Never Finished…

Hey. I know. I had a 3-day weekend. I should feel rested, like I got some extra time to deal with shit, like the world is wonderful. Huh. I feel tired. Might have been the snoring or the cat scrabbling at my back (he knows I’ll wake up and do something about it) or the dog barking at whatever the fuck he barks at. Not sure. I know the vaccines on Friday kicked my butt, so maybe that’s still lingering. I also know that I need to start a new big quilt because these little ones seem to stretch on forever and don’t give me the same hit or joy that a big project does. You’d think they would…multiple finishes in a day? Except it seems like you never finish and there’s just another step and you have to do it 10 times. Not a fan of production work. Which is fine. I don’t do much of it. Every few years, I get a bug (ha!) up my butt and do it again and remember why I don’t like it.

ANYWAY. Bug production is still happening. Saturday, at my quilt guild meeting, I sewed all the antennae and legs.

Then Saturday night, I decided to finish the edges of the two little quilts to go in the clay pieces…

I still need a drill bit so I can figure out how to attach them.

Not sure how I feel about them. But that’s OK. It’s all experimentation. I finished one of the bug edges Saturday night as well…

And two more last night…

I’m not sure I have the right thread color for the other two. Most of the thread I have is utilitarian sewing thread, in not many colors, or rayon thread, which doesn’t work as well for this. I don’t really want to go buy thread, so I’ve been using what I’ve got. I won a stash of little spools of lots of colors that I’ve been trying to use up. We’ll see tonight. But I still need to paint the canvases and then attach them to those. Delivery is Saturday and they only want four, but I want all of them done. I also want to start something new.

I went to ceramics on Saturday and totally forgot to take any photos. I put two things on the glaze firing shelf, checked the drying on the other two (they’re probably ready to bisque fire, but I’m overly paranoid), and carved some on one. I need new clay. I need a new big project. I need to finish the ones I have! While trying to fall asleep last night, I worked out the winged woman fabric parts in my head. Maybe that’s next. But also a new big quilt.

The parrots are here. They were quietly resting on Sunday morning…didn’t even know they were there at first.

Usually it’s very obvious they’re here. Also very backlit. Hard to photograph. Hard to see.

There are times when it’s useful to have all the things already in the house. I don’t have all the things though…yet.

OK. I’m not sure I have the stamina for school yet, but the fun thing about school is that it never matters if you are ready for it or not…it’s gonna happen. Teaching Newton’s second law and independent and dependent variables…which I have to talk myself through every time. Teaching those all week. Although we came up with one independent activity for them, which is blissful. Need more of those. It’s impossible to be ON all the time. Staff meetings after school…love those. Then back to ceramics. And cooking dinner. Don’t love that. Reading my book. And more bugs. Ugh bugs. Need to be done with bugs.

Off…by a Day

I’m often off. This is just writing though. The district has given us these two weird 3-day weekends. I’d say thanks, but they just tacked those two days on to the end of the year. So I’m not sure how useful they really are. I do know that I’m not used to having Fridays off (most 3-day weekends give us a Monday), so I was totally discombobulated. That’s not why I’m writing late…that’s because I had to get a fasting blood test yesterday and I couldn’t get in very early, so my blood sugar was a mess, and by the time I did that and got two vaccines and smogged my car, I came back and took a nap on the couch. Not a short nap. I just zonked. I barely got my glasses off (I put them on my knee, apparently). Around 4:30, I stood up and thought, ugh, I’m out of it. Also some combo of all that made me nauseous (not eating often does), so then I only had a sandwich after the blood tests (a desperation sandwich) and that was it. I tried eating other things, but no. Uh uh. Eventually appetite returned in time for dinner, but every time I do a fasting thing, it just messes with me. I have to do one later this month where I eat lunch during prep so I can fast for 6 hours before the test. Anyway, I was going to go to ceramics yesterday and I totally didn’t. I slept and read instead. Hopefully I’ll get to ceramics today.

I’m still doing bugs. I’m not doing a lot at the moment, I admit. I aim for an hour a night and I’m lucky to get 45 minutes in. Wednesday night, I stitched this bug to a canvas…

This is one of my favorites.

Then Thursday night, I tried to iron this other rainbow bug but the legs were cranky and kept shredding. So I cut another set and left them for 24 hours. That was the smart thing. I think I also did the stitchdown on the other 4 bugs. Then last night, the bug legs released from the paper just fine, I ironed it down, and stitched it down…

This one might be my favorite now. And then I sandwiched and quilted all 5 of them.

The Man has a wedding all day and night today, so I’ll probably trim and finish these, and paint the canvases so they’re ready to stitch down to those. I also need to do some quilting on a friend’s mom’s quilt. So that’s on the list. Plus a quilt guild meeting. I was going to an art meeting too, but they changed the time and I can’t do two things at once. Well, I can…I just can’t do THOSE two things at once.

Progress on the home front: I fired the totally annoying pool company I’ve had for three years now and hired the old one back (there must have been a noncompete agreement for a while, because I tried to hire the old one back at some point…I did not choose to leave them). My dad’s garden guy, who is apparently retired, came over and attacked the bush that hangs over the pool. He was very judgmental and quit because of safety issues (I’m OK with that). I’m starting to think I should just spend the $150 and buy the thing he uses to cut bushes, because my problem is the time it takes, and he just shaved everything and shoved things in trashcans. Unfortunately, the bush is still too tall and one area, I would have cut it back more, but the guy was cranky and I wasn’t going to argue with him. If he wanted the work, he would have stayed. Whatever. That’s the hardest part about keeping this house up and finding people to help. Dad has a plan for the shed roof, though, so that’ll hopefully get fixed too.

Wednesday night, we had Annie for a bit.

She ate two toys and pretended to gack the rest of the evening. Plus scratched the shit out of my arm. Still love her. Bowie or Luna got me last night, some sort of desperation leap out of the bed (cat, not me)…totally bloody scratches this morning on my arm. Fun times.

Here’s one of the possible culprits, curled up next to me as I read for hours yesterday because I couldn’t do anything else.

Well I hauled a bunch of trashcans full of shit around. So did the Man. It’s hot here too…not too bad right now, but in the 90s later. It’s fucking October…can I have Fall please? Just a little? I guess this is Fall, Southern California style.

Dude, I don’t even know what I want to be for Halloween this year. Maybe an otter.

OK, so I have to shower and get ready for a meeting in a few hours. I did some schoolwork yesterday so I could avoid it today. I just need to grade one class of homework and then post everything for next week. I’m sort of caught up for once (knock on wood…it won’t last long). I probably should grade all the loose papers in my notebook too. I forgot about those. I did a predrawing for the next big quilt, but didn’t photograph it. One leg is distinctly wrong. But my hands were still shaky at night from the physical crap (vaccines and fasting, even though I wasn’t fasting any more). I need to water today, plus walk the dog (and me), plus make my own dinner, work on quilty stuff, and go to ceramics. All good. I think I have to sew a bunch of bug antennae…I could do that at my quilt guild meeting if I felt that organized. Do I feel that organized? I’m not sure. Not at the moment. Maybe later.

A Me Thing

Hello? I’m sorry…95 degrees today? 97 on Monday? It’s freakin’ October? Some people are wearing sweaters this week in other parts of the country. No thank you. Too hot. Not a fan. NEED a fan.

Speaking of weather, the destruction caused by Hurricane Helene to the southeast…distinctly awful. I’ve seen too many art studios that flood waters kamikazed through, and that’s not even dealing with lost lives and homes. We have a friend who was supposed to be moving to Johnson City this fall, but they had delayed the decisionmaking. I’m not sure what you do. I mean, I remember when I was living abroad, people would always shake their heads at living in California, with “all the earthquakes”…that was before we were Wildfire Central. There’s certainly no escaping the crazy weather patterns caused by climate change at this point…there’s just mitigation, remediation, and plain old survival…if you’re lucky. I’m going to donate to somewhere…just haven’t decided where yet.

That same weather has delayed one of my quilts from arriving, which is not a huge deal compared to what actual people are dealing with…I see it made it to Jacksonville…if I’d known a hurricane was arriving…who am I kidding? I shipped it the first day I could, based on grades being due etc. It’ll get there when it gets there. The gallery probably has a bunch of pieces they’re waiting on. We’ll all survive the delay.

Meanwhile, my art here is all bugs, all the time. I have things in my head, but I need to get the bugs done by next weekend for delivery. And sanity. So I got two sewn down to the canvases on Monday night…

The third was fussy. The paint needed to be redone (they all actually needed it…sloppy painting the night before). This one, there was a flake of something shiny in exactly the wrong spot. I think it was the paint off the paintbrush handle. My paintbrushes are all ancient. So I picked that off…should have painted it Monday night, but ran out of time. Painted it last night, and then ironed the ladybug together…

I did two of each bug: one normal bug colors (for that bug) and one NOT normal…tending toward rainbows. I also trimmed the Wonder Under for the last bug. I had bugs in different stages of the project so people could see what it looked like in the demo. So now I have four ready for stitchdown, and hopefully the fifth tonight.

I also went to ceramics on Monday. I had this thing that was supposed to be another mug (ha!), but was way too big (I will never learn), so now it will be a planter. I had painted it with all the leftover underglazes and started carving it.

Or here’s the picture…there were so many people in the studio on Monday. It was too many people for me, really. I prefer a quiet Friday afternoon.

I need to make a decision about buying more clay. I did some touchup on the boot vase and reduced glaze on the paper bag vase…need to touch that one up a bit. I’m worried the glaze is going to run everywhere.

This is the opening between my kitchen and the living area. It’s usually not blocked by a baby gate, but we have an inquisitive kitten who has decided this is where he will climb into the kitchen 17 times a night. So baby gate.

Don’t judge the mess there. I can’t seem to get it under control. It’s totally a me thing. Not a priority. Why would it be when I have bugs to iron?

OK. Wednesday. The last two days, kids have been sleeping in class. Today is a lab. Hopefully that will help. I can’t be amazingly entertaining all the time. It’s exhausting. I couldn’t get into pilates this week (ugh scheduling), so I went to the gym last night (and finished my book! yay!). Tonight is book club. I read the book and three more in the series. It’s light, but enjoyable. Ghosts and dead people light. Not traumatizing. Then hopefully more bug things. I’d like to be done with bugs soon, finish the clay pieces, and then start the next big quilt. I like working on big quilts. I like reading big books. I like coming home to things that I’m already immersed in and can continue to be immersed in, instead of trying to start new things. Also a me thing.

A Deadline

Some weekends, all I do is try to check things off the to-do list. I did mop the kitchen floor. It seriously needed it. I watered some things. I will need to keep doing that. It never stops. I tried to find someone to trim a bush, someone else to clean a pool (I’m close on that one), and a solution to the pool shed that is falling down. Not as successful on that. I need a ton more money to fix all the things. I graded two academic assignments…I’m glad that’s done. It wasn’t really how I wanted to spend Friday night, but I was dogsitting anyway and not in the mood to get up and be active, so I just sat there, bingewatched bad TV (some YA ghost thing), and graded most of them. I finished the rest last night. That’s a weight off my shoulders. That gives me some time this week. To what? I’m not sure. Get a bunch of little projects done. I might need to start drawing the next big one. Not sure what deadlines I have coming up. I entered a show. I probably will get rejected from one today, so it seemed fair. I entered with three pieces that have never been shown, and two of them are not new. I figured I should give them a chance, and if I didn’t get into the show, oh well. No biggie. Don’t have to figure out how to get to the opening! Or deliver the piece. Weird attitude for an artist who likes to have her work shown, sure.

Here’s what Friday night looked like…

Lots of nervous Annie with Bowie. When Annie gets nervous, she gets very close or in my lap. Bowie was not impressed.

I graded things that looked like this…

This one actually made no sense for the question. I did have some that made more sense in the drawing than in the explanation. Sigh. Had to reteach what evidence was because of this assignment. It’s fine. I even graded all the kids who transferred to the new section on the other team. Cuz it would be mean not to.

The Man had a long wedding on Friday that his band played for…the last wedding they’re doing is this Saturday. These things are kicking their butts…so much prep and then so much waiting around. I don’t go to the weddings…no desire to sit through that. Saturday’s is at the beach, though, so I might wander down there and sit on a chair with my stitching or a book. Or just go for a walk. I don’t know. Bring the dog? Not sure dogs are allowed down there. ANYWAY. It has sucked for us…he’s exhausted on the day after, so I took the dog for a walk without him…both the dog and I needed it. Honestly, I think he needs it too…more exercise would be good for all of us.

Simba was definitely out of shape. But we did 2 miles.

Artwise, I tried to find a better finish for the bug quilts, something that took less time so the price would come down, but that would still look nice. So I got some 8×8 canvases and painted them…

And then attached the quilts to that…which is always a pain in the butt because the wood framing is inevitably in the way…

But it worked! I need to finish three more before the 12th? I think? Easy peasy. And I think I can finish the other two pieces for the clay the same way (minus the canvas)…but I need a diamond tip drill bit too. Home Depot trip. If I remember.

I drew at dinner Saturday night…

A bit better than all the car drawings I saw the night before.

Yesterday, the Man’s dad had a surprise birthday party at the Jazz Lounge over by San Diego State. It was a nice couple of hours…mostly listening to music.

Jazz isn’t my favorite, but this was mostly old classics, so I knew most of them.

I came home and worked, because it has to happen sometime. Today, at our staff meeting, we get to ‘debrief’ the poverty simulation from last week. Not sure what to say about that. Did I gain new understanding? Um. Not really. Empathy? Already had it. I guess it’ll be interesting to hear what they think we should have learned. And then we get to make phone calls for an awards ceremony. I totally love the awards part, but wish there were staff who could make the phone calls…there are so many translation issues when we call parents. I’m sure it will be fine, and it’s for a good thing for once.

That’s always me. Gotta prep a lab today for Wednesday. Gotta plan next week…and next week…and next week.

This is too real.

OK. School today…watching a movie…Bill Nye. It’s where I’m at. Vocab and preteach Newton’s second law tomorrow, then lab Wednesday. We have Friday off…random 3-day weekend. I’m using it to get my labs done, two vaccines (because you can’t get in to a nurse for a vaccine before or after work…it’s 8:30-3:30 only…like WTF?), and a blood test or two…fasting…so that’ll be fun. And a smog check! What a day. Maybe ceramics if I’m lucky. Gotta do some stuff at home too. Always. That shit…I never get caught up with that. My goal is to get the hallway done before the boychild comes home. I have 3 more weeks. I might get there. Nice to have a deadline I guess.

Buggy

Whoo! Finally made it to Friday. And the tea is cold. Back in a minute. OK, so lots going on. Trying to finish some small bug quilts I started back in July. I originally made these for the Oceanside Museum of Art street thing, where I demoed for an hour or so. I had one premade, some in different states of existence, and some I could do in front of people. And then they languished, as things do when they have no priority in the to-do list. They’ve been in the bullet journal list since then, but always at like number 4 or 5. So now there’s a place that wants to sell them for me (always a plus), so I need to finish them…but the original hand-sewn binding takes too long and makes it too expensive (yes, I actually charge for my time. I think it’s important that artists consider their time when pricing things). So I’ve done a satin-stitch binding in the past. I’ve also done some canvas wraps…so I thought I’d do a combo of that. Actually, the combo part came to me at around 10:45 PM last night. There’s a heft to putting these on a canvas that is helpful for people NOT thinking they are coasters. Which they’re not.

So process…find all the things I made back in July…figure out what step they’re at. I embroidered some legs Tuesday night and some more legs and antennae Wednesday night…

More legs…

These were quilted in July…just waiting on the embroidery and finishing.

I have some that are still pieces in bags. Not dealing with those right now. Also I have some that I ironed down at the event…

They need to be stitched down, sandwiched, quilted, embroidered, and finished. Probably not starting with those three.

And this is the one I finished that will be too expensive for this venue.

So last night, I did the satin stitch on one of the other ones…

Much less time. And I ordered canvases that are just a little bigger than these. They come Saturday. I’ll paint them and then attach these.

I’ve been keeping track of the time on the original drawings, but also a spreadsheet, because one side of the brain likes chaotic lists of things jotted on paper in whatever pen color I could find, and the other side likes rainbow-highlighted, organized columns of data. I’ll try to get the other three trimmed and satin stitched tonight with all the animals here and the Man at a wedding (I’m not crashing that party). Or I’ll grade things tonight…we’ll see. I should be allowed to do some art stuff though, although there will be an extra dog and you know how that goes.

I stitched on Zoom with friends yesterday…got this flower done (dog in background, fast asleep)…

And did a goodly chunk of this one (only because it is very simple).

Saw this online…

I agree. Just trying not to fuck up too much of my own shit.

This is from the book I just finished reading.

Yesterday I gave a lecture on what evidence actually is and also asked kids, after taking a test where people are in a moving car, where exactly the things were at rest…because they all were telling me that ‘objects at rest stay at rest’. So to have this show up in a book, and then the mitochondria thing, because that is the only thing everyone remembers…although mitochondria is plural, so it should be ‘are’. Pedantic, right? I know. Ask the history teacher how she feels about my correcting her spelling of ‘longitude’. Yeah.

TODAY! Is Friday. I’m giving another test. Sigh. It’s easy. Then they can read quietly (ha!). It’s been a weird week. We lost 11 students, transferred to a new section on another team. Which is good in the long run but was very traumatic for them and us in the short term. We’re still only planned a week ahead, if that. It’s fine; there’s stuff in there. It just needs tweaking. I’m too tired some nights to work at home…yesterday, I meant to grade things, but I left them at school (is that Freudian? Maybe?). Actually, there was something I could have graded, but I just remembered it, so too late. I have yet another early meeting today. I hate these. But tomorrow is no school. I’m going to go to ceramics in the morning, I think. And we’ll need to grocery shop later because of family stuff on Sunday. And next week is a short week due to a random school-board-mandated, 3-day weekend. Not gonna complain.

Gotta Go

I’m already running late. I’m not sure how. I filled out an art agreement, made sure lunch was ready to go, did the normal shower, feed dog/cat routine. I’m dressed and ready for school, minus shoes and socks and meds. And more tea. Could NOT sleep last night. SHUT UP BRAIN. Part of it was the hour before bed when I was prepping a quilt to ship and realized I hadn’t sent all the info to the people who were supposed to get it (I sent it to one out of four…not a great percentage) and I’d missed a form (note to art groups…just send ONE email with all the things…not two or three), so I panicked and filled that out at 11 PM. Whoops. A day late. The Man is shipping it for me, so that’s nice. OK, he’s dropping it off. Still nice. I should have shipped yesterday. Whoops again. Sigh. School really fucks you over. There’s no time for anything else sometimes (like when grades are due and you’re massively behind) and you keep seeing things that need doing and thinking, keep walking, you don’t have time for that right now. So yeah. Still not in a rhythm. Had a weird thought yesterday…maybe there is no rhythm any more. Maybe this is it. Chaotic event followed by overwhelming tasks followed by another chaotic event. Trauma after trauma. It’s not a great lifestyle…workstyle. Work is not my life. Even though it feels that way. I worked the whole weekend. I don’t want to work this weekend. How will I avoid that? Yesterday, the kids were taking a test and normally, I’d walk around and eyeball them, but come back to my desk and grade things. I couldn’t find the mindset for that. My brain was just tired of it. So I didn’t. Might have been a mistake, because I’m totally not going to have time in class today or tomorrow for it. Ah well. That sucks.

ANYWAY. How’s the art going, Kathy? Chaos. Good chaos? Maybe. I got into Quilt National! I’m going to try to go to the opening weekend this year. I didn’t go in 21 because COVID was still pretty rampant. In 23, we had no subs, and it’s a really shitty weekend to try to go anywhere for a lot of reasons. I think I’d like to go in 25. So I got into Visions and QN in the same year…nice. I feel good about that.

I finished quilting the second little quilt…

Need to figure out how I’m going to finish and hang these in the ceramic pieces. I need a drill bit.

Then I got an email about possibly selling stuff at Visions…and I had those bugs from the OMA Street Scene thing that I never finished…so I did some legs last night…

I like them.

Gotta figure out how to finish them quicker, and then I can figure out if VMOTA will even want them. I also glazed this yesterday…

The final is not going to be that red. Which is weird. But then I came home and read about this glaze and it runs a lot, so I’m going to go lighten the layers at the bottom and above the flowers to see if I can keep it from running in those areas. No, I don’t know what I’m doing. Why do you ask?

So I’m working on a bunch of little things that never looks as impressive as working on the big things, but I wanted to make space for those things to happen. The big one is in my head, percolating, waiting for me to finish all the littles. School! Holy crap, I gotta go.

School Breaks…

Rough way to start a week. No, I didn’t finish grading. I’m not even sure I can finish tonight. Two-hour staff meeting plus book club. I have about 20 more of the academic assignment to grade and a pile of redoes on homework. Not a ton, but I have to process it as well. And there’s book club tonight; have I finished the book? Nope. Oh well. I’ll go. I need a break from school. This weekend was not a break from school. My tiny breaks this weekend consisted of allowing myself a chapter here or there of the book, washing the dog’s butt after he pooped on himself, washing the boychild’s bathtub after I realized where the old lady cat had been pooping (I had wondered where she was hiding it), and watering most of the yard. Oh yeah, I had to pick up and reposition a trellis that fell over. I also delivered a quilt and got my blood labs done for the doc; she’s been harassing me, but with a 12-hour fast, I needed to do it on a weekend. That’s about all I got done. I did allow myself most of an hour each night for the little quilts…

Friday night, I cut out all the pieces for both of them.

Saturday, I ironed them together…

They’re super small.

Last night, I did stitchdown…

One…

And then the other…

And then sandwiched and pinbasted them…

I quilted the little one before I needed to go to bed…

I had to be up early this morning to deal with school meetings. I’m exhausted again. Not enough sleep.

I did go to ceramics after school on Friday, spending about 2 hours doing this and that. I did more on the mug…

It might be done now? Not sure…

I had this bowl I made out of leftover clay and it’s been sitting around, underglaze just waiting for a plan. I had one on Friday.

Some more underglazing and a little carving. Although now I’m realizing I didn’t do the inside of that one heart. OK. Need to do that. I can’t go today though…it’ll have to be tomorrow.

The paper bag vase came out of the bisque fire. I was texting girlchild pictures of it and she reminded me of the plan we had for it. But I had wanted to try some underglazing with a wax resist and then glaze over. So I painted a little thing…

I had some leftover underglazes. I hate to waste that stuff. It’s expensive. So I made an underglaze coat on this pot/mug/whatever the fuck it is.

I also picked up the glazed base for the winged woman piece…

I love how the oil spills turned out. I also love how it fits with the rest of the piece…

Next up? Wings and headpiece thingie. Bowie is not so sure about it.

Have to hide the ceramic stuff in bathrooms and the girlchild’s room so he doesn’t knock them over. He’s still a kamikaze parkour cat, despite the neutering. Nova doesn’t necessarily appreciate him.

She’s mostly just shocked at his existence…unless she’s playing with him.

This did actually start out as play. But sometimes she goes places just because he can’t go there with her, like the hammock.

The Man’s band plays a wedding this Friday. The singer made a poster with a GoGos’ image, adding in the guys’ photos…here’s the Man himself…

So goofy.

OK. Two meetings this morning, before school. Both student-related. Then teaching balanced and unbalanced forces again. I tell you, I’m not sure what’s happening the rest of the week. Prep period is definitely grading. And screenshotting kids’ grades for the new 8th-grade team that goes together on Wednesday. Plus? I lose 10 kids. Con? The work to get them out. I feel for the combo teacher. I’m glad I’m not them, for sure. And none of them know what’s about to happen. I’m losing one kid I really like. Maybe two. The others I can live without. Three I’m quite happy to see leave, maybe four. Then a 2-hour staff meeting about poverty. Hoping it’s useful instead of just “your students and their families are poor”. No duh. I have duty before that, so normally I need to pee, make tea, and find food before coming over…I’ll be late and it’s in the gym, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do the eating part. I’m going to need to. Blood sugar was low this morning. I’m feeling it. Then finish grades. For real. And book club. On the book I haven’t finished. Can I have a nap in there too? Not sure. Might be a contentious parent meeting with me as a rep (not one of my parents). Fun times. I’ll just be glad to be done with the first round of grades. The second round is due the weekend we’re going camping. I think. Ugh. OK. Going. More tea.

The Power

Hokay. Wednesday. I’m a little tired, I must say. Not sure why. Rejiggering my lesson plan for today, I think. Some catchup, some kids finishing stuff up, instead of starting the next thing. I may do a piece of the next thing, but I have two classes that need to finish yesterday’s thing still. It’s OK. It’s fast. But I hate having classes on different things. It’s just easier when they’re all in the same range of stuff. It’s Back-to-School Night tonight…set for 5 PM, which makes more sense for parents, but it means I have 90 minutes after school where I’m just there. I have grading to do and will do it, so I don’t have to bring it home (the first batch of progress reports are due next week, which seems really early). I have a lot of work to get through. I really just want to finish my book though. And finish another one by Monday for book club. I had to finally buy that one, because it was still 5 weeks out at the library.

Artmaking is going slowly. I am not giving myself enough time because of grading, unfortunately. It sucks. I hate it. I guess I lose Sunday afternoons? I don’t know any other way to do this. I feel like I lose half the Saturdays too. UGH. So I traced the two little pieces onto Wonder Under, which took almost no time at all…

And last night, I cut them out…

Superfast. Hopefully I’ll have the energy tonight to iron them to fabric. I’m not holding out much hope, but some.

Monday, I worked on glazing the mug still…

Anybody who’s thinking, oh, Nida will make a bunch of these and sell them…HA! My god, they take so long. Which is fine. I’ve always been more about the process than having a product to sell…obviously.

This already has 10 hours into it.

Consider time, materials, firing fees…

Completely unaffordable. Sorry y’all. This is not going to be a second (third? fourth?) income generator for me. And I’m OK with that.

Enjoy the video in the round.

That long thin quilt is going to this show…

In Miami, Florida. As soon as it’s back from the photographer. It still needs a name, but I think I had one somewhere. I just need to figure out where.

OK. School. Ugh. Redo plan for the day. Get the kids working independently for at least half of class time. Grade things. Prep for next week. Try to figure out how to efficiently grade the thing the other teacher fucked up. Sigh. Spend more of my prep time not prepping. Yesterday started badly with a last-minute switch of two resource kids who need support into a class with no support, literally 2 minutes before they were supposed to show up to my class. They needed seats, they needed to be added to my Google Classroom, they needed to be told not to delete themselves out of the other classroom until I graded things. FUCK. And no support? So that put me over 20% resource kids in that class, so after my complaints and reminders of how shit should work, I have support in there today. But the long string of emails leading up to that last one? I could have been included. So I would’ve known. But no. Not important. So my mindset during prep was to put on loud music with lots of swear words and grade all the makeup work so it was off my plate. Pro? That last bit.

Anyway. Today will be better. I command it. And I don’t have to try to cook after pilates, like last night, cooking after 7:30 PM. Tonight the Man cooks and I collapse. With my book, hopefully.

They All Change…

OK. So this week has gone from 109 degrees to a delightful 77 or so. The Man replaced the ceiling fan. School has been…interesting. It’s fine. Lots of chaos. Like give us a bunch of kids and have us get to know them and then keep adding new ones and taking away some of them as all their school attendances adjust, and then about 4 weeks in, upend the whole mess and create a new section, which unbalances every single classload in that grade level, and then, probably, y’all will do it again with the Newcomer kids who are coming into general education classes because they have graduated out of that program…but wait another two weeks before you do that, so we have chaos all over again.

Every year. So you figure your classes out and how they work and then they all change. And you’ve done rules and expectations and how things work in this class and then it all changes again. It’s frustrating. It makes the first 6 weeks difficult. But do grades! And independent study contracts! And do them now and fast. Because the kids won’t actually do the work, and they’ll lie about it, because they’re kids. Fun times.

I have not figured out the balance yet.

That said, I finished the little quilt, which will get photographed and get a name. I had it on a post-it note somewhere, and probably a cat ate it. Or a dog. We have both.

I just had a tiny binding and tiny sleeves to sew on.

Simba is entirely unhelpful. So were Nova and Bowie, who tried to climb either on the quilt or on my lap or both last night.

Until Simba won the position.

Cute little thing. About war. So many not so cute. And possibly already maybe sold? I don’t have a price yet and I can’t remember if it has to be for sale for the show I’m sending it to (I don’t think so…I think that’s the other show I shipped to recently). So photographer tomorrow, just in time.

What’s next? A giant drawing of my own choice plus finishing up quilting on two other quilts, one for me, one for a friend, and then some clay stuff that needs fabric. Coolio.

I got to stitch with friends last night…this is the second flower of five…

And no, I’m still not done with it. It takes forever. It’s cool when it’s done. And I like the process. But forever.

Bowie in low-energy mode.

Unlike at 6 AM this morning. Woke up everyone except the Man.

OK. Gotta go to school. It’s Friday the 13th. Can’t be worse than last Friday with its multitude of fights? Right? It probably can. But it’s cooler, so maybe it won’t be. Clay this afternoon. Shit ton of grading to do. Art thing tonight. The Man has a show tomorrow night at the Music Box (sort of; it’s on the street outside). I need a ride to the trolley station in the afternoon, because I’m not trying to park down there. I am tired. I want to read my book. Instead, I will go teach football with regard to Newton’s Laws. Or Newton’s Laws with regard to football? Not sure. One of those.

Dead Fan…

It’s finally cooling off…a week of ugh. And our bedroom ceiling fan died yesterday. So that was fun. I kamikazed over to Home Depot after school and bought a new one, but the Man will be installing it today, so we found one of those tower fans in the house (there’s like three of them) and put it on a dresser to keep the bedroom cool last night. The house does not release heat easily after a heat wave. My office here is still 88 degrees; it’s much cooler outside. But soon…it will cool off. At least the fan made it through the worst of the heat.

The quilting on this little piece took forever. I ripped out so much…I think because it’s small and any mistake is much more obvious? Or I was tired at the end of the day and didn’t stitch as well? I don’t know. I got all the outlining done Tuesday night and barely started the background…

I had the right color of thread. Miraculous really. And last night, I finished quilting…

And I trimmed it up, ready for binding. Which I’ll need to do quickly if I want it photographed before the deadline and shipping. It jumped up on me! Deadlines do that. I have a bunch of bits and pieces I want to do after that, while I draw the new big quilt. Which I drew in my head during the MRI on Saturday. Results came back fine, nothing that explains the visual disturbance. So good news, still no brain tumor or infarcty thing or blockage they can see. Bad news, they still don’t know what it is and they’ve run out of tests to do. So. There we are. It’s there, it’s not going anywhere for now, and I will be living with it. I realized as I was driving last night that nighttime is where it annoys me the most. I was trying to see where to turn into a road and the little swirly thing was right in the way. Frustrating. But in the larger scheme of things, better than cancer or MS or a seizure disorder or any of the other crap they kept throwing at me. A migraine that doesn’t hurt and will never go away. Except it’s not a migraine. Whatever. Moving on. Well, first make a quilt about it and everything else.

I’ve noticed people like quilts about one discrete issue, not many issues. Ah well. ‘Tis not how my brain works.

One of the shows I went to on Saturday was at the R.B. Stevenson Gallery in La Jolla for my friend Jeanne Dunn’s solo show Forest Bathing.

That’s her in the middle and the infamous Anna Stump on the right. I realized later that her new work kind of reminds me of Dr. Suess and the Lorax (I guess the trees?). But it’s very bright, colorful, and fun. Apparently this piece has a fourth panel…

My favorite part is the DNA tree there in the yellow. Jeanne works hard at her art and is a sweet person…glad to see her getting shows and selling stuff!

More pieces from the Techne Art Center show…

By Gail Wagner…

Interesting cyanotypes by Annalise Neil…

Rhonda Anderson…

These intriguing sculptures by Reginald Green…

They are listed as ceramics and mixed media…

Very colorful.

Ellen Dieter’s work is there too…

I’ll post some more next time. It’s a nice show…lots to look at. I strongly suggest you check it out.

Kitten is moving uber slow these days, but this piqued her interest…

She’s moved down onto the floor with the heat. It might be that she can’t get up on the table any more. She’s pretty stiff moving. Much like me after sitting too long.

This shit.

My school board may flip this way soon. It’s certainly trying to. Assholes.

Yesterday’s weird really red morning sun. Pretty sure there are fires out there causing this…

The smoke from the Line Fire in Riverside maybe? Scary fires in LA right now.

Oh, I did work on ceramics, on my mug, on Monday. I was tired and forgot half my materials, so I just carved for an hour.

Sometimes that’s all I have in me. I’m going to add more underglaze colors to it. If I remember to take the glaze box with me on Friday.

I found this interesting feather yesterday…

So polkadotty.

The last of the science lab apples…this was was truly trashed by Period 1, who didn’t realize I needed it to last all day and poked way too many holes in it (it’s used as a battery for one of the energy stations).

I went through 6 apples…and composted all of them afterwards. Poor things. Glad those stations are done; although they are cool…they are a pain in the ass for the teacher.

OK. Today. Test for the kids. Ha! Fun times. Finishing our first unit. Tons of grading to do, but glad to move onto the next one. I need to make 5 seating charts today, grade a bunch of homework, finish an academic assignment, finish vocab slides (I got next week’s done at least), and survive a union meeting. Ugh. Plus hopefully get a new fan in the bedroom (it’s still warm in there, really warm), take the trash out, and read my book. And put binding on this quilt! Because now I’m committed to delivering it to the photographer. So that’s a thing. It’s cool. I don’t know why it feels like the first two days of school is a week’s worth, but it does. How is it only Wednesday? Yeah. Well. OK. Off I go.