Until the Stars Lost the War*

I did well. It was good. I did all the things. I think. Well, if I didn’t do them all, it’s because I forgot they existed. Or it was grading, and I just didn’t get to that. (and that’s OK)

Mostly, I wanted to be sure I ironed. I want to get this thing all put together so I can SEE it. Plus I have deadlines that are barking at my ankles like a little dog.

So school, tutoring, chiropractor, gym. I started ironing after 10 PM…I’m on Figure 5…and she’s one of the most complicated figures…

She has a torso and both arms, and they’re really LOOOONG…because I made them stretch all the way across the bottom of the quilt.

I didn’t even get to both arms…just the one and then most of the torso…

Also she has wings and they have lots of pieces…I didn’t even get to those.

Geez. This is not a small quilt. But I’m pretty sure I only have about 150 pieces left to iron down. So that’s cool.

Her head, other arm, and all the crap that surrounds her. Then put the whole thing together. Looking forward to seeing it.

Yes, she’s really pink. I tried to do each figure in a different range of flesh tones. Me? I run kinda pink. Maybe not this pink, unless I’ve been in the sun. But since all of these are me, because all this is inside my head…she can be my sunburnt self I guess.

Meanwhile. I stayed up too late again. I was trying to finish that section! Kitten is currently spazzing out under the drawing and trying to figure out how to destroy it.

I need to go to work and manage the last day of a project on the same day as a massive math test. I have book club tonight, which is cool. I might get to iron as well…maybe. I hope so. Her other arm? Her head? Seriously, 150 pieces won’t take long. Maybe ironed onto the background on Thursday? Starting stitch down on Friday? I totally will miss the deadline I had for this one, but I just have to assume there was a good reason for that. Mine, not some superpower’s…and I need to start drawing the next one. It will need to be done early so I can do the NEXT next one on time. It should be fine…they finally did the specs for the next show, and although they said no size restrictions when I asked back in December, now it’s max 30″ wide, which is nothing. Tiny. So I’m glad I hadn’t already started drawing. Need to rethink that one a bit. But that’s a future thing. Not a LOT in the future, but probably not tonight. I have to say I really look forward to MAKING every night. This weekend is a bunch of stuff I have to do and making will not be able to be a priority. Last weekend was the same. Ugh. Wish it were different. I would seriously hermit at home all the time if I could get away with it.

Anyway…finishing my delicious fresh-baked scone (OMG, these are good)…then going to work and trying NOT to be irritated by the kid who called me an Old Ass yesterday (I might be, but he doesn’t get to tell me that…he’s gotta LIVE with me to tell me that). Meditative breathing before dealing with him again. It’s not the name-calling that bugs me…I know he has stuff he’s dealing with that causes that…it’s the constant disruption of other kids. So we’ll be dealing with that today. Fun stuff…

Revivalists, Wish I Knew You

Justifying Crazy

Hello not Monday morning but feels like Monday morning because I was one of those lucky people who did not have to go to work yesterday because of MLK. Appreciate it. Appreciate him more, but in the moment, I’ll take the day off as well. One of the people I follow on Instagram said, Hey! White people! Instead of dropping an MLK quote on the day, send some money to a group that supports people of color. Awesome idea…I don’t have lots of money, but every $20 counts. I’ll be doing that tonight.

Yesterday was kind of a rush. Doctor (no solutions yet), scheduling more doctor, blood-letting (love that), shopping, dog walking…gotta love dog walking in the middle of a beautiful winter day with bright blue skies and sun, but not too warm (sorry Northeast…I apologize for January’s wintry weather in San Diego).

All the greenery here is dead…but further out, the typical grassy hills that turn green after the rain…I’m pretty sure I took this picture by accident.

I love that I do this walk all the time and see new stuff on a regular basis. This is a very interesting mushroom growing out of the hillside next to the trail.

We have another interesting one in the backyard, fed mostly by dog poop I think. Probably not edible.

There’s the green hill! Of a landfill.

We spend most of the year staring at dead brown grass, so this is nice.

After that and making scones (like you do, because you have apples that need to be used up and you can then cook them for breakfast)…I went to my guild, Canyon Quilters, and did a talk.

None of those are me. There are probably pictures of me out there, but I don’t have any of them. Those are my quilts though. I talked for an hour or so about how I make quilts and why I apparently get so much done (I don’t feel like I get a lot done, especially currently…feels like molasses these days). I remember nothing I said. Apparently I amused some, but there was one woman asleep in the front, so it was a little like teaching 12-year-olds (well, not much, because no one was tapping on their desk with a pencil or trying to mouth a conversation across the room). I appreciate the opportunity to try to explain what I do. Justifying the crazy! Oh hell, you know I’d make the stuff anyway.

I was tired afterwards, but I didn’t get any art done all day, which is frustrating. I also didn’t get any grading done, but I’m less frustrated by that. THAT job would take over my life if I let it.

So I got my butt off the chair and wandered into the studio at 11:24 PM. I ironed the eyeballs and nose slits on those three snakes…

Pulled the Figure 4 head off the teflon sheet, and put it in the box with Figures 1-3. There to wait until I’m ready to iron it all down.

And then I ironed the sun.

That was all I had time and energy for last night. I spent half the night trying to persuade the puppy that coyotes were not invading us and he could stop barking. I feel a little drugged at the moment, up too early with not enough concentrated dream time, but a freshly baked apple cheddar scone is making the world a better place, one hot steamy bite at a time. Can’t beat that. Now I just need to persuade the boychild that he can’t eat all of the rest of the scones today. It’s amazing what a delicious baked good can do for a morning.

My plan for the day? I think I’m in survival mode for a while. I’ll let you know. Certainly I would hope ironing Figure 5 would make it into the final plan, but I’m really tired right now and I know the gym is in my future…AFTER school and tutoring and the chiropractor. Wish me luck…

Catch Up…

Such efficiency yesterday. School stuff done (not all of it, but the stuff that had to be done…although that’s a never-ending task), groceries done (except for what I need to go to a different store for today, which is luckily a holiday for me so I can do that), cooked dinner, tried to use things up, mostly successful (way too many potatoes), finished the slides for tonight (just need to roll up all the quilts and then NOT forget to take anything), did the assigned daily art item, graded some stuff, AND ironed a head together. I feel pretty good about yesterday. Let’s hope today continues that feeling. Because I know going to school tomorrow will once again make me feel like I’m way behind (laughs until cries). I do keep track of my grading to-do list. It used to be piles of papers, but now it’s mostly online, so it is harder to see. I still FEEL it though. Never caught up. Never caught up.

So today I go to the doctor to talk about the weird pain that waxes and wanes. Maybe to talk about my blood sugar numbers. Maybe I will get a little irritated about how that shit was handled. We’ll see. Irritated doesn’t really help things. Straightforward criticism of patient instructions (or lack thereof) is probably more useful. We’ll see. I like my doctor. I don’t really want to find a new one. I just don’t think diabetes care is her specialty.

Anyway. So. Kitten keeps me company as I work on the computer.

Or she might be about to eat that magazine. Hard to say. I spend a lot of time on computers. For art. For work. For everything. Oh yeah, you can go here if you want to see a local article about me. They basically have the artists write their own articles and then refer them to friends. It’s nice to see all my friends’ articles though. We talk about art, but not usually in these terms.

I traced the moon appliques onto freezer paper and got most of them cut out last night. Now to choose some appropriate flesh fabrics.

That was actually Sunday’s assigned project I was working on. A miracle. We watched a movie (and the moon!), so I had some extra time. Or maybe I did this while dinner was finishing up. Can’t remember.

After dinner and dishes, though, into the office/studio for ironing. I started by unsticking everything I’d done…carefully folding it up so hopefully I don’t lose any pieces.

It will come back out later. I need to deal with the last two heads by themselves. They’re just too damn big.

The bottom half of Figure 4’s jaw…

This thing is bigger than it looks here.

You can get a better idea of size here…

That head could swallow that cat.

Head done, except for the eyes and nose slits for the snakes.

I needed to go to bed, because even though I have today off, I had to get up for the doctor. Need to leave soon actually. Anyway, I feel pretty good about that extra hour I did…I’ll finish the eyeballs and nose slits today and then move on. Although today is busy, so we’ll see what I can get done. Dogs walked, doc, groceries, talk plus dinner…hopefully some schoolwork in there. There’s a few assignments I just want done and out of my hair. Let’s hope I’m motivated today.

It’s nice to have an extra day off. Helps me “catch up”, whatever that means.

Everything Will Work Out

I did a lot yesterday. I marched. I stitched. I read. I ironed. A good day. I didn’t write, because I had to be out of here early, and I was not a responsible adult who went to bed early the night before, because…well…I can’t really explain that. I have stuff to do and it’s taking more time than I thought it would. As it always does.

I ended Friday with a kamikaze trip home after school to grab the dogs and run to the hills before we lost daylight…

With a little rain in the last few weeks, California gets green…so pretty. see the dog head down there.

It was still damp from a week’s worth of rain, but the skies were mostly clear.

We saw a million rabbits and hares, but only one coyote. Oh yeah, and this guy. Just sitting there as we walked past.

Yo. You’re supposed to be scared of people and dogs.

We were pushing it with the daylight thing, but it was a good walk for all involved.

The days are getting longer. This will get easier.

Saturday morning, I got up early and met a marching friend for brunch. I liked this cactus.

We went down and listened to music and speeches…sort of…while I stitched. I needed the mental down time. I didn’t want to stand. I’ve been standing all week. Two hours of standing is too much right now.

It felt good. Relaxing. Positive. And then we marched…because it’s important that we still represent…that the politicians can see that we’re still here and we’re still not happy with what’s happening, whether it’s immigration or women’s rights or issues of racism in our country.

I didn’t bring a sign this year. But I liked this one.

So true.

These were beautiful and heartbreaking. The immigrants who died in custody as they were trying to come here for safety. Children…

That’s not OK.

We need to be better than that. I hope we can be.

So I did some stitching Friday night during the movie watch…finishing up the August blocks…

So that whole section is done until I sew it to the next section, so I can finish the road and flowers on the other side of it.

I think I have to do the September blocks before that happens. Which I started at the march.

Didn’t get much done, but it’s a start. After dinner and some couple time, I came in here to iron…got another cat done…

And a snake…

And then the arm of Figure 4…

Along with a hurricane. I’m in the 900s. I’m getting closer to done. I’m hoping to work on it today as well, but I have school stuff, the slides for the talk tomorrow, and groceries. So I need to be efficient as hell to get to ironing as well. OK. Plan made. I also suspect I will need to iron Figure 4 by itself, instead of trying to fit it into what I’ve already ironed. It’s getting too large, too heavy, too unwieldy. But that’s OK. I’ll do Figure 4 and then see if I can add it to this. Or I might have to wait until I iron it to the background. It’ll be fine. Everything will work out. In time.

Truth Is Only Hearsay*

Feeling chaotic about this quilt. I really like what’s happening and I know I’ll be happy with it once it’s all ironed to the background, but at the moment, trying to iron all these crazy heads that are attached to each other, moving the teflon sheets around so I can iron the bit that’s attached to this particular head, it’s a little insane. It’s not SMALL either. So maneuvering it is also difficult. I don’t have one piece of teflon big enough, so I’m using two big pieces and one smaller piece at the moment, and detaching parts from the sheets so I can move those around to the current head. Also just a bit crazy.

But I like it. I’m looking forward to seeing what it looks like.

I’ve got the margarine containers full of pins and thread holding everything on the ironing board…

Quilts get really heavy at some point. Unwieldy and heavy. I was working on Figure 3’s head…I kept trying to iron the eye in place, but it wasn’t working because I couldn’t see the overlaps…I finally gave up and ironed it outside the face, so I could see it all.

I guess there’s a reason I usually do that. It was much easier.

I only had about an hour last night…but I got the head done…and Figure 2’s head in there, overlapping…

I need to add the cat on her head and the snake that’s hanging out around her neck…then Figure 3 is done and I’m on to Figure 4. Tonight is all about finishing the slides for the presentation I’m giving Monday night though. And work. Plus I’m marching tomorrow in the Women’s March. I guess we do that until that guy is out of office AND the other guys realize the Gillette ad is not a threat to their masculinity. Sigh. Thanks, Gillette, for trying.

What else last night? I had quilt class…

I worked on the antelope. I’m almost done with the horns, and then he has a symbol stitched on him. I also finished the flowers…there was one stitch I had to look up in the notebook of instructions (from January!) and so I remembered to bring that with me. But this month is almost done…August? September? I can’t remember. Slow progress on this lately, despite it being my go-to stitching.

Also, there was this…

Satchemo is the only cat I’ve ever (well, he’s not mine, so I don’t HAVE him) interacted with regularly who had a snotty nose. It’s like he has allergies. He sneezes. He needs his nose wiped. So I feel like he’s old enough (10 or so) to carry his own Kleenex. Apparently he agreed.

OK, parent meeting this morning, then teaching more elements stuff, then walking the dogs hopefully (the rain is supposed to be gone by this afternoon, if not earlier), then cooking dinner, slideshow, and MAYBE ironing. I’m already tired. Reading that made me tired. It’ll be fine. Really.

*The 1975, Love It If We Made It

Felt It in My Youth, Feel It When I’m Old*

Blessed peace, back to the ironing. This piece is not an easy beast to put together, with all 5 figures intertwining and overlapping…but the challenge is something I enjoy. Although I never think about that when I draw it…I just draw it. And then I realize the crazy I’ve created as I put it together.

So basically, I walked in the door at 7 PM and dinner was almost ready. I ate, stitched a bit on a binding that may never get done, and then headed in here for almost 3 hours of ironing. It was delightful.

I started with the details on Figure 2’s face…

Which I didn’t have the time to do the other night…it included ironing the eye before putting it on the face…

This is a little disturbing to look at. Then face completed. This figure has a bird, a nest, a tree, and a vine attached to her, so those were next…

Those went pretty quickly…

And then I needed to decide what to do about the arm dissection there…it’s the arm of Figure 3, which I’m working on next anyway. Although it goes around the corner and some of the pieces do too, so that makes this complicated…but honestly, it’s going to be complicated no matter what I do. So I went for it…

On the right, the pieces are flopping around, not fully ironed down. Then I set that teflon sheet aside (yes, I have multiples of these things)…and turned the entire drawing 90 degrees to get to the right side…and ironed the other hand for Figure 3.

Plus a syringe. Like you do.

I started ironing the torso for Figure 3 and then the arm…

Then added the torso and legs for Figure 1 (they’d been sitting in a box, waiting to be reconnected to the upper torso and head), and connected Figure 3’s arm around the corner.

You can see this thing is getting a bit large and out of control at the moment…although the center section is mostly connected, with all the heads and hair overlapping parts of mouths, plus arms wrapping around the whole thing.

So here she is so far…the bottom part of Figure 2 is in a box waiting for the arm of Figure 5 to connect it back into the image.

Figure 3 needs a head…which will underlap (that is so not a word) the head of Figure 2. But at some point, I either need another large teflon sheet (don’t have one) or I need to detach everything so far and move it…which I did last night anyway with the stuff on the other sheet.

Tonight? Well, I have a meeting, but I had one last night too. So I’m hoping to get the head of Figure 3 done…keep it moving. I’ve given up on my deadline, which is fine…too much other stuff to do. I have a Women’s March Saturday, I need to make a slide presentation for my quilt guild and then give a talk Monday night. Next week is a clusterfuck of meetings. There aren’t enough hours. There never are. But I’m loving this quilt. So it will be done. In time for something.

*Twenty-One Pilots, Jumpsuit

But I Was Late for This, Late for That*

Adult brain won last night and got me in bed earlier. Not much earlier. Really not even a win, if you talk to anyone about how much sleep I SHOULD get, but better than the night before. So there’s that. Plus I finished grades before we even went to the airport to drop off the girlchild…here’s what the end of doing grades looks like…

Pretty dang happy. Girlchild will hate this photo, but Simba is kissing her. Last time he’ll be able to do that for a while. Next up? Graduation, a trip to Portugal (for her, not me…I won’t make it out of the country this year), and then work like an adult. Who knows when we’ll see her again on that couch. I try not to think too hard about that shit.

So finally, on January 14, I managed to implement my Finishing All the Shit plan for the new year. I assigned one project per day, and I’m supposed to put in about 30 minutes on it a night, after I eat dinner, while I’m still watching whatever show we’re watching, assuming I don’t have an art quilt that’s in a couch stage (cutting things out or sewing bindings) or grading I can do. Or want to do, because I had more grading last night…I just chose not to do it. It will get done. Eventually. But I haven’t been doing a good job of following any of it, mostly because the projects themselves are very disorganized at the moment. So I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to find all the bits that would allow me to just pick one up and work on it.

So I worked on this, Monday’s project…

Which included a puppy face…a puppy who is confused about where his benefactor went.

I don’t know how many years ago I started this, but it was a lot. It’s from a book called Home Sweet Home except I blew off their calm quiet colors. I have I think 6 blocks done? Or this is the 6th one? And there are only 9. Most of the pieces are pretty damn big, so it won’t take long. Here it is so far…

The windows are all done…they just need to go on. This is about 1/2 way done. So there we are. Moving on.

After all that and the dishes and trying to figure shit out and get my brain on task (a difficult thing sometimes), I moved into the room with the iron…

And I did things with it. So this is the bottom section of Figure 2…and I put the hand in that overlapped it. I’m pretty sure that pink hand is from Figure 5, because I pulled it from the box with the 1300s…but it’s missing the finger creases. I don’t know where they are…hopefully in the box with the other fingers (not the 1300s box. Trust me. I looked there more than once.). I just didn’t go looking for them.

Then I pulled that off the teflon sheet and started on the section of Figure 2 above the arm that crosses over it…

Skinny piece…with another arm above it. For now, I just kept going above that arm…

I don’t think I’ll try to iron that arm over the body now. Too complicated. No logical break like with the other hand.

I didn’t finish the face, because however much I WANTED to, that’s when adult brain looked at the clock and said no, go to bed.

Which is good, because it takes me a while to get everything cleaned up and settled and brush my teeth, find the dogs, settle them, take insulin, etc. But there’s Figure 1 getting swallowed by Figure 2, which is almost finished. Although she has a tree, a nest, a bird, and an ivy vine that go with her, so not quite THAT close to done. I’m in the 400s, so I only got about 150 pieces in last night. Not bad. I started around 10 PM. Only 1100 pieces to go! Yeah. Uh huh.

I got rejected from another show last night. OK. Well. There we are. Now I need to figure out what’s available to enter in the next one. Which reminds me that I still have one out there that should be returned this week…haven’t seen it yet. Sigh. Six made it home…no, seven made it home. Sheesh. That’s a lot. Need to deal with putting those away. I emailed about the eighth one. Usually they send tracking info. Well. Sometimes they send tracking info. No guarantees.

OK, more ironing tonight, but also tutoring and the gym…which bites into that time. All good and useful things…but time is a limited resource.

*The Lumineers, Cleopatra

Come Back Sunday Morning*

So once I start ironing a quilt together, I’m finally seeing the images in color that were in my head, seeing them for real…and it’s very hard to stop ironing. Like to eat or sleep. This weekend was such a clusterfuck of work work work and running around getting stuff done that I was going a little bonkers with no art. So I SHOULD have finished grades last night, but I didn’t…and I may regret that later, but I will deal. And the girlchild goes back to school today, so that’s sad. But I needed some art before my brain exploded, so that’s what I did last night. Put the school computer away, cleaned all the dishes, and walked into the studio. Where the fabric is.

And I started ironing this monster together…five overlapping heads (only one has a whole body…most just have arms and maybe part of a torso).

Tiny little hands that will show up when I do the outlining. I picked a different run of flesh for each figure.

She’s one of my favorites…

Her body is in two parts, bisected by the arm of one of the other figures.

Putting the face together…

I did try to keep them simple…well. You know. I’m not good at that.

There she is!

One figure done…except I forgot she had stuff on her shoulder…

Like you do…so that’s Figure 1 done.

Here’s the whole setup…you can see how big the drawing is…

It’s draped over the ironing board and I put the teflon sheet (or sheets, depending on how big what I’m ironing is) on top.

It was late, but the thing is, when I’m on a roll, it’s hard to stop. If I didn’t listen to the adult brain in my head arguing with art brain, I’d iron ’til the cows come home. And I don’t have cows, so that would be a really long time. As it was, I went to bed way too late and I will pay for it today. Ugh. But I was feeling stressed out and overwhelmed, and art helps with that. So here is the start of Figure 2…also bisected, perhaps trisected…so this is the bottom part of the torso.

I ironed the first 300 pieces and a bit. Not bad for the first night. I’ll see what I can get done with grades today during prep…maybe I won’t have to work on school all night. I will have to go to the airport. The thing about the girlchild leaving is that she probably won’t ever get to come home for that long again (it was only 3 weeks, despite her claim it was 4, and she was gone for 6 days of it on a road trip)…and right now, it’s unlikely that she’ll move back here. So there’s that. Trust me, I understand needing to live away from your parents…but I still miss her when she’s gone. Normal mom stuff.

Other random things. This bee rode the windshield of my car almost all the way to the grocery store…

I don’t know if that was its plan, but it’s what happened.

This is perhaps the only documentation I have EVER of my dad attempting an artistic endeavor.

My parents were in Portugal on a tour and painted tiles. My mom did one too, but she does art stuff all the time. Dad does not. So there it is…a Bob original.

I was on this couch by myself. And then this happened…

So I went back to ironing.

This morning’s sunset…the rain starts this afternoon and doesn’t stop until Thursday night sometime.

So I was thankful for this. Sheesh. I lied. My weather app says the rain is starting in 15 minutes. Sigh. I guess I should be glad I saw that this morning at all. Got up early! For this. That’s OK then. Now I need to go find my rain gear.

*Portugal, the Man, Live in the Moment

I Finished…Something.

It’s Saturday. Y’all probably already know this, but I keep having to tell myself what day it is because I conveniently forget when on break. It’s a nice thing to get to that point, except when you have to be somewhere at a particular time and people want you to be there ON time and with all your crap so they can leave with you. So I’m watching the clock and probably need to get my act in gear soon.

In awesomely good news, I finished the Project Paint thing yesterday…in fact, it’s all I finished, although I left the house twice for things I had to do, and in both cases almost got creamed by another vehicle who was driving idiotically in my lane when previously they had NOT been in my lane, so it kinda makes me think I shouldn’t leave the house like ever. Not happening, of course, but it’s what my core brain is saying. Don’t leave! People drive badly! Just stay home! It’s nicer here anyway!

OK, brain, I hear you. Still not happening.

I started with ironing bits together…this is the easy stuff…

These are part of the strips for top and bottom.

I wanted a relationship between the people and the place they live…the bigger place.

And that one monkey made it underground.

Plus a rocket into the sky.

It’s so fast to do these little pieces…

Then I put each one onto a background…

So I could piece things. Here’s where I admit that I suck at measuring and piecing. One reason why I’m not a traditional quilter. The second one being that I hate all that repetition.

I pieced the top, adding a canvas square in there for my collaborator to paint something on.

He says he’s more abstract normally. So he can go sky abstract here if he wants. Or whatever.

And here’s the bottom strip getting stitched down, with another canvas square in the ground…for ground abstract.

We’ll see what he does with these.

This part made me nervous, the stitchdown on the actual canvas, so I tried it out on a scratch piece first.

Seemed to work. So I went for it…

Slow and steady.

I did all of it…with no problems…there’s the back…

OK then. Now piece it all together…strip on top and bottom…

I was thinking about how I didn’t want to bind it, but I needed to finish the edges and figure out how to hang it. I need it to be able to go back to the original guy so he can finish painting, but I won’t get it back before it goes in the show.

So I put wide-enough strips on that I could use it to finish the edges.

Then I made the backing. The rules are that I can’t use a piece of fabric that’s bigger than 6″ square, because they might be able to use it as a disguise.

I’m not arguing with the prison system, but I feel like once you sew them together, they are still a really bad and ugly disguise. Bleck.

Batting, backing, oh I skipped the whole thing where I quilted around each box and then inside the fabric stuff, but I tried the quilting on the paper and decided it would be a clusterfuck.

So I left the center piece unquilted. I pinned the extra around the back and then put two sleeves on, top and bottom, for hanging.

And then sewed the whole thing down…

And stitched the sleeves down. Done. A day early. I still need to do a write up before I leave this morning, but it’s getting delivered today. Whoo! Off my plate! I’ll see it again in May. We’ll see what he does with my crazy. Me? Outside my box. It’s good to do that sometimes.

Speaking of crazy. This dog.

She’s such a weird sleeper.

I finished that other stuff around 9:30 PM after working on it a goodly chunk of the day. Then I drew this…

Cool. I like the idea. Might run further with this someday.

And then I cut stuff out for a little while.

Still way behind where I wanted to be. Oh well. And I’ve graded nothing for two days. Probably need to do some schoolwork. School starts Monday. Ugh. So not ready. Never ready.

And there’s this. The second installment in the weird mailing I got a few weeks ago about an imaginary relative…now bringing in time travel and artifacts and my duty as the descendant of this relative.

I still don’t know who set this up, but it’s cool…we got all the letter snippets into some order and will wait patiently for the next installment. Don’t ruin it! I know it’s a gift thing and I am appreciating the mystery. Plus looking forward to time travel.

OK. Shower, food, pack stuff up to take with me to meeting, long drive to and from meeting, long meeting, need more time before Monday, but maybe it’ll all be OK anyway. Don’t even ask about my blood sugar. It’s a disaster. I am, as always, a work in progress.

Well, I Got One Foot on the Platform*

OK. I need another week. I realize most of you don’t get a 3-week break around Christmas, and you think I’m a whiner about this, and maybe I am, but all of the deadlines and to-do list items just slammed into me like a Mack truck and I’m panicking. It’s OK. I do this every Winter Break. But when your diabetes nurse is telling you that stress increases your blood sugar and you’re still trying to get that under control, thinking about stress causing that just causes more stress and maybe I should blow off everything and just go for a long hike. There are many arguments for that.

But I am also a responsible adult. Apparently.

So I drove back from Arrowhead yesterday morning. We all left early to get back to life. And deadlines. And stress. Aack. Seriously. I need to get a hold of this.

So let’s remember this…because it’s pretty. Although effing cold.

I don’t think my feet got warm until like 6 PM yesterday night.

Lots of lolling around with dogs. Reading books. On devices.

I didn’t finish mine, but I checked out three more and then went on airplane mode so the library couldn’t suck back the book that was due yesterday that I’m almost done with but literally have no time to read what am I thinking. Sigh.

Wednesday was the boychild’s birthday. He made everyone dinner and cake, but then the sprinkles container exploded all over the kitchen.

Well then. Impressive.

More sleeping puppy.

We played Settlers of Catan (need to get us some extensions I think) and I drew and if you follow my Insta, you saw the in-progress drawing that I did while gaming. Yes, I’m not a super serious gamer because I draw or stitch (or sometimes grade) at the same time, but I almost won this time. Maybe. Or we all almost won and the girlchild did win. But here’s the drawing…

This one could be a quilt. Totally. In fact, it shall be. I don’t know when though. Don’t ask me that.

Wednesday night’s cutting…I am so far behind on this.

But there is progress. That’s a plus. I didn’t work on it yesterday though. Yesterday I panicked about a piece that is supposed to be done by Sunday, but it would be really convenient if it were done by tomorrow. Noon. So. Yeah. I don’t know if I can pull that off, but it’s what I’m trying to do.

Yesterday afternoon, I trimmed all the pieces for the Project Paint piece…

There’s about 161 pieces I think. Not a ton.

Then I ironed the first section together…

Ironing eyeballs separately. So the inmate I’m working with had painted a young boy picking his nose and playing with a barrel of monkeys…so I did his older sister…

She’s playing solitaire, because her little brother is too annoying to play with. You know. And then I ironed her onto the canvas that he had painted on…

Now honestly, I could stop there. Well, I need to stitch some. But I didn’t stop there. Because I wanted to go beyond relationships between siblings and games and older/younger…I wanted to go out into the big wide world.

So I’ll be working on the top and bottom strips today, then stitching down, and deciding how to finish it. And wondering why I do this to myself, except I think it’s a good cause. I still need to write a response to the inmate as well and figure out how to get it done before noon tomorrow.

Don’t talk to me about the other things I need to do today.

I did have my stitching meeting last night. No, I haven’t implemented my one piece per night thing yet. I’m still on break. Plus I’ve been working on this one at stitching meeting forever. I finished the zebra and started the antelope…

But realized I am probably going to run out of the thread I’m using. I can’t figure out what it is, and I thought I had more of it. I lost the label for it. I haven’t looked too hard yet though. I will see if I can get around the antelope’s body and then maybe find a replacement. I still need to do the other flowers on this block too…but they are on the other instruction sheet…the one I don’t carry around.

It’s interesting. I put stuff on my to-do list that really isn’t necessary, like the drawing a night thing…here’s last night’s.

But I do that for my sanity and to make sure that the job stuff doesn’t take over the world. Because it would if I let it.

OK, I’ve got work to do. Later today? Dog walk and probably phone replacement. And more of this stuff. A drawing. Maybe some stitching. Most definitely trying to finish the Project Paint thing. Some school stuff maybe. Not forgetting about that quilt I have to ship. Aargh. Too much. (Do not ask me about grading. My principal called me yesterday. On break. Yeah. Teaching. The job that sucks up your brain and spits it out.)

*The Animals, The House of the Rising Sun