I Doubt She Does Receipts*

There are nights when I just want to keep ironing (or tracing, or cutting, or sewing)…when looking at the clock makes me realize an hour just passed and I didn’t even notice, and now it’s after midnight, and if I don’t stop soon, I might never stop. That was last night. I think I was in bed around 12:30. Not sure. I had the next two figures to iron down; I had decided they would be a different range of flesh colors than the other figure, but not different from each other, so that meant choosing all those pieces in one go. It took a couple of hours. This is what it looked like at about the halfway point; I had the entire male figure laid out…

And this lying on the table…the pieces up at the top are for later. They need to be ironed onto non-flesh colors…there’s a chair and a box and some bones and lungs and eyeballs and hair. The male doesn’t have much in the way of hair.

Then with the female figure added…that was probably 45 minutes later. It’s not a fast process. I look at every piece number, figure out what part it is, what it’s next to, does it need to be light or dark, etc.

Here’s all the number 1 pieces…the lightest ones…feet, arms, heads, knees, legs, butts…

That’s all I have left of that fabric…it’s obviously made it into a bunch of quilts. The biggest pieces tend to be out of the lightest colors.

Here’s the current pile ready to be cut out…probably need a bigger box soon.

I know I ironed pieces from the 300s, 400s, 500s, and 600s, but not all of them. That will be tonight…all the little fussy pieces that belong to the body but aren’t flesh tones. I’m about 6 1/2 hours in…I’m not sure how much is really done though. I can’t definitively say I’m halfway…too many loose pieces…after tonight, I should be halfway.

These are the current fabrics I’ve used. You can see the first figure’s flesh run on the bottom left, and the next two figures are in the top left box, on the bottom of it.

One’s more peachy than the other. It probably doesn’t make that big a difference in the long run, but in my head it does. I might be the only one who notices.

So today is a long day, with a 2-hour curriculum meeting after school (I tell you, this week sucks), so I’m hoping to get at least an hour done of the ironing, but I can’t guarantee another 2 1/2 hours like last night. Last night, I was on a roll. It was hard to make myself stop. Even when I’m tired, art brain shuts all that off and wires my brain off normal time and onto art brain time. I seriously remember looking at the clock at maybe 10:15 and then it was almost midnight. I love that…until I have to get up to teach the next morning.

Calli’s foot is still bugging her, so I’m going to try to find a vet appointment for her in my crazy schedule…not sure how. She does still sleep well…

She’s a goofball.

*Arctic Monkeys, When the Sun Goes Down

Tomorrow Gets Me Higher*

I’m very much in my head these days, with one quilt in progress and another drawing that reappeared on the light table so I could finish drawing. My brain is trying to schedule everything else around the artmaking so I can get two quilts done in the time it takes to make one. I still don’t know for sure that I can do it, but I can try. The drawing is rolling around in my head, because I know it’s not done, but I don’t know exactly what it needs. Something came to me the other day, but I was driving, so that’s not the best time to record ideas, and though I thought I could totally hold onto that idea (and in reality, it’s stored in my head somewhere), I lost it in the moment. It happens. It will probably come back. I do a lot of drawing and coloring in my head. It’s like art brain is at an easel in one of the cleaner corners of my brain, pushing the to-do lists aside, ignoring the demands of my job, and it draws…colors…stares at the paper for huge chunks of time until something is decided.

So somehow my art brain thinks it can work on both of them…and I’m not sure it’s wrong. I know at some point last night, it hurt to stand any more (a lot of standing happens in my job), so I sat…if I had the second project at a sitting stage, I could have gotten another hour of artmaking in last night.

After grading and making dinner and then more grading, then into the disaster area that is my studio. I have a plan for fixing this corner, but it requires a chunk of money and time that I don’t have at the moment. There is a cat in that photo though…can you see her on Batting Mountain?

I think the other cat was in there too…he tends to stalk Kitten a bit. He has a few places he likes to be in here.

I picked the first of two flesh runs. The two old people will hopefully be more beige or gray. This is the younger figure, the one on the rug.

I ironed for a couple of hours…and got about 200 pieces done. Way more efficient than the night before…

I didn’t add much to the pile…just flesh tones and the rug…which ended up being dark green.

I have about half the 200s to iron down, but that was the next figure, so I quit. That’s a big chunk of time to do the next figure. My feet hurt, I was tired, and I need to finish my book before the library ends my digital loan again. Without even asking me. How rude. So I read for a short bit and then gave up and went to bed.

I have to cover the pieces I’ve laid out when I’m not ironing, or I will come back to a cat lying on them, with Wonder Under stuck to their fur and chaos everywhere. The top right box is what I’ve ironed down. Not enough…

Gotta keep going. So much standing today in my future…

It’s a crazy week. But this is progress, and I like progress. I like to report on progress. Really, this blog is just to make me do stuff every night. It’s my motivation.

Calli has hurt her foot…she’s limpy. I don’t get home early enough from school this week to take her to the vet. I’m hoping her grandpa figures out his work schedule and takes her, or it will be Saturday. She’s sad about it.

She did this last year around this time too. Foxtail? Arthritis? Sprained not-ankle because dogs don’t have ankles? I just don’t know. Poor puppy.

OK, off to school for an early meeting that will inevitably be frustrating because of a certain staff member who’s definitely not in it to help kids, and then teaching website stuff and plastics all day…we moved the tables in both science classes yesterday to try to deal with some behavior issues. My 8th period pretty much freaked out about it. So the rest of the classes today should probably do the same. Exciting stuff.

Then home to ironing…

*Queen and David Bowie, Under Pressure

Gonna Go to the Place That’s the Best*

A mostly efficient and appropriate weekend: some personal time was had, a personal goal reached. I graded a bit and performed some school-related activities. I dealt with the giant-ass pile of leaves in the driveway, said pile containing the damn bougainvillea-thorned branch that sent me to Urgent Care last week. Groceries, laundry, dinner with parental units…all complete. I even did some ironing on the new quilt (more about that below)…but then sleep…sleep is so hard some nights. I kept trying to relax my brain enough to go back to sleep after something woke me up. It was rough. Sunday nights are bad for sleep. Anticipation of the week? Of the pace of the week? Who knows. Not conducive to good sleep…that’s all we do know.

I think the girlchild is officially done with all her school stuff in Madagascar. She comes home next weekend. That was fast. Or was it? I’ll be glad to have her back in the US, although I won’t see her until the boychild’s graduation in New York the end of May. She has a job for the summer in Boston, so that’s alternately good and sad. We’ll survive. But we’ll miss her. Boychild has another week and a half of classes and then goes into finals. I’m sure he’s stressed about the future. I would be. Hell, I am every end of the school year, worrying that my district or principal will do something stupid and move me to 8th grade science or move our principal to another school and give us someone horrible. Again. But interspersed among that worry is anticipation of sleeping in and making art and getting stuff done around here…slightly dissipated by the jury duty crap, but whatever. I’m supposed to be making a mammogram appointment…normally I’d do it in early July. Now I’m not sure what to do about it. Sigh.

Maybe that’s what’s keeping me up. Who knows. Trying to remember to do all the things…that causes some anxiety. So I made the mammogram appointment and I’ll cancel it if I have to. Reschedule. Whatever.

So my office…I put all the fabric away from the last quilt and then straightened up a bit so I could start on this one. I’m watching the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events…it makes me laugh. The ironing board moves around the office…when it’s here, it’s totally in the way. There’s a chair in front of it for computer access, so I have to shove it back to sit in the chair, then push it up to fit behind it for ironing.

I generally pile fabrics all over the board when I’m picking them…but only ones I’ve actually used get to stay up there. I leave them on the ironing board until I’m done, so I can reuse them throughout the quilt.

Then to the right, I hang the drawing, so I can refer to it…figure out what number is what piece.

Behind me is the table where I lay out the Wonder Under pieces in order by 10s and 100s. I haven’t even finished the first 100 so far. It’s a backpack and a pile of books and other stuff. For some reason, it felt very complicated to pick the fabrics…a lot of consideration of lights and darks and contrasts. I’m two hours in and this is all I have done…

The next batch should go faster…the rug and the first figure. I pick the run of 6-7 fabrics for the body and then I can lay out all those pieces fairly quickly. My brain is still arguing about rug color (it started last night…maybe that’s what kept me awake).

Here’s the pile I had by the time I needed to go to bed…lots of grays…

It’s easier for me to see them all organized, and eventually, by color…I even managed to use the tiny hedgehog fabric. That makes me happy.

But I still have another 900+ pieces to iron down. Hopefully it will start going a little faster than it has.

Ugh. I’m really tired. Sigh. Well. Can’t do much about that. I don’t ever seem to get the right amount of sleep, do I. It might feel better once I get this whole cup of tea in me. Hopefully. Because there’s a 2-hour staff meeting in my future…could be ugly.

*Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

Sinking Is All I Had Planned*

Took a day off from all the things. Looking ahead to May, I can see some stressful events and lots of meetings (three in one day? Really?), so I wanted to do a hike before all that. We originally were looking at a short one, but the weather was right and I had this hike that had been bugging me. Last June, I tried to do a hike with the boychild, but I had recently started taking a new medication, and it fucked with me…so I ended up having to get helicoptered off the mountain (that was a fun experience actually). The situation was scary, though, in that when that happens, you get paranoid that it will happen again, where you’ll feel like you can’t control or trust your body and do the things you want to do. So it’s been on my list since then to do the hike again (it’s one I’ve actually done 5 or 6 times anyway), just to prove to myself that (a) I can do it and (b) it was the meds, not me.

We go out Sunset Trail, then pick up Big Laguna back…pretty simple, not too much climbing, gorgeous views and a meadow.

It was a gorgeous day, weather was warm but breezy, not too bad. Probably better than last June, which was hot. The fires came through here however many years ago, so there are always new trees that have finally succumbed and are lying around.

This was a perfect time to go…lots of meadow and mountain flowers, plus the oaks have all their new pinkish growth coming in.

Seriously, there were flowers everywhere…

We didn’t see any animals, except lizards and birds…not even the cows that are usually in the meadows!

Looking down at Water of the Woods, which had quite a bit of water in it. There were only about 4 hikers on Sunset Trail, but a lot more (mostly bikers) on the Laguna trail. Bikes aren’t allowed on Sunset…that’s a plus.

This bird is loud and weird. Pretty sure it’s a
Red-winged Blackbird.

You can listen to one here…but the one I was listening to seemed to have been listening to a bunch of electronic music. He had a definite electronic twang to his song.

Walking up from the pond, that tree was just leaning there, most of its bark gone, just perched on its stump.

Some dead trees, some burned trees…

A view of Cuyamaca Peak, Middle Peak (to the right), and Stonewall.

Then we come to where I sat for about 20 minutes or so last June, waiting for the helicopter to show up. They had sent out the Forest Service guys who were already out there to check on me, and then the official rescue people hiked in from Penny Pines. Boychild and I had debated if I could hike another mile, mile and a half, to Penny Pines, but I was barely able to walk more than 10 steps without feeling like I was gonna pass out by then.

So the helicopter landed there. I had plenty of water, had drunk, had eaten. And yesterday, I was fine. No problems at all.

So we kept hiking.

A view of the meadow from Sunset Trail…

There were pinecones all over the place.

We kept going around the meadow, avoiding the mountain bikers…

Nature at its best…

And there’s water in the lake!

I’ve actually never seen this much water…then again, I didn’t hike there right after the rains last year…I’m sure there was more than this.

But it was nice to see this much anyway, along with the swathes of color across the meadows.

No cows. Girlchild would have been disappointed.

Heading back…

A little over 8 miles. Definitely tiring…I zoned out most of the afternoon, but it was good. It felt good. I’m glad to have conquered that.

Meanwhile, I did buy fabrics for the background of the new quilt. There’s a contrast challenge between bodies and fireplace and floor and background wall. The left is part of the fireplace, the middle is the wall, and the right is the floor.

I got these too. Maybe if my kids ever have kids, they will realize what all the alien fabrics are for. Or not.

These two are still nervous about each other…

Friday night I finished cutting out all the Wonder Under with Simba’s help…

This mermaid with two tails was in the Starbucks in the morning…

I finally got off the couch yesterday afternoon and sorted the Wonder Under…it didn’t take long.

We got dinner at the new Mexican place in town. I don’t believe that Frida actually said that.

And then I started ironing.

I didn’t get very far, because I was tired and it was late and standing hurt my feet at that point, but it’s a start.

Some blues for a backpack…

I’m expecting the ironing to take at least 10-12 hours…so all week, really. Hopefully I’ll be cutting pieces out by next weekend. That’s the plan anyway. Stay on task. I might need to grade some stuff sometime soon though. Sigh.

Today has a long to-do list, as always. Better get on it…

*Aimee Mann, Humpty Dumpty

They Tell You It’s None of Their Business*

I’m running late on blogposting today. I’d like to say it’s because I slept in, woke up at a leisurely pace, and am still in my pajamas, wandering a quiet house, wondering how to spend all my free time (snort), but none of that is true. What IS true is that the dog kept me awake a good chunk of the night and morning, I got up and showered, had guacamole and chips for breakfast, and went to a sleep apnea appointment, so my doc could try to blame my inability to sleep on something in my nose/brain/whatever instead of admitting that I’m a shitty sleeper genetically.

I put the sleep apnea device box on the bed, so I’ll remember to put the damn device on tonight. Kitten was perturbed.

Yesterday, I managed to get my taxes done (hooray! but not in time to pay my property taxes, dammit) and go through all the camping equipment we have, so we could figure out what we’re missing. Calli hasn’t been to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a while. Grandpa throws her the ball on a nice flat lawn…

She’s an old lady. I stitched horizontal grass down…I will need to go through my stuff and make sure I have enough of this stitched down and prepped for the trip.

Can’t have nothing in my hands…that’s crazy.

Then I came in the studio, laid out the first 100 pieces of the new quilt, and started ironing…

I’m done with the first 250 or so pieces…

And everyone is flipping out over a penis. Seriously. No comments on blue pubic hair? Alright then.

My goal is to finish ironing today. Yes. Today. No, I didn’t grade anything yesterday. Whatever. My priorities are fine.

I also picked the last three quilts up yesterday from the photographer…

This is BirdFoot, which was started in 2007 and sat around as a top for a really long time. It’s done now.

Climate Goddess, which was started last June and then was filler in between a bunch of other things, until it was finished last month…

And the commission piece, which draws from the climate piece, but was commissioned by the mom of a scoliosis surgery teenager. Its title is She Was Given to Us Perfect, from a poem the mom sent me.

I think I’ll write more about the commission later this week, when I’m more awake and less worried about getting this next one done, but it was an enjoyable and different experience. It’s the largest commission I’ve done, but it was positive.

With that, I need to iron like the WIND. Or something. The HOT WIND. There we go. More tomorrow. After I’ve slept with that machine. Or not slept. However that goes.

*Adam Ant, Desperate but Not Serious

It Froze Me Deep Inside*

First of all, you need to go read the girlchild’s last post…it’s from a month ago, but she just posted it (data issues)…just to see how they got their truck across the water to the island. Terrifying to see…but after a month of trying to imagine what she was talking about, nope…it’s crazier than I thought.

Me? I just keep sending her dog pictures to guarantee she’ll eventually come back.

Yesterday was this…

Every two years, like clockwork, I save some rubber dummies. My brain is still functioning OK, apparently, because I still remember how to do it. I spent the whole time, in between sucking face with that guy, checking up on my students with our online system, because hey…guest teachers allow things I tell them not to allow, and students lie about being done. It’s frustrating, but some part of me laughs and says, well, there will be fewer assignments to grade then, eh? If they don’t turn them in, I don’t have to grade them! OK, that’s how you know a teacher really needs vacation. Yup. One more day of teaching, then a day at the zoo with a bunch of kids I don’t know! Why do the kids who don’t know me pick me as a chaperone? That disturbs me.

Today is crazy hair today. I’m debating if I have the patience for it. Plus I have my last meeting for my observations today, so do I want my hair to be nuts for that? I kinda do. Yeah.

Last night, I went to a slide presentation about hiking in Nepal. Which now I want to do. But elevation has always been an issue for me…well. We’ll have to figure that one out.

I finished ironing last night around 11 PM…about 8 hours for this piece…and 82 fabrics.

It’s not a huge quilt, so not a big dent in the existing fabric stash, but I think that’s always the case. I buy about 5 new fabrics every time I go in for a background or binding, a 1/2 yard of each, so that’s 2 1/2 new yards coming in (although I didn’t buy a new background this time…I had a few stashed away)…on the bigger quilts, I might use 2 1/2 yards worth of fabric per quilt (just the image…obviously the background and backing are more than that). The only way I could figure out if it’s using that up is to lay all of the stuff out that I ironed and then see what that looks like.

Huh. I might do that tonight. Just for kicks. It’s an interesting thought.

Here’s all the pieces ironed down to fabric…

Does that look like 2 1/2 yards? Hard to say. But I’ll start cutting out tonight…hopefully I’ll be done cutting by Saturday and I can start ironing? Maybe? It’s gonna be tight. I keep saying that. Based on the last quilt, which is about the same size, although more pieces, I probably have another 38 hours to go on this quilt. Now when I say it THAT way, and consider that it should be at the photographer sometime next Thursday, a week from today, well, that actually sounds more doable than just free-thinking about the time and hoping I’ll make it. This is why I keep track of the times! I think. Well. Anyway. Cutting stuff out tonight…then we’ll see where we’re at. We being me, of course. I still have to grade things and weed the front yard. If there were more than one of me, I could do ALL the things.

*The Cure, In Between Days

Like a Nervous Magician Waiting in the Wings*

That did not feel like sleep. I want a do-over. I’m not even really sure what’s up with that…stress about school? Maybe. I have a lot going on with art shows too…which is not a bad problem to have, in that I’m in a lot of shows right now, but there’s some juggling trying to keep track of what needs to go where and when. Especially if I’m going to be gone for a week.

Four years ago this week, girlchild was having back surgery. Today? I wake up to a message that she’s really sick (11,000 miles away), but it’s not malaria, so don’t worry. Oh. OK. Because there aren’t a million other heinous diseases where you are? Sigh. And then she doesn’t answer. Oh well. The program she’s with does keep on top of this stuff…it’s in their best interest to keep the kids healthy.

Yesterday morning’s sunrise. I’m really OK with not seeing sunrises. I’m looking forward to not seeing any next week. And to peeing whenever I need to pee. And??? Making art for hours. Maybe I will just ignore grading. Catch up after break. I might.

I still hate that they cut down the other tree on the right that made it look an aardvark.

I walked the dogs yesterday. I’m increasingly paranoid about coyotes, even in daylight, so I walked the road to the local park…where I haven’t seen them yet (just heard them). Oh, that’s a lie. I saw one once in broad daylight bound across the trail, looking somewhat surprised that I was there.

I was testing out this new trail I saw in the middle of the park. The max dog walk is about 3 miles (according to the dogs), so I can’t go from the house all the way around the park…but this trail seemed to cut through the middle. Nah. It didn’t. And there was this guy with a young German Shepherd smoking a cigar in the park. Like dude? This is a natural space where people walk. WTF? I’m betting the significant other was like “You can’t do that in the house.” and he was like “Fine I’ll inflict my disgusting smelly habit on people I don’t live with.” That’s my neighbor too. Ugh.

But it is Spring…I think officially today? Is it today? Yes! Spring equinox!

And Spring flowers. That’s nice.

I have walked past this house for years as it becomes more and more derelict. There used to be a chicken farm here, and then they sold it to build houses, but the density was too high for the area and it got voted down, I think. So all this is still here. I wish they’d just add it to the empty space beyond it. But no. Probably houses will block this view too.

So after dinner and some vegging out because exercise, I started ironing again with the plan to keep picking fabrics that haven’t been used as much. I wasn’t as successful here, because I needed certain colors…but this is her hair! I love it…

I’m just in the mood to do whatever I want with this one. Well, I am sticking with flesh colors for flesh.

I got through most of the 500s and some of the 100s…and all the 600s. I’m really not going in order, so I have no freakin’ idea how much I have left. All the main figure is done, except for heart, lungs, and eyeballs.

She’s definitely brightly colored. So I have about 20 pieces in the 500s, about 60 in the 400s, all of the 200 and 300s, and some portion of the 100s…most of them, I think. Crap and there there’s still some 600s. Damn. That’s more than I thought last night. I was trying to fall asleep and art brain kept trying to calculate how many more pieces I have to iron. I have a lecture I’m going to Wednesday night. I think I can cut pieces out there? And gaming. I’ve done that before. I really want to be ironing this weekend. I don’t know if I can finish in time otherwise. Watch me not sleep at all over break because I’m trying to finish this. I didn’t start until late last night though…so maybe I’ll be better tonight.

Kitten is back in the batting nest…with an incredibly old piece of mine pinned to the bulletin board behind her. Seriously, it’s so old, I don’t even know how old it is. It has beads on it!

She looks happy. I’m glad she has a safe happy spot.

Well, hopefully today will go well…yesterday, I had 3 classes that rocked the assignment and then 2 that were a clusterfuck. That’s always nice. Because today they have to use what they did (or didn’t do) yesterday in a group assignment. All hell is probably going to break loose in 4th period. That period exhausts me. I feel like they need a totally different (and lamer) curriculum. They’d be perfectly happy copying notes from a slide presentation, but ask them to do anything that involves critical thinking? Oh fuck no. So there’s that. I will meditate between 3rd (when there is supposed to be an earthquake/fire drill, just to add to the excitement, seriously?) and 4th. I might meditate in the car on the way to school. I’m meditating now to Puddle of Mudd’s She Hates Me…great song for middle-school teachers.

In other dorky news, all the 7th grade teachers are dressed alike today for Twin Day. Yup. That’s a thing. I need to go find some sneakers. I don’t wear sneakers. I wear hiking boots.

Art tonight. For sure.

*Blues Traveler, Run-Around

It’s Much Too Late to Find*

So I ended a very busy weekend with a meditative two hours of ironing bliss. Picking fabrics really is one of my favorite parts of the process…I like ironing the piece together as well, but this is where I get to visualize the whole thing and then make that happen with whatever is in my fabric stash. For this new quilt, I pulled whole drawers out and rummaged around at the back, because when I use fabrics, I usually shove them in the front and then they’re the easiest to reach when I go back to that drawer. So I do often use the same fabrics over and over again. I’m trying to use fabrics that I’ve either never used or that I haven’t used in a long time. We’ll see how that goes.

This piece has three figures in it, so I have to pick at least two different runs of flesh tones. I did the first one last night…the stuff on the left is for a different part (pieces I missed ironing when I went through the first time), although the pink and yellow are both part of the flesh.

Why not!? I can do what I want…it’s my quilt.

Unfortunately, when I numbered this one, I numbered the bottom part of one figure, then the two middle figures, then the top part of the first figure…but I need to iron all the first figure pieces at once so I don’t get confused. So I ironed all the 0-100s and a few of the 100s themselves…then rummaged through the end of the 400 bin (467 and on) and the 500 bin, but minus all the hair and sky bits (don’t need them yet), and then finished up with half the 600 bin. I just need the flesh…not all the extra bits…what you see below is some of the 100s that I set aside (heart etc) and then the 500s I didn’t need yet (mostly hair)…

Why don’t I just number that way? Guaranteed I’d miss something. I already found one unnumbered piece in there. Had to trace it and number it with an ‘a’.

So in the flesh run, these are all the number 2 pieces…now you see how I have stash from the 1990s still in my studio…even with a ton of pieces, it’s still not a lot of ironing.

Dirt and water use the most fabric…and sky/space now too, although this quilt has none of that. Some flesh fabrics that I’ve really loved are just tiny scraps now…still usable though! This one has been used before, but it’s been a while. There’s a piece about 18″ x 16″ left of it…so it’ll last for a while.

Ironed pieces on the left…the whole main figure’s flesh is done (not so her heart, lungs, eyeballs)…and on the right, what I used. So far…

The other two figures are smaller, so I can use smaller pieces of fabric. But they need to be different than the figure behind…so we’ll see how that works tonight. Usually I know how much I’ve ironed, but I really can’t tell…at least 200 pieces? Hard to say because I jumped all over the place.

It’s not like I don’t have 6 drawers of flesh fabrics. Plus I need some vibrant hot pinks for the vulva…oh yeah, because she’s giving birth. Uh huh. So there’s that.

I went to another opening last night…supporting artists in my groups is something I try to do. I have pictures, but no time to post them. The next opening I’m trying to go to is this Friday…we’ll see how that goes. Anyway…here’s a sleepy puppy to amuse you…

Yes, I have to go to school today. I’m ready (sort of). I even graded a little yesterday. This week will be weird…one day off for training (need to do sub plans) and one day of field trip and play, no teaching. So a crazy week, because it’s also right before Spring Break. And I have 9 days to finish this quilt!!! It’s cool. I got this. Well, at the moment, I got this. Just wait until the universe figures out my schedule and hits me with pneumonia or something else wacky. You know how that goes.

*The Human League, Don’t You Want Me

Gonna Make You Burn, Gonna Make You Sting*

So yesterday morning I was convinced it was Friday. By the end of the day, I was sure it was Wednesday and I had one more day to finish everything. The brain is a strange thing. My brain on days of the week is apparently a messed-up thing. It’s Friday! You’re all like, yeah, we know. Today I have two parent meetings…in the morning…and then I get to drive in Friday rush-hour traffic to deliver a quilt…in the rain. If you live in Southern California, you know we don’t drive in rain well. Water confuses us. So I might be “driving” (sitting stopped in traffic) for hours. Fun stuff. But at the end of it, there is a weekend. There will be sleep and no students. For Two Whole Days. That will be good.

Although yesterday we had a good solid discussion on what teachers look for when grades come up…say a kid has a 59.5% (F) and they want to know if the teacher will bump it up to a D-. Well I told the kids we look at what the kid has been doing. If they’ve been working hard, on task, asking about makeup work, and turning it in, odds are we see that hard work and bump them up (not every teacher…but in middle school…in MY middle school…that’s a good sign. I want to encourage that behavior). However, if they have 18 missing assignments and I’ve reminded them of that a few times and they have done nothing, no makeups, no tutoring, nothing…then they have earned that F, fair and square. And extra credit bathroom passes will not fix that hot mess. These kids still believe in magic.

So that is a significant chunk of my weekend: getting grades done. I have two periods graded of the science units, three to go. Ugh. I’m getting there. There’s light…it’s a ways off, but there’s light.

I had a meeting last night, my stitching friends, so I worked on this…

And realized I was going to run out of the thread for the grasses. Damn. Can’t get that locally. I’m going to go through my stash and see if I have something that will work…

Then I had some time when I got home with animals. This one is way too close. He can’t just hang out on my lap…it’s gotta be in my face.

Then I got up off the couch around 10:30 PM to iron…to finish the last bit, the second figure.

I ironed the eyes separately…it’s easier to make sure they’re placed correctly that way. No crooked eyes!

And there she is. So I could iron both figures to the background tonight and then iron to the background. Yay!

That sounds good. Hopefully I won’t be too exhausted when I get home to do that. Then I’ll grade some stuff tomorrow and Sunday, but hopefully I’ll have time to stitch this down and get it pinbasted for quilting. That’s my goal anyway.

My current goal is getting through those two parent meetings and all day teaching energy to kids who alternately have way too much or nowhere near enough energy. Should be interesting.

*Led Zeppelin, Black Dog

Playing with Fire Gets You Burnt*

Some mornings, I’m so sure it’s a different day. It’s Friday, right? I think that’s because I had two 4-day work weeks and this is the 4th day. So it must be Friday, right? Oh no. It’s not. But I did survive everyone turning their stuff in yesterday, although the boys (it was ALL BOYS) who didn’t have all their papers in order and strew them all over the desk and then the end-of-class bell rang and they stood there helpless and ever hopeful that I would come over and do it for them…yeah. Well. I’m not enabling your shit today people. I also wouldn’t let any girls come over and do it for them. I said “You’re not their MOM” about 72 times.

So there’s that. And the doctor…so I think once you hit a certain age, they just want you to do all the possible invasive tests, so that’s fun. Because then I have to schedule all that for one of my breaks, because no way in hell am I trying to schedule and prep for a colonoscopy during teaching. They were adamant that I do a sleep apnea study too, because I admit to not sleeping well. I tried to explain that I had never ever in my entire life slept well, plus I’m an old lady with hot flashes, but that was not stopping them. So fine. Whatever. I’ll sleep with the machine. We’ll see how that goes. I did get to run downstairs to get to radiology for foot X-rays (ironic that) before they closed…and then the guy told me to stay in the room and never came back. It’s OK…he did the X-rays…and then I think he went home. I don’t blame him. It was late. No one was there when I came out of the room. I could have been locked in there with no supplies but hand sanitizer over night.

Anyway, that’s done. I just have 118 science units to grade. I did a few yesterday…I brought the rest of 2nd period home to grade last night but that didn’t happen. I ate dinner and then packed up a quilt to ship today, which took a really long time. Part of that was ironing it…it’s huge. And then dehairing it. I didn’t finish getting it all packed up until around 10:30. I didn’t start ironing until 11:24…and honestly, I almost didn’t start. But I’m a fan of At Least 30 Minutes a Day. It works. It makes me feel better and shit gets done.

I just walked away to warm up my tea, and the cat ate my Cheerios. Or licked them really. Now they’re all sticky. Crappy breakfast anyway, but it’s all my stomach can handle some mornings. I am NOT a morning person. I realize I sent an email this morning and it was cranky as hell, but I’m tired of editing something for this woman and having her ignore the fucking Oxford commas. Why ask me to edit it then? Because it’s fucking wrong! OK. See? I’m not fit to do anything in the morning but drink tea. And I’m obviously bad at that, because it’s always cold because I forgot to drink it in a timely fashion.

So 30 minutes of concentrated ironing…I started on the other figure. It’s a frontal view, but with a tree…all those rib bits will look better when they’re outlined during quilting.

So I ironed the tree separate. Why the tree? Two things…rooting her into the Earth, but also the support she’s getting from the surgical stuff. Like this strong tree trunk that’s helping to hold her back straight. To give her the room to grow.

Pick up tree, iron on top of body. Lower torso done! That was easy.

Seriously, it was. Tonight, if I have the energy (I have a meeting), I’m doing the rest of the body. So maybe Friday I get the whole thing ironed together. Hopefully.

I am pretty damn exhausted at the moment though. But I really like the ironing part, even though it’s late at night and I’m tired, it’s cool and feels good and is meditative and there’s a picture at the end. Damn, I need grades to be done so I can ignore them for a few weeks and get some art done. Seriously. This is annoying. Stupid job sucking up so much time and energy. For what? So you can tell me no more money for SCHOOLS, but we’ll give money for GUNS? Florida, you are a fucked-up state. I appreciate California so much right now. I love my stoned, hippy, snowflake state. We rock.

*Yaz, Midnight