Bandwidth

So. Midweek. Full school week. Not heavy on the meetings, unlike the next two weeks. I should enjoy that while it lasts. Not a lot of normal quilt art happening, for a variety of reasons. Grades are due in less than a week. I might actually have them done with a margin for once. If kids stop trying to turn everything in late. I had to rush to grade an academic assignment so I would be able to give them two days to fix it. Of course, you give them a deadline and they ignore it and try to resubmit for days afterwards. And then they tell you it’s HAARRDD and you show them that they didn’t even read what you gave them. It’s hard because of that. Not because, like they say, I didn’t teach it to them. They literally didn’t look at the information provided. That shit is always frustrating. I refuse to dumb down all the assignments for the post-COVID laze. It’s been a rough trimester. For all of us. I’m certainly looking at being 2/3s done with the year and feeling like I just can’t do another one. Another 12 weeks? Can’t. Uh uh. I’m so tired of the planning and the adult incursions on my time. The kids don’t really bug me this year. The adults? Ugh. Too much. Admin: Here do this. And this. And you have time for this, right? I took on one thing my team asked me to do (of the many) and they didn’t tell me it involved this Portrait of a Graduate thing the district is pushing, that I really don’t get, you don’t have buy-in from me, but all of a sudden I need to write an elevator pitch for it? I don’t have a pitch. Y’all haven’t inspired me INTO a pitch. Sigh. I have homework. I get paid for it, sure, but what I’d like is time to fix my house and make art and read my book. Ugh.

Yeah. So. Good times. Make shit up. Google it! Hey, I’m just like my students sometimes. I understand it. I don’t have the bandwidth at night, when I get home, to do homework. And I do so much of it as it is. Why did I agree to add more? Sigh.

OK, so in the art stuff, I’ve traced nothing in the last two days because I need to get grades done and that baby quilt done by Saturday. So the last two nights, after grading, I quilted.

Nothing fancy, although it’s for a baby girl, so I quilted a little woman power in there.

Both the woman power that’s gonna bring her into this world, care of my good friend…

And the power that’s been sheltering her for the last 8 months or so…

On the back…

I quilted her parents’ names into it too. Going for all the good juju. Anyway, I stayed up too late last night to finish the borders, so I could start binding it tonight. I should be able to get it done in time. Baby shower is Saturday.

It’s gonna feel good to have all these have-to things done so I can do my own thing, to be honest.

I went to my second ceramics handbuilding class last night…coiling. I love coiling. Although I did not use the extruder…I think I’ll try that in two weeks, when we get to do whatever we want.

I did ceramics in college quite a bit. But honestly, I don’t really think of what I do in ceramics as art? It’s more like what I do with embroidery. It’s a creative outlet and I enjoy it, but it’s more meditative relaxing process than creating something that evokes something for me.

I’m considering a membership at the studio. It’s reasonably priced and I can go in whenever. Sounds nice.

Then I think about my time and what little of it I have at the moment. I’m sacrificing artmaking and gym time for this. And it’s totally worth it and fun and I’m loving it…

But I’m not sure what to do with it long term. I might get a membership in the summer, if there are any available…

Or…I don’t know. I’d like to think I could carve out some time, but this school year has been so bad and I don’t think it’s getting better. Certainly not if I have to fit surgery in before the end of the school year. No call yet. Damn health carrier is getting a new scheduling system, so they’ve basically shut down scheduling completely until it switches over this Friday. Sigh.

Anyway. So there’s that. That pot is gonna slump some more. One of the issues of trying to build so fast in a short period of time. Normally I’d work for an hour and then let it harden a bit. Didn’t really have that option. Ah well. Not sure what I’m doing in there anyway, except playing. Which is fine. I’ll have a lot of pot shapes at the end probably. I’m not very good at the practicality of it.

Monday night, I stitched during book club. Kitten did not help.

Just stitching things down is about my head space at the moment.

OK, so today, my kids are making pedigrees about a genetic disorder using a genealogical history we reviewed yesterday. They got to choose their groups. I’m wondering if I should have done groups of two instead of four. I’m seeing some loser behavior going on. As usual. Sigh. Well hopefully they’ll do the things today and tomorrow and I won’t have to work too hard at getting them on task. Yesterday, all I did was talk really. I need a break from that. I’m trying to plan the next unit, but I need about three hours of blank headspace to do it. Not sure when I’m gonna get that. I really did spend most of yesterday explaining inbreeding and intermarriage. Fun times.

The pool pump died yesterday. Expensive replacement. How am I supposed to pay to fix the house when shit like that keeps happening? The fridge will go next. I’m surprised it hasn’t already. It’s been going for a good long time and appliances don’t do that any more.

Pilates after school, grading again, then making dinner. Hopefully getting that binding on that quilt. Dreaming of art stuff. I’ll get there…soon. My art drive is strong, always has been. 18 school days until Spring Break…not that we have anything planned. Sigh. Except stuff here. No money except to fix shit.

Owls Are Back…

So in totally awesome news, even though we trimmed the shit out of the trees, the owls are back! I finally got the camera up and working and there they were! I was so happy. I thought I’d heard them, but not the young one I’d heard before for the last 9 months…that one left after the tree trimming. We would hear it every night, going out to hunt. This must be one of the original parents. Much quieter. The male parent last year was loud as hell too. But so far, these are quiet.

It’s the weird little things that make my days.

This weekend was rough…I don’t feel like I got enough of any one thing done, unfortunately. Crunch time for school plus a lot of art things going on. I got a little bit done on the piece I’m doing with a partner…just some tracing done on Friday and Sunday night…

I think I had a whopping 26 minutes last night…

I was speed grading before that. I’m in the 200s…just about 150 pieces to go. I could finish it tonight, but I have a baby quilt that needs to be done by Saturday. Ha! Well. Hopefully.

I put borders on it Friday, then pinbasted it Saturday morning.

I did a little quilting on Saturday after buying an insane amount of thread, because I didn’t have the right kind.

I didn’t get any more quilting done all weekend unfortunately. It won’t take long…I just need to do it. Hopefully more tonight. But grades are also due and that’s stressful. So yeah. I’m trying to do all the things.

Saturday was the pop-up opening of Collective Retrospective, a show with a current piece and a piece that’s at least 10 years old. It started on Instagram. I only had the old piece, and it will be 30 years old in October.

This is The Cold Cement Basement of Our Love from October 1994. It’s a screenprint that I then drew all over with Sharpie…some things never change. Lots of words and DNA and a cup of tea. And sciencey things going on in the body. Before I ever taught science. I did work in science though.

I absolutely sucked at pictures of this show…I do know this is Judith Parenio’s piece…

And this is Berenice Badillo’s piece…

I got a picture of her speaking (there’s video of her rousing words on the Insta link above)…

Except this is before she actually talked. Cool things happened. But I was there for like 3 1/2 hours. Time. Sigh. There was a beautiful sky though…and friends came by to see me and my art.

The Man stopped by at the end to help me load my piece into the car and then we went to dinner…

He had a show the night before that I was supposed to go to, but he texted me while I was driving that they had stopped letting people in; the venue was full. So I turned around and went home and graded instead. He didn’t get home until almost 2 AM, so we’ve barely seen each other this weekend. Yesterday was two art Zoom meetings plus trying to grade.

Anyway. So I’m quilting this week, hopefully tracing, obviously grading and lesson planning. Listening to owls. Reading when I can. I’ve got my second ceramics class tomorrow…already have ideas. It’s coiling. I love coiling. Busy weekend coming up. Again. Lots of art going out, which is good. Wish I were making more of it, but it’s here. I’m getting there. After a staff meeting today, teaching pedigrees…actually, letting an assignment teach them. I did my part. It’s time for them to do theirs. Ha! Hopeful anyway. First full week of teaching since January…with holidays and COVID and doctors’ appointments. It will be weird.

Pillow Fort…

I’m realizing that on the days I don’t do anything art related, I feel shitty. I need to do the art stuff to feel OK. And right now, I have a bunch of things that I have to get done that are NOT art. I should draw this weekend. Maybe that will help. If I have the brainpower. Right now, not so much. Right now, I just want to pillow fort with a book.

It is Friday. Short week. I’m off today. Like off of work. Biopsy this morning. Not allowed to go back to work afterward. Will come home and work instead. Catch up on planning and grades. Because I’m behind again. My kids are apparently being jerks in class. I don’t have a sub; three teachers don’t have subs. I feel bad, but I didn’t want to wait three more weeks for an appointment. So I took the cancellation. I’m gonna leave in about 20 minutes, get a giant-ass needle inserted in my poor boob, wear a compression bandage for 24 hours, and hopefully get negative results in 3-5 business days. Which might not even be next week due to the holiday. It’s fine. Odds are with me.

I woke up too early, couldn’t sleep, did the work things I needed to for today. Worked on a doc with my team even though they were at school and I wasn’t. Technology is amazing. I thought I’d be able to get some grading done this morning, but the brain is not complying. Not surprising. It’s OK. I’ll get it done this weekend.

So instead of art, I’ve been trying to finish up this lap quilt for a friend. It’s taking much longer than I thought it would. Of course. I got the binding machine stitched on over the last two nights after finishing the quilting…

Then last night, I made it halfway around. I didn’t cut the binding; our other friend did, and it’s fucking tiny as hell! I only make quarter-inch binding on really small quilts, like 12×12″. This is a pain in the ass. Sigh.

Remind me not to volunteer for this stuff again. I think I was voluntold actually. But really. I’m making a baby quilt. I’ll finish my mom’s quilt because it was a gift (and it’s tiny). But that’s it. I’m done. I’m doing my own shit. I need the art time for my sanity. It’s not just the sewing or the making…it’s the sewing and making stuff that feeds my art brain.

That last one. Also Cleaning Things Without Being Asked. That’s a good one. I don’t see that one often enough.

No dress…I do need pockets in all my pajamas though. That would be cool. I notice men’s pajamas are more likely to have pockets. Like why? WTF?

Kitten is contemplating the movement of my feet under the duvet.

The duvet she vomited on at some point. So now it needs washing. I need that love language thing again. Apparently I’m the only one who knows how to strip the bed alone.

Anyway. I’m gonna go take my meds and pack up my book and get ready for the pokey shit. Happy birthday yesterday to my mom, who left me her dog (stinky) and cookies (tasty) for the weekend. May the rest of today go as well as it can. May the bruising be minor. May the compression wrap be less annoying than it sounds. May there be art in my future.

Rolling…

This week is rolling by. I guess that’s good? Except I’m supposed to make some phone calls today and all my potential times when I could do that have been sucked up by other people’s needs and meetings. That I didn’t have on my calendar previously, and I get it, because like my last informal observation probably would have happened when I had COVID, so that’s not my fault, but that’s the reason, so coming in yesterday and trashing my prep today is understandable. And part of it is because I gave the long-term sub COVID (probably my fault) and she needed stuff, also fine, she did it for me, I’m good with that. And then I’m a union rep so I have to do union rep things, but when other teachers don’t get that you can’t meet with them while you’re teaching? WTF. I don’t get that at all. On top of all that, I was lucky to get a biopsy appointment for Friday (cancellation) instead of having to wait two weeks, which will help my brain with shit, so all of a sudden, I have to finish everything in two days for next week. With meetings after school both days. So. Well. I might have to go BACK to school on Thursday after the sex-ed meeting just to set up? We’ll see if someone trashes my prep tomorrow too. Not a fan, y’all. This week is a shit show. Happy V Day! If you’re into it.

Quiltwise, I need to pivot this week into some other things, just to get them done and out of the way. I’ve been quilting that friend’s quilt; I’m almost done with that. I’m on Zoom potentially with her and other friends tomorrow night, so I’m hoping to get the binding on then. I couldn’t bring myself to quilt last night. I was too tired. I needed cat petting and book and chai tea time. So I took it. And then worked. I did get this quilt to a decent pausing point: This is Monday night, with just a head, a head, and an arm to go.

So last night, I finished those…they were fussy and had to be ironed separately. Lots of little pieces.

But everything mostly fit. I had to stretch the arm a bit to cover things. It works with fabric though. It’s stretchy.

Then I ironed it all down to a background.

Looks good; needs stitching lines for definition, but I like it. Relationship quilt for V Day, eh?

Anyway, I need to start the baby quilt tonight. The baby shower is in two weeks…faster than I’d thought, but that’s normal. I still need to start the FIG drawing. I was mentally drawing it last night instead of drawing. And I need to finish that friend’s quilt. All the things.

My monthly stitching meeting was also Monday night. These are part of Sue Spargo’s Homegrown block-of-the-month. I’ve been working on it for ages, but I’m almost done with the houses. I finished the left one and started the right one.

I think with that one, there’s three more houses, and then a giant block for the middle and borders, so that’s a 2029 finish if I’ve ever seen one. Mostly because I don’t work on it regularly enough. It’s fun, but I don’t have time. Which sucks. This relaxes me; I should do more of it. In my spare time. After making phone calls. Which brings me to this…

I’m not close enough. This year though. This year. Is not when I’m retiring.

I’m trying to figure out how to use this when teaching space. I suspect the word ‘melons’ will mean no. I’m pretty sure this is an XKCD graphic.

My kids won’t get this anyway. But it amused me.

And so many of them would end the year with no sword.

Trying to get them to do anything right now is just torture. I’m up to 9 kids in my advisory at risk of not graduating. And they’re either not motivated or just assholes about it. Fun times.

Anyway. Yeah, I’m not having fun at the moment with my job. It’s just been a hard year…after a hard year…after a…you get it. I hope next trimester gets easier as high school looms for these kids. I hope it gets easier for me and my workload. It could potentially get worse and I’m trying not to think about that. I do know I need to get off this computer in 2 minutes (ah time, you fuck me over so much). And go do the meetings that weren’t planned and try to make a phone call in the middle of all that. Yup. After tonight’s meeting, which they promise will be done by 5 pm, I’m hoping to quilt and read and start cutting things out. We’ll see how that goes, because I also have to grade things. In the way of the teacher. Ugh.

Brain Is Tired…

Oy. Well, it’s a Monday I’m not at work. I do appreciate these longer weekends, an extra day to try to get stuff done. That said, I’ve got two doctors’ appointments today and they’re not in the same place or at logical times, so it’s just drive a long way, do the thing, drive back. Wait 45 minutes, then drive again. Do the other thing. Drive back. Fun times. I think the afternoon is shot. And I’m moving pretty slowly this morning. Brain is tired. Brain is done. Brain can’t be done…I tried to explain, it doesn’t care, it wants me to sit on the couch with the fluffy kitty and read the book. Sigh. I’ll try. Maybe later.

Lots of what I have to do is art related, which is cool. A bunch of shows are coming up, so there are shipments and contracts and deliveries and headshots and all that crap. I’ve done a chunk of it, but just found a decent headshot requested by one, and still need to fill out, scan, and send two forms.

And I still need to be digging up the outside planter area so we can progress on fixing what happened with the water. I have a rough idea of the order of things, but coordinating that with my schedule and contractors gives me hives. Or breathing anxiety. Yeah.

Anyway, let’s start with art progress. I finished cutting things out on Friday night…spent about 2 1/2 hours doing that (it was a rough day).

Nova was very helpful. It wasn’t too late, so I sorted them too…

It’s super fast when there aren’t very many pieces. I think it took about 18 minutes. Boom!

Then Saturday night, I started ironing them together…

I got most of the sky stuff done. Then last night, I got most of the male figure done…

It’s kind of a pain to try to iron bits on the sky like this; I can’t see the parts that are covered by the sky fabrics, so sometimes I iron them elsewhere and then put them on top. I will have to do that with his left hand and his face, so that’s why I paused there. Also it was late and I was tired. It happens. I might finish tonight? We’ll see. Maybe Tuesday night.

I do have an idea for the next big quilt though. I’ve been listening to The Power of the Crone by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; I loved her Women Who Run With the Wolves book in college, and had seen ads for this, which is all audio, so I started listening. She makes me laugh and her language fills my head with images, which is cool. It’s all stories of the crone and the wise woman. I do have a quilt I made with the crone, maiden, and mother–Awakening the Crone; it sold. So I made that in 2014…I think it’s time for a crone/wise woman update. Something with the world how it is now. I don’t seem to be able to separate my art from politics and people suffering. Anyway, it’s percolating. Always good.

Other fiber stuff that’s happening…I finally got my act in gear and started quilting this again…it’s for a friend who doesn’t quilt. I finished all the white squares, which just needed some additional stitches to hold them together, and now I’m doing the sashing and borders.

This stuff takes longer than people think, though. It probably took me a little over 2 hours to do the 9 white blocks, and I’ve put in at least an hour on the borders/sashing. It’ll be more than an hour to finish; I didn’t get quite halfway. Then put the binding on and stitch it down. So if you ask me to do something and I say no thank you, you will know why. I have little time. Just how long it’s taken me to get to this one shows that. I should be done this week, though. That’s my goal. Get it off my plate! I still need to draw the piece for the upcoming FIG show. Didn’t get to that this weekend yet either.

I went fabric shopping for a friend’s baby quilt. She wants cactus and she loves purple, although she said the green, so we’re doing both.

This is definitely a labor of love. I use the same pattern from 2000 for all my baby quilts (haven’t made one in 8 years, y’all…). This one is manifesting good baby health. So this is next on the list. It’s not hard or complicated.

Then a pair of jeans had an issue last week, and I’m not willing to toss jeans that fit and are comfortable otherwise.

No one will ever see this part…

Manifesting some cactus too.

Hiked on Saturday…FINALLY. Although the Man didn’t want to hike in mud, so we did the mostly boring lake walk on pavement.

Geese though. Beautiful and terrifying.

We’ve had no more water come in the house, which is good, so I mopped the concrete (it was really dirty, even after multiple sweepings) and put down these cheap temporary rugs to keep feet warmer until June/July when I can get to carpet.

These were on mega sale. I thought I would dislike them more, but they actually kinda work with the concrete and walls that need painting. Desperately. Yeah. And people want to come visit my ‘studio’. Sigh. It’s my house, y’all…and it’s in disrepair.

I draw at dinner; we hadn’t been out for a few weeks due to things, stuff, band things, whatever. I started this one on January 20, but food came so fast, and then Saturday night, I kept going, but food came really fast.

It’s not that I want the food to be super slow or anything…I think I used to be able to draw faster? I don’t know. Anyway, it’ll take a third dinner to finish this. And since the Man is having dental surgery this week, it might be a while before I have that opportunity again.

The boob thing though. She has a star on her left breast. I sat through a 3D mammogram, which hurt like a bitch, but the tech was fast (she said she was fast) and then the ultrasound didn’t find something that matched the mammogram, so that makes them nervous. Family history and all. So I get to have a biopsy. No appointment yet. Have to wait for them to call me (what are the odds they’ll call today when I can actually take a call? LOW low low low low), then they’re scheduling about 2 weeks out because it’s not an emergency (except in my head, which the radiologist acknowledged during her very perky speech), then 3-5 days for results. Doc already called to find out my preference for notification (call me ASAP, as long as it’s after school; she already knew that bit). So I guess my birthday present will be news of some sort; odds are it will be fine. Knowing me, it’ll be a watch and wait thing, and I’ll get to scan multiple times. They’ll place a marker during the biopsy so it’ll be easy to find. It’s an architectural distortion. Which is a great name for a new quilt, if you ask me. Anyway. I did have a repeat mammogram once before, not for this, and made a quilt for it…also 2014. Bitchy year, if you ask me. 2024 is starting rough…hopefully it will chill out at some point.

We’re reading The Maze Runner in my advisory class…

I’m with her on this, but there has been action. Maybe not before she wrote this comment. It’s hard to read just one chapter a day.

This is me always. I’m not a morning person.

I do have to get my act together though. Gonna shower and make more tea and eat something and do some work and fill out these two forms and scan and email them and then drive off to the dermatologist and then the knee doctor, and at the end of all of it, go to my rescheduled stitching meeting with friends. My stomach just chimed in about the eating something. I think I’m ready to teach tomorrow; I moved stuff around because kids are stupidly not finishing work, and my being gone Friday afternoon didn’t help with that. Oh well. What am I gonna do? Not go to the doctor? Well no. So there will be at least one more (and hopefully no more) appointment that makes me miss school. They should figure out how to be self motivated. Surely it’s time for that. Ha.

Talking Foxes…

You know, you think you’ve got a handle on everything, including the water that fucked up the hallway, and you even came home yesterday and pulled all the carpet and underlay, and then leaned over and scraped up glue and swept 40 years of dirt up (yeah, the carpet was OLD), and the boychild (who is not a boy) says he’ll pull up all the tack strip today and do some drywall sawing. Because the restoration company wants two grand plus testing which is another 1200 and that’s not even fixing the water issue and the carpet. And you mentally figured out how to fix outside, looked at the weather reports, and figured you had two weekends to do it, cool, almost doable (this weekend is a clusterfuck btw), and then you got up this morning. Couldn’t sleep last night (fan noise is doing me in, y’all, plus my overactive brain). Looked at the weather again and the next storm with more than an inch is Thursday. So digging needs to happen this weekend. Around 3 Zoom calls, pilates, groceries, GRADING, finishing a quilt, and delivering it to the photographer. And the Man has a show. OK. All right. I can figure that out. I have a plan. And then the doc messages you, because last weekend’s routine mammogram showed something distortion-y (love that word…new quilt?) and now you get to have more tests more poking more squishing more shit. Fuck me. I’ve done this before and everything turned out fine, which is what this morning’s brain is trying to tell me, but also I almost lost my mind last night because the Man and I had started planning our Spring Break trip and now we’re canceling because of all the hallway crap. And money. And time.

So I’m not happy at the moment. I’m doing a really high-maintenance lab at school today, which is actually good, because I won’t be thinking about my boob. Damn.

I did finish quilting yesterday. After pulling up all that crap and a Zoom call with friends…I quilted for about an hour and finished. Here’s Wednesday night…

And then I cleaned the floor that we had just tracked 40 years of carpet dust across, because who else is mopping their floors at 10 PM on a school night, and I trimmed it.

And things aren’t all bad, because it’s actually prettier in person, despite all the war and crap going on in the bottom of it, and the SDA online conference is tomorrow and I’m going to get the bindings on. And grade. And dig. And finish all the things. And then somehow try to figure out when the next set of squishings will happen. They’re gonna call me. Yeah well, I’m gonna have to call back, because I can’t answer the phone at school, especially not during a high-maintenance lab. Fun times, y’all. Fun times. But I will be taking this to the photographer on Sunday. I started this when? December 30. Fast finish. I copied like 12 drawings…I might just keep going. Well, I have a couple of things I need to do first.

Probably gonna have to sweep again after the boychild pulls all the tack strips.

Maybe I’ll even kill a mophead on this.

Next book I’m reading…

“Talking foxes are a sign of fever…”. I think this paragraph is why I read so much. Other worlds. Easier to live in. This one is challenging my patience at the moment.

OK. School. Do a DNA extraction lab. Grade things. Plan things. Duty after school. Go buy binding, because you went through the stash and didn’t have enough of the right thing. Dig. Put a binding on. All that. READ. I get to read. It’s allowed. Grade things. I said that already. Fuck.

It Won’t Solve Anything…

Oomph. This week packs a punch. Even without all the meetings from last week. Let’s start with the artmaking, because it’s positive and so I like to focus on it…like HERE IS STUFF YOU DID SO STOP FREAKING OUT. By the way, grades are done. For now. I didn’t finish grading one assignment. Oh well. I will eventually.

But art! So I’m still quilting. This is a small piece and I can’t remember, but I thought I’d be done by today? Maybe? Ha ha. Yeah. I thought I’d be done last night, and if I weren’t a crazy bitch who decided she wanted to quilt a tiny squiggle everywhere, I probably would be done.

Yeah. Dumbass.

So I’m about halfway done with the background, which might mean I’m not finishing quilting until Thursday night. Problematic if I want it to go to the photographer this weekend, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m close. Maybe. Who knows if I even have enough of anything I can use for binding anyway. So yeah, another hour tonight…after pilates and cooking dinner. Did I agree to cook dinner tonight? AGREE. Ha. That’s funny. There’s no negotiation there. Much. It’s my turn. I often wish it wasn’t.

In other news, San Diego got slammed by a wet storm on Monday…my rain gauge showed over 3 inches of rain in a day. Well. Hmmm. And I came home and did grades and at about 5 PM, the boychild realized there was a lot of water on the carpet in the hallway, and yeah.

So there’s water coming in, presumably from the outside (even though part of that is an interior wall) most of the way down the hallway (there’s a dry bit in the middle), around the corners into the closet at this end and the bedroom at the other end. I’ve sort of resigned myself to the ghetto concrete floor look that I think we’re going to get to soon…although the men are convinced we can save the carpet…

I think we’re up to 6 fans at the moment. And yes, the hallway wall bears the imprints of Calli, deceased, who used to lie on her back and scrabble at the wall. Have I had time to fix that? Well probably. Have I had the time AND energy to fix that? Well fuck no. So we have a call into a restoration place just to figure out what the real problem is (probably water over the bottom plate/slab thing, don’t ask me construction terms) and figure out who can fix it and then how much that shit will cost, and then probably there will be Wayfair/Target area rugs thrown over the concrete for a while until I can afford carpet. The carpet is ancient; should have been replaced long before this, so IDK why they are trying to save it, except to save me money and reduce the ghetto look. This was not in the plan. I know. It never is. Also, I can’t sleep well with the sound of the fans…I know it’s white noise, but my brain thinks it’s a zombie attack. Anyway. Trying not to dwell on it all, but you know how that goes.

In other news, I’m sending work to Japan and Taiwan in the next few months…so that’s new and different. I’m also trying to work on a collaboration with someone in San Francisco who is part of my women’s art group. We’re flailing a bit, but here was my 2nd attempt at drawing ‘unity’…a hard word for me apparently.

Pretty happy drawing for me…And here’s Nova just before attacking that cat toy.

Yesterday was eyeball dissection day…

It was cool. All but one kid participated and he was just being a whiner in general. Ugh. It’s a regular thing for him. I could do without it.

I thought I would go to the gym after school, get some exercise in, but I was exhausted. Completely. I read a bit, talked to the SIL, then made seating charts for today while half lying on the couch. Made dinner, did that drawing, read some more, then went in and quilted. That was it. It was all I could do.

Also this one…

Trying to figure out what to do with this collaboration. Ugh. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT ANYTHING. So there we are. Seriously though. I need someone to just come in and say, blah blah blah, you need to do this, this person will do it, here’s the invoice, it’s bad but not heinous, something you can actually afford, OK, let’s do it. Probably need that for EVERYTHING right now. Oh yeah, and there’s another time/energy-intensive lab on Friday. OKAY. Good plan, Nida. Ha. I think I need to sleep from now until Spring Break. It won’t solve anything, but at least I’ll be well-rested.

Problematic…

OK back to normal 5-day work weeks. Pros and cons to those. They feel more normal. There’s less time off. There you are. It’s pouring today, so probably 30% of our kids won’t come to school. Not sure I blame them. I have a good book. I could stay here and be perfectly happy. Except grades are due tomorrow, and no, I’m not done. Fuck me. I tried. But then all the other stuff, mostly art stuff, which is good…but time-consuming, got in the way. So I’m still not done with grades. I might need to just admit that one assignment isn’t going to get done. I have three more classes of this one assignment, and kids didn’t do very well on it, but I’ve already input two classes, so there’s that. Ugh.

This kid. He’s a little strange, as I’m sure you can guess. He’s not the best student, more from a lack of understanding I think, but he’s funny sometimes.

So quiltwise, good progress was made. I finished ironing all the tiny leaves down on Thursday night, after a million hours at school.

And then I started the stitchdown.

I did most of it Friday night…

But I had to be up earlyish Saturday for the annual boob-squeeze (ouch. It really hurt this time.), so I went to bed at a semi-reasonable time. Then got up Saturday and finished the stitchdown…

Cut a backing, washed the batting, went to an art meeting, which was short, but added on by having a cookie with art friends. My theory is that you should get a cookie for each time they squish your boob like that (which would mean I should have had four, but I settled for one really big and tasty one). Then home, and sandwiched and pinbasted.

Then after dinner out, came home and started quilting.

I did a small amount of school stuff on Saturday. I didn’t completely blow it off. I just didn’t spend more time than I had to on it. I saved the crazy panic for Sunday, which included pilates, grocery shopping, making breakfasts for the next two weeks, handing a quilt over to a guy who’s going to put it in a gallery in Japan (cool), putting up the owl box (with help), and doing schoolwork. I graded a bunch of stuff Friday night too, which I try to avoid, but still not done. Rumor is that the staff meeting will be shorter, so I’ll just come home, torture myself with this last assignment, and get it all done. Right? I even cooked dinner last night (and lunches for the next 7 days). I’m tired though. Still.

I did quilt last night too…

I just have the head left to do…

For the outlining. Then the whole background. It’s probably 1-2 hours left. So I’ll finish tomorrow night? Hopefully. Then trim and bind. Done by this weekend? Ahead of the deadline? I need to do a drawing for another art thing I’m doing. Sometime this week. After grades are done.

Tomorrow is also eyeball dissection, which will be a long day. Starting a new unit. DNA extraction on Friday. Another long day. But no long-ass meetings after work this week, hallelujah. That’ll be next week. Ugh. At least I have one week off from that. And the sex-ed curriculum meetings should be done after next week. Knock on wood. Well, not true…I have one mid-February, but it’s just teachers. Anything without the parents. Sigh. OK, I need more tea. I might need galoshes. I don’t have galoshes. Problematic.

Never Gonna Dance Again

Woke up to Careless Whisper by Wham!. Not sure what to think about that, on the first day back to work in 2024. Can’t get it out of my damn head though. So there’s that. Hey you know there’s 74 days until Spring Break! You know the worst part about coming back is when you don’t feel rested and refreshed, and everybody is all asking you if you feel rested and refreshed and please share one relaxing thing you did over break, and I’m like I READ 78 BOOKS BECKY precisely because that was my escape from not feeling rested and refreshed. Also I’m just a cranky old lady sometimes, and today is one of those times. Not enough sleep. Not enough shit got done. As always.

Speaking of not enough time, I really am trying to up the ante with this quilt, getting it done in an insanely small amount of time. How? Grabbing minutes when I’d normally do something else. I had 45 minutes yesterday afternoon before driving out to an art meeting, so I ironed instead of lesson planning. I had 30 minutes waiting for the Man to get dinner ready…same deal. I got the room cleaned Saturday in the hour before going to see his show, and when he sent me an updated start time (later), I sat down and got half a really complicated exhibition entry done. It’s good, but it feels like I can’t ever just sit down and relax. Hence my post-break feeling of no, not rested, not relaxed. My fault, but semi-necessary at the moment. I’m not letting another year of school fuck up my ability to make art. I’m gonna figure it out.

So I had everything laid out and ready to go on Saturday…wait. Stop. I need to be chronological about all this.

First of all, on Friday, I ran a million errands. I even wrote the blog late because of it. I spent about an hour staring at this asshole…

Which is the slow annoying one, because our faster one has been broken down most of the fucking school year, so we’re stuck sharing this with the front office, who keeps telling us we’re not allowed to use it. Uh huh.

Fast forward to Friday night (I did other stuff, very little of it art related)…I drew at dinner.

I was in a pretty positive mindframe at that point. Except she is holding her head. Legit position. Then we went out to see a friend’s band play…

Sonic Moonshine…ironically, we’d be back here on Saturday night for the Man’s band, Radio Thieves. But some drinking and dancing happened, probably too much of both.

Saturday dawned early, as it always does. I had a quilt guild meeting, so I worked a little on her face.

Slow stitching forever! Might finish in 2030.

Then came home and focused on cleaning up the art space, putting fabric away, even cleaned the floor because there was something on it that made it very slippery in one area (don’t wanna know what) and I was afraid I’d fall and break something. Like my leg. That would make life fun right now, right? Oh wait! Before I cleaned up in there, I had to deal with this. So we have this older friend who isn’t a quilter, but she had these blocks she cross stitched, and then I sandwiched them for her and she quilted them (the white threads are all my basting threads)…

And then I couldn’t deal with the sashing on a quilt-as-you-go, so we mailed it to a friend who used to live down here (she’s retired) and she put it together, mailed it back to me, and then I took it BACK to our friend and she hand-stitched all the sashing sides down (I taught her ladder stitch…she’s really NOT a sewer). Then it came back to me and I put the borders on and shoved some batting in there on Friday and Saturday, and then I removed all that fucking basting thread I put in last summer or whenever it was (2022? this has been going on for a while).

See pile of threads in the top right? So that happened before and after the quilt guild meeting. I needed this to get off the ironing board so I could use it for ironing.

Then I quilted one of the white squares on Saturday…

And one on Sunday. Yes, I could just do it all in one go, but it would take a few hours and then I would feel like I got nothing of my OWN done, and I cannot abide that at the moment. Nope. So my goal is 1-2 white squares a day and then the damn sashing and borders. I’ll get there. It just won’t be quick.

Then on Saturday, I laid out the first 100 pieces (after cleaning the whole room, floor, etc).

It’s not a big quilt.

Then I went to see the Man’s band play (more dancing, a little drinking, learned a lesson there I guess).

Home again. Spent Sunday getting ready for school, but also carving out time for ironing. I’m in the mid-100s, I think…something like that.

I got almost 3 hours in yesterday. Good times. You’d think I’d have more ironed, but there were a lot of little things going on and they took some thinking.

I also went to an art meeting and sewed down (during dinner) 9 of the 48 circles I need to stitch down for my mom’s thing.

See, I AM doing all the things. I’m just cranky about most of it. Except the ironing for my quilt. That is joyous and not cranky at all.

I’m sure everyone has seen some cool art or fabric in a TV show and screen shot it…this is the wall art from an episode of Suits.

Fascinating. I had some stuff burst into my head from this. Too bad I have to go back to school today instead of nurturing my Art Brain with some drawing time. Luckily there are no kids today…just adults and the bullshit the district wants us to do. Am I still burnt out? Oh yeah. I am. Do I have some plans for keeping myself from fully burning out? Uh huh. I do. Watch this space. Still got that damn song in my head.

Protective

In-between days. I finished the quilt last night. I’m in that weird space between quilts that I hate. I don’t like having the next one ready to go. It freaks me out. No down time! No worries; I have a bunch of drawings tagged; just need time later today to go make some copies and then make some decisions. It’s a pro to have so many pieces out at shows or sold, but it makes it hard to enter new shows. And the day job is really not conducive to my finding MORE time for artmaking at the moment…unfortunately. I’m debating one show, trying to finish something for it. Ugh. Still thinking. Hence the headache, probably.

I did most of the binding and sleeve stitching on Tuesday night…just binge-watched stuff.

Walked away for 5 minutes and Nova landed.

I’m waiting to hear back from the photographer. For this show, I could take a half-assed picture and enter it, luckily. So I might need to do that. We’ll see.

Maybe take a picture of the WHOLE quilt, not folded over. So that was the 5th quilt for the year. Sigh. The previous year, I only hit 6 because I did a super tiny one that only took 9 hours in the last few days of the year. Seriously, the last 3-plus years of school have really sucked time away from the artmaking. It’s so frustrating. I keep trying to pull time back, give me more time to make (and sleep and clean and honestly just function) and the job just pulls back. I already know January is bad. It makes me cry. I just finished an art fellowship application, and they asked about how the money would help, and this is it…I need to retire. Not this year. But soon. Because it’s not fair to Art Brain to be working less and less on art because this country is taking more and more teacher time. So yes, the brain is trying to figure out how to make the rest of the school year easier, how to protect ME time, and I don’t have a solution. Let’s hope I find one.

I’m still working on Mom’s Tinsel quilt…got most of the extra embroidery done, hopefully done today, then borders on, then circles on, then hand it back to her. Then get the other quilt done for Barbara. Plus figure out what I’m doing next. I seem to be ignoring school right now. I’m gonna have to stop ignoring it soon. Tomorrow is the day I get all the donations done and delivered. Then the Man and I have two days of no work, although art is allowed, reading is allowed, games and puzzles are allowed.

Dropped the girlchild at the airport yesterday. She went to Texas (friends) for New Year’s, then back home to San Francisco.

I told her I wanted to visit when her SO was there so I could meet him. So that’s in 2024. Death Valley might be in 2024. It’s hard to plan until the Man can get a job, but he got more treatment approved by his doctor today, so hopefully this will solve it and he can get back to work. So much stress around the holidays this year.

For me, the rest of today is three Zoom calls, one with a naturopath, which I’m looking forward to helping me with blood sugar etc; one with one set of stitching friends, where hopefully I’ll get those Mom and Barbara things further on the road to done; and the last with another set of stitching friends. Who knows what I’ll be doing by then. I think pilates is in the middle of all that. It’s a weirdly busy day in between pajama days. I think I need to trim all those tree bits the boychild cut down and get them into bins today too. Yikes. Deep breaths. I don’t see peace in 2024 yet. I see me as the Hulk, standing protectively in front of my art and my time, growling at anyone or anything that tries to mess with me. I guess that’s a thing. Sorta like this…

Yeah, I can see that. Don’t mess with me? I wish it were that easy. I saw this video of a young elementary school teacher ‘showing’ how we could reduce our work week to 43 hours. Yeah, she used her prep period…the one I rarely get. Sigh. Making more tea. Being protective.