My head hurts this morning. It’s weird, I was just thinking that it had been a really long time since I’d had a headache. I go through cycles of daily headaches…some because of sore neck, some because of weather, some just because. But they’ve been mostly gone for a few months…along with the hot flashes. But here it is. My neck is sore. I’m stressed. I’m tired. I need to be zen today. I was not yesterday. Worried about the cat, overwhelmed at work still, too many things to do. Looking forward to just sitting and cutting things out tonight, plus some stitching time with friends. It is Thursday, isn’t it? My brain has no idea what day it is.
Satch is still with us. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with him except for the fact that he is not better. He goes back to stay at the vet today. Maybe. It’s possible that all this is not doing anything for him. Always a sad situation. Been there so many times.
Poor baby. He’s not happy.
I did make it to the gym yesterday. I really needed it after slogging through the day. So many kid issues. I finished a book and started another one, came home and graded one thing. Boychild cooked. Smelled so good. Petted a cat or two, a dog or two.
What a dork. Sweet lovey dork.
Then I finished the ironing…
A bunch of tiny pieces at the end. It took almost 18 hours to iron them all down. I feel really slow. Cutting will continue tonight.
Here’s the 151 fabrics I used…
It’s a lot. It’s always interesting to see the mix. In reality, there’s a lot of blue space on the quilt…lots of little pieces are green. Looking forward to seeing it come together.
Oh yeah, the next local SAQA meeting is coming up…
I’ll be there. I don’t know what I’ll be working on, but I’ll be there. Be there too.
I’m going to be more zen today. Well. You know, after I cry all the way to work over the old man cat. Then I can zen. Or not. If you know me at all in person, you probably know zen is not my forte. Ironic, because I really wanted to be named after my grandma’s middle name, Zenobia, so I COULD be Zen for realz. Like the name would make me more like that. It’s a thought.
Hard day yesterday. Just a lot of input into this introvert’s brain. It’s strange, because I do work with kids, and loud kids at that, kids that require so much interaction, but most days, the introvert just takes a lunch break and a few moments here and there, and then survives in all the moments before and after school, like sitting here writing in the morning or ironing fabric at night. Or on a hike or at the gym. But yesterday was a LOT of interaction and movement and honestly some babysitting, which I don’t like, and that made it hard. I don’t think today will be different, but I won’t have tutoring at the end of it. I do look around every 20 minutes or so and sort of revel in the kids who are hard at work on what they’re supposed to be doing, occasionally raising their hands and asking a question or needing help. I realize that maybe 10-20% of the kids are demanding the majority of my attention and causing all of my irritation. More moments of realization are helpful. The kids are good. Some are awesome. A few need serious help. Some are just dicks, but they’re also kids and dealing with shit. So there’s that. Very few will always be like that.
It’s what has gotten me through 16…wait, almost 17 years of teaching middle school. It’ll be OK. Tomorrow will be easier. Tomorrow we go back to teaching what we know, how we know it will work. It will be better. I could use a break from all the administrative crap of paperwork and forms and kids going on emergency trips who need an independent study contract at the last minute. Please. And thank you. Like now. Plus the rushing around trying to do all the other stuff. But otherwise. It will be better.
Satchemo is still not apparently eating, despite being plied with kitty treats and glasses of water on the ground. He is drinking a little, but definitely not well. Vet today. I don’t think it will be good news, but maybe he will feel better.
I had tutoring last night, so I was exhausted when I got home. But I graded an assignment and part of another one, just to get through them. They were piling up.
Then on to the ironing…
I really just have all this filler stuff to do, lots of little pieces and color choices. These are poppies…and this is a Joshua tree.
Maybe this is why it’s been taking so long? Because every 20 pieces requires 6 fabrics? Who knows. Or I’m just slow.
I ironed for 2 1/2 hours last night…I only have this stuff left to do. It’s a cactus or two, some landscapey dirt, a bunch of monarchs, and a rattlesnake.
In about 150 pieces. No…the flesh is already ironed, so maybe 100 pieces max. But it was midnight and I knew today would be tiring. I’ll finish tonight and then go back to cutting stuff out. This was the pile of chaos at the end of all that ironing…I just pile them up as I go.
But one side of my brain gets all perturbed by that and fixes it…
That part of my brain is still disturbed by all the colors not being together. I will resort to that at the end. There’s a certain level of satisfaction to all the greens being together from light to dark. Seriously.
I’m over 16 hours into the ironing. Crazy for 900 or so pieces. Oh well. Here’s what’s left to be cut out…
Because I’ve already done some of it. I’m hoping to have it all cut out by the weekend. We’ll see. I do have a deadline.
This is good.
Too bad I can’t show it to my students. OK, off to work. Hope the kitty gets better. That seems like a magical hope…much like my hope that today will be easier than yesterday. Yup. Well. Life.
It’s the last day of September. I’m OK with that. I like the sound of September, with the hint of Fall, but I hate the Southern California teacher-time reality. It’s usually hot and dry and exhausting and overwhelming. October brings a little chill in the air (well, not any time in the next two weeks, can you say 80s across the board) and those beautiful blue skies with fluffy white clouds scuttling across them. Plus the kids settling down and the admin stopping the crazy to-do list that they put on top of everything else and getting back into a routine. Hopefully on all that. First we will have the panic of the first progress report with standards-based grades, in which everyone fails until they figure out how to prove they are proficient. PROGRESS people. No one should be perfect to start. Then you’re doing it wrong.
Well. OK. I had one kid who rocked the first assignment. Well played, sir, well played. The rest of the panic is palpable, except for those who haven’t yet figured out that they never turned in the assignment…which might be better than those who mucked it up so badly that I had to put my head down and/or walk away from the computer.
I still have one class of 26 essays left to grade. That makes me nervous, because everything is due tomorrow and I’m not done. But I finished the other class at 10:30 last night, mostly because I was texting another teacher at the same time, trying to help her with the grade program, which upgraded and fucked its own self up, but also because we’re shifting from everything being an academic grade into effort being something totally different than proving you know the stuff you’re supposed to know. It’s really more you can prove you understand how things work when it comes to science. It’s not facts…it’s concepts. And those are hard. Hard is good, though. Hard is learning. Hard is thinking. Hard is working. They will get better at this. Someone should tell their parents that (oh wait, we did).
With that, know I spent a good 6 hours grading on Saturday, with a quick trip in between two of the classes before I tore my hair out. I needed to go to the post office, and I stopped (as a reward, yes, you’re right) at a fabric store I don’t usually go to. Not because there’s anything wrong with it…the one I like has 7000 more bolts of fabric or so, which gives me a lot more choices. But I stopped here because it was on the way home and I needed a fabric fix. And they were having some sort of event where I got to spin the wheel (woooo!) and I won something! OK, everyone won something…that’s how the wheel was set up, but I won something pretty good…
Oh yeah. $25 off next time. Wait. That means I have to go back. OK. Well. There we are. Next time I have to grade one of these essay assignments, eh?
We had no real plans for the night except getting the fuck out of the house and hopefully moving bodies to get my brain out of the shithole it was living in…there’s a reason I never became an English teacher even though that’s what one of my degrees is in. So we parked on one side of Balboa Park and walked all the way across it to a restaurant on the other side…
It was good. I needed the exercise. I needed the fresh air. I needed to get away from weird explanations for the states of matter.
We came back and finally watched Capt. Marvel, after sitting on the same DVD from Netflix for the entire summer. Plus SOMEONE watched it without me, despite our agreement. I had plenty of stuff to cut out. Even though I’m not done ironing, I can still start cutting.
The cat snored through the whole thing. He kept trying to get onto my lap, but eventually gave it up. So that’s two hours’ worth of cutting tiny flesh pieces out.
All the stuff that’s done is on the left, stuff to BE done on the right, and the trashy bits on top. Just in case.
I’ll throw them out eventually. When the quilt is done.
Sunday dawned with a giant crazy to-do list in my face, which I dealt with after going to the gym. A necessary thing. I finally got to the grading in late afternoon…yeah. I know. It was a day. I did prep all lunches, grocery shop for the week, go to my parents for dinner…all the things.
I could have kept reading essays at 10:30. Wait. No I couldn’t. I was holding my head together by then. I finished that period, got up, and came in here to iron. At least for a while. I needed to.
Here’s the dogs at my parents. I was trying to draw the September drawing for my Patreon. I did draw something, but I don’t like it.
So I’m going to try again tonight after grades are done. Assuming grades are ever done. It might be tomorrow. Technically that’s late, but I sent a message explaining. Hopefully that’s OK. This is my reality. I didn’t procrastinate…stuff just got moved and this is when the assignment that needed grading got turned in. I’m trying. Ugh. It hurts. Grading, not drawing. I just couldn’t get my head out of grading enough to draw well.
It’s OK. There’s always more paper for this. I guess even if there wasn’t paper, I’d still be making marks on something.
So I ironed for about an hour and a half…adding to the pile of fabrics used and pieces to cut out.
I ironed the heart and the eyeballs and the hair and the veins and arteries. And a thorny pubic area. Nice. Oh yeah, and some redwood trees. Technically not found down here, but oh well. I like them. They fit. I still have quite a few pieces to go, but I have no idea how many, which is kind of a metaphor for my life right now. And that’s fine. Now I have to go to school and try to explain to a bunch of kids why their grades aren’t what they want right now, and then tell them I’m not fixing it before progress reports, but that it’s totally fixable, and then writing myself and my co-teacher a note about having the first standards-based assignment WELL before the progress report due date so we don’t ever have this happen again thank you piloting curriculum and general bad timing. Yeah.
I should remember that just because I stay up late and should be able to sleep in the next morning, most of the furry beasts in the house will not actually allow me to do that. Yes, Calli, I’m talking to you. I stumbled down the hallway with my eyes closed to let her out to pee. Then went back to bed. For some reason, that wasn’t good enough, and she made me get up again in 20 minutes. Ugh. You know what she’s doing now? Sleeping.
Yeah, I stayed up late ironing. I was exhausted, so I didn’t even start ironing until like 10 PM or so, but then I got on a roll and kept going. Basically, it’s easier to pick and iron all the flesh fabrics in one go, so that’s what I did. I do have a shitload of grading to do this weekend, which I did some of last night, but I have to read about 115 essays (they’re short, but painful) this weekend, which might take some serious brainpower that I’m not sure I have. I’ve already tried to delay it twice. Ugh. Just do it. That’s what I know will work. Go run a mile in between every class period worth of essays. Not really. But a walk might help.
So yeah. Laid out all the flesh fabrics.
Then started ironing them all down. Slowly. These are all the pieces at level 4 in the run.
Trying to get them all in the same range in this hand-dyed fabric.
You can see the whole flesh run on the left.
The pile of stuff to be cut out is getting bigger. I still have a ton of pieces that need ironing…basically everything that isn’t flesh…
The lungs, heart, eyes, and all the stuff I drew in the body. That’ll take a while to get done. Hopefully I’ll do some today and some tomorrow. Essays first.
Meanwhile, girlchild in NYC…
Bottomless mimosas. Well. Not the way MY Saturday is going, but she’s young. And not driving anywhere. I’m just hoping to have some time tonight to do something besides grading. Goalz.
It’s a good day. It’s a Friday. We’re done with three days of labs and almost done with this hellacious pilot of a unit. Ah to teach the stuff I know works! AND I sold two quilts yesterday. In fact, my portion of my son’s college loans will hopefully be paid off with the sale of the last three quilts. I wonder sometimes what it will feel like to not have to come up with these crazy sums of money to pay stuff off. Maybe that never stops. But if I didn’t have the college stuff, I’d be most of the way toward remodeling one of the bathrooms in this house, which is next on the list: two new bathrooms, a new kitchen, and a backyard redo with a much smaller, more useful pool. Of course, the tree guy is coming sometime in the next month too, so that money needs to come from somewhere. Yikes. It’ll be fine!
I did go update the current shows and recent work sections of my website, as well as marking those two sold. It’s all good. Oh yeah, and I got a rejection and an acceptance in one morning…I Can’t Be Your Superwoman will be at CraftForms 2019 in December, one of 90 chosen from 1300 entries. Not bad…
I have two more shows to enter this weekend. Keep making! Like I need an excuse. Seriously.
I did stitch a little last night. Like one leaf. I sent my shopping list for the drop-in workshop I’m teaching on November 9…come by City College, see the Allied Craftsmen show Metamorphosis, and then hang out with me and fabric and thread! No really. Please. I’ll be there from 1-3 imparting my wisdom. Whatever that means. I’m used to teaching 12-year-olds, so if I tell you to spit out your gum, I apologize.
I did eventually iron. It really is super slow. I’m hoping to be done by the end of the weekend, but I’m not sure it’s possible. I ironed lightning, some stars, the moon, a mountain, and an ocotillo.
Maybe another 50 pieces?
I’ve been ironing for almost 10 hours and I’m only in the 300s. So weird. Not sure why. Lots of searching for colors. I like things that are real to be real colors…whatever that means.
And then I sat on the floor with all my flesh-colored drawers and picked the flesh run…which honestly is most of the quilt. Although I might make the leg sky color. Or part of it at least. Haven’t decided.
I get into habits with certain fabrics and keep using them over and over. I tried to branch out with this, reach into the far back of the fabric drawers, where stuff gets pushed back and never seen. The stuff in the front gets used all the time. That’s why it’s in the front, eh? It was 11:30 PM, though, and this week has kicked my ass. So I went to bed, because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to iron anything before I needed to sleep…and it’s easier to pick the whole flesh run in one go. Tonight? Although I need to grade. I need to grade while I’m awake. Picking fabrics is a different part of my brain…much easier than reading kid essays. That’s the rest of my weekend.
Yesterday morning’s partners…
See this room needs remodeling too. Nice floor. That’s what happens when you iron on the floor. Sigh. Easier than bathrooms though. Floor, walls, storage. I’d love to bump it out a foot or too. I’ll definitely replace the damn doors. Maybe a new window. One with a perch for the cats. I can dream. Bedroom side of the house needs new carpet too. All new flooring honestly. Sigh. It’s never-ending. I can’t stop working until I get through a good chunk of it…if not all of it. It’s not that I want to stop working right now…it just seems overwhelming right now to do all that work…and pay for it.
Then again, it is Friday. Everything seems overwhelming at the moment. But we get through it anyway. Happy Friday all!
OK. So I hiked over 6 miles last night and it was good. Yes, it was after a full day of walking all over the freakin’ place, fetching ice and water and index cards, cleaning up stuff, trying to get kids on task. Today is the last day of these stations. Hopefully we will all survive it. I did manage to get videos for all of the labs, either on the interwebz or by recording my own, so there’s no kid who can claim they didn’t get to a station so they didn’t get the info. The grade file opens today…so we have until Tuesday at 2 PM to get through whatever gets turned in. Although it doesn’t matter how many times I tell them. There’s a listening issue right now. And a doing issue. Some learned helplessness going on. It will be apparent on progress reports…and some kid will tell me I never SAID it was going to be their grade. Ha! Well then.
My feet hurt this morning. My blood sugar is also really low. I need new boots. I may also need to adjust my insulin again. I already reduced it once after the hot flashes stopped and the blood sugar numbers seemed to calm down with that. I don’t trust all that not to come back though. I love that my doctor/insurance give almost no assistance in this process. But the insurance company sent me an email yesterday telling me how to stop smoking. Um. ??? Really? Because I never have. They want to reduce costs? They should better support their diabetes patients who want the support and maybe stop sending useless emails.
Anyway. I guess the day health insurance does what I want is probably the day I die. I don’t have much faith in them. I just remember the conversation I had with them about when they offered flu shots (only during work hours)…although they’ve changed that. Duh.
So we hiked Iron Mountain.
There was a storm rolling in from Mexico, the tail end of one of the tropical storms or even Hurricane Lorena. I’m not sure what we’re getting at this point. It was beautiful out…not too hot, clouds everywhere. As always, some people are super speedy.
I’m not. I used to be. The sun came out and disappeared and then wandered out again.
This is a night hike eventually, so we all had some sort of headlamp or flashlight. The sun actually went down while we were on the back side of the mountain.
I’ve done this hike a million times. Maybe.
Looking east was beautiful too.
Although west was definitely more dramatic…
Oh yeah.
I hike with a Meetup group. I’ve hiked with them for about 6 years, I think, on and off. Now it’s more off. But five years ago almost exactly, I did this hike with them. It popped up in my photos.
That’s kind of a cool thing.
I was nervous because I thought I’d have a hard time going up. The last hill climb I went on was a while ago and I had to stop a lot…but there was elevation involved in that one. This one isn’t that high. And I did OK on the climb.
From the top…
Or at least it doesn’t start as high up as the other one did. When we came back down, we spread out and did a silent (sort of) hike. There were many scorpions…
And a few people had black lights, because these suckers are fluorescent…
Saw a tiny snake and a few tarantulas, and then this spider, who I’m pretty sure is carrying all its babies on its back…
Someone else had a better picture of it. They haven’t uploaded it yet.
Here’s a better scorpion picture though…
And my hiking group…
It was a good thing. I came home and ate dinner at 9:30 PM though. And then processed some videos for school and created a post for those.
Only then did I iron. And only for an hour.
Mostly I did the sun and the clouds. I was too tired to even do the rain, the lightning, the stars, or the moon. They should have been easy. But it was almost midnight and I was not-so-shockingly tired.
More ironing tonight. Although I have to grade stuff too. Maybe not tonight? I don’t know. Right now, I don’t feel much like doing more work than I already do.
OK, off to work again I go. Me and my tired but happy feet.
Day 2 today of thermal energy/pressure labs. Yesterday was…um…OK? My co-teacher may not agree. It’s not easy. I hit 10,000 steps right after lunch just fetching water and ice. I had about 10 kids who live on the edge…the edge of my having to stinkeye them. One may not survive today. We should have done some more group labs before we got to today; they still have a hard time with instructions. Like following them. Not entirely atypical for this age, but frustrating in the moment. Hopefully today will be smoother. Ha! I’m not sure why it will, but it will need to be. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be hiking tonight, so that will be interesting. I’m pretty sure my legs will complain about being tired. OK. Well. Nothing new there.
I did tutoring yesterday too, spending some quality time (ha!) with some very interesting kids. As always. We have an assignment due tomorrow that is HARD. It’s really not as hard as some kids make it out to be, because they want the answer key and there isn’t one. So they want me to tell them exactly how to write it (What’s the ANSWER??? whine) and I won’t, because it’s an assessment. I gave them a format and about a million ideas and three labs and a couple other assignments as evidence, and I’m not doing that last step for them. It’s painful, but a learning experience, for sure. All this is exhausting. I’m not sure if it’s more or less exhausting this year than any other. I just know I’m exhausted right now.
Yesterday, this spider hitched a ride to school. I always wonder what they’re thinking as they’re bouncing along in the wind. And then whether they get off when at school. There’s a nice bunch of plants there that they can live in…
It might be better than my driveway…who knows?
I was actually too tired after dinner to work on anything. It was my brain, though…I couldn’t decide between stitching and working on the Unit 2 calendar. I knew I should do the latter, but I didn’t want to. So I did nothing.
Eventually, though, after dishes were done, I went in to iron. I keep forgetting to take in-process pictures. I did finish the second September Patreon video as well, where I try to explain how I pick fabrics.
At the end of another two hours, this is what I had used…
A few more browns, greens, and grays. A mule deer is in there. I didn’t actually get much done, depressingly enough. Just the righthand side of the landscape…some bushes, dirt, a river, the deer, some hills, and a mountain. I’m not sure why it took so long, but it did. I’m in the 250s. Only. ONLY. Sigh. The pile is growing. That’s what matters. I don’t think I’ll get any of it done tonight because of the hike, but who knows.
Here’s the rest of the 200s…all clouds and a sun and IDK what else.
I see a star. There’s probably a mountain in there too. Then the body! I wish I could say I’d be done ironing soon, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Maybe by the end of the weekend? After I grade that assignment. The one that might kill them.
I haven’t posted my SAQA auction piece that I bought yet. I need the light to be better than it has been, but it’s already hanging on my wall. I like to buy pieces by people I know…this one was by Natalya Aikens and features recycled materials.
I buy one piece a year to support the group. I can’t handle making one…they’re too small.
This guy this morning…I’m hoping the boychild comes back and deals with him…he’s on the living room ceiling.
He’s bigger than I like to try and catch over my head. On a bumpy ceiling. On a ladder. By myself. I feel like that’s a recipe for disaster.
OK, back to school and Day 2 of labs. Meditation at times. Getting my act together. Then hiking a mountain. Which by the way, I hiked on the same day (or day before?) 5 years ago. That’s interesting. I need to remember a headlamp and my poles. And food. That would be smart. Water. Water is also good.
OK. I think I am ready for today. It’s a lab day, the first of three. It’s the first time we’ll be doing stations with this crew. It’s not just stations: it’s ice and hot water and materials. I don’t entirely trust these widgets yet, but the solution is to toss any kid who doesn’t listen to a warning and behave appropriately. There’s some cool learning that can happen in the next three days if you’re paying attention and following instructions. Hopefully they’ll do that. It was a lot of prep and now I have to meet with the principal about printing costs, but since we don’t have a textbook or any print materials, I think we’ll be OK. There’s just no way to do labs with middle-school kids without printing stuff. They need to record their ideas and observations somewhere. Their heads are not good for remembering that stuff. I understand that.
I got home late, but knew I needed to keep working on one thing for school…a resource deck for the thing they have to write on Friday. What I really wanted to do was go for a walk, but it was already late and I had work to do, so I crawled onto the bike and worked there for a bit…
I had headphones in and was listening to science videos about thermal energy and pressure. Exciting stuff. I did more of it here after dinner…
And eventually gave up on it and went in to iron. There’s only so much work I can do in one day before I’m mostly useless.
Not this stuff. I can do this for hours. It’s a different part of my brain.
I do have video for the Patreon crew at this point of how I pick colors, so I’ll edit those tonight…and hopefully get them posted. This quilt is not ironing fast…
It looks like a lot. It is. But it’s only the first 200 pieces or so…not even. I have a few 190s to iron yet. I’ve spent almost 6 hours just on ironing the first 200 pieces. There’s been a lot of thinking and searching for the right color, apparently. Only 700 to go! Sheesh. At this rate, I’ll never be done. Plus grades are due next week. I’m caught up at the moment, but there’s an assignment due Thursday that will need to be graded over the weekend.
OK, so I prepped a lot yesterday after school, but I still need to set up the stations and get my brain organized. And then survive it all.
Well here’s an interesting commentary on recycling and the current government…my fees went up because we can’t send stuff to China (I’m actually OK with not sending it out of the US…it’s one of the things I think should stay here so we can stop shoving it under the carpet), but my trash company won’t even take all our recycling because they’re missing the machinery to actually recycle it, so there’s that, and what are they actually doing with the extra money and recycling? There’s no information about that at all…just we have to offset these expenses that we aren’t going to explain to you. I’m still trying to figure out how the current government helps me financially (it doesn’t), but I’d really like to solve the recycling issue here in this country. That would be nice.
It was a busy weekend. That’s why I didn’t write either day. I bought background fabrics the previous weekend but didn’t get that far until Saturday…I ended up picking the second one from the top.
I just leave this stack here and pick from it for background or backing.
Friday night, I finished cutting out the Wonder Under and then sorted it…
It didn’t take long…
This was Saturday morning, trying to organize my brain.
Sunday morning looked similar, but I think there was a different cat, plus a different page in the journal. It’s cleaner at the moment. It won’t stay that way.
One of Saturday’s jobs was to sort all this and put it away.
If I don’t clean the studio in between each quilt, I can’t think straight. Sorted by color for easy storage.
I was video messaging a friend by now who moved away…here’s my set up for the newest quilt.
It’s harder to concentrate on picking fabrics when I’m talking to someone. I’m really slow.
But I got some done.
Saturday night, we went to the Adams Avenue Street Fair, hung out, watched some bands, mostly Buck-O-Nine, which was fun except for all the dumb rude people.
Yeah that.
Late night gecko encounter…
Kitten was excited.
Sunday was a million more things to do, including a pile of grading and seating charts…finally stitched a bit with dinner…
Haven’t worked on this for ages. It’s very meditative.
But I needed to do actual art…so I ironed for a while…
I haven’t gotten very far…most of the 0-100s box and some of the 100s box. Need to figure out the rest of the ocean…
Sleepy puppy waiting for me to pet him…
Or for the boychild to let him in. Boychild broke his toe, so he won’t be hiking with me this week. I’ll survive. But it sucks for him.
OK, off to work. I’ve got shit to do this morning. As always.
What a morning. I’m up! Not packed, not ready, showered, but the laundry wasn’t dry (long story, my fault for not changing the thingie and it took 10 minutes for me to figure out how to change it because I hadn’t had my tea yet). Simba got bit by a coyote this morning…not here, but at my ex’s. He’s OK, but I need puppy cuddles. We’ll pick him up from the vet later and hopefully he will run next time. Calli apparently went after the coyote (oh great, 10-year-old gimpy Golden Retriever). We do live with the wildlife here and need to respect it and then yell at it and spray it repeatedly with a hose so it won’t come back. I actually occasionally buy wolf urine pellets and sprinkle them about the edges of the property. I don’t know if it works…but I haven’t seen them on my property (just down at the end of the driveway) in a while. He’s OK! That’s the takeaway.
Not a current picture. I haven’t seen him yet. Today, we’re supposed to be driving to Lake Arrowhead. I’m only up for a day, because I have to be at school on Friday. Sigh. I was at school yesterday…got in there and had no desks, so I moved a few things out of the hallway and then started pulling stuff out of cupboards. At some point, one of the custodians started bringing desks in.
Ironic because I had already gotten an email from one of the Assistant Principals about using my tables to sort Chromebooks. I’m like SURE! What tables? Anyway. I’m not there today or tomorrow, so just don’t leave a mess.
We’re doing a portfolio thing this year, so I needed new things. New system. Originally they were not in rainbow order, but my brain rebelled and rainbowed them.
Can’t help it.
My boards aren’t done. I haven’t found everything. My tech isn’t set up. Did I mention I haven’t found everything?
I spent a couple of hours trying though…there’s two prep days next week, so hopefully I will be more prepared after that. Right now, it just feels like chaos. All this stuff and the stuff on the other side had to be locked up because of summer school.
The plus is that I toss stuff at the end of the year, and then I toss more stuff at the beginning of the year, because I’m like, why the fuck did I keep this? But then I keep stuff for 16 years and I don’t know what to do with it. Anyway. More to do. Honestly, it’s less about what I do to decorate and organize and more about what I do with the kids. I always remember that part.
As part of the new-year resolutions, I’m reading this book about burnout. It’s called Burnout and it’s by Emily Nagoski, but this caught my eye.
It’s the science part I like. A good way to start the new year anyway.
Calli agrees.
Resting up. Literally.
Two caterpillars yesterday on the milkweed. I haven’t seen a lot of caterpillars…lots of butterflies though, so that’s good.
Lots of aphids.
So I copyedited a good chunk of the afternoon. Lots more left to do. I’m copyediting a book about trauma-sensitive schools and one of the stories set me off yesterday. I work with a lot of traumatized kids. It’s hard sometimes. Hence the burnout book.
And then I ironed a bunch…
I was trying to finish last night…worked on the other side…
She was fussy…and I had to iron both sides together on the floor…it was too big for the ironing board.
Then I went back and did the hands. They’re holding hands. You can’t have light without dark. Not good and evil. Not good and bad. A spectrum. Working together. Both sides of one coin. Coyotes and domesticated dogs. Teaching and art. Or something like that. Anyway…I wanted to get it on a background, but I needed to piece that and it was already after midnight. And right now, I need to leave in about 15 minutes to deal with the girlchild’s hair and then hopefully get the puppy and go to the mountains. I might get to this Thursday night, depending on how late I get back. I NEED to get it done.
I honestly have no idea what I’m working on next. That’s weird. Huh. OK. Well then. I’ll have to think about that while I’m traveling. Lots of driving, that’s for sure.
Kathy Nida 