’m leaning into that.

Finished the 100s and laid out the 200s…

Followed by what I ironed on Wednesday night when I left my computer at school, which I should do more often, but I can’t afford to at the moment.

I actually didn’t iron much. I was exhausted.

Last night, I did much better, because I didn’t go to the gym and I was efficient with my time, just eating leftovers and the Man was at band practice so it was just me and the animals and quiet. So I got more than an hour in for once…

I ironed a small bizarre creature I made up in my head and then a lot of hills. Bright greens of Spring and genetically altered plant life. It’s going well. Albeit slowly.

Today at school, I’m hoping to be more efficient than yesterday (I really was braindead, although I did do the warmups for next week…well, for one of the two grades I teach anyway). I have a to-do list I wrote last night, so hopefully that will help. I have a closing reception for the show at Liberty Station tonight, and I’m hoping to stop by and see the Visions exhibit too, and then get dinner, and hopefully have enough brainpower to come home and iron. We’ll see how that goes. Certainly I’m not grading tonight or tomorrow if I can help it. We’ll see how that goes too. But I’m excited about ironing all these crazy things I drew in as many wacky colors as I can. The future world should be more colorful. Says the person who lives in black and gray. Ah well. My socks are tie-dyed. That’s how I roll.

And here’s how NASA rolls…

Specific and to the point. Happy Friday y’all.

Green Instead of Brown…

I’m semi-awake this morning. That’s interesting. I must have slept better last night. Some nights are better than others. I was definitely exhausted. Not sure why.

I didn’t bring my work computer home last night. I had a long day and I knew I wanted to go to the gym after all of it (which I did, dragging myself by the hair), so what’s the point? I have some time to grade/plan in class today for once (someone is giving a presentation), so I can give myself a night off. I also had an art show to enter and some other paperwork to do, plus something I forgot to bring home (oh well). So I did all the things I could and then started ironing a little earlier than usual. Which is nice.

Monday night, I straightened up the studio and put away the fabrics from the last quilt, which was the little one with the Christmas lights. So that didn’t take long. Then I set up for the new quilt, hanging the drawing up so I can see it…

Laid out the first 100 pieces…

They’re in piles of 10, numerical order. And laid out the detached Wonder Under bits…

Plus one unnumbered piece and one piece that was a line on the Wonder Under but had no number and pieces inside it, so I’m not sure how I fucked that up, but it will probably eventually become apparent. Probably I forgot to number it and I can use this to trace a new one without a hole in the middle. So yes, I’m somewhat of a hoarder, but there are reasons for it. Yes, I know they all say that.

I didn’t get many pieces ironed the first night…just some dirt and rocks…

Last night, I managed the right corner, mostly dirt and lava…there’s some ironed lava right there with Kitten.

Tonight I get to decide what color an iron snail would be in the future…

But before that, I have yet another early parent meeting (rescheduled from Monday afternoon), a day of 3/5 grading/not teaching and 2/5 teaching. Plus some dumbassery from yesterday that is still pissing me off. But whatever.

The boychild always tries to get Simba and Kitten to be friends, but Kitten has sharp bits and gets annoyed.

And Simba knows it.

Luna asking for pets…

And Kitten in her fabric/batting hidey hole up high…

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Gonna pack my lunch, make more tea, take meds, shove everything in a bag, and go back to school. So I can come home and iron some snails and more dirt, or maybe I’ll make it into the grassy knoll tonight. Green instead of brown. That would be good.

Mentally Chill

Please don’t ask me what day it is. Or even what year. I like to pretend I know what’s going on.

So tiny quilt progress…progress on a tiny quilt, not the other way around, although honestly, I could finish a tiny quilt in one day if I weren’t still fighting this stupid head cold that has planted its phlegmy self in my sinuses and refuses to let go. Anyway, I think it’s been a few days since I remembered I write things, so I managed to iron the quilt together…

It’s easier to do some parts off to the side and then put them on top…

Then onto the background…this was all Christmas Eve…

Then Christmas Day, we cleaned a lot and cooked a little…because we delayed a day for the boychild to get off of work…so I sandwiched and pinbasted.

Then Christmas night (which was actually Boxing Day), after all the presents and dinner stuff, I quilted it…

Super fast while everyone was asleep…

She’s got some attitude…

And then last night, I trimmed it and cut binding and sleeves…

Hopefully I’ll get those on today and get the handsewing done.

I was hoping to get some ‘models’ (aka the fam) to take a photo for me for the next quilt, but I floated the idea and there wasn’t a lot of yah sure, in fact, one fuck off (someone was in a mood), so I’m going to do some reading/research today hopefully and then start some rudimentary drawings tonight or tomorrow. It’s going to be big again. It’s better to have a big piece to work on when school starts, so there’s lots to do that’s not thinking too hard, easy to come home and just do the next step without having to work too hard at decisions. Picking fabric is an easy thing. Deciding what to make next is not. And as much as I know I should be taking a break from school stuff and not working, I also know January and February Me will appreciate it if I do some planning and grading. I took a few days off when I was too sick to do anything, but I can’t really afford big chunks of no work at the moment, not this year. It sucks, yes. I don’t have a solution, no. Teachers who aren’t working over break at all? Congratulations. Your situation is different than mine. Sigh.

Anyway, I only have three assignments left to grade, so that’s good. Next week, I’ll be spending 10 hours working with my co-teacher on that damn tobacco curriculum again, same as last year (hopefully for the last time). Somewhere between now and then, I need to finish the roller coaster project planning and plan the next unit. Most of it anyway. So yeah. Luckily the holiday bits are over and (sadly) the kids are both gone, so it is quiet during the day. Just me and the furry beasts. If only I could get motivated! And stop coughing.

In good news, or is it? I went to physical therapy yesterday for the knee and have a plan, plus a further plan if this doesn’t work. I’d like to avoid the further further plan of surgery, so I’m going with it. Also my NP was on crack, but I knew that when she kept saying arthritis. Anyway…after 6 weeks, it’s nice to at least have something that might work.

This year, I sucked at taking family photos, although here is dad with a spoon the boychild made…

Here is the girlchild with Simba, yet again…

Oh yeah, and we pulled the owl box down to clean it…

Sure enough, there was the missing owlet…

I had thought there were three early on, but only two at the end. They lay the eggs days apart, so sometimes the smallest doesn’t get enough food and becomes dinner.

I finally put more than 4 ornaments on the tree (although not a lot more)…

Simba stuck his tongue out at me…

He’s in a donut to keep him from licking his dew claw, which got hurt the other day. He doesn’t like it.

That fabric looks like my mom’s old sheets. It might even BE my mom’s old sheets. Working on a charity quilt for my quilt guild.

Only need 259 more blocks…

The back of a student’s homework sheet…’mini Nida’…I’m laughing.

I love this kid.

Kitten shoved behind me on the chair…

Nova in her new tent…

Kitten in the tube…

And us old folks (because someone else took the photo)…

I wasn’t feeling my best (Christmas Eve), but I made it out of the house. I’m a little better each day, so that’s good, and I go to the doc tomorrow, so she’ll give me antibiotics if she thinks they’re warranted. Would not recommend this cold. Nope. Nuh uh.

Today? I need to ship the girlchild’s jacket she remembered once she got to the airport. I need to get some boxes to ship fabric to some places (donations). I need a sprinkler to replace the broken one and a lightswitch knob to also replace the broken one. I need to read my book. I need to maybe plant some milkweed seeds. I am actually going to an exercise class tonight, first one in 10 days (yeah, I was that sick). Looking forward to it. Plus put the binding on this little quilt and go read some stuff about magnets and planets. Not together. Shit. Should take a shower too. My plans of drawing every day over break? Completely fucked so far. Maybe try now? We’ll see. The momentum is gone. Sucks.

Hoping your week between the weirdness of the gifty holidays and the drinky holidays is going well. Chill. Or at least mentally chill with the power on so you don’t actually have to be cold.

Really Slowly

Hello Christmas Eve! Actually tomorrow is our Christmas Eve. Or something. This year is too confusing.

I had this plan to be drawing every day during break. Not happening. No brain power for it. I get through a few errands and then need to lie down for a while. I am improving, but it’s slow and torturous. What is this thing? The same cold that everyone else has that’s wiped out the cold medicine section at my grocery store. I finally found more of the stuff that lets me sleep through the night without coughing, so that’s a plus. The rest is more about…well…rest. I need lots of it apparently. So the to-do list languishes. Or gets done really slowly. The physical stuff will have to wait until I have some energy back.

I’m doing a little art stuff every day, not hours of it like I would like to. Ah well. The little piece got ironed to fabrics over 24 hours…

There’s not a lot to it, but I wasn’t feeling well, so I did most of it Thursday night…

And then finished it on Friday night…

Only 33 fabrics…some of which were only used for one piece. Then I cut them all out…

With the idea of ironing them together this afternoon, but I did a bunch of other things (made sourdough starter pancakes to freeze, for the first time since August, wrapped the last of the Xmas stuff, graded two assignments, tried to make sense of another one, showered…that was exhausting)…and now I need a nap. We have one family gathering this evening and I’m already tired. I’m also still short on milk and couldn’t find eggnog, although I can make that from scratch if I have to…I’ve done it before. Probably my body is adamantly telling me what I need (as I half fall asleep here in the chair). Should maybe listen. Just 20 minutes for a snooze, eh?

You can see how the drawing isn’t happening. No energy to clean either; that has to happen tomorrow. We got skunked the other night and half the rooms still reek of it. Luckily Southern California has blessed us with lovely weather (sorry y’all) and the windows are open to dispel the smell.

I Zoomed with friends on Thursday night and made a fence and some veggies…

Do I fix the lumpy carrot or let it be its realistic lumpy self? Who knows.

Simba loves everyone being home…

Although the boychild is back at work until Monday and the girlchild was gone all yesterday, which is why I got his loving attention.

Kitten wasn’t having any of it…

She does RBF well.

This morning, Simba got one of his favorite people on the couch…

He was communing with his other doggie friends, passing the word along in boofy paragraphs.

OK. I can lie down and read for a while. Then go find some milk and maybe eggnog. We are food shopping tomorrow like nutcakes. It’s OK. I wrangled meat yesterday from a big guy who was sure I wanted it all cut up (I didn’t) and then winked at me at the end. Ugh. I don’t know whether to laugh my old chubby ass off at that or be creeped out (or both, which is where I’m at right now). Then off to the Man’s fam for a gathering that will be all noise and color and bright, like holidays are, which sometimes my brain appreciates. I’m hoping to get there in the next 3 hours. Until then, hello couch, hello book, hello pajamas. And hoping everyone gets some time to do what they want with whomever they want, furry beast or otherwise.

Fake Words…

My lord how is it only Wednesday. Also, brain, let me sleep. If I wake up to pee, it is not because I want to do a deep dive on how to plan the next unit. I really just wanted to pee and be asleep, honestly, as soon as I get back into bed, maybe sooner. Sleepwalking to pee seems OK to me, as long as I’m in the right place during and after.

Today is egg drop for three classes, something tsunami-related for two classes (and trying to get my last period of the day on track is hell on wheels…11 were absent Monday, 5 on Friday, and if you didn’t do Friday’s stuff, you can’t do Monday’s stuff, and if you didn’t do Monday’s stuff, you couldn’t do yesterday’s stuff, blah blah blah that class makes me want to quit 3 out of 5 days a week). Yeah. That. Friday was actually delightful because without those kids, the class was normal. NORMAL. Yesterday it was like wild animals had infiltrated the school.

Sigh. Three more days. I will still have to work a ton over break to try to get ahead in January (and February? Maybe?), but I won’t have to deal with the kids or the daily bullshit. Speaking of shit, I almost said it in class yesterday (it happens; even teachers slip), but corrected to ‘shinole’…pronounced ‘shi-know-lay’. IDK where this comes from, but it worked. The two I was working with (just edited myself out of a wide variety of nouns there) started yelling “She SWORE!” and I’m like, “I said ‘shinole’. What swear word is that?” Apparently I should be using the word ‘shinola’, which does mean shit. Imma stick with the fake word.

I came home early and went to the gym. I needed to. It’s kind of crazy how many Tuesdays I come home and need to go to the gym. I’m glad to have that. Then I cooked dinner and did some more applique for this secret project I’m doing, and then ironed the rest of the pieces down on the current quilt.

Here’s what I did Monday night…

Almost done…closeup of the Earth head…

Lots of details that need a stitching line. There’s some chaos here.

Then last night, the vomit…

Glad I picked black instead of green…

I ironed each of the little things together, then put the vomit down and put them all on top. At that point, it was almost 10:30, my arbitrary stop point, but I was fairly sure it would iron down quickly, so I just did it.

It needs a steam ironing, but otherwise, I’m ready for stitchdown. Also I’m tired. It only took a few more minutes to get it done though. And now I’m braindead. Maybe if I get more tea in me. Probably not though. We’ll see.

I forgot I did this Sunday night…although I messed up the fence.

It’ll be fine. I’m just needleweaving wider posts than were called for. It’s not the end of the world.

One of my students made this cat sculpture for me…

With tiny mousies…

She’s very creative. Sells them to other students. Also gave me two stickers yesterday…science-y ones. I appreciate her.

OK. Some crazy crap…shinole…going on today. I have a union meeting after school and then a book club zoom after that. Not sure when I will have time to do anything. But hopefully more ironing tonight. I need to put a label on another quilt, so I’m going to do that first, because it has to be delivered to a show this week. Thank goodness for friends who pick up art for me, because I couldn’t figure out when I was picking up from one show, and someone agreed to do it for me. Good stuff.

Not in This Class…

Aargh. OK, I have my ugly Christmas sweater(sweatshirt) on. It has T. Rex on it. Setting fire to a Christmas tree. I’m bringing Christmas cards and cookies to school today for a variety of gift things we are doing for staff. We have a 2-hour staff meeting after school today, but it’s at a local restaurant and there will be drinks, food, and gifts (nice actually…too bad I’m tired and not in the mood…hopefully that will change when I get there). It’s dark and fucking gloomy here…a needed winter rainstorm has dropped a little over half an inch with more to come (makes getting to school fun, plus getting the 17 things out of my car also fun). There is only a week of school until break, though, and I managed not to work most of Saturday, so that was a plus. I did iron though…

That was Friday night. That’s when my iron died, so some of those things are not actually ironed down…

This was Saturday, after I bought a new iron…which I still haven’t used, because the old one resurrected itself. Fucker. I did this in the afternoon, because the Man had a show that night that I went to, and I was way too exhausted afterward. I figured that would happen, so made sure I ironed for an hour or so in the afternoon.

I had already recut this piece Friday night…or maybe even Thursday. But I found it Saturday afternoon.

On the floor near the light table, so I’d dumped it out at some point accidentally (that’s where I sort) and it sat there, on the floor, for days and nobody noticed. Fun facts.

Last night, I had to iron some tiny things that go on top of stuff, so that’s easier to do in a section and then iron it on top…because I can’t really see through the fabric to figure out where everything goes. Tiny cars. Tiny factory spewing smoke…

This is what I got done Sunday…

Both arms done, she has cloud hair and a rocket taking off her head, plus one arm is a wildfire and the other is a highway. I’m in the 400s…just the head and all its crazy details and then the sun and the vomit. Oh yeah. There’s vomit. Might be the first time I’ve done vomit? Maybe? Maybe not. I know I’ve drawn it…just can’t remember if it’s showed up in an actual finished piece. I draw a lot more than make it into quilts.

Saturday night’s band pic…in costume…

And actually playing…

I think my ears finally popped last night…definitely should stand further away from the speakers. Maybe. This was an old crowd…older than me, mostly. Their next show is Friday night. I should be exhausted again by then.

The El Cajon parrots visited my eucalyptus trees yesterday…something tasty in the flowers. They are loud and boisterous.

That one is hanging upside down.

We did Sunday dinner at the parentals…Simba enjoyed some Grandma time…

He’s not allowed on the furniture. She says. He seems happy where he is.

Trying to work yesterday. I’m the damn teacher, Google. It’s me.

I talked to me.

Will I be allowed to sleep over break? I suspect not…

And our winter is never snowy. Although it’s apparently hailing somewhere in San Diego right now. Just raining here. So far.

Kitten just sleeps through it all.

I need to figure out where she’s sleeping right now so I can give her meds. Plus find my boots and my raincoat. I loaded all the crap in my car last night, bunch of folders I ordered for January that I need my TA to put labels on, plus some garland for the stupid door decoration, plus some rubber balls and pompoms for labs in January, and chips for the two classes that earned them, and cookies, and lunch, and IDK what the hell else. Water and goldfish for me. Make 8th grade write hard things (ugh), then make 7th grade write easier things (they will complain just as hard). It’s OK…tons of them will be absent because they are always absent when it rains. Wednesday is chicken egg drop…that’ll be fun. Or messy as hell. Maybe still fun. IDK. We’ll see.

I’m looking forward to getting that quilt ironed down in the next two days, then starting stitchdown. It needs to get done.