Where I Really Want to Be

I think I just ran around all weekend. I don’t feel particularly rested. Well, there were two late nights. I can blame one on Art Brain…I would have gone to bed. The other one, I blame Delta for flying the boychild in 90 minutes late on an already late flight. It’s fine. And last night, the new glucose sensor is off by 40 points again so the alarm kept going off…which is when I silenced it (it still buzzes) and put it on the floor. It’s still off this morning, so it gets 24 hours. Last time, that worked. Annoying though.

I did get the top ironed together on Friday night. I was exhausted (long short week), and was just going to piece the background, but once I had it all laid out, I’m like, it’ll be fine. How long will it take? That’s art brain talking, because the answer is 90 minutes past bedtime.

Awesome sauce. Looks good on that background, which is always nice. I pick those out when I start ironing all the pieces to fabric, so I’m never really sure what it will all look like in the end.

I started stitchdown on Saturday night.

Going about 100 mph, while singing along (probably quite badly) to whatever my phone was playing. Good thing the Man was also on headphones. Then I left at midnight to go pick up the boychild from the airport; he’d been hiking part of the PCT up in Washington.

And last night, further on in the stitchdown. Lots of details takes a bunch of time.

It’ll look better with outlining when I quilt it. That skeletal middle finger will be obvious.

I did a lot of school work this weekend (ugh). I remember now how trying to do the house stuff, run errands, go to meetings, but still have some time for art, reading, and relaxation…it feels like you’re constantly running.

I took a little time to sew stuff down on this during dinner TV time.

I also worked on one of the Rooted blocks during my quilt guild meeting, probably the first one I’ve been to in 6 months. First Saturdays are hard. I’m gone for the next one; I know that. A lot of the people I like to hang out with weren’t there.

I finished a cover page in science…a miracle for the first month of school!

Yet another roller coaster.

This show, with two of my pieces (one in the bottom right corner), opens this Friday.

I unfortunately won’t be there…and will never see this show, because it’s at Coastline College in Newport Beach and they are only open part of the week, certainly not the weekend. Ah well. It isn’t the first show I haven’t been able to attend. If you go, send me pics.

I also hiked 3 miles on Saturday…

It’s been hot still, so I didn’t leave until like 5:30 PM. The Man’s back still bugs him too much to join me, but hopefully in the future. It was still warm, but there was a cooler breeze in the second half.

I met one human and her massive (unleashed) dog…who saw me, stopped, and then started loping toward me. Kind of nerve-wracking. She’s searching through her pack for the leash and calling the dog, who isn’t listening at all. Sigh. I don’t care if he’s the gentlest giant around; if I’d had Simba with me, there would have been a problem. Leash your fucking dogs, especially in wildlife preserves, where it’s required. Humans are annoying.

Seriously, he was huge.

I saw this while driving home.

I chose to read it as What Would Jesus Do? Get rid of those two buffoons. Also badly centered ‘Vance’, which might be a metaphor.

Back to teaching, this is part of my regular job apparently.

The kid typed the stuff on the left. I mean, it’s probably true, and I did tell two kids that Spanish was OK, but Turkish is out of my knowledge realm. How to get these kids to write in English! I mean, I could have them write in their native language, then use Google Translate, then have them read it to me in English, then write it in English, but that would mean the other 32 kids in the class are just sitting there while I do that for 10 minutes (there’s multiple language kids in one class). This kid, legit writes in English most of the time, so I’m OK with it, but the three Spanish speakers have been in US schools for over 2 years and won’t even try in English. Sigh. I can’t do all the things. There isn’t enough time for all of it.

And for those thinking Chatgpt is teaching for us, we had it read through a set of stations we did in the past and consolidate it into 3 stations, instead of 6. It produced a ‘worksheet’, for some loose definition of such, and I spent over an hour turning it into something usable. I’m not saying it wasn’t helpful; it was definitely a shortcut, but don’t tell me it produces stuff I can use right away. Because it doesn’t. It probably saved us an hour of trying to decide which ones to do and what to cut, and then formatting it slightly differently so it all fits on four pages instead of 20. Still needs a ton of work and planning brain.

OK. It’s Monday. Another full week. Trying to fit exercise and ceramics in…not sure how that’s gonna go, honestly. Today? I’m teaching forms of energy. Mostly notes…a couple of demos. We built in some independent time this week (we’ll see how independent they really are), so we could NOT be direct teaching (which is exhausting for us and the kids) all week. Also maybe we could grade some stuff at school instead of bringing it all home. We have a two-hour (torture) literacy meeting after school today, ugh, with lesson and all. Not fun. Hopefully useful. They haven’t been, really…just been performative, which is annoying. They did let us plan our own learning this year, individually (although me and my co-teacher are doing the same lessons). For once, we get to decide what our kids need. What a concept. Then home to deal with a broken blind and the guy fixing it, with two dogs in the house. Then book club. And some stuff in and around all that. I think I read the book. I don’t remember. Oh yes! I did. It was nice. Not amazing, but nice. Then more stitchdown! Which is where I really want to be.

By the Skin of My Pants…

Ugh. Head. Under. Pillow. Alarm. OK, I’m up. I swear. I’m mobile. Although the first thing I saw was yet another baby gecko who needed saving but was being stupid about it. I mean, we have a houseful of cats, and honestly, a small dog who loves to chase geckos and lizards. This baby has to be smart or it’s dead. It’s definitely not being smart and letting me rescue it…so I guess that’s fate. I saved one last night. Does that make up for the one in the window who won’t come out? Probably not.

Honestly, it’s more thinking than I can deal with this morning. I was at school for about 11 hours yesterday, minus the kamikaze drive right after school to come home and pee the old lady dog. My blood sugar was a disaster due to food and stress and exhaustion and trying to eat before people showed up and then once I got home and whatever. I can’t have all good days, right? Which reminds me…pause to take insulin. I forgot yesterday. I mean, I remembered when I was about 1/2 a mile down the road. So I came back. Then I did what I used to do…wrote INSULIN in big letters on a piece of paper and taped it to the inside of the front door. Six weeks to train yourself…and when I forget? It’s because I’m tired. I’m up too early, my routine is off, and I fuck up. It’s fine. I’m getting better at it.

OK. So the ironing together/down of the quilt got delayed by exhaustion. I had the rest of the planets done on Wednesday night…

The whole thing, which is pretty cool.

So I started teaching space…three or four years ago? And I’ve put the sun in SO MANY quilts, but none of the other planets, until I did the sort of mythological piece for the Fierce Planets exhibit…but never the whole batch of our solar system. This was cool. It symbolizes hope to me…the solar system is still out there doing its thing and will (but not forever, because you know, science…this one will destroy itself and another one will take its place) continue to do so. For a long time anyway.

I made a video of my decisionmaking process last night…

Because I almost just gave up and sat on the couch to read my book (my book is really good and I was really tired). But I didn’t. I did the video. And then I put the parts of the quilt on the background and decided, Yah, that’ll work, and then I ironed the background and trimmed the selvedges so I can sew it together tonight and then iron the whole thing down. And then tomorrow, which is Saturday, thank fucking goddess because I am so done (after a four-day week, y’all)…I can finally start the stitchdown. Which is relaxing and meditative and blissful.

Speaking of hope, there’s my baby barn owl and her olive branch.

I do think of all the baby barn owls we’ve had as girls. I know they’re not. I just like it better. One of them is hanging around…either the baby or mom. I hear them every night in the tree outside my studio, and I talk to them (her). Hi owl. Nice to hear you. Thanks for hanging around and eating gophers. Appreciate it. Thanks for all the owl pellets and the random feathers. Also, thanks for finally being quiet. Ha! Oh that last baby squawked for so long.

OK, yesterday morning, this piece of honeycomb was floating in the pool.

No bees. So weird. There is a tree above the pool? Still weird.

And when I was leaving school last night, the teacher who tends our tiny garden calls me over to identify the caterpillars on the apple tree, who are decimating the leaves.

It’s a moth. It’s not even a very exciting moth, like that Sphinx one I found…but the caterpillars are amazing. And he’s knocking them onto the ground. Meanwhile, one of my students, a girl, runs over and says she LOVES bugs and caterpillars and is trying to take one home (OK then)…weird world, y’all. (one of us…one of us…)

Today I am teaching. Like direct instruction and demos. Like an idiot. I mean, yesterday was bliss because we did cover pages (I forgot to take a picture of mine…which I did finish for once), and today is all gonna be talk all day (ugh). Next week was gonna be all on as well, until I said no, reminded us that we need breaks, and put in a day of independent work. Good times. We’re planned out about a week at the moment. By the skin of our pants…chins?…seat of our pants…but what is the skin one then? My kids always give me crap for not getting these right. By the skin of my TEETH (it’s biblical…)…no wonder I didn’t remember it. It makes no sense. Might as well say skin of my pants. I’d like to say I’m going to ceramics after school, and I will take my stuff, but I’m exhausted now, I have a meeting before school and duty after…and I need to check my parents’ mailbox…so maybe not. Maybe tonight I read my book and shit. I need to go make my lunch. Ugh tired. Art this weekend. Also school stuff. It is what it is. Peach out and plenty of sleep to all.

Maybe Not Even Then…

Oh my. I love a good school night when I don’t sleep until like 2 AM. Fun times. It was hot, there were way too many animals breathing and radiating heat and touching me, I had a bunch of mosquito bites that were distracting and itchy and oh my god get out of bed and put cortisone on like right now before I scratch my skin off the bones. And 2 AM brain, which remembered that one kid who was sitting outside the classroom yesterday morning, late, eating his breakfast instead of telling me he was present, 2 AM brain remembered that 10 minutes earlier, the Chromebook hospital kid tried to deliver his new Chromebook FINALLY (2+ weeks after starting school) but he wasn’t there yet, and yesterday morning’s brain forgot immediately instead of trying to send him to pick it up, so then he didn’t have one in Period 3, and I didn’t remember ANY OF THIS UNTIL 2 AM. Please, if there is a goddess in charge of postmenopausal brain power (if there is, she’s probably forgotten it), remind me at an appropriate time. Yes, I could put it in my phone, but I regularly ignore those notifications. Like a boss.

Aargh. Trying to teach when you’re tired sucks. I’m debating switching my Thursday and Friday plans so Friday is all chill and cover page instead of stressful demos. It’ll be fine. Yes, Back-to-School-Hell Night is Thursday. Yes, you will be dead on your feet. You already are…what’s the diff? I mean, you’ve taught one whole day this week. It’ll be fine.

Sigh. Ironing is going well at least…I finished the swamp trees on Monday night…

And did two rockets…or missiles…and two hands…

Last night, I did the barn owl as the real life one screeched outside my window.

There’s so much dark and depressing in the bottom of the quilt, so much terrifying stuff, that I had to have hope in the top. She’s carrying an olive branch for peace. Let’s hope someone sees it. And then I started the solar system in the sky…

I didn’t finish the right side (the left in this picture, which shows an upside down view). I have about 50 pieces left to do, and then I need to piece a background and iron all these down…hopefully tonight. Here’s a video of what’s left…

I really do have extra pieces. Not sure how. Or why. Whatever. Maybe there’s a fingernail missing somewhere. That’s the test…finding the missing pieces. Or not. I’m looking forward to (1) seeing the whole thing together and (2) doing the stitchdown with TWO fans pointed at me, instead of just one. I can point one at my FACE. Can’t do that while ironing because pieces will fly everywhere. It just won’t cool down in this room at night…it’s finally down to 79 degrees now, at 7:30 AM, but it was in the high 80s last night. Ugh. No breeze. Delightfully cool outside…can’t move it inside. It’s supposed to cool down a bit each day, so it won’t be so bad by the end of the week. Anyway, ironing tonight and hopefully stitching down tomorrow night. Oh wait. Tomorrow night, I’ll be dead on a couch somewhere after talking to the parents of 20 children (because that is all who will show up), which is still exhausting.

I’m not feeling particularly positive about the day job at the moment. It’s a bit of a panic across the board. It’ll get better. Hopefully soon. Right now, it’s chaos. Which I’m apparently good at, but tired of.

This is remarkably true.

OK. Today we finish a unit…if it kills me. And it might. Vocab plus put it all in order and hand the damn thing in. Which means I need to grade it. It’ll be fine. I think. I was sort of caught up. Until today. Now I will be incredibly behind. I don’t have pilates today…yet. I’m on the wait list. Figure if I get in, I’ll kamikaze home, pee the old lady dog so she doesn’t pee in the house, and go. But probably, I’m going to the gym instead, which is fine. I need to fit that back into the schedule anyway. I don’t have to cook tonight, hallelujah…then iron this whole thing together. Oh wait, also do seating charts for tomorrow. Ugh. Then fucking SLEEP. Please. Thank you. And to all those perimenopausal people thinking, oh, when I get to postmenopause, I can finally sleep, OMG Fuck That No Way Will You Ever Sleep Well Again. Until Thursday night, when you have hit exhaustion level. And maybe not even then.

Hot and Ironing…

There is a delightful breeze coming through the window of my office right now, unlike the last three nights, when it has been hot as fucking hell in here and I remember again why I consider putting a room air conditioner in here every year around this time. And it was only in the 90s yesterday…last year, it hit 109 degrees during September (knock on wood; it’s only September 1, so it’s still possible). This room holds heat like crazy and the sliding glass door is a combo of unusable and unreachable, which is silly. Need to remodel this room with A/C and a slider on a remote. I guess one or the other. It does cool down at night…outside…but not in here. Bad design and/or no insulation in the walls. Certainly we didn’t see any when we did all the fixes to the rain damage. Houses built in the 1970s…they still didn’t build them well. So enjoy the breeze (and the day off of work!) because it’ll be gone and/or hot as hell in a few hours.

So it’s really hard to iron when it’s hot, y’all. I don’t even try until 8 PM and then I sit in here and sweat anyway because the fan can only be pointed below the level of the ironing board, or I’d have pieces flying everywhere. Plus the iron is putting off heat in a room that is already warm. Just since I started writing this, the room temperature has gone up 2 degrees. Anyway, on Friday, I came home after ceramics and ironed for 3 hours.

I was working on all the body pieces and the stuff around or attached to the main figure.

When I went to bed, I was missing some hair pieces, but I found them in the trash bin (which is why I don’t throw that out until the quilt is finished). Then Saturday night, I did the head and some other stuff around it.

I did an explosion and one of the Starlink things and part of the swamp. Here’s a better view of the head…

So many of Musk’s things blow up. All the pencil cups and the stapler and tape are there to keep the weight of the fabric from pulling the teflon sheets onto the ground. As it gets heavier with more pieces, this gets to be a harder balance and I need more weights.

Last night, I worked on the swamp and got all the base parts done; just the trees are left on that.

There’s some embroidery of the police/ICE badges to go on later. This puts me in the 1000s, so about 300 pieces left to go. Two or three nights? We’ll see. I mean, I could finish it today if it weren’t supposed to be 95 degrees in here and I didn’t have a thousand other things to do. Next up? Input grades. I think I finished most of the school stuff yesterday though. Besides inputting them. Oh wait, and advisory. Fuck. Forgot about that. Ugh. I have not fully found my routine yet. It takes me about 6 weeks usually. And Friday was super stressful for trying to get all the things done. This week is back-to-school night, plus two morning meetings, plus 7 new kids (ugh) and 3 kids moving classes and whoa…just found the fly yesterday that was buzzing everyone in the house. Either it died or Bowie killed it and didn’t eat it. Mmmm. Dead fly.

I need to try to get to ceramics today (oh my, it’ll be warm)…I got things attached and underglazed and felt really positive about this project that is more than a little stressful at the moment.

Not even sure how I’m going to get it in the kiln without breaking it…again. Ah well. Hope survives. I need to underglaze the flesh, fix more cracks, and fix the one piece of the flag that keeps popping off, which is better than the entire flag popping off, which is what happened last week. So frustrated with this right now. Remind me to do some smaller, less complicated things next. Really. OK, still need to finish the head. Ha!

I crazily hiked on Saturday, by myself, at like 5:15 PM (still 90 degrees, I think, but there was a breeze).

Three miles. Then I can eat things that might kick my blood sugar up…because they are less likely to have that jump. Well, they should be, but I ate too many fries and blew that. Ah well. Still working on it. Definitely more under control than it was three months ago, but the blood sugar still crashes kind of randomly at times, like last night. No reason. Definitely think my Saturday night glass of wine does it, but I didn’t have any last night and was still awakened at 4:30 in the morning with a low. Ugh. Sometimes if I get up (to pee and check my blood sugar with a finger prick), it’ll pop back up, like it thinks I’m getting up (no fucking way I’m getting up at 4:30 AM; you’d think my body would know that), but then it crashed again an hour later. Fuck me. I’m sure eating skittles at 5:30 AM is not a good life choice, but I don’t have another solution at the moment. And when I asked the diabetes nurse about it, she didn’t either. She wanted me to get up and have a real snack, and I’m like, no, not doing that unless it’s really bad and continuing to crash. I’m TIRED. I work during the day…with KIDS. I need a full night’s sleep. And I already reduced my insulin…so if it happens again this week, I’ll reduce it again. Supposed to be contacting doctor about that stuff, but I haven’t yet…maybe this time.

So the baby owl finally got chased off by mom…well, or did she? She has finally stopped hungry squawking though…but the other night, I hear noises on the slope and then a screech, so I look out there and two owls are in the tree outside my office window.

The lower one is looking up at the other one…and is smaller. Might be baby? This was the same night but I think that’s one of the parents, probably mom.

They were staring intently down on the slope, where this opossum was digging around…

I’m totally OK with the owls prowling the slope. I’ve got gophers and they’re tearing it up. Annoyingly.

I mentioned it was hot, yeah?

Cat evidence of temperatures.

And there’s this…

Also, let’s talk about how many of them are white men. But sure, y’all will pick on the one thing you think made them do it. We could just take the guns away from the mentally ill (well, honestly, mostly everybody), and that might help.

OK. I don’t have to work today! Well, I do, but not all day in a classroom. This is a short but painful week; I will be mostly dead by Friday. Good times! It will also be cooler by Friday, which will help. It’s September! A fun month for school…where things change daily for no apparent reason sometimes. Also we think our A/C at school might be out. They’ll have to fix it quickly because there’s a new state law about maximum temperatures in classrooms. But the rest of the day, I can read, iron, plant things (I did some of that already), anything I can stand in the heat. Working on a wool quilt has been out (ha!). I keep thinking I’ll start the embroidery on the border flowers on Homegrown, but I’d have to have the whole quilt on my lap, so that is not happening. I’ll just keep sewing little things down on blocks I can hold in one hand. I have a huge to-do list in my bullet journal, but I won’t get most of it done; let’s be real. It is nice to have a day off…thank you unions! And no, I didn’t make it to the protest march today because I didn’t know about it until too late, but yes! Protest the bullshit! Also the Zoom yesterday…I’m so glad that the closing ceremonies for my dual show at the Virginia Quilt Museum will be during Spring Break, so I’m planning on going out there and meeting my co-exhibitor, Lena Meszaros. Should be an awesome show, opening in January…come see us in the last week of March!

RE-explaining…

Why are all the apps and tech thingies being so annoying this morning? Why do they need passwords all of a sudden when it’s the same device and I’ve been using the app on that device since the beginning of time? I was grading last night and my school computer was like NOPE. You don’t have internet. I’m like, every other device disagrees with you. I can imagine my senior years spent arguing with robots and phones as they assume they are smarter than I am, but they require a precise order of things being done that seems to change every time. Mind-boggling.

In good news, today is the last day of diagnostic testing at school, so the last day the kids will have an hour of testing, staring at a computer, before then having all of their classes and flailing massively at times. It’s funny how hard it is for them to stare at a computer for any sustained amount of time, considering they do it to play games and/or text friends for hours. I guess those things hurt their brains less?

So speaking of their brains, we spent three days teaching about appropriate and inappropriate uses of AI in the classroom, trying to head off the stupidity in the future, and sure enough, at least four kids copied and pasted from AI (granted, English is not their first language and may be the bigger concern), but here’s one of their answers…

Sigh. So there’s some work still to be done. Not surprisingly. Welcome to my world.

OK, ironing is slow because it’s all still tiny people and things…

Although maybe all my quilts are tiny people and things. This is Wednesday night; I finished the graveyard except for one tiny bit on the other side of an arm that wasn’t ironed yet.

Then last night, I ironed the rest of the graveyard, an arm, a bunch of people, and the Statue of Liberty being born in blood…

Not symbolic at all. I thought I ironed the ICE swamp next, but it’s the main figure next, so that’ll be some bigger pieces tonight. I’m really hoping I can clear some time this weekend to finish the ironing…but it’s also gonna be hot and ironing when it’s hot sucks.

In other news, sigh. Because I’ve seen people say it’s because the shooter was trans or blaming depression meds and maybe sometimes we should provide more mental health services and reduce access to guns.

Maybe those are the things that we need to worry about. As I spent yesterday in a meeting about a kid who is potentially dangerous. Y’all aren’t protecting students and teachers enough. In case you were wondering about that.

I’m sure there’s a lot of uneducated people out there who think this is accurate.

And I’m ready to see a pregnant man, because that rectum is a fucking penis. So many things wrong with this picture.

Ending with hope for the school year. It says Love Nida, then a heart and science.

Yes, someone also crossed it off. I think today I deal with all the desk writing. I mean, I doodle all the time when I have to listen. Yesterday, I needed to explain how to NOT email me 78 times a day about your late work and how to actually turn in late work and notify me and how many emails I was gonna ignore. Because literally a kid left school early, turned in their warmup (which I grade on Sunday; already told them that) at 9 PM, then emailed me and asked me to grade it right then. Like WTF you little weasel. No. Anyway, I will spend the rest of the year RE-explaining how to submit late and regraded work.

Today I am still teaching about AI, but how to use it to research information or find websites that will help. Not to copy. Teaching citations (really simple ones). I’d like to think last year taught them that, but am starting to doubt that. We’ll see. Kids forget things in a really random way. Things that drive me nuts like: trying to hand in one page of your unit packet at a time. They did packets last year and it doesn’t seem to matter; they have forgotten everything. After school, I’m going to ceramics, then coming home and eating a solo dinner (it’s OK; I have a good book) and probably grading some shit, and then ironing. I have to be up at a reasonable hour tomorrow to do a Zoom with a quilt museum and another artist about a dual solo show (I know, weird) next year…and I’m going to try to go to the opening. Hopefully it works with school. Also looking forward to a three-day weekend so I can do something besides work. That’s a joy.

You’d Be Wrong…

At some point in the week, I’m tired enough to sleep even with the heat, the panting dog, and the squawking baby owl, not to mention the overactive brain. Last night was that. Only two days in. Hmmm. I also spent over three hours on art yesterday, which was delightful. I’m sure I’ll pay for it later with stuff I have to plan and grade. Actually, totally yes, because we start a new unit next week and it’s not really planned at all. Minor issue. Panic much? Yeah maybe…like right now. But sure, otherwise, besides the blood sugar crashes in the middle of the night, I’m doing fine (adjusted meds; hoping that solves it). For some definition of fine.

The ironing is going very slowly because crazy art brain drew some tiny shit in this piece…this group of five people for example is 5×8″.

Pretty much ironing them took an hour. I also got them ironed down to the background in that hour though.

I also put the stars on the flag and did the volcanic bit on the right. But mostly those tiny people.

You know I put the Vax guy in there because of RFK and the measles vax, but now it looks like they want to pull the COVID vax? These people are idiots. You’d think after the Black Plague and the health disaster that was the Middle Ages that we’d have learned that science knows shit that brain worms and dementia patients do not. You’d be wrong.

Here’s last night…looks pretty damn similar.

In over an hour, I did the arm behind the people on the right, which was fussy as hell, plus started the graveyard on the left…also fussy due to all the letters, which aren’t matched up, because a lot of them separated from the paper, and then some are missing, who the fuck knows where they are. I think we’ll move the living room couch some day and find a pile of fused pieces that belong to 50 different quilts.

SLOW as molasses on a cold day. I’m in the 400s, but barely. The graveyard is at least one more night, maybe two. Then the Statue of Liberty being stillborn. Then the swamp. I love this stuff; don’t get me wrong. I love putting all these little pieces together and ironing them down and making a picture. This is bliss.

I also went to ceramics yesterday. Still fighting the torso, trying to get it to stay together. But also I gave the head some teeth and carved the ears.

I want to build a tree off the top but I kind of need to get the rest of the stuff out of the way and fired to do that. It might need to be a separate piece. It’ll be so damn fragile. I need to think that through. I think I could just make weird heads from here on out. Maybe.

From the book I’m reading, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas.

It’s an interesting story, although so far less about the vampires and more about the ‘Yanquis’ taking Mexican territory in the southwestern US (formerly Mexico). Which is an enlightening view, considering current politics. I loved how that sentence was written.

Oh my, I currently have so many books out from the library and so little time in which to read them. Sigh. I’m working on it.

OK. Today, we are in the middle of diagnostic testing in reading and math, which sucks, because the kids hate it and it takes too long. So that’s how we’re starting every day. Then I am giving a short quiz about AI and when you can use it in the classroom (meeting that problem head on this year so it’s not a surprise for kids when they get a zero), plus trying to get them to consider planning as a skill. Fun times with that. Next week, we start actual science, which will be a relief. Maybe. There are definitely some bad behaviors they learned last year that will have to be ripped out of them, but in general, they’re a decent batch of kids. A few I’d like to leave on Survivor Island, but that is always the case. Then pilates after school and ironing after dinner. I need to grade stuff in there somewhere, plus finish the vocab slides, plus plan for next week. Somehow. I might be missing that part of my brain. Gonna go look for it.

Ironing Things in the Dirt Again…

Well today started at 4 AM as a 5-skittle morning, thanks to my blood sugar alarm. Better than Saturday night, when the alarm kept going off because (according to the guy on the phone) my antibodies were attacking the filament of the continuous glucose monitor and I would just need to wait it out OR the monitor was faulty and he’d send me a new one. Sounds like something my antibodies would do. I love that all my medical staff is trying to figure out why my body doesn’t do what they think it should…when I ask about the early AM crashes, they move things around, meds, when I take my insulin, etc, and damn if those crashes don’t keep happening. Fun times. Yes, I do keep skittles in a drawer next to the bed; don’t you? I’m down to one crash a week, which is…um…still annoying as fuck. But maybe we’ll figure it out. Maybe they’ll start doing more science on women and how their bodies are different than men’s (ha! Oh holy fuck, not for another…1243 days? Is that fucking right? And that RFK guy? He’s a scientific dearth of information. He doesn’t understand anything since the early 1980s, I think. He certainly doesn’t understand how the food pyramid works (that we don’t use anymore). Froot Loops at the top of the pyramid…YASSS, because we’re not supposed to eat a lot of the stuff at the top you dumbass and you’re not supposed to eat a lot of Froot Loops! We’re all gonna have brain worms at the end of this. If Biden or Obama had put a guy in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that was this incompetent, the Repubs would have lost their fucking minds, but now they’re all for it. Crazy shit. Absolutely batshit. Go get your measles shot if you’re like me and only had one as a baby. I feel like that’s gonna be our downfall.

Anyway. This was an arty weekend, as well as being a weekend full of trying to get my work head on straight. I have a bunch of pictures from the Oceanside Museum of Art opening that I don’t have time to deal with today (maybe Wednesday), but we did go to that and I’m glad…it was really cool to talk to some people there. I also ironed things together…here’s Friday night…

Didn’t get far, because I also had to lay stuff out…here’s the first 100…

Laid out in groups of 10…check out the tiny bones on the bottom. And then I had all these that separated…

This is after I paired up a bunch of them…so I’ll figure this out as I go. I’ve already found about four of them, but also had to retrace another 10 or so, which is annoying. Ah well…this is what happens with tiny pieces. And one of them that I retraced, I found it in the next box, so sorting is also sometimes tiring and hard and I fuck it up. Fun times.

Saturday night’s ironing…

With a closeup…

So you can see the skeletal hand that will look way more awesome when it’s outlined in stitches so you can see all the bones. Some level of insanity there. Then last night’s ironing…

I’ve ironed about halfway through the 200s, I think? There’s a pile of stars to go on that flag, and then I start on the little people who are kneeling on the edge of the flag. This is not fast, but it is pretty rewarding, because it’s the first time I get to really see it in color, besides in my head. I really love the red African fabric I used in the volcanic bits…it shades from bright to dark and looks really good. Yes, fabric makes me happy.

I also spent a shitload of time trying to get my classes organized and the basic shit documented. I didn’t finish grading, because there were two harder assignments and I wanted to save those (aka, not grade all weekend). I did read all the kids’ surveys though, for the first time ever. This kid is a snarky one…

Also, so many of them want to not work at all this year or at any time in the future. So that bodes well for the country…not really; I don’t have huge expectations for 13-year-olds. Also the kids who don’t want to be scientists; they want to be engineers. Um. Hello. What do you think an engineer does? So amusing. I wish them all luck in their futures.

I finally finished appliqueing all the border flowers on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown…

Looks really cool. Now I have to spend the next two years embroidering them all. No really. I don’t think this will be fast. It’ll be amazing when it’s done, but it won’t be fast.

Saturday was hot (real feel 103 degrees), but I need to walk/hike on Saturdays or I can’t eat what I want for date-night dinner…and we were going up to the museum show, so I had to go at like 3 PM, which is earlier than I would normally hike anyway, but still hot. I headed for the hike that was closer to the mounting rain clouds, and I did have a breeze and eventually it cooled off a bit.

I only did 2 miles instead of 3 because of the heat, drinking water and dribbling it over my head the whole time. The Man almost texted me at some point because he heard thunder (I was already in the car on the way back) and thought I should get the fuck off the trail. Yeah. Nobody else was out there, for sure. It worked, though. And so that’s my thing for Saturdays, when I can pull it off. Go hike so you can eat stuff.

This is too true. The pendulum of shit they do care about makes no logical sense.

You care about our health, but you get rid of programs that feed children. I guess it’s OK if they starve as long as they’re healthy about it.

The Man took this picture of his bug-eating plants…with an actual bug NOT being eaten.

Impressive.

And here’s my sweet, very hot, very panty boy.

He’s been a pain at night (because he’s hot and then he makes me hot and then he pants and I can’t sleep through it). But he is a sweet baby.

Speaking of not being able to sleep through it, our baby owl is still here.

So the deal is that they squawk when they’re hungry, expecting mom/dad to provide, which they were a couple of weeks ago. I saw a parent deposit a mouse/rat/small rodent on top of the box for the baby (much squawking ensued), but last week, I saw the baby in the tree outside my office, squawking very loudly about catching their OWN rodent and tearing it to bits (predator birds are impressive in that way), so I know it can catch it’s own food. In the past, we had a pair of babies and then triplets, and the mom/dad chase them off at some point so they get the fuck out of the nest and go take care of themselves. They would still come back sometimes, but not sit on the box and squawk all night. This one is an only, and IDK if the parent is the problem, not chasing them off. We’re pretty sure last year’s parent died in the box (not sure why, but we had two skeletons and one was definitely adult-sized and one wasn’t). We never got a fledged one last year. Maybe someone poisoned the rodents? Who knows. So owls return to the same nests every year, pretty much, so maybe this is one of the previous babies as mom? And she’s enabling the SHIT out of this baby. I’ve heard her a couple of times in the last week or so, screeching away, and then the baby leaves for a while, but keeps coming back. Last night, it was gone for longer, so maybe we’re close to being a big bad adult owl, but it just cracks me up that some parents let their babies live at home and take care of them for so long…I joked that housing prices are so high in San Diego that the baby can’t afford to move out. Too true.

OK. School. Teaching about AI today…responsible uses of it and unacceptable uses of it. It’s not going away, so I’m going full disclosure and how you will fail my class if you use it to take a test. Fun stuff. Then a 2-hour staff meeting after (ugh) and book club tonight on a book I didn’t love. But ironing after. And I think it’s supposed to be cooler today. So that’s a plus. Real summer hasn’t hit yet. We’ll go over a hundred degrees for some time in the future. Not looking forward to it.

Meetings…

First official Monday of the school year. Yesterday was the first Sunday and I totally ignored it…went to ceramics, prepped breakfasts (OK, that’s not really ignoring it), cut stuff out, stitched some things down. OK, I also did laundry and grocery shopping, so still not ignoring it…just not sitting down at the computer and sending emails. I did that Saturday briefly…wait, no, I did that yesterday. I so often end up in charge of things that I’m wondering, when I’m retired, if I will miss that. I will probably find something else to be in charge of. It is the way of my people.

Still need to get used to getting up at 6:30 in the morning and functioning. Not there yet. We night owls have a hard time with normal work hours. I do anyway. Today is an all-morning meeting about things, then nothing in the afternoon but classroom and prep. I’m sure I will have a few meetings pop up; they always do, but I’m going to try to leave everything at school for the rest of this week. I can do that for one week, right? Then my weekly emails from my team start, sent on Sundays. No grades until next weekend; that’s a plus, but I will have to do rosters and that stuff. Let’s hope there’s no other crazy stuff about to rear its ugly head. Here’s my team; apparently this is our 10th year together…

Mostly we get along. No really, we are like any group in that there are people who do certain things, and we work really well together and support each other, but sometimes, we need to isolate. So we do. That’s probably how we made 10 years.

I ironed Friday night; I really thought I’d finish, but then I looked at the clock and it was midnight and I was tired (up at 5:30 AM y’all)…so I stopped.

With about 5 planets to go…

So I did finish ironing on Saturday, despite having a long, mostly unproductive day, wallowing in Kitten missing. I’m still doing that daily…she was so tiny at the end and I held her until the end. And like I said before, here I am, in her space. Bowie keeps coming in and looking for her. Ugh. It’s fine; I’ll get used to her not being here. Maybe. So here’s the 187 fabrics I used in this quilt…

I love to sort by color. And here’s what I’ll be working on for the next week or so…trimming all of those.

I started that Saturday night as well.

Didn’t get very far; did another hour last night though.

It never looks like much at this stage. I’m going backwards through all the pieces, unless I flipped the pile at some point (which I did). But right now, I’ve cut out most of the planets, the stars, the sun, and I’m working on the spacey pieces in the sky. I barely started the barn owl. It’ll be a while. But it’s delightfully relaxing to sit on the couch and bingewatch stuff and not have to think too hard about anything. The sitting will help with the first two weeks of exhaustion too. Seriously.

I’m making a very strange head with a tree coming out of it for the ceramic sculpture I started in November.

Still needs eyes and stuff. Ears. Maybe. Yeah. Ears.

And I actually drew at dinner.

I’m going to have to start hiking on Saturday afternoons again so I can eat the dinner I want to eat. Revised. Blood sugar was high all day and then crashed Sunday AM at about 3. Fun times. When my body decides to be logical about how it deals with food, I’ll let you know. I think I’ve got it, and then it’s like, NO. You don’t.

Always true.

OK, meeting, then prep, then other meeting, then meeting here about trees, then collapse with a book. Then cut things out and repeat. Well, I don’t have to meet about trees again, but I’m sure tomorrow will be more meetings, just not full-school meetings in the library. For 3.5 hours. Ugh. Remind me to skip long meetings in retirement (which is still years away, but I’m still gonna think about it) unless they’re about things I love.

Remember Fabric

Summer Break is officially over; ironically, summer in Southern California is just beginning (it was like 97 degrees yesterday). We’ve got at least two months of ugh weather, depending on how bad the apparently nonexistent climate change wants to make it. At least I’ll be in air conditioning during the day, right? With 140 kids. It’s fine. I’m totally not ready and had to be up at an ungodly hour this morning…it was early enough that the baby barn owl hadn’t gone to sleep yet.

It was light out by the time I got out of the shower. I’m not feeling positive about today. I know some people totally get into the first day back, they’re all hyped up. I’m an introvert. A million people in the mall (yes, we are meeting in a mall on the first day) is not my idea of fun. Honestly, talking to people at 7:30 in the morning is not my idea of fun. They give us popcorn and soda (can’t have those) and then the new guy posted all the treats he has for us, and I can’t have any of it…it’s either chocolate or sugar or both (I’m allergic to chocolate, if you didn’t know, and diabetic). So whatever. I already have the nutrition menu pulled up for our lunch options, so I know the carb issues. How does a salad have so many carbs in it? Sigh. And that doesn’t even count the dressing. So I bring my stitching with me for the morning part, and I have a book on my phone, snacks in my bag, ready to walk if the blood sugar alarm goes off. Wearing my new school year shirt (we had to go in early and pick one up). I’ll be OK next week when the kids come. Just not a fan of the adulting part (the part with the hundreds of adults). And I get to be one of the first people to talk at our meeting this afternoon. I actually don’t care about that part. It works OK after so many years of doing it. Get up in front of a hundred people and talk? Whoopdidoo. Got it.

Here’s baby owl and a parent…

I’ve had a hard time being in the studio the last few days. Kitten is supposed to be in here. When she was an actual kitten, she was in here…

That’s my old office chair. I’m three chairs past that one now, I think. They’re always covered in cat fur though. Already just hanging out with me. Sigh. Poor baby. Miss her. Maybe I’m the poor baby in this equation.

So I spent a bunch of time futzing with Spargo stuff in the living room yesterday instead. I still have a million things to stitch onto the borders of Homegrown…

And then all the embroidery. I then checked on some of the other in-progress Spargos and cut out pieces for another month of the mushroom one (just finished a mushroom book…seemed appropriate), reminded myself I was close to done on one of the forest blocks, and remembered that the critter blocks are next on the embroidery list when I finish the Rooted trees…think I’m on June or July with that one, so another three? I think. I appreciate the brainlessness of following someone else’s pattern sometimes.

I did iron in here: two hours yesterday and two and a half the day before. I know it’s hard for you to see the difference between the days, but I can. Here’s Wednesday night’s progress…

Made it through all the swamp trees and maybe a little past that…looks like there’s two rockets in there.

Then yesterday…

I did all the space stuff…well the ‘sky’ stuff, which is the big blue and purple pieces you see, but not the planets and stars and sun…that’s all that’s left. About 100 pieces. Complicated because I try to decide what each planet looks like in terms of color, but not super hard like all the people pieces. I should be able to finish tonight and then start cutting them out. A good part of the process for the start of the school year…sitting on the couch and bingewatching a show the Man is calling “Call of the Midwife in India”, which it kind of is: The Good Karma Hospital. Light fare, but about helping people, certainly, which is what I need right now.

I was reading a book by T. Kingfisher, one of her shorter soldier series based on old stories (I liked the second better than the first, which was based on House of Usher)…and she wrote…

That’s definitely from the second one. They are definitely dark. And in the acknowledgements, even better…

I’m amused by that. The first is What Moves the Dead; the second book, which both of these quotes are from, is What Feasts at Night. The third comes out this fall.

When it’s hot, cats flop.

Nova makes biscuits. It’s adorable. Bowie is less adorable, but I still like him.

OK, damn, I have to leave in 15 minutes. Ugh. I did make it to ceramics on Wednesday, but it was packed, so instead of trying to get the big torso out, I worked on the head.

This thing will never be done.

And as we go back into the school year, one run by AI apparently (even in my district, they are pushing it)…see in June, when school gets out, what happens to the graph?

I am so amused. And not. Ah well.

OK. Back to the crowd in my head and my personal space. Remember to keep fabric at the forefront. Remember Kitten. Finish ironing tonight. All good.

Oh Kitten…

Well. I have two days left of Summer Break. I feel like a lot happened. A lot of it was awesome and a lot of it was stressful and it’s ending on a very sad note. On Monday, Kitten turned 17. We adopted her from one of the rescue groups outside of a Petco. She had been adopted out and returned for being ‘feisty’ (yeah, that never changed really)…she was supposed to be a Christmas present for the kids (it was December), but she latched onto me and was never anybody else’s cat.

We had two cats and two dogs at the time, so it’s not like we needed more, but the other two were getting older, so? Her original name was Holly, because we had mostly been naming animals after plants (of course, the current cats were Midnight…named by girlchild…and Limbo…who was supposed to be adopted out, but I was pregnant with the boychild and well, it was a baby). But she never answered to it and it never really fit.

OMG…look, CDs! WTF. Back in the day. She was feisty, which meant she survived the dogs…you know, I think we only had Ivy at that point? I think Calli came in 2009. So just Ivy and Midnight and Limbo…so she didn’t answer to her name, but she did answer to Kitten. So she became Kitten, and eventually I had to tell the vet, because they would call about Holly and I’m like, who the fuck is that. Doing well, y’all. Even back in the day. The kids were in elementary/middle school. I had just started to teach in the valley here instead of driving 45 minutes plus into the mountains.

Already sleeping on sewing supplies, even in the early days. That never stopped.

She survived many other animals coming through here. In the last month, we basically had to move her permanently into my office (she was already living there for like the last five years, although she’d venture out, even sleep with me…best memories ever of her curling up under my armpit, however uncomfortable it was. But Bowie was insistent on bugging her, so we finally moved her food and litter into my office. Yes it was a pain and sucked for me (I hate stepping on litter and it’s always everywhere), but it was more peaceful for her, and she needed that. She slept a lot the last few months. She had inflammatory bowel disease for the last five years or so, and we’d finally gotten medications that seemed to be working, until the last week. She would have episodes, like they do, and she’d rally. There were many times in the last year when we thought she was done. She’d lose a ton of weight and stop eating and then she’d come back. But this time, she was sick over and over again and I knew we were probably done. It’s hard to make that decision, and certainly it’s one I’ve been debating for a few months now. She knew it was time, even if I didn’t; Because she was so feisty, the vet had tags on her file, and when I took her in, she was purring and chill and headbutting my shirt, like she does when she wants love. So I gave her all the love I could and said goodbye.

And it fucking sucks. And I really need to stop crying because I have to go get my eyes checked today and swollen and red will probably impede the eye doctor’s assessment. Sigh. This room sucks without her in it. It all sucks. And I know if you’ve said goodbye to a pet, you know what I’m talking about. Shit, I still get tears in my eyes when my damn phone shows me pictures of Calli (the Golden Retriever) or Midnight (one of the best cats ever). And yes, there are still three cats and a dog in this house. The Man even said I could claim one of his cats as mine, and they all give me love and I give them love back, but it’s not the same. She was a sweetheart who bit me so hard last year I needed antibiotics, but she was my sweetheart. Fucking sucks.

Also the Man wanted me to count how many quilts she’s in and it’s a lot. A bunch. She’s the cat in most of my quilts.

Wet washcloth on the eyeballs before I have to leave for the eye doc.

So yeah, had an awesome time in SF, then got COVID, then put my cat down, now going back to school, so not ready. At all.

I spent a lot of time with Kitten in the last few days, ironing in here. Almost 5 hours on Monday…

Only 2 1/2 yesterday…

Before and after going to the vet. Difficult. I made it through the swamp and the ICE officers. Still need to finish a bit up on them and add in the children they are dragging through the swamp. Then the trees and that gets me into the 1000s…with about 350 pieces to go. I could knock that out today, but think I’m going to ceramics. Debating book club. Not sure I can do that. They saw Kitten in all the Zooms and I don’t know if I can sit through that right now. Probably not. And I’m hoping to get into pilates (haven’t been in SO LONG), but I’m still on the waitlist and it’s less than 12 hours, so…it’s all hopeful. So I’ll iron some today and tomorrow and hopefully finish.

My craft room, my office, my studio is where Kitten was. So hard to be in here.

OK, and here’s the politics. My school board has members on it who lie. This is a flat out lie. The top two are a board member and his wife. Absolute bullshit. No one is paying us to show up. We show up because y’all are idiots.

And IDK who Amy is?

When I type her name into our district mail, it does not pop up…which doesn’t mean she doesn’t work for us…she could be new, and I don’t necessarily get everyone on email, but also, no one in the fucking district calls it by that name, because that name is WRONG. She doesn’t say here that we’re being paid to show up (we’re not; maybe those parents are though). Please open your eyes, y’all. People lie to get their agendas across. Luckily, we have three board members who are not Project 2025 sycophants, and they renewed our superintendent’s contract and finally approved the sex ed curriculum, which contrary to parents, does NOT teach kids to be trans or LGTBQIA. It does try to teach them tolerance. Heaven forbid we do that. God wants y’all to be tolerant (another staff member was quoting god things with regard to Trump the other day…this is what will drive me out of teaching). Read the Bible a few times, and you’ll see that. It’s funny when the atheist knows the bible better than the religious folk.

ANYWAY. Not shutting up about the stupidity…and it’s obviously not going away. Neither is my headache, so I’m going to go take meds, cold washcloth on the eyes, and do the things. And miss my baby kitty.