Omigod omigod omigod, Spring Break is finally here…well, in 8 hours and 8 minutes, except I have to do duty after school and then set up or clean up or something, so a little bit more than that. Yes, I’m still sick, but not as bad as the two I live with were, so that’s a plus. Knock on wood. I met with a contractor last night who will start fixing the things that caused the flooding in January (or at least caused the shit ton of rain to come in the house…I don’t doubt we will have more instances of shit tons of rain, unfortunately). It won’t be cheap. There isn’t much I can do about that. It won’t be a quick fix either; we’ll be doing stuff in the summer too. Ugh. My summer already is problematic. Ah well. It’s not summer yet.
I was planning on finishing these two small quilts in the next few days. On Wednesday, I pinbasted the one I need for a show at the end of April…
And then continued stitchdown on the one that’s been hanging around for a while.
My machine needs service, a good cleaning. I had it on my list to call today after it was being fussy the night before, and then last night during my stitching Zoom. I had done about 35 minutes on it and then walked away to eat my dinner.
Usually the machine powers down if I don’t turn it off (and I didn’t want to reset everything, so I didn’t power down), but when I came back, it would turn on, it would beep, but the touch screen wouldn’t turn on. I restarted, I unplugged, I googled, but it looks like who knows WTF is going on, and I can’t sew dammit. REALLY? WHY. WHY. WHY. Deep breaths. OK. Calling them during my prep period. It’s fine; I can start drawing tonight instead, but My Goodness. Universe, you suck.
In better art news, they made personalized marketing for two of the upcoming shows…this is awesome!
Turns out Stitchpunk will be in Oregon in summer 2026. Plan that trip now in my head at least. Warn the Man it’s coming.
Nice choice. Fierce Planets isn’t coming close yet.
There’s still time.
Interestingly, I only have to teach advisory and two classes today, due to the dumbass planning of the literacy team. I’ll be in the library for the rest of the day. Planning things. Sounds lovely, eh? It’s pajama day too, so I’m enjoying that. Although I would have sewn up this pocket in my PJ pants if the sewing machine wasn’t on strike.
This is for my absent co-teacher…
Who talks about dinosaurs and space in equal amounts.
I actually finished coloring a cover page for once…
Penis-shaped volcanoes. Fun times.
And this…if you remember, I posted an appropriate version earlier this week. Although weird in the end (like how does that stick baby get out?)…and then there’s this one, from one of my not-so-sweet ones.
Seriously? Must have opted out of sex ed last year. I feel for his girlfriend, who I also have in class. Ignorance is real, y’all.
Anyway, gonna go do the things for as long as I have to, drink lots of tea, get as much schoolwork done as I can so I can do less over break (I already know I will have to come in to print things and set up), then get the fuck out of there for two weeks. Seriously. This year needs to knock it off. I’m done. Peace out though. Spring Break is a much-needed and appreciated respite.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in…don’t cough. My household has been Cough/Snot Central for the last week, and apparently I will not escape, despite the doses of Vitamin C I’ve been downing. I need to stop by the store on the way to school to get something to counteract the shit I’m feeling at the moment. Not COVID. I just had that. And medicine only counteracts SOME of the shit. I’m trying to get the rest of this unit planned before break, so I don’t have to come in DURING break and copy shit. I think I’m gonna fail on that, unfortunately. Sigh. I also need to finish grading the two big things, but I’m not sure I can pull that off either. AND write sub plans for Friday afternoon, when the stupid literacy people scheduled the next thing. Bad timing. I rearranged this whole week on Monday night to make sure the academic grade would get done before Friday. Makes my life easier…and the sub’s, but I think I still need to move something this morning. Fuck. OK, write fast. Ugh. Sore throat. Dammit. I have stuff to do. I need to not be sick. Yes, body talking to me. I’m tired of it doing that. Could it just do the things without being a pain? I went to the gym last night, first time in ages, and did the things and felt really good until I tried going down the stairs to leave and both knees were like, fuck you, lady. We’ll give out if you do that again. Well, imma do it lots, so get over it. I didn’t even do the Bosu ball. Need to do that at home. More.
I started stitchdown on the little quilt Monday night…
I finished it last night and still had time before bedtime, so I started stitchdown on that poor quilt top that’s been hanging around for ages…
Didn’t finish that one, but that’s OK. Nothing’s really a rush right now. Maybe it should be, but I don’t have the mental energy for it.
Monday night, I went out to reset the owl cam (again…it’s been fussy as shit) and (1) heard a baby squawking in there (exciting) and (2) saw this…
I was a little freaked out…like where is the light coming from? Until the Man explained it was a rocket launching…ah SpaceX, you make the sky pretty. With chemicals.
A friend was asking whether we’d rather be buried under a tree or sent into space, and I picked the tree, because space is scary…fascinating, but terrifying, and I’d rather be in the earth, somewhere my kids might walk by and say hi. Weird, I know. Or not. Grounded. I love space movies and fiction, but I don’t want to live there. I think I’d be even more anxious floating out there.
Speaking of weird…or not…this kid’s explanation was strangely appropriate…yet weird.
I love that they are just lying in the bed and then she’s pregnant, and then she’s apparently giving birth? I laughed a lot. I like this kid. I mean, he picked that word as his challenge word and then did this. It’s cool.
This week. I’m done with it. I’m going to go buy cold medicine and try to get through things. Three days until Spring Break. Talking to a contractor on Thursday about the flood damage. Need to have a FEMA inspector come out, so I need to finish those forms. In my spare time. I’m really just sick of this school year. I want to go play with some clay tonight if I feel up to it. I want to finish these two small quilts so I can start a massive one for the rest of the school year. I want some of this health stuff to resolve. Ha! Knees are not gonna resolve. Maybe the boob thing will. Surgical consult in two weeks. OK. Go buy cold meds. Go to school. Deal with things. Resolve is an interesting word. I must have resolve to get through the week. Then things will resolve. Re-Solve. We are gonna solve it again? Yeah. Fuzzy brain.
Lots of people ask me how I do art stuff every day (and I don’t…I’d like to, but…), and the reality is that I have a fairly hefty art drive that MAKES me make almost every day, and if I don’t, I start to feel off, cranky, bereft, pissed off, sad, ugh, growly etc. So I try to balance all the other shit I’m supposed to do AND make art every night, and one of the number one drives toward retirement is the way my day job has sucked all of that time away from me and just takes more and more and more. Since COVID in 2020, I can’t get that balance. I can’t get enough art time. And I just get more and more frustrated with the time demands. Beyond frustrated. Art Brain is like a little kid who was promised time to do something they really love (read a book, swim in the pool, go to the beach) and then it’s a no. And not a good explanation for why (because I have to work). So of course it pitches a fit. You would too. Right now, Art Brain is counting the days until Spring Break (21 days, 16 actual days in school) so it can do more fun things. I haven’t told it about all the house things we have to do, because we can’t afford a weeklong camping trip like we usually do. So yeah. BUT…I am going to start a big drawing between now and then (need to finish some art stuff first) so I have one going for the end of the school year. To get me through. To PULL me through, because I think that’s what it’s gonna take.
So all I’ve been doing the last two nights is sewing binding on (and grading shit because the trimester ends today).
I do like sewing binding by hand. It’s relaxing. And those two colors are fucking awesome. And it’s for someone I really love. So it’s OK. But I’m also glad it’s done. Well. Almost.
Nova is such a sweetheart. She bumps her head up and starts kneading the air (and sometimes me)…
She’d be ON me if I’d let her. But it’s hard to stitch when she is. So she settles for there. And when Simba is here, HE’S there. And those are good things. The quilt is done except for one area on the back where some stitches did something that I can’t quite figure out (looks like a knot), so I need to tease it apart, tie it off, and maybe requilt that bit. And THEN it’s done, which is good, because the baby shower is tomorrow afternoon. But when it’s done, I can do my own stuff. Well, sort of. Because I’m doing an interpretation of somebody else’s stuff first and trying to make it my own and I’m not at the point yet where it feels like mine.
I did have a mental aha moment Wednesday night when I realized how to combine the ceramics and the quilts. So I’m going to try that. The girlchild is also taking ceramics and we had a cool conversation by text last night about that stuff. I do appreciate the change in medium and want to try to continue. We’ll see how that works, if I can make the two work together. It’s worth a try.
In other news, it’s Friday (OMG THANK THE GODDESS). Stressful week…both in trying to get kids to think and do things, but also in trying to get stuff set up for the next unit and there’s a field trip that may or may not happen and OMG there’s some other counseling thing that they haven’t told us about yet. I just want to come home and read my book and draw for a bit and stitch for a bit and trace for a bit. And get some yardwork done before it overwhelms me (too late; it already has). And clean house things because they’re gross. And not feel like I’m not allowed to have the time to make art because the day job is so all encompassing…do it for the KIDS. Hate that. I do it for the kids all the time. On the daily. Constantly. Wake up to thinking about them, worrying about them, trying to figure out how to engage them and help them learn. Fall asleep to it. It’s never-ending. I need some time off from that. Also I need some time off so I can plan the next unit. Which is thinking about them. Ah well. Art. It calls. Loudly.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kathy Nida 