Just Wibbly Wobbly and Blech…

It’s a Monday morning and I’m not at school. I am however soon to be on my way to the vet, probably for the last time with Calliope, who is a very good girl. Maybe there will be some miracle treatment that will make all her tumors disappear and persuade her to eat consistently, but I doubt it. I think this is the end and it is always so hard, even when they’ve had good long lives and honestly have survived longer than they said she would.

So there’s that, and I’m trying not to dwell too much on it right now.

I was sick over the weekend; got tested Friday and it was COVID-negative. Will probably get tested again this week, just to be sure, but most of it is gone…just a tiny bit of a dry throat and a cough. Never had a fever, never lost smell or taste. Just wibbly wobbly and blech. It’s a strange world where a simple cold is such a big deal. It meant that I didn’t get much done, mostly finished ironing the quilt down to fabric…which is actually a good thing. At some point on Friday night, this is where I was at…

All the people in the bubble had been ironed down, and I just needed to iron all the hair and shirts and signs. That might have been Saturday, actually. I don’t remember.

Yeah, I suspect this was Friday night…I got all the people ironed…the ones in the bubble are all those white fabrics.

Then Saturday, I finished the rest…this is the 199 fabrics I used in this quilt.

I think that’s my record. Not sure. It took 24 hours and 56 minutes to iron everything to fabric.

And then Saturday night, I started cutting them out.

The first two batches were just tons of letters. Tiny fussy shit. Kitten does not help. She wants to sit next to me and the boxes are in the way.

She tries to stand IN the boxes sometimes. I even cleared a space next to me and she rejected it for this…

Which didn’t last long. Mostly she wants pets. She is an old lady too. Sigh. This vet thing. Fuck. It’s not like you don’t know it’s coming…it just sucks anyways.

Last night’s cutting…the pieces are piled up mostly in order, so I’ve made it down from the 1500s to the 1000s.

I’m about 6 hours in. Probably another 15 to go or so. I am grading things too, slowly. And reading my book. And dealing with lightbulbs and crap that’s been piled on the counter for weeks, maybe months, and laundry and the yard. So much gets put aside while I’m teaching because there just isn’t time for it.

I pulled a drawer out to look at the fabrics in it, turned back around, and found a cat instead.

Petulant beast.

My quilt Womanscape at Quilts=Art=Quilts…

Nice tour of it here.

OK. Vet soon. The inevitable visit. Then book reading and crying and maybe grading and cutting things out in between all that. Ugh. She is a very good dog.

Leaf Pile

So here’s an example of why teachers need time off. I’m sitting here in my office, waiting for some update to run, and (wait. WordPress has finally figured out its font size issue on the fucking screen. That’s amazing. Sorry. But this IS how my brain works) I notice…AGAIN…for like the 5th time that there are plants growing in my leaf pile by the pool. My leaf pile by the pool has been there long enough for the bottom layer to decay into something approximating soil so a plant can grow in it. Yeah. Now during a normal school week, I will see that, say to myself “Self, you should clean up the leaf pile.” Self will agree, but there is never ever ever time when I am not doing school things or art things because I spend 60 hours a week on school stuff and another 10-15 hours a week on art stuff and maybe 49 hours on sleeping (or pretending to sleep because I suck at it) and I’m not going to count up hours showering, peeing, or heating up my tea AGAIN because it went cold because I lost it somewhere in the house. So cleaning up the leaf pile is not very high on the list until you give me 9 days off and I can allow for the time to sweep up the leaves and put them in a green bin or something. Maybe. Because Thanksgiving week is always sort of a clusterfuck of family and cooking, so there often is all this time on that where you can’t politely check out and go sweep up your leaf pile.

So there’s that. Plus sleep. And sanity. Seriously, we’re doing a volcano eruption lab today because we can, not because we need to, but it’s been a lot of days of reading and writing and we need some doing, and a ton of kids won’t even show up because it’s Friday before a week off, which is fine by me honestly, because I’m gonna grade your shit whether you’re here or not, but also, fewer exploding volcanoes in the classroom is a plus, but I just realized that the full moon was last night and tonight is some weird lunar eclipse, and we all know the moon affects kids’ brains and turns them into psychotic beasts (also Fridays before break do this), so I’m wondering, as a long-time teacher, what crazyass shit will be going on today. I’m actually not even apprehensive…just wondering, sitting back, meditative brain going “hey, watch THAT” and looking forward to reading my book tonight with no fucking guilt. None.

At book club, many people loved the book…and I wanted to, but I got lost in all the same character, different parallel world, different name, can’t keep track of this shit, and apparently I needed to read it all in one go. I don’t have time for that…wish I did…but most books get read in dribs and drabbles and I have to be able to hold onto those bits, and with this book, I just couldn’t. And I feel like with a good book, you can hold onto those bits. Ah sigh. It is what it is. On to the next one.

So I’m still ironing.

That was the end of the sky with the sun in it…there were other sky bits that happened the next night. Speaking of doing things in dribs and drabs…

Last night, I had a Zoom quilt meeting for a while though, so I got more done…

That’s the last flesh figure…the others will be white…like white white. Really white. I laid out the 1100s but haven’t ironed many of them. I’ve been ironing for 19 hours and 58 minutes at this point. It’s not a short process. I won’t be done tonight, that’s for sure. Hopefully sometime this weekend though…although I think I’d rather spend this weekend grading all the things so I don’t have to think about them for the next 7 days, yeah? IDK if I can pull that off though. We’ll see.

If you haven’t seen the Allied Craftsmen show at the Phes Gallery, it closes tomorrow…go check it out.

Really, instead of doing a messy lab today, we should have done this…

We often do that when we come back from field trips…our next field trip, though, I have a 6th-grade 6th period, so I will actually have to teach them. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?

I liked this grasshopper…very decorated.

I don’t think I’ve ever drawn a grasshopper. Must be time.

So we teachers get these all the time from our local politicians…nicely printed certificates on heavy paper about how appreciated we are.

Y’all…save your money on the paper and just send us food…or gift certificates. We just recycle these. I don’t feel the love. I have a senator who has probably never stepped foot on my campus, probably doesn’t even know where my school is or what kind of kids go there. Send food. Teachers are not OK and all of these are just killing more trees than we already do…I constantly feel bad about that, but my kids need paper in their hands to write on in order to learn better. You could send us paper! There’s always a shortage. That would be helpful.

Sigh. It’s OK. Tonight I will read and sleep and probably grade some shit too, let’s be honest, and hopefully iron some fabric, and the leaf pile and I will commune with each other at some point. Happy Friday y’all…may the politicians all send you a certificate of recognition. I can send you mine! I’ll just cover up the name and write yours in Sharpie.

Get the Good Stuff Done…

So only three days before a well-deserved break. How I felt at the end of four days off on Sunday tells me I need the next 9 pretty badly. That said, they are the 9 Days of the Food Coma, mostly preparing for the Food Coma and then surviving the Food Coma, and I’m bringing home two major assignments to grade, so I’m not expecting much. I would like to be done ironing this quilt by this weekend, though, and it would be cool if I were cut out and ironing the thing together by the end of that 9 days. So much for an early December finish, though. That’s not happening. Ah well. I’m gritting my teeth into the holidays…need to do a copyediting job in the middle of all of it, plus parse out a shitty tobacco curriculum produced by Stanford University, of all places. I expected more from them. Maybe it’s just high-school level and my 2nd-grade-level readers can’t deal with 80 slides packed with info. Hell, I can’t deal with 80 slides packed with info. These block-schedule classes are just like mushing cats through snow when it comes to info…it is overload for the kids, and although we can think of ways to make it easier, a lot of them come with less info, more busywork, which is silly. Or a ton of work for us creating curriculum because the stuff we’ve been provided isn’t appropriate. SIGH. That’s a big one. Ah well. At least the next project is interesting. And works pretty well, I think.

I was at school or a school board meeting yesterday from 7:30 AM to almost 7 PM. I’m tired today. When am I not? The sun sets on the school parking lot…

Certainly I’m teaching one thing differently today to my lowest class after watching my second-lowest class yesterday brain fart all over the place. Just give us the answers! I’m not doing that.

Anyway. I ironed both nights, always a good thing, but only really got the sky done. It’s big, but it’s not a ton of pieces. It just took forever to do. Here was the first night, when I got about halfway through the sky pieces.

And last night, after the second half…

I didn’t even finish the sky…there’s clouds and stars. I did get through piece 998…

Tons of fabrics being used so far. So I have book club tonight…might not have the energy to come back and iron, but I’ve got a little over 500 pieces to go. That seems like a lot…it IS a lot. Picking out fabrics for ironing people is really time-consuming. And brain-consuming. It’s good, though. I’m looking forward to this one coming together. It’s a big, complicated quilt…my favorite to make.

Speaking of big, complicated quilts…Coronawood finally found a show where it fits…Art Quilt Elements in Wayne, PA.

Big and complicated, like I said. Dino bones included.

Enjoy it if you get to see it.

So I’m not quite at this stage yet…

Although I predict I will get there. Sometimes the level of crazy in school districts boggles me. I used to have more faith in my district…no more. Anyway. Three more days. I feel like I can do three days, yeah? And then find some time for hiking and drawing and honestly sleeping. That’s been an issue lately. Too worried about stuff. Ugh. Hate that. Also need more caffeine and maybe cookies. And more time to get the good stuff done. That.

It’s All the Other Stuff…

Back to a normal week. I can tell you that my brain yesterday was squawking about how it wasn’t ready to go back to school, but then, I’m not sure it ever is. I mean, the week is completely planned out, although I think someone has to go buy soap at some point and we have to set up a lab. I’m almost caught up on grading for science, and completely behind in art (that’s how it always is though). None of my students are out on pandemic contract (knock on wood HARD, because that’s the only way to keep from getting a ton of contracts). And most importantly, all my lunches are prepped for the week. A fucking miracle if you ask me.

I finally used the new sewing machine for the first time…to fix the boychild’s work backpack. It performed beautifully…going through 4 layers of crap with a zigzag…this time, I figured out that stitch pretty quickly. A good sign. Hopefully over Thanksgiving Break, I’ll get to use it on an art quilt…but it means I need to get the rest of this quilt ironed and cut out…which is not a small amount of work. I’m about 16 hours into the ironing, with about 600 pieces to go. Yikes. It’s slow. It’s all the people…each one is a different batch of 5-7 fabrics from light to dark, with all the pieces laid out in my head. It’s time-consuming. I’ve done a couple hours each day over the 4-day weekend.

It’s a nice way to end the day…I think that is figure number 3 above and number 4 below…

The number of fabrics is growing and getting pretty chaotic.

A closeup of the pile to be cut out…

Sometime yesterday I couldn’t deal with that, so I reordered everything.

Now colors are together at least. And I know which ones I used on the 5 figures so far. The next step is the sky, so expect a lot more blues and purples in the next day or so. Those are all really big pieces too, compared to the little stuff I’ve been ironing so far. I’m in the 900s…after the sky, I have another 4 or 5 figures in the bubble. I’m debating making them white. Like actual white, not the pinky tones us white folks actually are. We’ll see. I’m still thinking about it. Here’s where the idea came from though…

That’s my quilt Wise Choice…the light white and gray figures live in a landscape without choice…it’s a quilt about International Planned Parenthood, giving women the right and ability to choose when to get pregnant, often so they can afford to feed their children. The bubble in color is her dream of a planned future. The quilt is at San Diego Mesa College through December 9…part of their Sowing Seeds exhibit. Check it out…I have more art pictures, but no time to resize right now. On Friday, we tried to make it to three shows and managed only two due to nasty traffic. One of them was this one.

Saturday, we did the first Coast to Crest hike for this year’s challenge, 2021-2022…but we totally mistimed sunset (we both spaced on it)…

Gonzales Canyon Loop in Del Mar…a nice start down down down.

We did realize it was getting darker than we’d anticipated, and neither of us remembered our headlamps. Stupid really. We cut a portion of the trail off once we got to the selfie spot, because it was almost dark…

And then kamikazed out by moonlight…pulling out phone flashlights for the last 10 minutes, when the trees blocked that light. It would have been a nicer hike if we weren’t worried about the daylight…not a bad uphill in daylight, I suspect…a little more nerve-wracking in the dark. We managed to find outside dinner in Del Mar and didn’t even get kicked out for being in hiking clothes.

The block I stitched on showed up on Social Justice Academy’s feed yesterday, getting sewn into a quilt…

That’s cool.

OK. It’s fine. I can survive the week. I’ll get some grading done. I’ll come home Friday with a pile of stuff to do, unfortunately, but that’s always what happens. I’ll get some ironing done most nights this week…I think I have book club one night, so that will be more problematic, but the other nights are pretty clear. And I have next week off to look forward to…it’s been a long school year so far. The kids aren’t so bad…it’s all the other stuff the district keeps piling on us. I feel like they are completely tone-deaf since the pandemic started. It’s unfortunate. But all too common. Anyway…off to school. Need more caffeine. That’s a given.

Still Off

Could be a title for my blogging activity, for my brain, for my job…hard to say. A respectful Veterans Day to those for whom today resonates. My mental relationship with the military aside, some people have truly sacrificed for our country and should be remembered. My neighbor remembered by mowing the lawn and blowing the leaves. He might be vacuuming the rocks later.

I do have today and tomorrow off of school…my district is one that realized that people will take that Friday off (mostly the kids), and gives us the 4-day weekend when the holiday is on Tuesday or Thursday. Thanks for that guys, because apparently a shit-ton of districts all over the US forgot to plan intelligently and are scrambling for subs. We were short yesterday, and teachers had to sub during their prep period. It’s stressful and means you don’t get done what you needed to get done, plus it’s a subject you don’t teach and other people’s sub plans can be confusing. Sometimes you get lucky and the kids are helpful…they do like to be helpful. But it sucks nonetheless. Whatever we don’t get done during the school day comes home and haunts us during our time off.

I worked last night for a bit, grading a couple of assignments. I didn’t do the hard one. I will. Just not yet. My co-teacher somehow did it in class yesterday…while I was walking around, trying to get kids to understand that you can’t prove plate motion with a random fact about Mesosaurus having lungs instead of gills. Kudos to her. I can’t grade academic stuff without some mental space, and I didn’t have that yesterday.

My art brain is totally arguing with teacher brain and house brain right now. Art brain is like fuck it, don’t take a shower, stay in the pajamas (but it’s going to be 90 degrees today and flannel is warm), just iron things to fabric ALL DAY LONG, fuck the day job, don’t clean anything, don’t put shit away, don’t go to the gym, don’t even water the plants. JUST ART. House brain is like, you have to spend SOME time cleaning shit up…it’s getting out of control. At least the kitchen counter and the table…just a quick moment…it won’t take long…and the plants will NEED water after the heat today. True true…but I have an in-person stitching meeting tonight, so that’s time, plus the gym is time, plus the cleaning is time, and then how much ironing time is left? What about drawing? I want to draw more. Then teacher brain is arguing that there’s another academic assignment next week, plus kids will be turning in their unit packets and I’ll have to grade those, so I should really just get on top of the assignments now, yeah? At least grade the 30 or 40 who handed in the academic assignment. Do the others when they come in. Ugh. That sounds like the worst option. Teacher brain, shush. I need time off. We’ll talk later.

I have been ironing at night…Tuesday night, I did about an hour, most of a smaller figure…

I finished ironing the flesh, but needed to do all the inner bits…heart and hair and eyes and arteries. I did those last night…got them all in the box…

and then started laying out everything for the second, much larger figure.

I got up into the 500s, I think…yeah. But not all of them are ironed down. I was going to stop there, just lay them out and iron them today, but then I said fuck it, because I didn’t have to get up and teach today, so I channeled my old midnight self and kept going…ironed all of it down. Today I’ll go back through all those and do the eyes and hair and heart and all that good stuff…bones too. Maybe get on to the next figure…hopefully, but the night meeting might affect that. Going to the gym might affect it. I’d like to hike, but it’s going to be in the 90s for the whole 4-day weekend. Ugh. Maybe late Saturday…we’ll see.

Tomorrow is all the art exhibits I want to see…I’m going to Visions Art Museum to see Interpretations and Linda Anderson’s solo show, then on to the Oceanside Museum of Art to see Marty Ornish and Charlotte Bird’s work, and ending up at the Sowing Seeds opening at Mesa College, where one of my pieces will be. Sounds fun, yeah? The man is coming with and maybe we’ll stop for lunch somewhere…we’ll see how that works. It’s rare I get a day full of art these days. And I’m taking on a copyediting job for December/January, because I need the money, so it’ll be a challenge to get that time in December. I’ll try, because the girlchild is coming home (yay!)…she got permission to work from California for a few weeks, which is awesome. The holidays are always a bit crazy, so I enjoy what I get.

So there we are…a short break in the school slog, always appreciated. Use it wisely. I think I might iron for a bit and then go to the gym…and then see where I’m at. See? Art brain is winning…house brain and teacher brain will get some time, but not first. Me first.

A Day Off…

I don’t usually write on Tuesdays. I have a routine…set it up when I realized after blogging for a year or two (started in 2004) that I wasn’t very consistent, so I made it like a journal for me, documenting the art but also everything else, exactly what they tell you not to do, but I didn’t care…I was doing it for me more than for others. I had a crazy couple of years when I was blogging every day, more to keep my sanity than anything else, and then I went back to usually three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Last week on Friday, I was driving toward Joshua Tree National Park, so that didn’t happen, so I blogged Saturday because that’s when I had time. Then yesterday, I just lost time somehow, well, bad lunch planning for the week. Time consuming in the morning is not a good thing for me. So here I am. It’s Tuesday of a three-day work week (oh hallelujah). I finished grades Sunday night and spent a couple hours yesterday afternoon planning science, since we lose that time this week. I really miss the daily plan time with my co-teacher. It’s making things harder to get done. But that’s what the last two years have been like across the board: Harder to get done. A 4-day weekend will have some work in it…but hopefully it will mostly be art and hiking and yeah, cleaning house and catching up with all the shit I can’t do while I’m teaching.

More pictures from Joshua Tree…

It’s hot and dry, even in November. I’m pretty sure I’ve hiked this exact hike three different times in the last 20 years.

It’s different and yet not every single time.

Dinner had some art…

And then I had a blissful hour to draw Saturday morning.

I’m finding it so hard to find time to do that. It was all the things I was thinking and feeling in the desert, in that space. I need more of that time. But when I do have time, I try to finish whatever project I’m working on. It’s hard to find the extra time to just breathe and draw.

Cindy Zimmerman’s Rain Grotto at the Desert Dairy. A beautiful space in a dry climate…

It was also fun to hang out with other artists for a while. That cow ended up in my drawing.

We made pizzas one night and hung out and talked.

Fire is always fascinating.

We also toured Mojaveland, the wonderfully funky, homemade, artist-filled mini-golf experience Anna Stump is creating. Linda Litteral has an installation there as well…

It was a good way to spend a weekend, even if I’m exhausted now.

We saw an art show too, but I’m going to have to wait to post that…I’m running out of time here before I have to leave for work. I always feel like I’m running out of time. I worked on these in the car on the way back for a little bit.

And last night, after a 5-day hiatus, I finally tried to get my head back into choosing fabrics for the next quilt…

I kind of lost it in my head for a while, the colored-in image. But it’s back now. Hopefully I’ll get it all ironed to fabric over the long weekend. That’s my goal anyway.

OK, off to school to teach the hard stuff. Got a new batch of 6th graders. Ugh. Not sure how I feel about that, but we’ll survive. And no more complicated morning lunchmaking. That’s a mistake. More tomorrow, if I get back on schedule. Who knows if I will…

Simplify. Fewer Words.

Mid-week posts while I’m teaching are SPARE. Unless I get into a show. Which I did! I have three pieces that will be in a California Fibers show at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido, opening in January…looking forward to that. One of them is NOT the one I made for the show, so if you want to see the hiking quilt, IDK when or where that will be…so here’s I Can’t Be Your Superwoman…which did get in.

Dear WordPress: Why are you being so bitchy this morning? I already know today will be a challenge. I don’t need it shoved in my face. Seriously, it wouldn’t let me bold the title. Then it wouldn’t let me delete the caption under the figure that I didn’t even put there. Then it wouldn’t let me add a new box to type in. It’s like dealing with some of my students. Actually, yesterday, two kids did the thing when I pushed them to do the thing, even though I had no help in a class with 8 SPED in it (soon to be 9, I’m pretty sure)…I’m so tired of our SECA shortage. I’m especially tired of not knowing there will BE a SECA shortage in my classroom until the SECA just doesn’t show up. Yesterday was manageable only because two of them were absent. Another one drew a pentagram on my desk and another with chalk pastel (we had a conversation…I think we bonded over blackened fingers for art) and two of the others rocked it. Today is the less capable group, though, but I’m guaranteed a SECA in there due to child in wheelchair (oh good). We’ll see how it goes. Today is hard because I teach 4 different things: an Advisory topic (IDK WTF today is…I never know until I look at the form), the Block 1 of science (today is figuring out what fossils are on the continents in certain eras…yesterday this went well, good good), Art (will be fucking chaos of India ink and paintbrushes, pray for me to the Goddess of Art Teachers and the Hell in Which They Exist with Materials), and finally Block 2 of Science, which is all thinking and figuring stuff out, which often is a dead silent, not even crickets, because WE DID THE THINGS BUT WE DON’T UNDERSTAND THEM. Yeah. So that. And I have a meeting this morning so I have to leave in 10 minutes.

I did no art on Monday night because I was cleaning my studio. I started with putting the fabrics away.

From the last two quilts…one big one and one little one. I can’t focus on the next one until the room is under control. Also I need the boxes the fabrics are in to sort the Wonder Under, so it’s almost forced cleaning. This is a small space and it is already chock full, so without that stage, there is nothing happening.

Then last night, I made it to the gym for the first time in a month (woo hoo!), came home, packed up two quilts that need to ship out today, and finally made it in the studio for artmaking at about 10 PM. Ah good. So I sorted the first 100 pieces and ironed the first set of dirt to fabric.

It’s a start. It’s not a great start, but I’m ready to go for tonight. I should get a full hour in tonight, I hope, maybe more, although the gradebook opened, so I might be doing that instead.

Nova in a mood.

She likes to scratch things.

Anyway, I gotta get outta here, do the school thing, racing through, which is what most days feel like (hence the exhaustion at the end), then Pilates, then home for dinner and art stuff. Plus thinking about sub plans for Friday. I wrote them, but I need to simplify. Bullet points. Fewer words. Hard for me. You might have noticed.

Thanks Mom…

OK. There were some successful moments over the weekend. I took my machine in, and he still thinks it’s fixable (if it’s not, there’s a plan…it’s a scary plan, but a plan nonetheless). Meanwhile, I borrowed my mom’s machine, which someone said looks like a spaceship.

It is huge. It has its own suitcase. It weighs a ton. But it works. I had to read 5 bits of the manual about threading and bobbins and free-motion quilting and tension, but it works. Hallelujah. I stitched down Saturday night and Sunday night and can probably finish that tonight (knock on wood).

It’s so lovely not to fight tension for this…there are some fussy bits and adjustments going on, but they are easy to make.

Such a relief. Thanks mom. I’m going to get this thing quilted and done as quick as possible so she can have her machine back.

Although I still have a Patreon reward I’m trying to finish…Friday night, I ironed it together.

I like her. She’s small.

And then on Sunday morning, I got up early and took a Zoom class from Judy Coates Perez for Craft Napa…slow-stitching a scarf…ah, meditation.

I really am appreciating online classes…because I wouldn’t be able to go in person.

Ah yes, I am doing a woman. But all of it will be filled in with stitching. I’m gonna be here a while. But it’s so nice. I’m tempted to bring it to my staff meeting today (it’s two hours), but I suspect that’s not appropriate. Too bad. They say ‘self care’ but I’m not sure how much they mean it. Like ‘self care’ but only if you get all the other things done.

I did work this weekend. I started on Friday afternoon while waiting in line for my COVID test…

Sadly, I can’t remember if I had a positive test in class last week? Or if it was the week before. It’s all a blur. I do know that I have to update many of those 28 contracts for the kids who are out…I did the art contracts last night. I can’t do science until the last assignment is ready…hopefully sometime today? Although I have a kid meeting during my prep and this long staff meeting after school, so IDK when I will make the weekly video, copy the post to 16 contracts, and then email all those families. Because that all needs to happen too.

It’s been hot. I think today it’s going back down, but Friday there was very little to no air conditioning in our classrooms. Fire alarms were going off randomly and they shut the system down, so it was hot and sweaty and loud all day. I’m hoping today is better. I do know the AC wasn’t working yesterday. Ugh. Prepare for sweat!

Sometimes grading is so very hard. She’s a sweet kid…

But I have no clue what she is talking about.

OK, so off to school. Today is an easy teaching day, at least…mostly. The staff meeting sucks. Already. I hate 2-hour meetings. They lose my brain an hour in, if not sooner. Then home, hopefully to exercise, then finish the stitchdown. I should check my batting stash. Pinbaste tomorrow? Then start quilting? I hope. It’s a plan. I like plans. They tend to keep me on track, both mentally and for life in general.

Complicated Fingers

Hey. It’s Wednesday and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I got caught up with some school stuff, which is good, but yesterday, the work day started before 8 AM and ended after 6 PM. Today will be the same. Thursday will start earlier and will have to end earlier, only because I have to be somewhere. And it’s not like I’m getting shit all the way done with all that. The shit I was supposed to do during prep yesterday didn’t happen because we have these new short-term contracts the state wants us to do for kids who are out on pandemic quarantines, and it’s quite a bit of work…not the actual contract. It’s pretty easy, once you have everything set up and all your videos or whatever you’re gonna do made…OK, that actually took most of my prep (also my computer decided it didn’t want to be my friend any more), but then emailing every kid and parent, searching out parent emails, cutting and pasting. I did 11 contracts last night…I probably will have 11 more to do today (I had one I didn’t do last night, because it’s the other subject and so are the other ones I’ll get today)…and it took 90 minutes after school to get it all done. Meanwhile, nothing gets planned or graded for the kids who are actually IN class. I know we have to provide work for everyone, but someone at the district needs to hire someone who can code a program/system/app/I don’t give a fuck what it is but it will go do all the menial shit that’s in the system so I don’t have to…and all the other teachers don’t have to repeat the same work I’m doing. That’s the idiotic part. Politicians pass a law to help kids, but the infrastructure to help the teachers is not in place (what’s new there??? Nothing), and teachers can’t help ALL the kids because they’re helping the kids who will trigger the state to audit our procedures and fine us if we don’t do the things that the state doesn’t give us the money for in order to create the infrastructure. SIGH. A friend asked where all the COVID money went. I DON’T KNOW. Here’s a good place for it. Also, when politicians vote for things, they should be required to sit in my classroom with me until almost 6 PM and HELP ME search out all those parent emails and record videos and set up lessons.

None of that happens. So instead, I am feeling overwhelmed and like I literally got nothing done yesterday that was on my plan…and because I have a union meeting this afternoon, probably today’s prep will be similarly fucked.

Anyway. I can’t say I come home in a great mood…and no exercise because everything ran too late and then I had to cook dinner and I’m pretty sure two phone calls came in and I didn’t answer either of them.

I have renewed my optimism that I will be incredibly efficient during prep today, because I don’t have a prep tomorrow.

I have been ironing. Not much each night, but at least an hour before bed. Monday, though, I managed about 3 hours of ironing. I was really good about getting work done in the morning…so here I am, up in the sky finally.

I’ve decided that I’m the only one who can see the figures…

They are damn subtle. I will pull them out with stitching…

I was hoping to be done Monday, but I had about 50 pieces left, including some complicated fingers and a face that would have to be done separately and then ironed in.

So last night, I finished all that…

With stitching, the face will appear. I can see it.

Hard to get a picture of the whole thing until I get it on a background…which will be tonight, hopefully. Iron it down, clean the space up a bit, and start stitching down.

My Social Justice Sewing Academy block is closer to done…just a little more embellishment.

The back is fascinating.

Kitten keeps trying to lie on it.

She follows me around when I get home, trying to figure out how to get close to me. Not ON me…just close.

Shit. Which reminds me, she needs her meds. Gonna go do that, then brush my teeth and get out of here. I promised a kid a folder up front at the office by 8 AM, and that’s not too long from now. I think I’m fucked on that deadline…hopefully dad will come later. Wish me luck for the day, that it’s productive and less frustrating than yesterday.

When It’s Out…

Long weekends are a blessing. I graded a bunch of stuff over the last three days. I’m not caught up, but I’m panicking less. I managed exercise three days in a row. As the school week goes on, that is less and less likely. So I did well. And I’m ironing. All good. Trying not to think of things I should be ironing or sewing or deadlines that are coming. Just doing the things when I can.

Friday night, I did more trees…

And I think I also ironed the hiker…

Could have been Saturday though. I ironed a bunch on Saturday afternoon…like this…

Starting up the mountain. Last night, I got part of the mountain in…

I’m hoping to get the mountains done and be well into the sky tonight, if not done. I might be able to do it. There’s about 270 pieces left.

I drew briefly on Saturday night…

I hiked this morning with the man…

Just Cowles Mountain…the original plan had Pyles Peak as well, but it was warm…

Although the valleys were socked in. Weird.

A view of one of my quilts behind the amazing Margaret Fabrizio…

We traded earlier this year.

And some pictures of me with my quilts at The Studio Door opening…

I don’t really like posing for photos…

Even with a mask on, you can probably tell.

Not even sure what I’m looking at in that photo…but here’s 1, 2, and 3 in one with me.

We missed a few. You get the idea. Check out the show though! It’s a nice area with many restaurants for lunch or dinner. Parking isn’t awful (but it can be). It’s open through September 25.

Every Friday afternoon, I’m here, waiting for my COVID test…

I’m negative again…it does make me nervous to have any possible symptom (stuffed up nose? sore throat?), so this is how I feel better about it. Stick a swab up my nose once a week.

Meanwhile, Texas politicians are idiots, so is the Supreme Court, I have incredible sympathy for Afghanistan, did I mention how stupid Texas is? Not all Texans, I know. Ida and Henri, sheesh, some people, an awful lot of them, really need help. This as California’s fires started well before the actual fire season.

Maybe there are just a lot of stupid people out there who believe they have the right to govern women’s bodies, even though we can’t do the same to them. I’m angry. I’m pissed off. I would just like to say that I called this 10+ years ago and got told it wouldn’t happen. My ass it wouldn’t. Feel like you’re losing control of the country? SLAM SOME GROUP INTO THE GROUND. That’s what we do. Fight back, y’all. Give money if you can. Yell loud and lots. Those rich white ladies won’t suffer over this idiotic law…it’s the ones who can’t afford to suffer any more than they already do. Yell louder.

Seriously, if you don’t don’t own a uterus, don’t tell people what to do with it. And if you do own one? You get to control YOUR OWN and nobody else’s. Because if y’all can own that, if you can pass laws about that, then it’s about time we took ownership of some dicks out there, and I can tell you, it’s gonna be ugly. You’re not making babies? You certainly don’t need sperm (vasectomies for all men over…um…I’ll give you age 50…at that age, the DNA is getting damaged and you shouldn’t be making babies anyway). And if you use that dick incorrectly? Like raping someone? Well you’ve proven you don’t know how to use it, so we’ll just take it away…starting with some rich old white boys.

Yeah. I’m angry. God damn it. We’ve done this already, before I even was old enough to understand it. Why the fuck do we have to go over all this again with you folks? Do you not listen?

I guess the next quilt is drawing itself again. I’ll let you know when it’s out.