Revising…

There is currently a cat head under my elbow. I’m not sure why. Kitten needs lots of attention these days. Usually she jumps up on the table, puts her butt in front of me for a second, and then moves on to the nice sleeping place behind the fabric. Today I get cat headbutts…she has now moved to the table and is headbutting my chin as I type. OK. Now she just bit me. Because I was petting her wrong. Sigh. Calicoes. They are cantankerous.

This weekend. Pro: finished a bunch of shit. Con: didn’t finish all of it. My quilt guild had their first in-person birthday…our first meeting was supposed to be in April of 2020. So it was our 2-year birthday when we finally had a party…

We did a little printing project, which was cool…

Also, on Saturday, I delivered two quilts that will be in the California Fibers’ show Inside Out that is opening at Visions Art Museum on April 16. I went to my guild meeting. I came home and mopped floors and did some other stuff, then went to another art meeting, came back, and hiked 3 miles.

The hike was good. The meetings were good. It was weird to see so many people in such a small space for the second meeting. So many unmasked people in a small space. And a few of the people who didn’t come emailed about testing positive. I’m getting on a plane this Friday…I don’t want to get sick before then…so I’m still one of the few teachers at school who is wearing a mask. Plus I saw my parents last night…sigh.

In quilt news, I got a little ironing in on Friday night…

More sky, a rocket ship, the stuff around the face.

Then Saturday night, I did the rest…

Got the face done…the hawk…

And the rest of the sky. Then last night, I pieced a background and ironed it all down…

I need to do a little more steaming before I do stitchdown, but that’s 22 hours of ironing there. As my dad said, it’s pretty colorful. I wasn’t expecting that, but the sky really had an effect on the piece. Yes it’s weird that I don’t really know what it looks like until I get to the end…and even now, all the outlining that will happen when I quilt it will change it again.

So revising my goals on this thing once again…get the stitchdown done this week and get it sandwiched and pinbasted before I leave for Boston (that’s 4 nights I have…ha! Oh my). Then I am home for exactly two days, if I’m lucky, before the end of Spring Break. Can I finish it before the deadline? I don’t know. Probably not? But I’ll try. I’ll finish it anyway, and it will go somewhere…but this school year is still kicking my butt. I’ll be glad to have a break next week. Some reading, some hiking, some stitching, some change of scenery. All good.

All That Hope…

Three years ago on April 1, we were lighthearted enough to switch classes at school. I taught history for one period, someone taught my science class. It was April 1 and we would only answer to the name of the teacher we were supposed to be. Two years ago, we were scrambling to deal with COVID and school. We were supposed to be going on Spring Break, but we had sent everyone home, and our district wasn’t ready for us to come back, so there was 5 weeks of a break that didn’t feel like a break. Last year, I was all virtual, never left the house, teaching art and science on Zoom, so April Fools didn’t even rank on my priority list. Today, we talked about things to do at school, but this group of post-COVID kids (are we post-COVID when I’ve had at least one positive case in my class in the last week?) is currently a bit out of control and we’re not gonna rock that boat. We’re gonna hope none of the kids do either.

Today is a mess. My car needs work before we take off camping in less than two weeks. I need to run errands after work, but I won’t have my car until 5:30. Tomorrow is chock full of stuff, and there are some things I need to do tonight to get ready for that. How late is Home Depot open? I’m hoping to have the energy to do all the things. As always. Really, I just want to read my book. As always.

I haven’t actually gotten much ironing done in the last two nights. I was fairly efficient on Wednesday night, despite dealing with exercise class and vet after school. I got everything in the torso done…

And then pulled it all off the teflon sheets and readjusted it so I could work on the upper half.

I did a little bit of the mountains above her shoulders and the neck. Ready for the sky up there…I think I have less than 200 pieces left? I have about half the 400s (all big sky pieces mostly), then about half the 1200s and maybe 30 in the 1300s. Very doable for tonight, once I get everything else done that I need done for tomorrow. I have two quilts to prep for drop off at a show, but I’m realizing I don’t know when pick up is for the other show in the same venue. I was expecting to hear from them, but I haven’t. Ugh. Can’t pick up on the same day I think? I’ll email.

Yup. Just emailed. Feel like the next week is going to be a level of chaos that I will not appreciate. The right eye isn’t QUITE twitching, but it’s close.

Kitten telling me that she did not appreciate not getting her breakfast on Wednesday before going to the vet.

She’s an old lady and we now get to deal with some special foods for her, but she’s still rambunctious (almost killed The Man who was trying to take her to the vet).

With any luck, I’ll get this quilt ironed to a background this weekend and start the stitchdown. Hopefully. I don’t see how I’m going to get her quilted and bound and photographed in time for the deadline, not if I’m gone for days. I need Spring Break away from home, though. I need to get out in nature and freeze to death in a tent and cook over a tiny stove and hike into some open spaces before I can finish out the school year. When we get back from Spring Break, there are 38 days of school left. Eight weeks. It’ll be the longest 8 weeks of the year, but it won’t be endless. There’s always an end. For this quilt. For this school year. Hopefully for COVID. Hopefully for the Russian attack on the Ukraine. Can I get some bigger hopes in here? For racism and sexism and all discrimination, and climate change and dictators and nuclear threats and all of it. Yeah. Better to start Friday with all that hope than to look at that to-do list and panic.

What an Hour Looks Like…

I’m constantly thinking in blocks of time. An hour for this, an hour for that. An hour looks like this…no wait, that was half an hour…

For one Joshua tree. An hour is the two of them…

Actually, I think it was only 45 minutes on Monday night…and I can’t remember if I’d already done the little bushes (creosote? no…something else) on her arm…

I think that was also Monday night. If it wasn’t clear by now, I decided to fill in the entire torso before moving up into the sky. So my numbering was not ideal. It’s OK. I’m working with it.

Last night, I got well into the 1100s…this is a little over an hour of cactus…

Lots of greens, lots of bits and pieces. Looks like tonight is more agave, lots more agave, and a lizard. Then I’ll need to pull all of this off the teflon sheets and reattach it so I can iron the top together. I’m getting there…much slower than I wanted to, but it will all be OK in the end. Eight more days of school until Spring Break, although I will have very little time to work on this over break. I rarely miss deadlines I choose (I sometimes miss them because I forget about them), but this might well be one of them.

When I go to the gym, this guy is there, sleeping in the parking lot.

I’m not sure why. He has a chair, nice hat and jacket ensemble. Cooler for his feet? I think? I wonder if his kid is practicing baseball on the field behind my car. Why not park closer? Why not sleep in your car? Not sure I understand. Maybe that’s not his car? I have questions.

I also think of this as The Panicking…but The Fuckening sounds better.

And this guy…he is apparently 7 years old.

I think of him as permanently The Puppy. Like Kitten…she is 13 and is going to the vet today for an ultrasound. I am worried about it; plus it costs a lot of money. I’m short money right now, but it will be on the next credit card bill, so I will just hope there is magical money by then. She is currently headbutting me because I didn’t feed her breakfast, per doc instructions. I’ve explained it to her, as you do, and she just does not understand. But she gets lots of pets instead.

So labs today…and a lost prep period (so many meetings). Plus shipping something, picking up the cat, exercise class. Then back to ironing. Another hour? I have other computer/art things I need to do tonight, so I can’t commit to more than an hour, unfortunately. We’ll see. If I’m not exhausted when I get home (I will be), maybe I will be more efficient (unlikely, but let’s not give up on that notion yet). Certainly I can finish the agave and that lizard tonight at least. Maybe more. One more hour’s worth.

Couldn’t Find the Fingernails…

After a million years of teaching (and being me), I’ve tracked down the tells that I am stressed, besides yelling out “I am stressed” in the car or the house, which I do often, unfortunately. My body clues me in by refusing to fall asleep even when exhausted, but making my eyelids twitch (haven’t hit that one yet, knock on wood), the inevitable teeth grinding (started in college; froze my jaw in Freshman year), and the random canker sores. I only get them when I’m stressed out. And they last a week and are quite uncomfortable, despite medications. I guess other people get stomach issues; is this better? I don’t know. I tend toward frustrated mutterings to myself that YES, I KNOW I’m stressed. I up the exercise and the artmaking and reading, trying to make it better, but really, I just need a break from school usually. The symptoms of stress do tend to show up before breaks, so that’s a thing. In this case, though (lack-of-sleep exhausted and canker-sored), I need to get through two whole weeks before I get a break.

The plus is that I finally finished my taxes. I had to add the art sales in as a separate thing, so that complicated shit this year. Normally I don’t, but I’m no longer head of household for the boychild (he’s too old! and employed), so I need to find tax breaks for the extra income. It’s not a lot, but I can’t afford to pay any taxes this year with the septic and all. I managed to mostly balance the state and federal taxes…hopefully the state will pay me in time to pay the feds. Perhaps the feds could take less of my money too…so many deductions they are no longer allowing. I guess the middle class and those with super tiny businesses on the side are not the blessed ones…haven’t been for a while. I hope the financially challenged are getting the breaks instead of me. But now that I know I need to keep track of that side business (as well as the copyediting one), I’ll be better about keeping track of deductions. It’s not a bad thing to have extra money coming in…I’d just like to not have to spend it all on emergency repairs and taxes.

I still have a couple semi-urgent things to get through this week, and next weekend is a cluster…how to be in ALL the places at once. And then I fly to Boston to see the girlchild. And then camping and hiking with the man. Need the break. Need time to think and sleep and read and draw. Need a day where I’m not focused on how much work I can get done before the next batch shows up. The power went out Saturday morning for a couple of hours, but the outage map was claiming all day, and I freaked out…so much to do and almost all of it required electricity and access to my desktop computer. It turned out OK, and I got some ironing and hiking in, so that was good.

Friday night’s ironing of an arm and some plants…

I couldn’t find the fingernails until I went through the trash pile (reasons why I don’t throw it out until the quilt is done…I often drop things in it that need to be cut out because I am not paying attention)…

Whoops. I also found the bush parts missing from the first 100 pieces (too late; already recut them) and another part I needed. Who knows what else is hiding in there?

Saturday afternoon, after grading a bunch and panicking a lot, I did a few more plants…

And then went on a 4-mile hike…a hike I needed.

Lots of tiny wildflowers about…

No poppies yet…usually they cover the hillsides…not enough water yet or still too cold.

Yes, some of the stones are under water…

I managed it without getting my socks wet…all good.

And then came back, made dinner, and ironed some more plants…

Oh yeah, and a bat. That got me into the 800s, or almost done with them. I still have half the 400s to do once I get back to the sky.

Last night, I only had a little time, just under 45 minutes, so I did some pupfish…

Barely into the 900s now. I keep revising my completion date. Definitely gonna be tight. If at all…ah well, deadlines are just a place at which to aim. If I miss it, I’ll enter it elsewhere.

But my plan this week is to finish ironing (that was last week’s plan) and stitchdown. Ha! That should be interesting. Saturday is already gone. Sunday is half gone. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

This week is three days of labs in a row plus starting a new art project while harassing kids to finish the two they already have. Plus grading all the things and trying not to stress more about school and money. Property taxes are also coming up. Pretty sure I can pay those once I get paid. Need to write a script for a lightning talk (plus record that…dunno when that’s happening). Need to find quilts to deliver for a show. Need to enter two things. Need to do some cleaning. Some grading. Yeah. All the things. Need to do some meditation in between all that. Wish me luck.

Trying to Stabilize…

Struggled to sleep last night. School…the district…the dumbassery of nuclear weapons. Hey, let’s destroy the Earth so we WIN! I am disheartened this morning. I’ve had some good news lately; hopefully more on that in a little bit. I’ve also had a pile of disappointing news about school and some downright stressful news about Kitten. The latter is going to cost money…of course…the one thing I’m really stressing about at the moment. I am going to try to come home and walk tonight…and hike tomorrow, although the man has a show and I have a shit-ton of work on all sides to get through. I’m trying not to panic about that…one thing at a time. Go to school and do the things there first. Come home and walk somewhere.

I have been ironing more at night. Perhaps I should have done some of my taxes last night instead of ironing for 3+ hours, but I had a stitching meeting, so I can’t do taxes during that, and trying to do them after 9 PM seems dangerously close to making lots of mistakes. So I chose art.

The mule deer after the lizard…

Oh yeah, and that hare…

And a bobcat. Stitching will make them stand out.

Got the whole bottom put together on Wednesday night.

Then last night, I tried to do the sky. The plan was to just iron the whole thing, but ironing up both sides and trying to keep the bottom aligned when it’s wider than the ironing board was becoming a major (frustrating) issue). So I skipped half of the 400s and went into the 500s, figuring if I got the torso between the sides ironed, it would stabilize the two sides and let me continue up.

It’s still a bit wibbly wobbly though. I did all the 500s, which were mostly snake and spider details, plus rocky ribs…and now I’m thinking I should do the arms first and just get this section done, and then continue up. So that means putting the rest of the 400s back in a box so I have room to pull the 600s.

Meanwhile, I need to do my taxes…but here’s the whole chaotic thing right now.

Yup. That’s chaos. More tonight. More tomorrow. I don’t know if I can finish this before Spring Break, and I’m gone for most of that. Hopefully. If we can afford to even do the trip. Ugh. Sigh. I need to get out of here, but I also need to be able to pay the bills. And be sane. Whatever that is right now. Tenuous place. It is Friday, though.

And we have owl videos…

We moved the camera so we could see the entrance better. There must be eggs in there, possibly even babies, although it might be too soon for that. Mostly we see one owl, but occasionally both.

There’s lots of swooping we hear in the yard. Sorry bunnies. Not sorry rats.

I hope we get good baby pictures.

So I need to go to school. I know some of the news is gonna hit today. I will get an answer (probably not one I like) about one of the others probably today. I will get through the curriculum and try not to feel completely disheartened by all of it. I’ll try not to think about war and nukes for at least a few hours. I know I will get exercise and ironing tonight. And I will have some socializing tomorrow in between all the taxes and other stuff. I have a home. The bathrooms are mostly clean (thanks to the Man). I don’t have to cook tonight (also thanks to the Man). I can make art because no one is currently bombing my country. There are owls in my yard taking care of babies. These are good things.

Ironing Weeds…

I’m always sort of boggled to see that two days have passed and I have only taken three pictures of my progress and/or daily life. That’s why I borrowed the girlchild’s photos for the Inspired by Architecture class…I literally didn’t have time to go take photos of architecture, unless it was my house, school, or the grocery store. Maybe the gas station. It’s not that I couldn’t have made those work…I just wanted to feel inspired honestly, and that’s hard in my daily life at the moment.

I am ironing at night though. Last night was hard…everything ran much later than I thought it would (my fault), so I didn’t get home earlier and I was tired and so I only got 45 minutes in. The night before, though, was well over an hour, wait, almost 2 hours, so that’s a balance right there. I was hoping for more every night, though. That’s on me.

This is where we’re at in the year though. We had an assignment with post-its and I found this one on a table. My first instinct is to copyedit it, of course…probably in class.

All of us teachers are bitches at some point. At least they spelled that right. I also got one penis drawing, anatomically incorrect of course. Middle-schoolers are nothing if not incredibly predictable.

So besides the daily commentary from kids on how school sucks and how each of us is the hardest teacher ever and gives us the most work…so far, we aren’t seeing any crazy outbreaks of COVID, despite the unmasking. Lots of kids still wear masks. A few teachers do. One went home sick yesterday, so I’m curious how this will all continue to play out. Personally, this bitch as hoe (sic) is just trying to survive the 13 days of teaching that are left before Spring Break.

The almost two hours of ironing ended up being the fussy rocks, the tortoise, and the owl…

Which will all look better when they are outlined appropriately with thread.

Then last night, I managed a coyote, a lizard, and some cactus…

There’s nothing fast about this process…although sometime tonight or tomorrow night, I’m gonna slap the sky together in about 100 really big pieces and it’s going to look much different. But for now, I’m still in the tiny little weeds (sometimes literally, I’m ironing weeds on there). I think there’s a hare and a bobcat in the future here.

I was gonna say something about not having to cook tonight, but I think I’m cooking tonight. Shit. OK. Well aim for the 45 minutes of ironing again, yeah? Actually, aim for an hour. It’s a good thing I thought about that. Meat was still in the freezer. Plus I’m sort of almost not really caught up with grading. I’m at least at a point where I’m not panicking about it any more. I’m sure that will change soon, but for right now, I’m breathing. OK, I also have a meeting this morning, but then my prep is for all the late work the panicked kids are turning in (oh wait, you GRADE the shit we do?). Hopefully I’ll get it all done and start grading unit packets. Then exercise, cook, and iron. Repeat.

Unfunded…

I’m at that stage of the school year where every morning is exhaustion. Friday was fun with microscopes, but a lot of running around and then trying to get kids focused, then some adult drama that I could do without. This week has some ups and downs for what we’re teaching…today and tomorrow will be a bit of a slog, no matter what I do to prepare them (and me). But I did everything I could this weekend to be ready for it.

I also did a lot of art, which was nice. I even took a class in something I never would have done if my guild weren’t doing it. So that was good. It’s always good to stretch a little to see if something new will work.

So the current quilt…Friday night, so close to done (not really…there are a lot of pieces left in there…they’re just small)…

Saturday night we went to an art opening and got freaked out by small space, lots of people, but then came home and watched a movie and I cut out the rest…

That’s 21 hours and 21 minutes of cutting. Very precise. You want to know how I price my quilts? By my time.

It wasn’t too late yet, so I sorted them too…

So many tiny pieces. You can see the 400s box has most of the big sky pieces in it. Everything else is small as fuck. I know, I know…I designed the thing. I’m the one who is also hoping it’s done in time, but who the hell knows.

And then last night, I started ironing it together…

Somehow I lost a bunch of tree parts already. They could be in the couch, they could never have been cut out (I found one in the pile of trash I save for just these reasons). Who the fuck knows. I don’t. Kept ironing though…

I’m 150 pieces (approximately) in. My goal this week is to get it ironed. Of course, my schedule and exhaustion levels might not help with that. Plus that grading thing. Whatever. Those tiny animals though…they are a time-consuming thing. I have a tortoise and an owl to do tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all looks though…I never see it in full color until it’s ironed, except in my head.

The class I took was on Zoom with David Owen Hastings…Inspired by Architecture. I borrowed pictures from the girlchild’s travels, although she’ll be hard-pressed to tell what photo I used.

I could make all of those, but I probably won’t. I cut out the pieces for another one…not one of these…it’s somewhere else. In a pile.

David was a great teacher, lots of info, nicely timed, feel good about the process, although it is incredibly outside of my wheelhouse.

I couldn’t help but put some hand-stitching in there. I’m not sure modern is my thing, but it was an interesting class. Certainly this was faster than my normal process.

I was hoping an art reset would help with this week. Maybe it will. I know I came home Friday night incredibly stressed and overwhelmed. I finished grading one thing that might help with the mindset…although there are other things coming to take its place. One of the issues was my septic. The pumpout this year went fine, but my tank is old and there were some issues…the issues started at being around $1200, and now are a partial rebuild…so 5 times that.

I guess it’s a good thing I sold two quilts…I can pay for this and probably my taxes and maybe my property taxes, maybe? But the summer is now unfunded. That’s really how teachers look at summer sometimes…unfunded.

So there’s a bit of panic in my head. I’ll get through. Just unexpected.

Part of trying to reset my mind was cleaning my studio up for yesterday’s class. I had pieced three of these, so I did the other three.

This is from the Molli Sparkles Cut It Up Quilt-Along. I’m way behind, but that’s OK, because it’s just a fun thing I’m doing. When you make the corner pieces, there are leftover triangles. I hate to waste, so I pieced them all…

I’ll trim them up and put them in the quilt somewhere. You can see that mostly I was doing complementary colors: blue/orange, red/green, purple/yellow. Guess that art degree paid off.

Ah yes, well school starts soon. Back to the chaos. And it’s a hot week, so hopefully they can finally get my A/C really running, instead of ignoring actual class temperatures and going on after school is out. Somewhat frustrating. Three more weeks until Spring Break. It also means I think I only have three weeks to finish this quilt. That could be problematic. Ah well…if I don’t finish for one deadline, it will go to another show, won’t it? Yeah. It will. I am frustrated by my inability to get art done this year (and last year…see the pattern?). My day job is taking too much time. More than usual. Sigh. OK. Well. Tonight I dedicate time for art. Hopefully.

The Overwhelmedness…

Y’all, I’m feeling the overwhelmedness this morning. I was also feeling it last night at 1 AM when I was trying to sleep but the to-do list was screaming at me. I know the solution: bang some shit out, get it done, cross it the fuck off the list, run a marathon, come back, and finish the rest of it. Yeah. I know. I have limits. I’m not always sure what they ARE, but I have them. For instance, maybe agreeing to re-copyedit this book (quick readthrough!) in March was a mistake. Maybe signing up for a lightning talk…now see, that one’s deadline moved up a good 12 days. I could have done it without freaking out about it, and now I’m gonna have to freak out about it. I just need to be the most efficient bitch in the world for about two weeks…same thing I told myself two weeks ago.

School is always a big stressor. This year, of course it’s more than normal. Hoping this is not the new normal. Add Job#3, the copyediting, that’s a bad plan while I’m teaching. Ah well. It’s done. I have to do all the things. Today is school, vet with two animals, copyediting, hopefully some artmaking, certainly some grading, possibly some sort of mental breakdown in the middle of it? We’ll see. Checking on that one. Tomorrow is a lot of work, plus house stuff, plus ship a small sold quilt (good news!), and a social event or two in the evening (can’t be simple; has to be complicated). Then Sunday, we lose an hour, I still have all my school work to do, plus going to see the parents for the first time in a while. Then back to school. Chaos. It’s all good. I do just want to hole up and read my book, but we’ll have to see where that fits. Also, there’s no hike in that list. There needs to be a hike in that list. Fuck. Not sure when and where. But hike.

I was lucky to stitch last night with friends. Enjoyed it. Forgot to take a picture of what I did. Now waiting for app to update. I’ll insert photo here. Let’s just say it’s supposed to say Town Hall, but this is what I really felt like.

Also, I slammed my hand into a door jamb yesterday like an idiot, and it swelled up hugely almost immediately. Swelling is down, I can move all my fingers, but the bruise is going to be stupendous. It’s all good.

In other news, Wednesday night, I got the face ironed to fabric…

I think those blues are the river running through it. It was my birthday on Wednesday, so I now have some reading to do…always appreciate books.

And postcards from the girlchild…plus a truly impressive trilobite from the boychild. I suspect they have my number, as it were.

Then last night, after stitching from friends and lying around on the couch like a beached walrus for a bit, staring at owl videos, I finally surfaced and finished ironing the hawk down to fabrics…this is all that was left.

And yes, I stayed up late to do it. Dammit. Fuck Job#2…art is Job #1.

Here’s all the fabrics I used. A TON of browns, greens, grays, and other earth tones.

I’ve already started cutting pieces out, or that box would be more full. I ironed for a whopping 27 hours and 44 minutes. All that realism kicked my butt. Next one will be fantastical as hell. Nothing real. All in my head. Whenever I get to do that one.

OK. School. Two or three docs to make, all the things to copy, grading if I can persuade kids to work without standing on them (ha!), then race home and grab two furry beasts, take to vet, come back, probably more walrusing on the couch, then copyedit. SLEEP. Damn those nextdoor kids if they are up early on Saturday morning. I will be dropping rocks by drone near enough to their sweet little raucousing heads that they run inside to play violent video games instead of wholesome outdoor fun.

Yeah. You know I wouldn’t do that.

Divisible by 11…

Wednesday. March 9, 2022. Hello age 55. Not so bad. I like numbers that are divisible by 11. Yes, I numerology my age. Why not? 54 was pretty…not in reality, but it could have been worse. Hoping 55 includes PEACE ASAP (I know Putin reads my blog…he seems the type), COVID fucking off, kids figuring out how to be at school again, and more free time. ALWAYS with the free time. As I copyedited last night after work. And will do so again tonight. It’s OK. My choice. I do wish someone would clean my bathrooms though. That would be cool.

But for today, the day with a parent-teacher conference for a kid I seriously worry about and who drives me bonkers on a daily basis…oh wait, this is the day I don’t have him in class…so not today. This is also the day of a union meeting, so Zoom for an hour plus. Ugh. For today, though, getting older is not so big a deal.

I now have the overlap of Still Ironing Wonder Under to Fabrics with Cutting Out Fabrics. So I will never see the bin full of ALL the fabrics after ironing, but I am being more efficient with my time. All good.

I ironed a lot of cactus on Monday night.

I had to consider what was in front and what was behind, plus what were the real colors of the cactus (I may have fucked with that slightly…).

Last night, I ironed the rocks behind her arms and up into her hair…

I used that purplish fabric on the left for the first (and probably last) time in the whole quilt. I’m getting close to the end…just her neck and face and then the hawk. So many fabrics!

So many greens really. And browns. Should be interesting to see it all come together. Kitten seems interested anyway.

I feel like the next quilt needs to have a million bright colors in it.

This is true. My new bras are less easy to get off with a shirt on, but I can do it.

Years of practice. Personally think bras should all go away, but I am still a middle-school teacher and that’s a thing. Boobs. Boys. It’s just problematic. The girls worry (WORRY) that I never wear a dress to school. WTF. I don’t think any of their teachers wear dresses to school. Seriously.

And this?

I know who one of them is…the Man falls asleep incredibly quickly. Lucky. So annoying.

OK, today is chaos. Two different labs, teaching art in the middle of that with a new (not new) group of kids (it’s mostly my advisory and 3 6th graders and one kid I’ve had all year). Need to switch out lab materials halfway, for some definition of halfway. Plus the two meetings. Yeah. It’s OK. It’s a sunny day, I have my lunch made, I get a prep period at the end of the day to try to get my head straight (and grade everything). I’d love to come home and go for a walk, but it’s not in the cards today. Or tomorrow. But I’ll have some good food that someone else cooked and I’ll do some cutting and ironing (and copyediting, which equals paycheck). We good.

Juggling…

It’s been a busy weekend…did a ton of grading and schoolwork-like stuff, made it to a quilt meeting, cut out a bunch of pieces, ironed some more, hiked for a bit, drove to a closing reception, sold a quilt (that was fun)…still not done with grading…or ironing…or cutting things out. But I have money to pay for the septic fix now (yay!) and the current quilt in progress is further along, and I should be able to finish grades today, one hopes, because they are due tomorrow.

Meanwhile, acknowledging Ukrainians trying to escape war and/or save their country from invasion while Russia behaves like a big asshole. So there’s that. On my mind, always. I have a newswatcher in the house, so even though I am gone for hours on end, I will get the summary at the end of the day. It doesn’t seem like it will end well. Certainly it has already ended badly for many. Sigh.

Meanwhile, here in San Diego, I ironed a little on Friday night, exhausted…

I’m in the 1000s…getting close. I got home late, because I stayed at school to grade all the art assignments and set up for today. Today’s Kathy appreciates that I did that, but Friday’s Kathy was pretty tired when she got home well after 5 pm. Owl box at sunset…

We’ve been having camera issues. It’s currently charging in here and will go back out this afternoon, if I remember. Simba demanded some play time when I got home too…

Saturday, I had my quilt meeting…nice to hang out and do art things in person. I took pieces to cut out, because I had a huge pile of them and it seemed to make sense. Then I ironed some in the afternoon after we hiked…it was cold out there and rained on us a little bit…

I guess ironing continued into the evening…

Still very green and brown. Which is OK…

We watched a movie with dinner. After the quilt meeting and the movie, I had this many pieces cut out…

The top box is cut. The bottom is not. There are still a ton in the other box that need cutting. Last night, I managed a whopping 29 minutes of ironing…

I think I ironed a rock and a chuckwalla. Getting closer to done.

And I sold a quilt! One of my favorites, but I think once I make them, I don’t need to own them.

They seem to really like the piece…I hope they enjoy her. The California Center for the Arts show is now closed; I brought home the other two pieces. There’s still one of mine at Visions Art Museum, and in April, there will be two more. I’m also going to be doing a Lightning Talk for the SAQA conference, so I’ll be working on that in the next few weeks…I thought I would have through the end of the month, but apparently not. Yikes. And I’m finishing up my copyediting job this week, as soon as I finish grades today. Deep breaths. Everything will get done. Everything will get paid for. I might even end up with some extra to put into savings. One can dream. Thanks to all who support artists though! We appreciate you.