Something Pithy

On my tombstone (there won’t be a tombstone because I want to be tree mulch when I die, not in a box), it will say, “She was tired.” Seriously. So much of my life is about tired. And sleep. And the lack thereof. Too much to do.

We survived the first day of school. I think. If I look back at last year, I should be totally exhausted every day this week. So that’s nice. Nothing new. I did manage more quilting, although only 2 1/2 hours last night. I was hoping to get all the outlining done, but I have a head, a tree arm, a giant cloud, a sun, and a lightning bolt to finish. Then I can do the background, which is bigger than I thought it was. I forgot about all the stuff around the tree branches. Definitely not solid in there. I’m 12 hours in…

I finished this woman first…well, after the cat…

Then walked out of my office and saw this…

Boychild added the little dog…who was perturbed. Calli didn’t even move. She didn’t even open her eyes. Old lady…

This is the woman I didn’t quite finish. That’s where I stopped. One arm done, one not.

It was just about midnight. I’m trying to go to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m going to have to quilt all that background tonight.

It’s not huge, but it’s not small. Either way, I think I’ll be buying binding tomorrow. Then I can get it washed and ready to put on Saturday. Before I hike. In my sleep. Because that’s what it feels like right now. Sleepwalking and hot flashes.

More yarn bombing from Sweden…

I wish I had something pithy to say right here, but I need to finish this cup of tea and another before that’s happening. Good morning, world.

Instead I Pour the Milk*

You know how to solve the problem of being able to fall asleep at night? Work your butt off moving everything around your classroom into five different places and running around like a chicken with your head cut off, run about a million errands after school, where you realize they must have closed the other office supply place so you end up in a Walmart of all places, which means going in the wrong door and walking past ALL the things to find post-its for today but NOT the printer cartridge, but that’s OK because after your chiropractor puts everything, including your ears, back where it belongs, you kamikaze through your other favorite place, Costco, where you find the printer cartridge, and then come home and attempt to get off the couch for a while before making dinner and then quilting for 3 hours. Oh yeah! Damn! Gotta go to bed because the alarm goes off too early. And yet, I was awake when it went off, going over today’s lesson in my head, step by step, even though I’ve done it before.

Fell asleep just fine. Exhaustion has its pros.

Today is the first official day with kids in the room…the new sweethearts who will be in my dreams (and nightmares) for the next 10 months, the names I need to learn, personalities to negotiate, grades I hate the grading stuff. All the paperwork and the meetings and the crazy schedule stuff that started yesterday with my co-teacher, trying to balance our classes. We did it. Someone will fuck it up for us soon, but we started balanced for once.

Anyway. It’s the first day of my 16th year of teaching. Must be old.

Did I quilt yesterday? Damn straight I did. I’m gonna knock this thing outta the park. Here’s face number one…I think I did them all upside down.

Kitten communing with my chair. She just wants to be wherever I am.

Face (and body) number 2…still upside down. It’s because the majority of the quilt is quilted and in my way, won’t fit under the machine, so I’m trying to get enough space to actually quilt. Yes, I quilt with a regular home sewing machine…so everything has to fit in there, under the arm.

Kitten side eye. She chirped at me, so I photographed her. Not sure that’s what she wanted.

Face number 3. Still upside down. Body too.

I guess I did these two upright. But they’re small.

So everything on the hill and in the water is done…all I have left is the two large tree women at the top and then filling in the empty space. I quilted for almost three hours yesterday…I’m up over 9 hours so far, so I don’t think it will be 20 hours after all. I think binding purchase on Friday is totally in the cards. Get the binding sewn on by machine on Saturday, start the hand work. Ready to hand off to the photographer by next Friday. No problem. Ugh. So tired right now. But motivated!

The man is in Sweden in some tiny village, and he sent me the local yarn bomb, although they apparently call it guerilla knitting. I’ve heard that before too. Theirs is pretty fancy though…

Possibly his absence is why I’m getting a lot done? Or not. It would be nice to have someone else cook…wait…I think that’s happening tonight. So that’s cool.

OK, so progress made, it continues, off to the day job, wish me luck, I’m about to mutilate 145 or so names. Because even if you look at the list and think, oh that’s easy, it’s Jonathan, I’ll be OK with that one, then there are either two of them with unpronounceable last names or he doesn’t go by Jonathan any more, now he’s something you’re never going to remember. Some kids just don’t look like their names. It’s weird. A product of way too many years of teaching, I think.

More caffeine.

*Suzanne Vega, Tom’s Diner

Who I Am, Who I’m Not, Who I Wanna Be…*

As I get my room ready for the new school year, I wonder where all my fake class money went from last year. Have I been robbed? I had to stash a bunch of stuff in weird places. Have I not found a stash yet? I also wonder where my stash of floor pencils went. Floor pencils are those I find on the floor and then hand out to the kids who never have one. I don’t need to do that this year (although I still will…thrifty genes handed down through generations), because I ordered pencils this year and I found a stash from last year that I forgot I had, so I have about 1000 pencils to hand out. They’ll be gone in about a week. Plus I have all these spiral notebooks from when I used to use them for science notebooks (I now use packets that we grow as we do more stuff…easier to haul home when needed). I should totally sell those with the fake paper money that I can’t find. And where are my seating charts? No one knows. Seriously. I did something with the master at the end of the school year, but my brain refuses to tell me what. And please please remind me next year that YES I do need the square bigger post-its for the first day. The tiny ones won’t work. In fact, we should devise a lab JUST for the use of the tiny ones, because we misordered them and we have a lot. Plus I have 36 times 8 rulers now, so I will never ever ever need to buy any again. I don’t even know how I did that.

My white board eraser was moldy. I need a new one. I need a new nail file. Broke the first nail yesterday before I cut them all down from summer length. And if you want to regularly hit over 10,000 steps a day before you even leave work? You should become a teacher. So easy.

My library book is digital and it’s about to expire and I’m not quite done and I don’t have a lot of time to read today. It’s OK. I turned off the wifi. They’ll never catch me. No fines.

I got home and about a third of the bougainvillea was gone. Stolen!

Nah. Boychild at work.

We took the dogs out for a walk…about 2 miles. I hadn’t been on this bit of trail before…

There’s a great view from one end of it…north…

West…rocks…puppy wanted to climb, but probably snakes.

And south, Mt. Miguel in the distance. You can’t go to the top any more. I guess I’m glad (ha!) I did it before it closed.

It was cloudy and muggy all day, but a little cooler than it has been. A relief really.

Pretty clouds.

I forget how much time gets eaten up by the job. I didn’t start quilting until late, almost 10 PM, and then I was tired and probably not very efficient.

So no, I didn’t get four hours done last night (laughs hysterically). I probably won’t tonight either. I’m about 6 1/2 hours in though, so I must have done about 2 hours last night…mostly the volcano bits with the two grayed-out figures in front and the skelly. I also did one of the graffiti walls. Tonight, I’ll do the other one and then move up the slope. I need to get more than 2 hours done tonight. Right this minute, that doesn’t seem possible.

I’m hoping to maybe hit the quilt store for binding fabric after school on Friday, but that means I need to be done or almost done. We’ll see. I have a hike Saturday night, so I will lose the whole stitching night to that (which is a good and healthy, although probably exhausting thing). That said, I have nothing else planned this week but surviving the first week of school. Always a challenge.

*The Fray, You Found Me

Always Good to Have a Plan

Monday morning. You are cool and foggy and mostly quiet, except for that bird with a death wish that just divebombed my office window. Obviously it couldn’t see the cat that just about launched herself through the window screen at it. I have about an hour to get my brain to wake up and hopefully my stomach to stop wanting to regurgitate nothing into the atmosphere. I love these new diabetes meds…I’m nauseated for at least two days after taking them. I thought I was in the clear yesterday because I didn’t feel sick right away, but no…it’s here. Bleck. It’s funny that they advertise weight loss as a side effect. It’s because you’re too sick to eat. It is better this week, though, so far, knock on wood, so that’s a plus. Awake. An hour. Because then I have to meet with the principal (yup, already in trouble…NOOO. It’s a union thing) and I have to have my brains about me for that. And then I have to find everything I shoved into cupboards at the last minute to hide it from the summer school teacher who was in there and only broke one cupboard. Sigh. It’s all good. There are no kids today. Maybe by Wednesday, I will be used to sleep deprivation again. I was even DREAMING when the alarm clock went off. YES. Restorative REM sleep. What a thing. How dare the real world interrupt such bliss. Actually, it was a bad dream, so that’s OK.

So how am I doing on the quilt? I am doing fucking awesome…thank you for asking. I met my goals for the weekend and I am On Track to Finishing. On Time. I even emailed the photographer and reserved time, making sure he wasn’t going on a trip for Labor Day weekend (he’s not). I am On It.

So Saturday afternoon, I finished all the stitch down.

It was a total of 7 1/2 hours, less than the 10 I was predicting. Once I got the tension problem solved, it went fast. Here’s the back…

I always check the back for obvious stuff that I missed stitching down. Honestly, it doesn’t usually help. I find them when I’m quilting…the missed bits. People ask why I stitch down…the fusible doesn’t hold particularly well, even when I steam it, so this is my solution.

I take lots of breaks while I’m sewing…my brain (and body) needs them. I was wandering around the yard, cleaning up, watering, and checking on the bougainvillea plants we took down to almost nothing. There’s new growth! On 3 out of 4 of them, at least.

That was quick. There’s always the chance the 4th one won’t come back…if not, we’ll pull it out and plant a new one. This time I’m not letting them grow up into the trees. I swear.

Then I came back in, realized I had a backing fabric that hadn’t been washed (it smelled like someone else’s laundry), which made me paranoid about shrinkage but also allergic reactions to any chemicals, so I washed it, cleaned the floor in the entryway (that’s why I was outside…recycling stuff from the entryway and putting stuff in the garage). Then made dinner while the laundry was going. Thought about drawing, but didn’t. Then around 9:30 PM or so, I started piecing the backing, ironing it, trimming the batting, laying it all out, ironing the top. I got it all laid out, covering most of the floor, when the man texted that his band was done with their show and he was packing up.

Crap. So I had limited time to pinbaste before he’d be back and wanting to come through that door. Well. I did it. Got it done about 10 minutes before he came home.

It was a pretty easy process…

They didn’t need to be pinned close together…the quilt is pretty flat, unlike some of them.

That’s because it’s mostly applique and very little background showing…

I have the biggest problems with the ones that have a big piece of background showing in the middle, with big appliques on either side. It’s hard to keep the center flat in that situation.

I quit there. It was late. I was tired. I hit my mark. All good.

Sunday mornings I do my weekly journal layout…I like color. Buying color pens. Satchemo likes to help as all cats do, by batting at pens and my hand and sticking his claws into things.

I’ve been calendaring my week like this since the beginning of the year. I think it helps. I spend about 15-20 minutes on Sunday dealing with the whole week and transferring stuff over from last week, and then it’s maybe 1-2 minutes each day, crossing off stuff that got done, adding new stuff, and transferring to the next day. I think I’m better at organizing that way. I still use a variety of online systems as well, but they support each other.

Yesterday afternoon, I started quilting…which is an awful lot like stitching down except with dark thread…

I found this outside while peeing a dog…I can’t tell if it hatched appropriately or was eaten.

Dinner included Johnny Depp. Always a good thing. I won a gift certificate to MishMash in Barrio Logan. Good food.

Although it is in a different location than where it used to be. Use the map, not Yelp.

Then back to the quilting…

Lots of quilting…

I finished the whole mermaid and all the watery bits…

There she is. At this point, I went back and used the monofilament to catch the bits I’d missed…you see that pin in the photo above? It’s marking a bit I forgot to stitch down. Plus there were some other smaller parts that needed stitching.

I got the flag quilted as well.

I am moving slowly. Everyone keeps coming in and asking when I’m leaving. I should be leaving now. If it were a real school day, I’d need to leave right now. But it’s not. I just have to be there before the principal’s meeting. So I have time to make the second cup of tea, finish the first one, and make my lunch. Brush my teeth. Pack the car. Pet the cat. Slow start to the second day back. Ugh. I don’t like mornings. I do like this quilt though.

I quilted 4 1/2 hours yesterday. I’m aiming for 4 hours a day. I realize I won’t make that every day, but I also have the weekend. I’m hoping to get binding fabric Friday or Saturday. We’ll see. But there’s a plan there. Always good to have a plan.

Gonna Read for a While

In case you’re wondering why I’m writing so early (because this is early for Kathy on break), it’s because I’m sitting in a dead silent jury room, half (or more) asleep, after fighting my way through motorcycle accident traffic. Honestly I have zero brain power right now, and I tried going to bed early (for me), but I was still the first one up. Hoping for no jury, but you can’t predict that shit. I have had so much anxiety about this process…I hate being forced to sit like this.

Anyway. Onward and upward. Trying not to read too many political things. Our country…what a disaster. Even the quilt world is full of it. I start so many responses in my head…such a difficult world we are in.

Kitten held hands with me yesterday. She feels me.

So yesterday, I did manage to get my butt in gear eventually and quilted the two little quilts.

They’re so tiny, it doesn’t take long.

Fully quilted, ready to trim…

I didn’t put a real binding on these…just trimmed them to size and zigzagged the edges with a heavier thread underneath. There’s probably a technical term for that.

Now I just need to decide how to label them, hang them (after this exhibit), and attach them to the boxes. No problem. I have until Sunday.

Then I hung out on the boychild’s bed with the dogs…long enough to decide to walk those beasts. Might be my last chance this week.

Lucky dogs. We went hunting for the vernal pool. Very little evidence of it in summer.

But sharp eyes (not mine) spotted two baby California horned lizards…we must have disturbed their hanging out together…

Hard to see…

But very cool. I’ve only seen 3 or 4 of them while hiking, and never so small…not even an inch long.

Then dinner and more weaving (whoops, no picture)…and then I really wanted to finish drawing last night. The last woman went in. And I think that’s it. Ten hours to trace the stuff that was on the other drawing and then do the rest.

It doesn’t sound like much.

I did start numbering, but I knew it was a big job, so I quit at 488 pieces. I’ll finish the rest tonight and then start tracing.

That 488 got all the waves and everything in them, including the Earth Mermaid, numbered. So maybe a third? Hard to say.

Gonna read for a while.

Beat Me Up with Your Letters*

Late post today…wish it was from sleeping in and relaxing, but I’ve been up for hours. Took one car into the shop…I’m tired of the driver window not working. Then drove to pick up another quilt…well, quilts, because some little ones were in their shop for the last year, and they just gave back the three that hadn’t sold…so those are back on Etsy. I’m never sure Etsy is working very hard for me, but since I sell about one small quilt a year on there and the expenses are much less than that, it can’t hurt. I don’t work very hard at my Etsy account though. None of the larger quilts are on there. They’re too expensive for that market, I think…and I suspect even some of the smaller ones might be too. Probably most of my stuff is too weird for Etsy too.

Anyway, I also bought the binding fabrics for the two quilts that are now ready, because Yes! I finished quilting the long skinny one yesterday. I finally managed to sit still for like 3 1/2 hours (it’s been hard folks) to finish. Here’s the heart and boobs…

The whole thing stretched out over my chair…

Did the face…the pin is another place I forgot to stitch down. Done now.

And then I went right into quilting the background…there wasn’t much of it.

So there’s two ready to be trimmed and bound. Maybe later today? I have a lot going on today.

Then I realized I had quilt class today and nothing really to work on. I have a bag I could finish, but I’m missing some materials and haven’t had (made) the time to get those. So that’s out. I could take the binding with me, but I’d have to take all my stuff with me to do that, and it’s too much to deal with. So I remembered those two little quilts…last week at class I trimmed the Wonder Under. So I spent about an hour and a half last night ironing it to fabrics…I think this more complicated one has about 23 fabrics in it (but 90 pieces).

I am keeping track of time on these, so they’ll be for sale after they’ve been in the exhibit they’re getting made for…so December maybe? I can’t remember when the exhibit closes. It’s a California Fibers’ exhibit at Soka University in Orange County. I have four larger pieces in the exhibit, and then these two small ones will be part of a wall display our whole group is making. It should be cool.

I just used the same flesh fabrics from the quilt I just finished. It was easier. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on these.

The second piece only has 30 pieces, so it will be quicker to get done.

I may have underestimated my time with thinking I could finish them in a couple of hours. It’s going to be a bit longer than that. But now I can take them to class with me and get them cut out. That’s a step in the right direction.

So I didn’t get time to draw last night, because I was doing those. Plus I had book club last night. It was an interesting conversation about The Power by Naomi Alderman, especially in light of watching the second season of The Handmaid’s Tale and dealing with politics over the last few months. We spent a lot of time talking about social implications and nature v. nurture…always interesting. My book club is sci fi and fantasy based, so we do spend a lot of time on the science of things, which I really enjoy. I used to review the books I was reading on here pretty regularly. Honestly, I’ve spent most of the last 5 months reading the Expanse series…I have one novella left, and then I’m totally caught up until the new one comes out in December. I’ve really enjoyed the stories but also the portrayal of women in this series, which seems to be a bigger issue for me now that I’m old and mostly invisible. I read one of Philip K. Dick’s books, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and spent the first three chapters just chafing at his women. Sigh. It makes it harder to read…and watch, honestly, when they turn them into movies. Maybe I’ll try to write more about what I’m reading here. Again.

Anyway, so getting some more stuff done today, although probably more hobby stuff than art stuff. That’s OK. There’s progress…that’s all I need.

*Squeeze, Is That Love?

I Can’t Feel a Thing from My Head Down to My Toes*

I keep thinking I’ll get so much done, but then reality kicks me in the head. I did quilt. I did draw. I even walked dogs. All good things. I also drove 2 hours to pick up a quilt and went to the chiropractor. And made dinner from scratch. Still all good things. I did not finish the quilting. I didn’t even finish the outlining. That’s OK. I’m going to do more today. There’s progress…

Although, even though I checked the back for missed stitchdown areas, sure enough, there were three I fixed yesterday…the octopus tentacle was just one of them.

Where the pin is. It’s OK. It happens most times.

Then quilting the rest of the legs, above the knees…

Then the dogs earned a walk…and it was cooler (although still humid) yesterday, so we dragged them out to our regular place. I’ve seen the stinky melons on this vine, but don’t remember the spiky balls. So many plants around here have spiky balls for protection…

And I don’t think I’ve seen these out there ever. It’s weird, because I was just there maybe a week and a half ago…so maybe the bushes were there, and the extreme heat made them flower?

Lovely cloudy skies…cuts down on the temperatures. Not so today.

And wild roses…not sure I’ve ever seen them blooming here. But they were beautiful.

I made dinner…it was lovely. No seriously, it was. I’ll be eating leftovers tonight before book club…for a book I read over a year ago and don’t remember (I just wanna hang out with my book-club mates before school comes back and screws up my schedule). Then I finished all the orange balls (fly stitches) and started on the pink balls (bullion knots).

Second to last set of balls.

Then back to quilting, up into the torso, which was a bit complicated.

Uterus done (it’s not a vajayjay, people). Stomach, liver, intestines (it’s not pornography…it’s parts).

Full view of that section. I have the upper torso, arms, and things floating around. Not a small amount left, but not hard.

OK, quilting is never really HARD…it’s just time consuming and I’ve got a hard time sitting still sometimes. Like now. Hence the walk in the middle of quilting.

When it’s late and my co-housemates all go to bed, they prefer it if I’m not quilting. Apparently the WHOP WHOP WHOP noise of the machine with my music loud enough to cover that is disruptive to sleep. Who knew? Luckily, I have another project in process, so I moved into the living room to work on the drawing. I seriously haven’t started drawing before 11 PM on this thing most nights. It’s too hot in that room. I need to buy another fan. I used to have it in a certain place and it was easy to unplug and move. Now I share it (what!) and it’s not so easy to move. So a new fan would be smart.

Anyway, I had decided that the mermaid sea mother needed a viewpoint, but I had already drawn in that space. So I could use liquid paper, but then when I trace, there are multiple lines that show up with the light and it’s confusing. Usually that’s what I do, but this was a fairly straightforward cutout. So I did it.

Then inserted paper behind and drew the earth.

I added a few more things to the plastic trash.

And then broke up all the water spaces. It looks really complicated, but I just needed smaller pieces of fabric for easier ironing. Lots of dead fish. But I think the ocean section is done. Although looking at this, the space under her arm looks empty. I need to visualize a sand fabric back there…it will be fine.

Then while I was driving to Oceanside yesterday to pick up my quilt, I had some ideas for the last figures…definitely a breastfeeding woman. Faceless though…standing for many women? I guess. There’s another one on one of the other waves that I didn’t ink last night…she’s just in pencil.

Here’s the whole drawing (ish…the top is falling off the back of the light table). As you can see, I’m getting there. Also penciled in is a volcanic area, and I need to put a skeleton in. And then maybe a bird or angel or something? Still considering that. Cherubim? Yeah. Maybe.

This will be a fun one to explain. It started out as one thing and morphed into 17 other things and I think all I can do to explain it is to call it my brain on politics right now. It feels really bad. Although the Thai soccer players are out! That’s good! Distract me from judges and laws and stupid policies and tweets and everything else. We can’t look away…we don’t dare. But Shee-it. So this quilt is that. All that.

I spent about an hour this morning going through upcoming shows and deadlines and organizing for them. I don’t know if I’ll be able to enter everything I want to, just because I have a finite number of pieces available. But at least I have an outline and some organization for that. I do need to iron fabrics for the two little ones though, because they’re supposed to be done in 11 days. OK, stop hyperventilating. It will be fine. They’re small. You could finish both of them in about 2 or 3 hours if you wanted to. Shush.

What I need right now though is breakfast. And then once I finish the legal stuff I have to do today, then I can quilt all afternoon. It’s warm, but there’s a breeze…and two fans in here. One day at a time. (don’t think about the school stuff you have to organize before Friday. Shush.)

*Genesis, That’s All (so I had this significant other who used to give me shit for some of the music I listen to, and this is one of the bands he shamed me for, even though Pandora picked it this time. But I like Phil Collins…and his bald head…and his earnest voice. So I guess it’s a good thing that SO is out of the picture.)

All You’re Giving Me Is Fiction*

So the good news is that I’m released from jury duty all this week, so once again, I feel like I have to get EVERYTHING done this week. No really…car fixed, will done, chiropractor (oh hallelujah on that one), shipping stuff, calling back on insurance stuff, all the crap I never have time to do during the school year. But also, art. Because that shit needs to get on with it. Funny, I have people tell me all the time how prolific I am, but I’m sitting here staring at some deadlines instead of dealing with them. So I have calendars and white boards and to-do lists that remind me, and I look at them and then panic. I also have a task manager that tells me how LITTLE I’ve gotten done, when you consider that I am not going to work every day. I can’t explain that. I know that the pressures of school force me to be very efficient in how I work, and during the summer, my brain kinda rebels and refuses to behave appropriately, which is probably something that I need. So sometimes I just roll with it.

Hi Calli. Speaking of someone who knows how to roll with it.

Yes, I was hanging out in the boychild’s room with the dogs and the boy’s foot. NOT WORKING.

Then I came in here (two fans still on…it’s not as hot, but it’s humid, and my hot flashes have ramped up majorly in the last month…I can’t stand it sometimes, I feel like I’m on FIRE. Before you tell me how they will go away, in my family, they don’t. My grandma had them until she died at 83. My mom is 77 and still has them. This is my world.)…and I finished quilting this fucker.

Too many years. Not even anything amazing. Just something I did while watching kids play soccer. All it needs now is a binding fabric.

Apparently I didn’t buy that in 20-whatever when I put the borders on.

Then while watching the TV after dinner, I did 3 or 4 more balls. There are only 3 or 4 more of the orange ones. I’m getting there.

I figure I’ll be done with balls by the end of July, and then I’ll sandwich this one too. Aack! Never gonna finish quilting everything. Get one thing out of the pile and put another thing in it.

Speaking of quilting…I did start quilting this one, just the outlining. It’s small, so it shouldn’t take long.

I’m actually hoping to be done with it by tomorrow, so I can buy binding for it and the other one at the same time, then get binding on and do some handsewing? Maybe Thursday? We’ll see.

This guy likes the sliding glass doors outside my studio. The cats like that he likes that window. They find him fascinating.

I kind of do too.

So at that point, it had cooled down somewhat and I headed back to the light table to work on the big drawing, which needs to be done this week too. It’s close…

I’m finishing up the water section…then I’ll finish the land section and put some stuff in the sky. I’m looking forward to all those things. The art things.

But before that, I need to go pick up a piece of art up in Oceanside. Long drive, but it has to be done. At least I can do it…I find the whole thought of not knowing what I can plan for each day very anxious-making. So when they release me from the jury duty for a chunk of time, I feel very relieved. I like having control of my time over the summer, since it’s so hard to do during the school year. I’m sure there’s something psychological in that, but whatever. I’ll take each week I can get…although now I worry that they’ll try to assign me to a trial in the last week, which they can do (thus extending the service time an additional two weeks, which puts me right into the start of school) and then I have major scheduling issues, because I pushed everything on either side of the service dates. But whatever. Let’s revel in this week and get some shit done.

*Neon Trees, Everybody Talks

I Turn to You, You’re All I See*

I didn’t get up early enough yesterday to write. I had to rush around dealing with animals. I went for my annual mammogram which was quick, easy, and painless. No really! It was. So I was convinced I’d have to go back in because they did it wrong. They also gave me this hairband for free. Apparently hair was getting into the scans and freaking out the radiologists, but they can’t reuse the hairbands.

So I tried to give it back, because you know, medical waste, reduce costs. But no. It’s mine now. We squish your boobs? You get a hairband. And everything was fine. Cleared until next year. Thank you.

Simba tryna make friends. Or just clean Calli’s nose. Hard to say.

Satchemo sleeping on my quilting chair. So I didn’t quilt for a while, because…respect for cats.

Eventually he left…this is actually the 4th of July…I finished the quilting around everything…

And then I started on the background…

And then I took a picture of these beetles mating.

And went back to working on the background.

Sewing around these embroidered trees was a little hairy…

Then we went down to Campland on the Bay for the show…this was the view behind me. It actually got cold eventually.

I do know I would never ever camp here…they’re packed in like sardines. It’s crazy crowded. And a lot of people who are not necessarily my tribe…I can handle it for an evening, but all of those kids are gonna be up at 5 AM…right next to your head. No way. But it was fine for the evening…I finished the wild dog, although I need to comb his fringe.

And then I finally started doing these crazy flowers…I’m on the July blocks? I think? But the instructions for the flowers are in the January instructions…which live in a notebook. So I finally took a picture of the instructions, then read the two sets of instructions (because it’s not exactly the same) like 300 times, and then did it and went OOOOHHHH.

Like that. So I have about 30 of those to do. I think.

This is the man doing his best impression of an old man telling you to get off the lawn…he was looking at the view behind me and all the crazy shenanigans people were getting up to when you’re at an urban campground in San Diego on the 4th of July.

I just tried not to look. Although I faced that way so I could duck when the kickball was headed toward me. Plus so many ways to desecrate the flag…and I don’t really care about that, but oh my eyeballs. At some point, you just laugh and shake your head and be glad you get to leave at the end of the concert.

Later that night, behind me were a million people and eventually about 5 different fireworks displays, which was cool…

It’s still not as cool as having them right over you though. It was a good show. The food was eh. Remember that for next year.

Girlchild asked me for a picture of us from when she was little. I sent her this…

Mom on very little sleep…looks like Thanksgiving (jacket, up at the mountains), so she’s about 3 1/2 months old. Ugh. The tired years.

Not that I sleep well now.

So yesterday, after the boob squishing (yes I know my brain is all over the map. Welcome to Kathy on Summer), I went to a friend’s air-conditioned house yesterday and had a hot flash from hell (I’ve been having lots of them in the last few weeks), so she had to turn a fan on me as well. And then I got cold afterwards because menopausal bodies are fucking insane. But I was trying to do stitchdown on this quilt. Because I started looking at the calendar again and I’m being fucking inept this summer.

But my machine’s tension was being a cranky ass bitch. So I kept having to stop and rethread and try to persuade it to work. Very frustrating. I did get almost halfway up (basically I’m about to do the uterus). So that was good. But it’s so freakin’ hot today, I don’t know if I’ll get any more done. I do sit at the machine with a fan right on me, but ugh…doesn’t feel like enough. If I ever remodel this room, maybe it will get air conditioning. Maybe. Except SDG&E wants us to reduce electricity use today (it’s supposed to be either 106 or 109 degrees, depending on which weather app you look at).

Last night, I finally got some balls done…in fact, I finished all of the second color, which was the Pekinese stitch. So that’s 2 out of 6 colors done.

Then I stared at the colors that were left and tried to decide which one was orange…and started fly stitches…

Seriously, the one next to it? Not orange. Blush. Ugh. Or maybe the pink one is blush. No, I think it’s pink. I don’t even know what the 6th color is. Whatever. No one but me (and Sue Spargo) will know. So not important.

Then my brain was hot and tired. But I didn’t want to not use the time. I feel like I’m losing time. So I stared at the blank sections of that drawing that’s been sitting on the light table for a long time, then figured out where to put the first line of waves (I’m taking two separate drawings that were put together in a long horizontal thing and I’m sort of stacking them and then adding and taking away).

Then I traced in the female figure, the hand, and the oil drums from the old drawing. There’s more going in…most of this base drawing is getting tossed though. And I have to decide where the bottom is and what’s going on the hill above it. There’s a couple of issues going on in the drawing…obviously some women’s issues, but also environmental. Currently it’s named Womanscape, but I don’t know if that will stick. Remind me when I don’t remember what I called it.

OK, today I am working for a while on actual school stuff, and then going into survival mode from excessive heat. I do have a pool…I wonder if I can put the sewing machine on a float. Except there’s a foot pedal. Hmmm. I need an engineering brain for this shit.

*Coleman Hell, 2 Heads

Might Be Over Now, but I Feel It Still*

My definition of a break is different from vacation. Vacation is when you get in the car or on a plane and you travel somewhere and hang out there and it involves not sleeping in your bed and possibly eating weird food. Vacations are cool. I went years without vacations because I couldn’t afford them, and as it is now, I don’t do them a lot (still money), but I try to do one a year for a week and then a few smaller ones. This year, I’m going to Boston (excuse me, Waltham) to visit the girlchild in November. It’s really hard (for me) as a teacher to take time off during the school year. It’s such a pain in the ass to create good lesson plans and hope a guest teacher won’t completely fuck it up and teach the kids something completely incorrectly (sigh…it’s way too common) and then I lose days when I come back, trying to correct their misconception AND deal with behavior. So I avoid it.

I rarely get to travel during summer, because of that lost paycheck. It’s hard to plan to spend a chunk of money when you know you won’t have any more coming in. I currently have a list of things I need to buy but will need to wait until September (or whenever the credit card cycle starts that will bill in September…teachers, you all know what I’m talking about). I would love to vacate right now. Really. I would. We tried to set up a weekend camping trip, but we waited too long and all the campsites are booked. And I can’t plan anything in July during the week because of the silly jury duty. August is already a disaster schedule-wise.

So no vacation right now. Staycation? OK. Go see some music, maybe hike a bit, possibly kayak, go to the zoo? I don’t know. Something I don’t do during the school year very often, because I’m so buried. But maybe that’s my resolution for the 2018-2019 school year? More weekend things that are less about work and more about being a relaxing human. (I suck at relaxation, you may have noticed.) This is a break though…a break from the job and the kids and all the other crap and that in itself is a good thing.

Anyway, my car window got fixed yesterday. I was worried that it would be the wrong window or something else would go wrong, but it worked out and the gardener who accidentally shattered it with a rock ended up paying for almost all of it. So all that turned out well. I was expecting to have to spend more time and energy on the issue, and I didn’t have to. So that sort of freed up my brain all day to do a bunch of different art- and fiber-related activities. I think it was the first day since school got out where I felt like I was on break. Because no school. No doctor. Only two errands and they were done early. Nice. Need more of that please.

So I started out with trying to finish the ironing on this…another cat! Shocking.

And some tiny sewing implements…

Then I started ironing it onto a background, but I needed to go to my fiber-related summer social meeting. So I packed up some bits and pieces and headed out. I cut the Wonder Under for the two small quilts…

These lunch containers work well for keeping pieces separated…the sandwich one doesn’t though because the divider doesn’t go all the way up.

So those are ready for fabric choosing.

Then I finished sewing all the wooly bits down on this, September’s blocks.

I also pinned October’s pieces down to that blank block, but that was when I got home…and I stitched a little on (I don’t know what month I’m actually on? July?) the bigger piece. I’m getting closer to done on this. I didn’t photograph any of that.

Then I ironed the rest of this down. I like her. She’s ready to be stitched down.

I’ve been trying to keep doing yardwork, but mostly in the evenings because it’s too hot otherwise. Last night, I was entertaining the dogs while whacking at trees and bushes that haven’t been trimmed for a million years. I lost the puppy for a while in there, and Calli kept bringing me half-chewed sticks to throw.

I will probably never finish back there.

So I can’t do the stitch down on the skinny quilt until I finish quilting this. I don’t want it to go back in the pile. So I quilted for an hour or two, until I was almost out of thread.

It’s not hard. It just takes time. Thread purchase on the list for today. I didn’t want to buy more unless I knew I needed it. Now I know I need it.

So after all that, running out of thread, I decided to try drawing. It’s always hard to get back to drawing if I haven’t done it for a while. It’s like my hand stutters. I have an enlarged old drawing, I have this original drawing from 2011 or 2012, and then I have this cat on my lap. Huh.

Anyway, so I started drawing the righthand figure again, but now I have an issue because I like parts of the old drawing better than the new and I like parts of the new drawing better than the old. Aargh. So I think I’m going to copy both real size and then put them together? Or maybe I’ll copy both enlarged and put them together?

I just don’t know. Or redraw it again. Sigh. Maybe that. The shape of the old one is better but what’s in the belly of the new one is better. Fuuck. OK. Well no decision there, eh? Nothing new. Indecisive brain for two weeks now.

OK, so today…buy thread, make some copies (decide at some point what I’m copying?), pick up the ceramics I painted last week, go watch some music and grab some dinner. Easy. Not too bad. I can handle it. I might even feel relaxed by the end of it!

*Portugal. The Man, Feel It Still