Buggin’…

So hi. Coupla things that are bugging me this morning. 1. Tearing down part of a historic landmark (historic or historical? I argue both) without permission. That is truly shitting upon the American people. 2. The people who don’t understand the idea of No Kings. Um. Really? See previous remark. Or any of the other laws broken so far. The president has a specific job and rules and if you don’t follow them, you are not a rebel, a rogue; you are breaking the laws you swore to uphold. Like a king. 3. Not swearing in a representative that was voted in by her constituents, even though you swore in others (who supported your agenda). Not trying to control things at all, are we? Reeks of some crazy shit to me. (Release the Epstein Files; I’m OK if Democrats are included. I want EVERYONE revealed.) 4. Not to mention dragging away people who are going through the legal immigration process, following all the rules, contributing to the community, paying taxes, and have committed no crimes, or minor crimes so LONG ago, that if we held some of our white males accountable in the same way, I think the entire government might no longer exist. Which does seem to be what they are aiming for. 5. My school board’s idiotic decision to vote against the sex ed curriculum, which might now affect every 8th-grade science teacher and their students in the district in a very negative way. Because they wanted to push forth their political agenda…not do what’s best for the staff and students. It’s so frustrating at the moment. There was more. There’s always more.

Deep breaths. Moving on. Am I moving on? Well no, because my art is political at the moment and that makes it frustrating to make, even though I would be more frustrated NOT to be making it, not to be voicing my opinions, not to be putting it out there. I’m tracing. I’m close to an hour a night, but can’t quite get there (cough cough day job cough). Here’s Monday night…

I actually forgot to take a picture, because honestly, this part is fairly boring to look at. It’s very relaxing to DO, to stand there and just trace around things that are already drawn. The most stressful part is when I’m doing the water because the pieces are weird-ass, complicated shapes and I have to remember what overlaps what. So it’s a pain to not be able to get it all done in one go. But that just isn’t happening right now.

Here’s last night…

I almost made it to the 600s. I stopped with that leg in the middle because it was a good place to stop and it was already past my bedtime, because I did pilates last night because I have to deliver a quilt to a show this afternoon, and then I packed up that quilt and did some email stuff and some organization stuff for school and graded all the tests and wrote them down and decided against inputting them and then decided how I’m dealing with the kids who were absent yesterday and then I traced. So I got 50 minutes. That said, that’s better than nothing. I’ve been tracing for over 8 hours so far and I have another 400 pieces to go. I’m gonna push for a whole hour tonight, but then it gets complicated, right? I need to grade stuff too. I forgot the pile of papers I’m supposed to be working on; I left it at school. Aargh. Considered going back to get them but decided that was crazy (it was 7 PM by then).

A lot of what I do seems crazy sometimes.

The owl left us another pellet.

It was much larger but kind of falling apart. I feel like the established owls leave more solid owl pellets? I’m not sure how that works. But I’m up to 6? Maybe 7 I’ve collected (teachers everywhere just screamed…and if you don’t get it, be thankful).

More art from Interpretations! This is so appropriate: this is Helen Geglio’s Mind Map: Overthinking.

Her stuff is fascinating.

I’m jealous of her being able to sit down and stitch. I have such a hard time with that right now. Also, I’ve been mispronouncing her name in my head all these years, so I will now correct that.

And this…by Lena Meszaros, True Haven.

This piece will be hanging with mine in Virginia starting in January, which is cool. I think it will go well with mine.

More on Friday! I have to get to work. We’re wearing red so the school district can see that we’re pissed about the lame offer they gave us for the next contract. Reminds me of the other thing that was bugging me: How expensive all the things are now: food, electricity, goods. All my expenses are going up and my salary will be going backwards if the district has any say in it. A $28 million surplus is apparently not enough. I know what I’d do with that surplus, and it’s not ‘send it to Argentina’. I have to take photos of all the people in red PLUS copy tests for the absent kids so they can’t cheat with AI. Then teaching vocab and Newton’s First Law today (ah, inertia, if only I knew you). Then drop off a quilt, come back, and grade like the wind. Or not like the wind, because it would just throw things around like a middle schooler having a tantrum. Then tracing some more water. Like a king. No. Like an artist who has no desire to be king.

Another Dimension

It was a busy weekend, even though I canceled/missed three things. The next two weekends seem to be just as bad…lots of meetings, driving, going to things, getting things done. I feel proud of the 20 minutes of yardwork I managed yesterday. I can’t keep up, for real.

So let’s do the tracing stuff first. Still doing it. Thought putting that yellow post-it on the drawing marking where I’d last been, writing the next number to trace on there, that’s smarter than I have been in the past.

Mostly I would just document the number and approximate location of the next piece in my phone and then spend 2-5 minutes the next day trying to find that on the drawing, which might be a reflection on my late-night ability to describe positions of things.

You would think like “left bathtub” would be enough, but is that left when it’s right sides up or upside down, how I trace it? I just never know. So the post-it seemed awesome…until I lost it last night as I flipped the drawing.

Super problematic since I hadn’t documented the last number I traced in my phone, so I had to stare at it for 5 minutes, trying to figure that out. I still couldn’t find the post-it. It flipped somewhere into another dimension. Fact is, I managed to get to piece 500 last night, so I’m almost halfway through. I’ve been finding it hard to even get an hour a night, which might still be a problem this week. I have a ton of grading to do…still…always…and this week does not bode well for big chunks of grading time unfortunately. So much of what I need to grade is deep-thought grading. I actually have to be mentally present to get it done. And it’s time-consuming. Of course. Anyway. Day job.

I had a moment Friday night about the No Kings protest…and made a last-minute decision to march…canceled myself out of two other things and made a plan to make it to the last thing that involved parking two miles away from the march, walking in, doing the march, and walking out. So it was over 6 miles in the long run.

Pro: I felt good about the march; it’s a plus to see so many like-minded people with a goal, when the news is so hell bent on the shit show (literally, if you pay attention to our president wannabe king). Also, I got plenty of exercise. It was all uphill on the way back though. I did go by myself, but you’re never really by yourself in a crowd of 80,000 people.

Yeah, I love my country and I don’t want it ruined by racists and people who say they’re Christian but don’t behave very Christian. And they are ruining it right now. In so many ways.

The Man and I went to a new place for dinner. It was fancy. You know how you know? I took a picture of my plate…

Yeah, if I did that every week, you’d see a lot of standard burger plates. But this was pretty.

Speaking of pretty and cool and fascinating, I went to the Visions Interpretations artist talks after the march. I was hoping to see a friend, but thanks to the military and Vance and probably the Republican party, they closed the freeway so they could shoot things over it, and many people had to leave early to miss that. Thanks to the government. They dropped shrapnel on a CHP vehicle. I find that amusing only because no one was inside and no one was injured. Maybe don’t do that again dumbasses. I’m sure that expenditure was warranted. Like the ballroom. And the parade.

I did meet an artist, Eden Quispe, whom I’d only known online. Our work has been in shows together but I’d never seen it (or her) in person. So that was cool. Here’s her piece, Grandma Pearl, made from linens from her grandmother.

She has a truly fascinating process.

I want to be more freeform in my work, but I never really get there. Maybe when I retire.

I took about 3000 pictures of Diane Nunez’s piece Multifaceted…

I took a lot of pictures because it was fascinating.

Also because I couldn’t take pictures of some of the stuff I wanted to because people were standing in front of them.

That is one of the issues with artist talks…too many people.

Although I do enjoy hearing the artists talk about their work.

Unfortunately, I’m running out of time this morning; I’ll have to post the other photos I took later this week. I’ll leave you with this sweet baby…

Ah Nova.

And this almost daily donation of an owl pellet on my front steps…

And this life truth.

Although the new system does not work the same…I actually have to think ahead about what I might want to read next, and that is truly annoying. I cannot make more decisions than I already am.

OK. School. Reviewing net forces and then sending them off to do the things without my help. Ha! Like that’s gonna work. And then dinner out with a book club group that I rarely see in person anymore. Then grading (well, grading before and after) and tracing. Then hopefully more sleep than last night (ha! more funnies) and do it again, slightly differently.

Earth Is in Retrograde

OK, maybe just the US. Maybe the rest of you are okey dokey. If so, send snacks…and help.

I don ‘t feel ready for the day. It’s too early. There are too many meetings. I wrote 7 emails in Spanish yesterday. I talked to a kid using Google Translate. Imma do that today with another kid, if she actually shows up. Sigh. When I care more about a kid promoting to high school than their parents do…then I know their parents have way more on their plates than I do, and that’s saying something. School is a challenge. It’s always a challenge. It’s hard because we’re redoing a unit for the fourth time (for me), and we’re using ChatGPT, but (1) it uses natural resources, which bugs me, and (2) it’s not particularly smart or helpful sometimes.

Sigh. I know it. And I guess I’m not using it to write this (as if you couldn’t tell…I ramble worse than a baby lamb). My school district is really pushing it. At some point, maybe with a different government in place, there will be limits…but not for a while. Not until the damage is done.

Time is difficult too. I had a meeting before and after school yesterday, and before I went to the afterschool one, I drove out into this…

Which could have been way worse (I was on the freeway that isn’t all yellow and red). And after that, I went to an opening at Hyde Gallery, which was cool. More about that later this week. Pro: the quilt is being photographed and I did the other things. I even came back (and collapsed for about 30 minutes) and got work done. I sort of set up a worksheet I need for next Tuesday (sheesh) and then started grading stuff. Always behind on that. Significantly so at the moment. That said, building roller coasters has been relatively good, except for some minor stupidity (ah, middle-school boys…operating without a frontal lobe). I got a little grading done even, which rarely happens (and won’t today, I suspect).

Ceramics update: I went on Monday, despite the two-hour staff meeting before it, and amazingly, the woman in charge was there and all the kilns were empty, and the upper torso had NOTHING BROKEN (OMG, this never happens), so it must have been fate, so we loaded it in.

I also refired the base because it needed some refinement on the underglazes. Understand that it’s probably $75 of firing fees right there, but I don’t feel bad, because I haven’t fired anything since like March. I’ve been working on the upper torso since fucking January 8. It’s about time I fired the fucker. And it survived! IDK if there are cracks, but it came out of the kiln last night; I saw it in the video. So I might go see it tonight. Maybe. Then I have to make decisions about glazing it. I’m conflicted on that. So many of the underglazes go super dark, so I’d have to put something on them. But I might want to do some iron oxide as well? Not sure. Might have to sit on that decision for a while.

Meanwhile, the head is done and drying…

And in photos…

In case your video is annoying.

I did go a little weird on the head. And yes, I had to make a base and will fire it in the base. And then throw the base away. It’s OK; it’s reclaimed clay.

And then I worked on the very top bit, the tree on the top…

I wrapped it up with like 20 paper towels, hoping it would hold up as it dried, and not dry too fast.

Pain in the ass. Seriously. Why do I build this crazy shit? So this comes out the top of the head. Wish me luck.

In between that and packing up two quilts for the photographer, and driving all over town, I managed to tape two big pieces of paper together on Monday night and start drawing last night. The taping and drawing was complicated by this standoff.

Bowie wanted to play and Nova decidedly did not. But eventually they left, and I started with one of the campfire sketches (I’m changing it a bit as I go)…

There’s a little pencil on there, just to make sure stuff isn’t a stupid size. I can’t make it too complicated or I won’t be able to finish it in time. Bathtubs (yes, there will be more than one) and politics. Perfect mix. I’ll be doing this for a while. Hopefully not more than a week, but you never know.

From the book I just finished…which was eh.

But I liked some of her sentences. Like that one.

This is probably relevant to my quilts…because people sometimes say that to me about my work.

Make the world a better place and I’ll make prettier quilts. Also this…Goodall didn’t mention me at all. And I’m OK with that.

So the barn owl is still here, shitting all over the entryway steps and shrieking occasionally. I accept that as part of the wonder of having barn owls. I also accept the dead gopher they dropped in the driveway. But now we have romantic Great Horned owls…this is one of the males.

Horrible picture, at night, with a flashlight aimed at its horny self.

Not that the video is any better. At least they’re quieter than baby barn owls. But the female…holy crap, the most scary noise you’ve heard. I don’t have video of that. So there are two males and the one female, and the other night, they would not shut the fuck up. IDK how gentle hoots can keep me awake, but I guess it says something about me.

Last meme…

I blame my feeligs on the US actually. Well, and Russia and Israel and a few others. And billionaires. And people with no empathy. So there’s that. Earth does seem to be in retrograde though.

Meeting this morning, another after school. Last day to build roller coasters, so lots of yelling and ‘get on with it’ and recording videos of successful runs. Then two days to shut up and get the rest of it done. Ha! While I try to catch up on grading AND plan the next unit with my coteacher. Fun times. Long day. No pilates; couldn’t get into the class. Sigh. Ah well. Maybe on the weekend. Things my body appreciates…exercise, reading, peace and quiet, nature. Some of that.

Iterations.

Tuesdays have gotten so much harder lately. Not sure why. I feel like I’ve run a marathon in only two days of work, and then there’s a slow slide into the weekend. Sometimes that slide upends me into a pile of steaming compost before the weekend, but it feels like the hump, getting over that, is now Tuesday. I mean, the work doesn’t stop after Tuesday? There just seems to be an inordinate amount of it in the first two days…well, include Sunday, because I work then too. Maybe that’s why? Nah, I’ve always had to do that…well, always in the last 5 or 6 years? I didn’t always have to put in so much weekend time. Not sure why. So far, I haven’t managed to grade anything in class. Like the kids won’t chill out enough to allow it. That will hopefully change today. We’ll see. Some groups do well, some are incredibly needy (some for good reasons, lack of English skills and all), and some can’t stay on task to save their lives. I’m looking forward to October, when things seem to chill out a bit (weather and school)…but it’s still an awfully long way away.

The stitchdown is coming along slowly. I’m not getting a full hour at night…I’m coming home later and eating dinner later and then it’s 10 PM and I know I have to go to bed around 10:30. So I made it up to the sun and planets last night, and that’s all that’s left. I should be able to get that done tonight, but I have a union meeting after school and pilates late, so maybe not. Trying to fit in all the things I want to do with all the things I have to do and then the things I should do…ugh. But here’s Monday night’s stitching…

I got through one arm and most of the left side of the torso. I don’t remember where I was before that though. Last night, I finished the torso and the head and the hair, the hands on top of her head, and the barn owl…

And I found this in my yard…

There’s two great horned owls nearby, but I still hear the nightly screech of one of the barn owls, plus the occasional feather. Nice that they’re hanging around. They can all have the rats and gophers. Please.

This piece, Portrait of One Self, got into Quilts=Art=Quilts, so I’ll be shipping her later this month.

She’s got a lot going on too, much like me. Not often you see a fox sleeping with missiles. Or bunnies on body bags. Kitten is in there too…apparently I knew she was near the end, because she’s got angel wings. I miss her lots still. The Man says I can borrow his cats, and sometimes I am a good substitute for them, but mostly, they choose their daddy (of course). So I miss the kitty time. I don’t have the time or energy for a new kitty right now, though; the two dogs are enough. Katie is here! My parents’ dog has been visiting for over a week. She’s pretty chill these days, as long as you give her what she wants. She misses her people too, I’m sure. They’ll be back Sunday.

I have been having a hard time finding the time and energy to make it to ceramics, which sucks, because it’s very meditative when I’m there. I mean, the piece that needs to go in the kiln stresses me out, because I’m not even sure I can lift in into the kiln without breaking it…but the freeform head piece has been loads of fun.

I just keep adding weird shit to it. I actually need to go in when the owner is there so I can put the base back in the bisque fire and then try to get the torso in as well. Then I can just focus on the head, which is now going to have a tree coming out of it? I don’t know how that’s going to work. Shhh.

It was great being there yesterday…one other woman was there who I see on a regular basis, and about three other people just stopped by to drop off or pick stuff up, and then it was just me. Unfortunately, I only had about 90 minutes and then needed to pick up mail at my parents and then go home and cook dinner and do schoolwork and eventually get to stitch stuff down. Busy fucking days. I feel like I wake up running and don’t stop until late at night. And then the CGM has been off again. I’m wondering if my body is fighting this one even longer before it settles, and if that is the new thing. The numbers are still completely off and the alarm kept going off last night but it was like 50 points off. And I don’t have time to call them and go through all the phone call shit again today. Ugh. Why can’t things just work? Why does my body need to make it so fucking difficult. This thing has been really helpful for keeping my blood sugar in the right place. I’d really like it to keep working.

Sweet boy. Needs attention. I reread the same page like 5 times while he kept flipping around and smiling at me. Dork.

This is too true. Also, I think the Man is the caterpillar in Alice. At least right now. Maybe he’ll be the White Knight later on.

OK. Teaching energy while lacking it. Actually transformations today, which is different than transfer. Gotta make that distinction today as well. Then they get an INDEPENDENT assignment, for some definition of independent, right? Then union meeting and pilates and dinner and schoolwork and stitching, then sleep. Repeat some iteration of that. Ugh. September. Double ugh.

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!

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.

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.

Get My Act in Gear…

Hello Monday. I am, as always, not prepared for your existence. And yet, you arrive. With emails. And a to-do list. I finally managed to cross one thing off my to-do list that has been on there for probably 6 months. Impressive. I’m going to do a few more today. Maybe. Because sometimes I only get one thing done. And the quick start I wanted for the morning did not happen. Ah well. Typical.

It was a slow weekend. I mean, not really…but in terms of a diary of what I did, I got a scratch on the back of my leg from a stabby pot and a scratch/divot on my finger from IDK what plant did that. And bites…buggy/spidery/skeetery bites. I got those. I spent too much time watching flood stuff in Texas. We all did, right? Horrifying. Not preventable, but certainly we could be doing more than we are right now…increasing climate crap plus warning systems. I’m boggled by where the blame goes. I’m boggled by a lot lately. Humans don’t do what’s in their best interests.

The Man had a show on Saturday night downtown. I rode the trolley down and read my book the whole way, as the soccer fans filled up the trolley, and then all got off at the stadium. The band is trialing with a new singer, who actually sings for another band.

It was different. They opened for another band. There weren’t as many people there as usual (day after a major holiday). We ended up having to stay really late to get back. It was fine; I read a lot of my book before and after they played. Not sure what it all means for the future of the band.

I traced for about 3 hours on Saturday and another 90 minutes last night. Those are hot cats on Saturday afternoon…

And Bowie not helping last night…

He stabbed the planet Jupiter (the drawing) and then tried to eat the corner. He’s not the first cat to do so. Nova ate a piece out of a drawing a few years back. I do cover things up when I’m not tracing, because they are excited by paper and want to destroy it.

I have filled two yards of Wonder Under and started on a third.

I’m in the low 900s, so about 450 pieces to go. I’ve been tracing for 11 1/2 hours. Yikes. It’s been slow. I’m hoping to do a goodly chunk today and tomorrow. It’s supposed to get a lot warmer in a few days. Don’t want to be sitting in the window/hottest part of the house then. Although trimming will just be on the couch.

It’s a busy week. Need to clean up the girlchild’s room because she’s coming to visit. I’ve been collecting materials for next week’s residency. I have another breast biopsy on Wednesday…hoping to have negative results before the weekend (they were fast before), but no guarantees. I need to shop for food and do food prep before the residency. I have an art opening on Saturday night. I’d like to get to the gym; I have two pilates classes scheduled, but I’m waitlisted on both. OK, it doesn’t sound busy, but that biopsy will eat up time and energy. Mentally and physically.

Trying to read nonfiction from Rebecca Solnit in between fiction, which is where my brain prefers to be…

And this is what will get me through all the stupid shit my country is continuing to do. And it’s why I make art. Well, that and my sanity.

Here’s the owl hanging out on the pole under the box…

This is dad. There are two babies I can hear. They’re loud this year. And we haven’t even gotten to the part where they come out and practice flying. It’s all good. Just glad to have them back.

Today. Finish strapping the three sprinklers to rebar (fun times). Create a wet box for ceramic stuff. TAKE A DAMN SHOWER (I do that every day, but sometimes it’s hot enough that I need two). Go to ceramics and attach that damn hand again. Sew up the boychild’s pants (they just went in the washer). Trace for a few hours. Read a few books. Go try to find my deodorant at a different store (the only one I’m not allergic to at the moment, knock on wood). There’s probably more things on the to-do list that aren’t here, but many of them are overwhelming so I just do a bit at a time. Which is fine. Pretty much need to get my act in gear though. Like now.

What Are the Odds…

Uh huh. Twelve days. Unfortunately, two full 5-day weeks, which sounds hard, because it is at this stage. Trying to grade everything, do awards, get ready to teach sex ed, we don’t have the right number of packets of anything and it’s all talking, all the time. Still recovering from food poisoning, thought I was fine, then Saturday kicked my butt. It’s fine. I’m just getting through it all a bit at a time, but I spent probably 4 straight hours Sunday afternoon doing just that. No clay, no nothing. I’m tired of that shit.

I did make art, not a lot, just a bit. I ironed the smaller piece together, with the help of Annie on my feet…

Dogsitting weekend. Almost wrote dogshitting. Still valid.

Small pieces go together quite quickly.

Saturday night, after being mostly off for hours in the afternoon, I stitched it down.

Sunday, I sandwiched, pinbasted, and started quilting…

I also stitched this down…

My SIL claimed it back in November and I promptly lost it for a few months. Found it! Not sure how I’m finishing it yet.

Way too many animals here this weekend. Both dogs helping me read my book Friday afternoon after a very long day of 45 egg drops and a principal meeting.

Sigh. I don’t really want the new principal who’s coming. He doesn’t have great reviews. Ah well. Should be a shitshow of a year.

We had Annie because her daddy was coaching soccer up north.

She has mellowed out. She’s also scared of cats and we have four of them.

And sometimes they like each other.

Boychild was at a fire and gone an extra day for that…

So Simba barked nonstop and the Man and I sent memes about dogs barking back and forth.

Totally Simba.

And when Simba gets going, Annie sometimes joins in, mostly out of nervousness of being left out, I think.

Survived the egg drops, although many eggs did not.

It seems anathema to sacrifice so many scrambled egg breakfasts in the name of science, but we did. It was good.

Happy Pride Month!!!

Maybe I’ll get my flag up this month. Might need an assist on that.

This is my answer to my local school board about everything.

Also that last bit, louder for those chatting in the back.

Want some owl video?

There’s definitely a baby. I hope there’s more. Even if they’re loud.

Yeah. The next quilt isn’t fully in my head yet. Not surprising, considering all the juggling and balancing going on right now. Two Zooms (emergencies!) just popped up in my email last night. Sigh.

Yup. That’s what I do. In rainbow colors (not just Pride…all the time).

OK. Teaching the first day of sex ed, where we talk about nothing. Fun stuff. Then a two-hour staff meeting where we might meet the new principal who we’ve already vetted with all our friends who work at the school where he’s not allowed back. No joke. It’s been a good run, y’all. I’ve had decent principals for about 13 years or so. I guess its’ time. OR. Maybe he learned his lesson after the last one, will turn over a new leaf? What are the odds. THEN, I get to be on an emergency Zoom while driving to drop art off downtown, because, yes, I got into the library show. It opens June 21, Saturday, from 12-2. I think I have a dentist appointment right before that, so I will be running late. Ah well. At least I got in. Then maybe I can come home after all that. Not sure when clay is happening. Tomorrow? Ugh. Midnight? Maybe.

Free Time…Gone!

Yo ho, Yo ho, it’s a Monday with no school. Gotta love those. Because after this month, there aren’t any for a Loooonnnggg time. Well it feels that way anyway. The Vast Expanse of March is coming. Fifty three days until Spring Break. Doesn’t sound long, but it will be. That said, I got this 3-day weekend and I had plans for each of the days and both Saturday and Sunday got co-opted by perfectly reasonable things that were either unexpected or I hadn’t really thought through the time expenditure and then the mile-long to-do list all landed today. Now I’ve been quite efficient, talked to the IRA company that locked me down because the damn cat kept sitting on the keyboard and trying to log in, moved all the money to consolidate shit like my bro (my ACTUAL bro) suggested, talked to the parentals, did some emailing. But the plan was to be at the ceramics studio around noon (not happening), finish grades yesterday (didn’t happen), go for a hike (hopefully still happening). I have shit every night this week and then I’m flying to the girlchild for a quick visit. Boom! And your free time is gone. I did finish quilting last night after staying up too late two nights running…

Started the background quilting the night before, barely, then got most of the empty space in the middle quilted, plus down most of one side and across the bottom. Then last night, again, staying up too late, just needed it done…finished the rest.

Well. I just typed like three paragraphs and WordPress deleted all of them. OK, I probably deleted them by clicking something I didn’t mean to click because I am typing fast. Why? Because I am behind. So. Quilting last night, stayed up too late, finished, about 13 hours of quilting. Today need to clean the entryway floor so I can trim this and then put a binding on it. All good. Then draw the next one, which will be different and smaller and hopefully less time-consuming, but if my art brain is involved, there are no guarantees. Then make a smaller quilt or two, think about the duo solo show coming up in 2026, plus a big one for the summer, yeah yeah yeah. Can’t think that far ahead. I’m like still in this week survival mode.

Saturday, we went to see my co-teacher dance in her ensemble thing…

All people from school (and family). That was the more time-consuming thing than I had originally thought it would be because I sometimes can’t add all the travel time on either side and parse that out. Whatever. The night before was a show with one of the Man’s band members. It was fun but tiring and I didn’t quilt. Which is fine. Social stuff needs to happen too. Yesterday, a friend spontaneously came down with her hubby for lunch…also good, but time. So I’m behind in grading and I’m feeling pressure to do things. Always pressure.

But hey, in awesome sauce news, we got the new owl box up and within two weeks, there’s an owl in it.

I’d seen her around in my trees, heard her screeching at night, and I hope this one makes babies that survive. Not sure what happened last time, but I’m happy they’re back.

OK. I need a shower. I need to do ceramics. I need to grade. I’m cooking tonight. I need to hike ffs. I need another damn day. I know! I got an extra one! Sheesh. Seriously need to rethink my career choices. Maybe too late for that.