Peace and Joy…

Hey. It’s the last day of the school year…of 2025. School has changed a lot in the last 25 years…I realized this as I was watching a keystroke video of a kid editing their test after school earlier this week, so I could let the parent know that they will still have an F after I grade it for realz. Luckily, mot kids had to submit during class, so they couldn’t do the cheaty thing. Well, she had to submit during class too, but unsubmitted later, and I’m sure saw the message that said I wasn’t accepting them any more. Fun times. I miss the days when…OK, never mind, kids have always found some way to cheat. Back in the day, I allowed a notecard for tests (before I went all standards-based) and kids would try to bring a big card or more than one card. It’s not like we teach them to study…and for my current tests, they don’t need to study. They do need to turn their brains on…longer than it takes to ask AI the answer. What’s mindboggling is that I showed that class a similar video of a kid cheating, and she still did it. Ah well. Some of us learn all the things the hard way.

The quilt is progressing! I got it pinbasted on Wednesday night with the help (not) of two cats, one kitteny.

I pinned fast. Because cats. Then last night, I started quilting…

An hour in. Still on the first bathtub. I’ll be here a while. Hopefully done by the end of the weekend. Finishing early! A miracle. Maybe. Knock on wood. Which means I need to figure out the next one, because it’s on a tight deadline. School is gonna need to back off a bit…a lot. I’m not sure how that’s gonna fly, but I’ll have to make it work.

Lots of kitten pictures…lots of kitten sitting ON me.

Definitely have a lap cat…at least for now. Nova is also a lap cat, and was a little offended by having to share. Scribble doesn’t care about the others; she will sit wherever she wants.

It’s the right attitude for this house. Each evening, I try to read for a little bit before I have to do all the other things.

There’s a lot of furry beasts around when I do that. Sometimes there’s a dog too.

He also doesn’t care when I have other beasts on me. Honestly, it’s the best part of my day sometimes. I mean, I like making art too, and they sometimes come in when I’m doing that, but it’s loud right now with the sewing machine and Scribble doesn’t like that, but she was in here with me when I was ironing.

I’ll have to add her to a quilt soon, in the great tradition of Nida’s cats living on in her art. Her face is going to be more complicated than Kitten’s was. The hardest part is making sure they show up on whatever background there is. I did one quilt with Midnight (an old cat of ours) and because she was all black, I had to add like an aura around her so you could see her. She rocked the aura.

Yesterday, I had to pick up a quilt from a closing show and then do some holiday post office and shopping stuff. Shockingly, both places were empty, mostly I think because everyone and their mother was on the freeways.

It was a 2-hour trip in the long run. Traffic could have been worse. Maybe. I did get this treat of a view…

The palm trees at Costco/Ikea. Nice.

OK. Today. Is a test. Ha! And they turn in a packet. And I have to lock up my room because stupid Winter Academy will be in here and they steal stuff and break stuff. It’s annoying. Plus they’re going to clean my floors. I’m not putting all my shit back for the academy people. They can live without it. Not my problem. Hope they know how to set up the projector. I’ll leave the tech on the counter, but they move my teacher desk for floor cleaning, so I can’t leave it where I normally do. Frustrating. I shouldn’t have to go in over break to set stuff up for other people. I have a packet to grade, a homework assignment, two easy just-record-the-numbers assignments, and two academic assignments. I started grading one of those last night. While they’re testing today, I’m going to try to finish the homework papers and clean up. I’m not fully planned for the week we come back, which sucks. Our prep periods got sucked away this week.

I’m fully looking forward to three weeks off. I’d like to reinstate a drawing a day, but realistically, it’s been hard the last few years to pull that off. Pre-COVID me could have done it. I need to finish this quilt and start the next one. I have a million yard and household things that need to be done (always). The girlchild is home for a quick week. I just want to get some extra sleep and exercise too. That would be lovely. I need a reset. School has been a bitch. Not the kids…they’re relatively decent this year. Just the rest of it. The rest of it needs to fuck off. And with that note, I’m off to work. Maybe there be peace and joy at school today, unlike the last four days.

A Giant Experiment

There are three days of school before we go on break. There’s been some crazy shit (there always is), some crazier than usual. My blood sugar responds to stress, and yes, it is responding to stress. And cake. That was my fault. To my credit, I ate it in two shifts. On Monday, after the holiday party, which was really just a confession and food (is that the definition of a party?), I had to get on the stationary bike for an hour. It’s OK…I finished my book. Although my knees did not appreciate it the next day. They rarely do though. It’s weird…we usually have spirit week before break and dress up most of the days, at least wearing Santa hats and pajamas, and that’s not even happening. I think everyone is just trying to survive. That may be true of everyone honestly. Christmas is coming up and it’s crazy. I still don’t have a box for the stuff I need to ship. I keep forgetting. I have a to-do list but it keeps getting impacted by school. We have three days to get at least the first week of lessons done and we don’t have enough time to teach everything before the state test because the school board did a stupid thing and got sued and now we have to teach stuff that’s not on the test before the test and I can’t even tell you how frustrating that is after we spent hours this summer backwards planning from the end of the year to make sure there was enough time. And now we’re fucked. No one paid me for those summer hours and no one will pay me for the hours it will take to rearrange stuff to fit the school board’s fuckup. Summer self did that work because she knew that May/June self would really appreciate it. And now both of them are pissed off. “It’s fine,” the District says, “It’s only one year and then you can go back to whatever you normally do.” Great. You gonna pay me for the extra planning this year? Nah? I didn’t think so. Plus I have to do more training even though I helped write the damn curriculum. I guess all that is January/February/March’s problem. She’s already irritable about it though. December self just wants the first week or two planned and maybe to have a table of contents for the unit that doesn’t have to be totally rewritten halfway through. Big dreams.

Meanwhile, this is the third morning in a row I’ve had to show up early to school for something…luckily, I think it’s the last one in 2025! Maybe. Knock on wood.

I did finish all the stitchdown on Monday night…stayed up late to do it, which pairs well with getting up early.

Stitchdown is generally pretty fast…this was 4 1/2 hours. Last night, I cut the batting, washed the batting, dried the batting, washed the floor (it was gross), and cut and sewed and ironed the backing. Then it was 10:15 PM and I knew it would take an hour to pinbaste this thing, so I didn’t do it. Did I go to bed earlier? Nope. Totally not. That would make too much sense. I just didn’t want to crawl around on my kneepads for an hour…I’ll do that tonight after yet another early morning and a long day. It’ll be fine. Quilting by tomorrow. Done by? I don’t know. I need a binding fabric…I know I don’t have enough of anything for that.

Cat integration is going really well. These two play during the day (and the night).

Not touching yet, not curled up together…but I know Scribble wants that. Bowie is kind of an asshole (that phrase is said so many times in this house), but he is still kittenish and appreciates the racing around. Scribble bites gently, plays gently (with us), doesn’t hook us with claws, purrs a lot, loves a lot, squawks, and is a sweetheart.

Ceramics! I got this one out of the bisque fire yesterday…

Then glazed both with a clear glaze…hopefully the colors will hold. We’ll see. They do darken in the glaze fire, but I’m hopeful. They are both frames for the wall. I haven’t figured out construction for frames for just standing up. And I forgot to check how much they shrank. Oh well. It’s all a giant experiment anyway.

When I left the studio, Bartholomew had just showed up for dinner.

He’s definitely got more than his share of nine lives.

OK then there’s this…

This might help. Sigh. We don’t solve problems well as a species, but especially here in the US. Dumpster fire has taken over.

OK today. It’s a catchup day. The kids will hopefully get everything done, we’ll do a lab tomorrow, a quick test question Friday, turn their packets in, and go away for three weeks. I need to finish grading last week’s homework and start grading the academic assignment they just finished. Whatever I get done this week I don’t have to do during break. That would be a plus. Pilates after school, then I have to cook (normally I would have done that last night)…oh wait, I did do it last night, but just for me. Then pinbaste, kneepads on. Maybe setup or start quilting. We’ll see. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to some time off too.

Appropriate Responses…

It’s totally foggy this morning, foggy and chilly. It’s also the last Monday of school in 2025. I had a fairly successful weekend, but whenever I picked up my phone, some horrible disaster had happened somewhere…mostly with guns…and I had to stop and take a breath and wonder about the world and humanity. I may always wonder about that. And guns. And how people get so angry that guns (or knives) seem to solve that problem. And then a reminder that Sandy Hook happened yesterday, 13 years ago. I remember that day. That’s why we have gates and fences and locks and were told to keep classroom doors locked for a good long time. We had active shooter trainings before that though. When my students ask, “when will I ever need this?” during lockdown trainings, all I can say is, “I hope you never do…” but the odds are increasingly against that. Who thought celebrating Hanukkah on the beach would require gun avoidance training? Or taking college finals? Those things should be gun and violence free (despite how you might feel about final exams in general). According to CNN, the shooting at Brown “followed at least 75 school shootings in the United States this year. So far in 2025, there have been at least 391 mass shootings and 13,929 shooting deaths nationwide.” Insane.

So in that vein, I finished my Forgotten Words Project phrases. They just needed to be stitched down. I’ll mail them later this week.

My goal this weekend was to finish ironing the quilt down and get a goodly chunk of stitchdown done. I needed to make a video with the quilt for a meeting I’m missing on Zoom this week, and that was going to be easier if I could hang it up, so it needed to be completely ironed to do that. I spent a few hours on Saturday getting that done and making the video (and finding speakers since my subwoofer broke/died and I couldn’t edit the video without sound).

I guess I ironed Friday night too. She was too wide to hang up well…

I usually go vertical more than horizontal. My original plan was three bathtubs…that would have been insanely wide.

And then Saturday night, I stitched down for over 2 hours and got a huge chunk done.

Last night, I finished the larger bathtub with all its rugs and stuff.

I’ve got at least an hour to go tonight after book club. Then sandwich, pinbaste, and quilt. I’m on track to get it done with time to spare, which is good, because shipping 6 quilts is stressful no matter what, and I need to do another quilt fairly quickly. Plus however much free time people think I have over a school break, that’s when I do all the things I don’t have time for when I’m teaching, which is almost everything. Including mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms.

This week is a mess, for sure. Here’s the drawing I kept trying to get done before dinner arrived the last two Saturday nights.

I may give up on it. These aren’t really meant to be finished beasties anyway, just a way to keep the drawing hand in.

Scribble does know how to be IN the kitty tent…

Mostly. She’s been playing with a few of the older cats, definitely speaking her mind, eating more, purring lots, sleeping, and basically underfoot or on lap. Good times.

I guess this is how we end today…

So true. Sanity and kindness too. Those would be nice. Today is…sigh. Someone set up an 8 AM parent Zoom call, which is good, because she wanted to meet at 7 AM and that’s not something I do. Then finishing a test. Two of my co-teachers are out for good reasons; hopefully the kids will be too tired to malfunction. Then a staff meeting that was supposed to be a holiday party that got cancelled due to lack of interest (and probably morale, honestly). At least that will be short. Then book club later. Plus stitching stuff down and dealing with Christmas, because holy hell, that’s rushing at us like a train out of control. The fog is still out there. I’ll have to join it in a second. May today be full of love and peace and appropriate responses…across the board…

Strangely Warm…

Pro: I slept solidly last night (because I was exhausted…wait, I still am exhausted). I got to hang out with stitching friends last night. I didn’t grade anything last night. It’s Friday and I’ll be ironing a solid chunk of the weekend and then stitching.

Don’t ask about school. I might lose my mind. Not kids (well, sometimes kids). Just all the other moving pieces. And there are a lot of them and some of them are stupid. In case you’re wondering. I know why I became a union rep so many years ago, but it’s hella exhausting.

I also have a book that I need to finish reading by tomorrow at 2 PM, when the library whisks it away. There are 78 people waiting for the book, so if I don’t finish it (which might happen), I won’t see it again for 5 weeks and then I’ll have forgotten the already tenuous link I have to the story. I could just stop reading it, but I have a hard time with that. I think I should stop and then there’s a few pages of clarity and interest and I’m back in again, but…realistically…I have 3 hours left in it. And that’s a lot. And I have a lot of other things that need to get done. So we’ll see. Sigh.

OK ironing. I ironed late last night. The night before, I did much better.

I got the whole bathtub water thing done plus all the things floating in the water and the legs.

Last night, I finished the torso and both arms, which are fussier than maybe they look.

I’m in the high 700s and I’ve pulled a few 800s, so honestly, I’ll finish tomorrow and get it ironed to the background and hopefully start stitching it down. I’ve got a new deadline that popped up that I need to get started on, so I’m pushing through on this. Deep breaths.

I had a plan for the next quilt that was kind of a break from the heavy political stuff, but it looks like I’m diving back in. We’ll see what that looks like. I’m letting my brain percolate it as I finish this one, because I’ll have to leap right into drawing sometime in the next week or so.

Stitching last night with friends…all I did was couch down the fly stitches.

It took forever. It was nice to hang out and chat about travel and other stuff though.

When I get really busy on art stuff and school, I don’t have a lot of extraneous pictures apparently. Even of cute kittens. Here’s Scribble sleeping on the bed I bought for Simba a year ago so he could be comfortable out in the living room (he prefers to lie on my leg or on the couch behind my neck).

I think one cat slept on it once. So it just sits there. Maybe it will be Scribble’s. She’s a sweetheart. Doesn’t sleep with me every night, but comes and says hi every night. Very purry and kneady. Follows me around. Holds her own with the big kitties.

OK. I’m giving a test today, which hopefully will be quiet and calm and shut up. But you never know. Also it’s still strangely warm here, despite being December, and that seems to be affecting brains. Some kids think next week is already Winter Break (it’s not). Some kids will be gone even though they know it’s not Winter Break. We got two new kids this week and their names are almost the same but flipped in order, which is beyond confusing. So I’ll probably have them in the same class period and will never figure out which is which. I think a teacher’s brain only has so much capacity for learning names in one school year and I may have already reached it. Also limited patience. Yup. Reached it. But it shouldn’t be a hard day…not a lab. Just management. And then duty after school and ceramics and I need to buy Drano and a light timer. I don’t have to cook dinner. I do need to read for 3 hours in the next 30 (ha! That is so not happening). I need to hike tomorrow. I need to SLEEP. But not right now. Right now, I gotta go.

Alive and Pissed Off…

OK, I thought it was Tuesday, but it’s Wednesday. I was so tired after school and pilates yesterday that I just lay on the couch and considered how it was only Tuesday. Really that was the fault of the pilates teacher…and my body. My knees mostly.

I’m ironing. I’m trying to iron a lot. I need to finish this piece. I think I’ll have time during break, but then all the Xmas stuff happens, and I’m fucked. So here’s where I was at on Monday night…

It didn’t look like much. I did the edges of the bathtub and the words and the flag; there’s stuff hanging off the top as well, but not much.

Last night was a little more impressive…

I got the lamp and some portion of the water done. There’s things floating in the water and then obviously the body in the tub (this one is alive and pissed off), so there’s a lot going on here. I’m about halfway through. I’ll be in the water again tonight and then maybe even tomorrow. I’m hoping to have it all ironed down or close by the weekend, so I can start the stitchdown Saturday. I have a big block of time. Maybe. At the moment. Also need to fix a bunch of things and deal with Christmas stuff.

I’m not putting a tree up until I’m home during the day, because…kitten. I did put some lights up on the deck so that’s festive. I have more lights but no timer…and it requires a ladder and a hammer, which I have, but I need to do it in daylight hours and I won’t be home in the evening in light until Saturday. Ah Winter. So many other things to do. A little panicky about that, as always. I’m teaching more magnety stuff today, hopefully less handholding than the last few days. They really do just want me to write the answers for them, and I won’t. Also, getting kids to talk in some of these classes is torture…or to talk about science instead of whatever they want to be chatting about. Crazy stuff. But maybe I can get caught up on grading before the next big assignment? It’s a goal anyway. Union meeting after school tonight and then about 17 errands, depending on what’s still open (not the post office unfortunately). Then did I mention ironing? I did.

Too Many Things…

Oy. Two weeks left in December to teach. On the one hand, thank goodness. On the other hand, holy crap, how do I get through it all? A bit of a challenge on multiple fronts. Trying to deal with Christmas shopping and shipping, but also school and just maybe a bit of sanity. We spent the weekend doing the local ceramics tour, which was really cool, but also time-consuming. I did manage to deal with three Christmas presents, which wasn’t bad. So I feel good about that. I also got to see a lot of cool ceramics and be inspired a bit, which is also nice. Did I get a lot of other stuff done? Hell no. How would I?

I did iron…Saturday night…

Finished the first bathtub, which has a body bag in it. Then started the rug under the second bathtub…

Finished that and started the second bathtub, barely. More on that tonight. Much as I love having the girlchild around, she had projects this time and I ended up not doing art stuff for that…which is still a good thing. Hopefully in the future, she’ll know how to frame stuff herself. This one, she cut the matt and then we covered it in fabric.

I did the complicated one…

But I made her cut the backing pieces. So she drove home with four completed pieces. All the frames came from thrift shops or the grandparents’ house (which is a different kind of thrift shop). She did buy three pieces of matt board and 3/4s of a yard of fabric. All good. I had a stash of hangers and archival tape and all the stuff I used to use to frame my prints, way back in the day. Way way back. Useful skill, though.

She left Saturday morning, but she’ll be back in two weeks-ish.

Scribble likes her. Scribble pretty much likes everyone though, so that’s nice. She inspected the two plant pots I bought on the tour.

I fits!

More politics…

I guess Cloud Walker was the best choice. Sigh.

I spent Friday trying to find all the lab materials I needed for today; missing a handful of magnetic rocks that may have disappeared. They’ll live without them, but it’s annoying. Because we had them before. I’ll go in this morning and check another location and recheck the original location. Teaching magnets today, then a staff meeting, then ceramics. Hoping to finish the second frame today. Not entirely sure what I’m doing next. I did get the tree for the top of the head out of the kiln. Now I need to make the little quilt that goes in the belly, but I can’t do that until I finish this quilt; it has a deadline and it’s coming up. So maybe I’ll make some bowls. I need some new bowls for the house. Then home to iron some more. Probably grading stuff too. I’m not entirely caught up, but I’m doing OK. The redoes are hard to do unless I’m not tired. I should have done some last night, but I did late work instead, because I hadn’t looked at that in almost a month. Too many things…not enough time. Always.

Didn’t Finish…

I downloaded photos on Friday for a post, and that’s as far as I got. I think I briefly considered it on Saturday, but then got sucked into other things that needed doing and lost track of that thought. Last night, while I was trying to fall asleep, my ever-helpful (not) brain was trying to remember if I’d posted on Friday or not…not is the answer. So here we are, back to Mondays, back to school, three weeks of crazy to survive on many levels, not ready for any of it…except the next stage of the quilt. Oh wait. Not ready for that either. It’s chaos in here and I can’t iron a quilt together in chaos. So. Yeah. But I’m going to have to…and that might just be the best explanation of most of my adult life right there: can’t do it; gonna have to.

OK, quilt…the quilt that I’m a week behind on…easily. Here’s more cutting out, with Scribble.

And more cutting out…

with Scribble’s tail. And more cutting out with Scribble.

And the final push…

14 hours to do it all…

And I have a lap cat. Which is nice. She quickly learned to keep her paws out of the bins, until last night, when I started sorting…

She definitely wanted to be IN the bins. But wasn’t violent about it (unlike Bowie a year ago or so). I didn’t finish sorting last night…started late and then was tired and needed to go to bed to get up early this morning.

More Scribble pix…she is allowed in the sewing room if I’m in here.

Although she has already found Kitten’s cave, where she hid on and off for the last 6 years of her life…

I mean, it’s full of batting. Why wouldn’t you want to hide there?

The girlchild is here; Scribble is friendly.

Which everyone appreciates.

She just settles in and lets the other three cats try to figure her out.

Even Bowie is starting to come around; he wants to play with her, but he’s not sure how.

Three cats vertically in a row. So it’s been a good transition so far. Of course, today is the first work day, when there’s no one around for most of the day. That will be different. But she seems very adaptable…

Strangely enough.

The Man and I hiked again on Friday, because…

we had my family’s Thanksgiving on Friday…

Both kids cooked…nice food choices.

My dad fell asleep on the couch with Annie…

I think he was in her seat.

Saturday night dinner’s drawing…

Not finished, but I only have the time from when we come in the restaurant until they serve the food.

I finished the pomegranate seeds on May’s Forest for the Trees block.

At the moment, all I can handle is the applique. I’ll get to the embroidery, but who knows when? Going back to school has sucked up any loose time I had.

I still think we’re not allowed…

But I appreciate the sentiment.

OK, there’s so much school stuff I didn’t finish over break. Always. I have seating charts written for 2 of my 6 classes. Today is chill, though…starting a new unit, so just vocab and cover page and a short lecture on how to bring your grade up and it doesn’t involve Google or AI. Then staff meeting(s?) and hopefully ceramics. I need a porcelain patch kit from Home Depot too…purposely didn’t go get it this weekend, but I still need it. I also need to finish the other sgraffito frame at the studio before it dries out. I had plans to go Saturday and Sunday, and both fell through. It’s fine; other things happened and it was good, but I need to go today. And tomorrow. And Thursday. Or something. Three weeks…I can do three weeks. I think.

People and Carbs…

This week is just never relaxing. I’ve been to the grocery store four or five times, the pet store twice (I know, that one is my fault for adopting a new kitten), plus trying to catch up on cleaning (ha!) and yardwork (double ha!), and to finish grading? (triple ha!) …nothing is happening the way I’d planned. What’s new? Nothing. It’s always like this. I try to steal moments for reading or artmaking, but there’s other stuff that snuck in…like all the emails about stuff I needed to do that I totally ignored for the last three weeks? Yeah, those. And the four things that need renewing, but now I can’t find the renewal emails. Ugh. And then being invited to be on a cool website…awesome, but it required an hour of photos with the boychild (thank goodness he has a clue, because I don’t) and I’m sure he spent a ton of time resizing, and then I had to find art photos too and send all of them, plus fill out three pages of forms. I appreciate the opportunity, but I don’t have extra time lying around for all of that. So the bathrooms are still dirty and so are the floors. Oh well.

The kitten is adjusting. She has a name finally…Scribble. She’s like a little ADHD and very balls to the wall with the other cats. Right now, she’s sleeping, after racing around for 5 hours this morning. She’s definitely a curious little thing and won’t let her inability to jump high enough stop her.

We started out with my hanging out with her in a room with no other cats, but once we let her out…man, she didn’t want to stay in.

That said, she’s not banging on the door to be let out when I do put her in the room, which is when I leave the house, because I don’t entirely trust the other cats with her yet.

This was a very tentative moment between Scribble and Nova. Both wanted my lap.

I think we’ll all be OK in the long run…it just might take a while. Certainly last night, when Scribble was all puffed up, jumping sideways, I’m Big! I’m Big! toward Bowie and he’s just staring at her like she’s the scariest thing in the world…I think Bowie is having the hardest time adjusting. But he does appreciate an animal that will run around and parkour like he does, so he’ll come around.

One of the boychild’s photos.

OK, so artwise, I’m mostly still cutting things out.

Which is not particularly fast…

I really wanted to be ironing things together by now. Oh well. I’ve got another 2-3 hours of trimming, I think. I’m going to go do some more in a bit. I might do some yardwork first, before it gets dark.

I also spent a couple of hours at ceramics on Monday…and did most of this. It’s very relaxing.

I need to fix the cloud and a couple of other spots, but I think otherwise it’s ready to fire. I was hoping to get there today as well, but so far, that hasn’t happened? Maybe in an hour. We’ll see.

Found this in the yard.

Such a perfect mushroom.

This…I know some people are leaving for legit reasons, like being afraid of deportation…that’s a real thing and I don’t blame people for leaving. Detention or deportation to Venezuela or whatever other psychotic thing this government has come up with are legitimate fears. Go. Be well. Come back when the crazy is over (knock on wood that this ends at some point).

But if you’re a rich white American-born citizen and you’re leaving? You’re not staying and yelling with the rest of us? WTF. Seriously. I guess it’s easier than living here and being stressed about it, but those of us who don’t have tons of money and the ability to just up and go, we’re here and loud and not putting up with it, and y’all with money need to stay and be part of the fight…OR…take those fucking billionaires with you, the problematic ones, the racist misogynist ones. Take them. I mean, we can’t get rid of the ones who aren’t even here legally and have committed multiple financial crimes, but we’re trying to deport Native Americans. It’s just nuts. And if there’s no one with power and money left behind to yell louder than the rest of us, that’s on you, what happens next. You ran away? So stay away. Because you’re making it worse. You’re not helping.

Sigh. This is a frustrating world we live in. By the way, yes, we’re celebrating Thanksgiving, but there’s so many cultural things wrong with this holiday. So much that’s made up. So much violence toward the native cultures that was just shoved aside for the pilgrim story. So I’ll be thankful for a hike tomorrow, and thankful for spending time with family, and thankful for good food (although at the moment, the thought of people and lots of carbs is not really something I want…I’ll get there. But going to the store yet again today made me want to pillow fort for about a week), but remembering all along that we white people are appropriating disease-carrying xenophobes who don’t really belong here. Positive thoughts to all. It’s a rough week for a lot of people.

Teacher Dreams

Wrong day. I’m all discombobulated. Usually I work Fridays. Well, I still worked Friday; I graded all day. But not at school and not with kids. I finished one big assignment; today, I started the second one and got side-tracked by the possibility of a new kitten tonight plus having to clean out the girlchild’s room for new kitten AND girlchild (not at the same time), and then took all those assignments (packets in plastic bags, cat toys!) back to school and went for a hike and then came back here and continued to try to organize quilts and the room. Didn’t finish. I can’t get a handle on storage at the moment. I have some ideas for boxing stuff up and putting it in the garage at this point. I don’t know that I still need all the books I used when I started teaching school. I don’t use them any more. Not quite ready to totally get rid of them, but close. Because I use the internet now instead of books. So much more. But organizing takes time and this week off never has enough time to do a lot. Too much family and other obligations. Plus grading is always an issue. It’s not enough time off for all of it.

Anyway, so I’m still in the stage of hoping to get a lot done but haven’t gotten a lot done. Fun times. I forgot to write yesterday because it didn’t seem like Friday. I don’t know what day it was, but it wasn’t Friday.

So Wednesday night, I ironed things down…

And didn’t freakin’ finish. So frustrating.

Thursday night, I finished.

18 hours and 54 minutes, 152 fabrics. That’s a lot. There were a lot of small detailed things in this quilt…stuff I love, but that is time-consuming on all levels.

Here’s everything that needs to be cut out.

And then I barely started cutting things out.

It never looks like much. Last night, I did some more…

We went out and watched friends of ours play in a different band, so we got home at 10:30, but I still had about an hour in me.

This is the Chameleons, which is really the lead guy and then whoever he decides he wants to play along with him…

But three of those people are in the Radio Thieves, so we got free tickets and hung out and watched them and talked to some friends, and then skipped the main band, because we’ve seen them before and we were both tired. The Man did actually go to work yesterday; and I am tired all the time, so there’s that. There will be no sleeping in during break. Cats don’t care that I need more sleep, and I stay up later, so I’m fucked. Ah well.

I did manage to gently chisel the base off the head; I used the base to hold up the head in the kiln and the clear glaze dripped down and attached them.

And managed to seat the head, although not quite how it originally fit.

There’s going to be acrylic paint on this thing. No way not too. And there’s a lower part too. Anyway, I’m hoping to epoxy these three pieces together, but also to get the tree for the top of the head into the glaze kiln too. And add the wire for the coathanger, and then design and make the little quilt that goes in the belly area. There’s so many hours in this thing, it’s insane. It’s definitely been a learning experience. So many things broke off so many times.

I did hike about 3 miles today to make up for not moving at all yesterday.

It was nice and cool out.

Threatening rain with no rain.

As I was walking, I thought I saw something up on the hillside, but it didn’t move. I even walked forward a little ways and then came back, decided it was a tree stump, then took a photo of it as far as my phone camera could zoom, and still couldn’t decide. It still hadn’t moved. I hiked on and figured I’d check the spot on the way back.

Of course, looking at it now, that’s a fucking coyote, but at the time, I really was seeing a tree stump. My eyes vs the camera’s eyes. It seemed too dark to be a coyote.

I got home to a beautiful sky.

We had a lovely cool, rainy in bits but not horrible, week. This coming week holds no rain, and then it comes back the following week. It’s pretty cold at night (for me)…definitely in my sweats and socks and slippers stage. I must be getting old, because my neck gets cold, but I hate turtlenecks. I have a couple of scarves, one a friend made and one the Man brought back from Denmark? I think? They are doing the trick.

I saw these on a friend’s reels and loved them.

Please pause. I shall return in a better place. I will be pillow-forting for a few days first. Don’t mind me.

Yup. That too. Bingewatching bad TV, reading books, and dreaming about all the things I could finish if I just stopped sleeping and eating and peeing. Really.

These sweet boos.

It must be cold for them to not be killing each other. And I’m about to shake up their existences with another cat. Woo!

This is too real.

Anyway. There’s no school all next week, and I am thankful for that. I am thankful for being done with the packets, and for getting a new furry baby tonight. Whichever one I pick. I was interested in one and then someone else had gotten in before me (this was the third time it had happened), and I’d been offered a slightly younger one, and figured it would be fine from the description, and then the 3rd one came back up as available, so I’m meeting both tonight and somehow I’m supposed to decide. Which is why there are two carriers in the back of the car right now, just in case. Then home to acclimatize whomever ends up coming home with us, some cutting stuff out, some kitten time, more cutting stuff out, more kitten time. You know how that goes. And grading. I should do more of that unfortunately. Ugh. But also relax and hike and read and pee when I want. Plus drinking my tea warm instead of cold. Teacher dreams.

Hopefully Finishing

I’m two long days away from 10 days off. We’ve had enough days off this month, and I’ve just had two days when I didn’t have to grade very much and I was able to catch up in class, so it doesn’t feel horrible right now…not like a couple of weeks ago. That 4-day weekend was a nice recharge. Which is why it’s annoying that they tagged the other ‘free’ day onto an existing holiday instead of giving us another 3-day weekend. Apparently it’s all what the parents want, but since they take any days off as a reason to take MORE days off, I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m doing a makeup test today and another tomorrow. Then I’ll have a shit ton of work to grade over break (like always) and I’ll use the extra day they gave us on Friday to hopefully do a huge chunk of it. Knock on wood. Shit always happens when I plan, so who knows if I’ll get to do what I want or need to do.

I’ve spent the last two days carving the two ceramic frames I made.

This was originally going to be a sun, but it looks more like leaves now. Might need to change my color scheme.

I put a sun on this one to make up for it.

It’s been a while since I’ve used the squeeze bottles with underglaze in them, so the yellow was completely glued in. I’m going to have to bring pliers next time and see if I can get the needle out. This is relaxing…this is also about 2 1/2 hours of work, just in the carving. So not fast. Nothing in clay is fast except those people on the wheel maybe. Even then, there are so many steps that it isn’t fast.

Ironing is progressing. It’s taking longer than I thought it would, but some of that is me, I think. Slow. Tired at night. Trying to get other stuff done before I start and then starting late. Here’s Monday night…

And last night…

All I have left is a bunch of little tiny objects on the rug, so each one needs to be considered within the whole, and then colors chosen for just that object. Then I do it again with the next object. So it takes longer than say the water, where I pick four fabrics and then find all the pieces that are those four colors and then iron them all down. Bigger space covered with less thought, although it may take a while to iron all the pieces. It’s not the same as having to consider all the colors around it and make sure it works. I ironed a snake, a plant in a pot, and a cat. That was it, I think. I really am almost done. About 100 pieces left. I don’t have to cook tonight, but I do have pilates and the trash needs to go out, so those are time suckers. But not huge ones. I’m looking forward to being done with the ironing and onto the lovely meditative process of sitting on the couch with an animal or two and cutting out a thousand pieces. It sounds delightful. Then I can go back to standing and ironing after that.

Things that are stressing me out: not having a table of contents for the unit packet after break; losing my prep period today to a parent meeting when I need to be working on said TOC; my car brakes squeaking; the leaky sprinkler; the pool vacuum not moving; whatever I haven’t done that I’ve forgotten I haven’t done. Yeah. That’s a silly one.

OK. Today I am giving a writing test. It’s not easy. Yesterday one kid said, “I watched all the videos but the answer isn’t in there.” Oh my. Yes, my dear. You will need to use your brains this time. Thinking. Hard. The worst part is having to monitor their access to the internet and AI and their older brothers and sisters. Like do your own work, please. I am also trying to get them all organized to turn in these giant packets, plus finish all their work, and that’s frustrating. But ultimately, their problem, not mine. Pilates after school. Probably some lesson planning. Then ironing. Hopefully finishing tonight. Please. It’s time.