Punctuated…

Middle of the week. State testing. Pro: some time when I’m not teaching. Con: state testing. Not a fan of the testing, y’all. Not a fan of the long sitting (or standing for me) and trying to keep kids on task/awake/quiet. Don’t understand the purpose of it all. And although we have short days for the kids, and we get to have a lunch for once (which is nice), I’m then pretty much useless for schoolwork for the afternoon. Which sucks. I did get some grading done, which is good. I have a plan for Friday, when I have to be out in the afternoon for literacy. Also good. I’m completely NOT planned for next week or anything after. Well. I know basically what I’m doing. I just don’t know what it looks like. Stressful. I’ll get my head around it eventually; just probably not today. Today is the second day of English testing, then lunch with friends, then union meeting and a late pilates class. It’s a lot. Tomorrow is a new sex-ed curriculum meeting because ugh.

Monday was yucky. Mostly because of the stuff after school. I’m not a fan of all of us reading and listening and taking tests in the library as a staff. People are noisy, my brain is overwhelmed, and I can’t think straight. They give us stuff and expect us to be able to process it immediately, but this is not how I learn. It’s frustrating. And the ‘homework’ they give us…it’s concerning. I know kids need to learn to read. I’m completely pro. I’m concerned though when they talk about using my (shitty) curriculum to set up supports for all the different levels of literacy. Because I would have to create all that. It doesn’t exist. And I’ve spent four exhausting years creating things and I don’t think I can do a fifth. Not the way it’s being presented right now. The amount of thought and insight that goes into considering that for two whole kids? Now multiple that by 130 kids. Or more. Hurts my head.

So my solution to that crazy was to go do ceramics. I added things in the bottom.

I guess I was feeling whimsical? It happens. I spent about an hour building things. I’m still waiting to get the tools to finish the sgraffito planter. Maybe Saturday?

Then I came home and worked for a bit, then traced for a while. I forgot to take a picture, which is OK, because they all look similar. I traced again last night after going to the gym and reading my book for a really long time and booking a place to stay when I visit the girlchild in July in San Francisco. I’m excited about that. We didn’t get our Spring Break trip due to money issues mostly. Summer is looking equally bleak. Lots of painting and furniture moving and handing money over to contractors to fix the flooding issues from January. Not fun. So having a short trip in there IS fun. Here’s three of the five yards that are now traced after last night…

Twelve and a half hours into the tracing, at about 1075 pieces so far, 600 to go, probably at least another 6 hours. Fun times. It is actually very meditative. Just long. Big complicated piece.

I graded through most of testing. These strata things were fun.

For some, I guess. Some kids were just confused by it, even though I did a sample with them the day before to show them how. Hopefully I’ll be able to do more with it next year. We ran out of time. We always run out of time.

Anyway. Today. Kinda long, but punctuated by good things. Hopefully chill.

I Like Your Butt…

Hey. I’ve thought every morning this week was Saturday, and I was wrong about all of them. Including this one. Today is so not a Saturday; it’s like the antithesis of a Saturday. Give a quiz, then take your kids to an assembly, then do duty, then go to an art opening. Collapse somewhere appropriate (bed or couch), rouse self, grade things, trace Wonder Under, sleep. Hopefully. The dog is here without the boychild and sometimes he’s a rabble rouser (the dog, not the boychild…well, I mean, IDK about the rabble he might be rousing). Did I just use some conjugate of ‘rouse’ three times in the last paragraph? My brain must be trying to tell me something (DRINK YOUR TEA WOMAN).

Things that were awesome about this week: My teacher’s aide covered all my sciencey boards for state testing this week so I didn’t have to. She’s amazing. Really. I will miss her efficiency.

My piece from class that I made in February or March finally came out of the glaze kiln, completely fucking awesome.

I love this…even the brown splotches. I am not a perfectionist with glaze. At all. This is great. Imagine a tiny quilt in the center bit. This is awesome. I need my sewing machine. And time. Lots of time.

I love my current book, The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft. And it’s a series! Even better. Although maybe the next one doesn’t exist yet. Nope. Get writing, man.

“Strobing fistula”…that’s a quilt name. Or a band name. Or a medical diagnosis.

Progress report grades are done so I don’t have to panic for a while about grades. Also, state testing starts next week, so there’s two days I can grade while they test, plus two days I just have to manage kids and not present a lesson on something I’m unclear on. Like space. Ugh. I love space; don’t get me wrong. I just don’t know enough about it.

So I have a ceramics class tomorrow on sgraffito. Which is fun to spell. It’s less (for me) a class about the technique and more the experience with the instructor. So we’ll see how that goes. I had to go in yesterday and build something to practice on (I made a planter). It needs to be leather hard by tomorrow afternoon. I wish I knew how to predict that, but whatever. I’m excited to be learning something new.

I am also still building the world woman or whatever I need to call her. I’ve got ideas for the body cavity and ideas for adding to the world she’s standing on, and eventually I’ll start working on her upper torso, which will have to be separate until I am ready to dry her, because she doesn’t fit in my shelf. Ah well.

There’s a couple people I see in the studio all the time, so you talk. This one guy walked past and said, “your stuff is always so cute” and I’m like, WHAAA, that’s a BUTT…

And he’s like, “I was gonna say I liked your butt, but…”. Funny. Like that. The butt is a little saggy. Might be pretty real. The back needs some work. Added a whale tail.

And a wildfire…it needs smoke. I’m stuck in this place of not knowing how to glaze these types of sculptures. I’m going to have to think about it with the other female figure. She’s getting close to dry I think. Maybe. I’m doing it slowly. Anyway, this is fun. I enjoy it.

I’m also enjoying the tracing, although my thumb is sore…not sure if it’s drawing or clay or something else.

I’m up to the 600s. More than a third, less than a half.

I had to start a 4th yard. Lots of big pieces in the figures. Long leg parts.

Probably someone wants to know about the weird eye thing and the doctor. Well, it’s not my eyes. My retinas and optic nerves are fine. They are happy campers. All 10 layers of the retinas are attached firmly. So that’s good. But that means it’s my brain. In fact, we were finally able to figure out that I see it with both eyes…so that rules out the eyes anyway, because I see it in the same place and the same thing. So. I’m getting a brain MRI. Occipital lobe? Also the doc thought maybe it was a migraine aura…for two months? Apparently a possibility. She asked about stress. After I fell out of my chair laughing…well. So I’m keeping a headache diary, even though I’m not really getting headaches. I mean, I am, but they’re the normal kind that come at the end of the school year. Some of them have names and presences attached to them. All very weird. Trying not to think too hard about it. Because that’s more stress. Thanks, brain. Appreciate the message.

Yeah. I mean, not really, because I do still care; I’m just so tired of caring. And managing.

I needed to pick emojis for the next unit.

Seemed fair. The sex ed unit was harder…I’ll let you guess (and no, I did not use an eggplant, although I thought about it for a good long while).

Simba is a good boy.

The bear vs man thing is hysterical…and then so not.

It would be lovely to live in a society that listened to women. And believed them.

Ending with this…Faith Ringgold’s quilt on the cover.

Such amazing stuff. Wish I’d met her.

OK. Really. I can do today. I can. It’s easier than yesterday. I might need a lot of tea. A LOT of tea.

Write Fast

Up early, another doctor’s appointment, this one to figure out what this weird thing I’ve been seeing in my eye since March is…probably not an optical migraine for this long. So that’s been worrisome. I’ve had one batch of scans/dilations/bright flashlights and look at my ear things, and they found nothing, but it didn’t go away (they never do, y’all), so I got leveled up! And it’s a 3-hour appointment plus some other thing, and I can’t take a whole day off at this point, so I’m going in to school for the second half. Hopefully the eye dilation will be toned down by the time I get in. Anyway, it means I have to leave in 24 minutes, so write fast!

It’s OK, all I do is work work work (8:30 PM last night, 6:20 AM this morning) and make art (hallelujah). I did work on the clay thing on Monday, but as often happens, I forgot to take photos…I’ll do it tomorrow. The quilt is just being traced…it’s big and complicated, so I guessed about 20 hours…

It all pretty much looks the same, day after day.

I’m still on the second yard of Wonder Under…that will change.

I found a numbering fuckup…I managed to skip backwards 20 pieces and had to add ‘a’ to all 20 because I’d already used those numbers.

Good times. Rolling toward 1700 pieces.

I’m just about 400 pieces in, so less than a quarter of the way through…and just over 4 hours, so that’s impressive. I do usually estimate 100 pieces an hour, but it’s rare that I make that. I figured 20 hours for this…we’ll see.

In house progress, here’s one old fix from the previous owners…

That wood has all been replaced…

Then we realized there’s about three different colors of brown paint. Ugh. Picked one. Suspect no one (but you) will ever notice. Certainly I haven’t for years and I live here. They are slowly moving around the house and getting this bit done. Putting gutters in will hopefully permanently solve the problem of the water damaging the wood down there…that and digging out a trench around the edges. Fun summer project there.

From The Hexologists, the book I’m reading for book club.

Not that my anxiety needs any support in that. It’s well-versed in arming itself.

OK. Doc. Uncomfortable eye things. For a long time. School…teaching lunar phases again…yesterday’s lab had me walking them through each step…the instructions say, for the lower grades, you may need to walk them through this. 8th grade, y’all…not so lower. It’s OK. It was fine. My voice is shot though. Then pilates, then sleep. Oh wait. I might have to do some other stuff first. Like work, eat, trace. All good. Not the work part. That can fuck off. I had my final observation/evaluation review yesterday. I did fine. Wasn’t really worried about it. I don’t have to have another one (unless I get a psycho principal…had those before) until the year I’m hoping to retire. That’ll be a fun one.

Art. Meditating on Wonder Under later.

Did I Say Ugh?

Chaos weekend. Grades are done though. Last progress report of the school year. Hallelujah. Today is the day all the kids panic because they realize what their grades are and that they didn’t do anything in time to bring them up. Ah well. Learning experience. I can say it every day and it falls on mostly deaf ears. Moving on.

Today and tomorrow are lab days; not preferred to have them run right next to each other, and there’s a fire drill or something today I think that wasn’t on my list of things to avoid, so we’re gonna figure that out, but with a doc appointment Wednesday and some portrait thing for all of 8th grade on Thursday, there was really no way around it. Ah well. We survive.

I did do some art stuff this weekend. Friday afternoon, I did some clay stuff, getting the figure up on the world and making it look more worldlike, although the continents are a little wiggy.

I draw them wiggy too, so I’m OK with it.

The butt sticks out too much. Hopefully I can fix that. It looks good from the back, but the side view is a bit much. I also glazed this…

I was overthinking it. It’s not precious. I can always make another one with the 17 million ideas rambling around my head. I could make hundreds of them if I wanted. Or not.

I started tracing the big crones quilt. Nova was watching…perturbed by the big paper coming over the couch.

She’s scared by the weirdest things.

When she was little, she’d do everything she could to go under. I’d have to wait for them both to be sleeping to be able to trace anything.

I graded a good chunk of Saturday. It wasn’t fun. I don’t recommend it. I’m not really planned for this week yet either. Saturday’s dinner drawing.

It was also trivia night, but we sucked at that. Mostly. We weren’t planning on trivia night. It just happened while we were there.

Ah, grading middle-school boy work.

Nice udders.

Need more milkweed…

Tried to get some a week ago but it was hella expensive.

My haul from the neighbor kids throwing fruit into my yard.

There was another tangerine, but it was deep in a bush, so I left it.

I had an art meeting yesterday and they had this cool flower…

Fascinating things, plants. Finished stitching this during the meeting.

One more house to go.

OK. I need to get out of here. Construction people are here to tear up the outside of the house where it leaked. Fun times. Teaching gravitational pull today, plus apparently another lockdown drill? Ugh. I’m really done with school. I finished making all my test review docs yesterday. Just need to check them and then get them printed, do sub plans, post all the crap for this week, decide what the sub can actually do, then write an academic question. Plus clay and book club. I think. Ugh. Did I say ugh? I did.

Could Be Not…

Hey Friday. This week has been confusing. Doc appointment yesterday meant I only taught half the day, got up first and worked, then went to doc, then to school. It was tiring, but being at school all day would have been as well. Just a different tired. Worked a lot of hours despite the half day. Grades are due Tuesday and I’m trying to get caught up. Always. Always trying to get caught up. This weekend is crazy busy, though, and that’s without putting grading time in. Ugh. Last progress report of the year though. That’s finally happening! Woo hoo. Getting to the end will be sweet. I hope. Gotta survive the chaos before that.

Speaking of chaos, I finished numbering the big drawing. Took two nights…

and almost two hours…

Numbers in a circle are because I couldn’t fit the number in that particular part, so there’s a line going to it…

OR the piece continues…there’s usually an arrow to tell me that too, to look for the rest of the piece.

There’s 1644 pieces. Actually, there’s 1647 pieces…I have two ‘a’s’ and one ‘b’ because I missed something as I was numbering and I wanted those pieces to have numbers close to their neighbors.

In the past, I have double numbered pieces…somehow started counting 40 or 50 pieces below where I was and had 40 or 50 ‘a’s’. I’ve also skipped pieces before, up to 200 of them. So you never know what my brain will have done at 10 PM on a Thursday night. Could be logical. Could be not.

I do know that now it’s time to trace…and I’ll be here for a while. Maybe 20 hours? There’s some big pieces in there. They take longer to trace. But there’s also a ton of little pieces. Because I’m me and that’s how I roll.

There are 34 days of school left. Four of those are testing, one is graduation, there’s one field trip to Belmont Park, and I’ll be out for two days. It feels doable and yet the longest stretch of time possible to endure. And my surgery will almost definitely be the first week after school gets out. Sounds easy, quick recovery (knock on wood), good odds there will be no nasty surprises. The house is finally getting fixed from January’s flooding…the drywall looks great. So painting the hallway and doing carpet is on the summer to-do list, maybe painting the bedroom as well, but that might be a bit much for me. I’d like to relax, read books, and make art too. Plus visit the girlchild. That would be nice. Hoping to do that in late July. We’ll see.

Nova loves geckos more than they love her.

Actually, they seem to ignore her completely.

OK. Teaching planets and gravity today. Debating how to go about it. Thinking more independently than not. I think that’s the way to go for my mental health. I’ll do the notes with them, and then they can go do the slides on their own. Easier on all of us. I can get some grading done and they can go at their own pace. We did that yesterday and it was pretty chill. I’m up for more chill, especially with two labs next week. Which ended up two days in a row because of my eye doc appointment and some crazy photography shit we had to shove into the week at the last minute, plus there’s an assembly. Crazy week. It’ll be fine.

After school, I get some clay time (I earned it), plus tracing at home. Apparently cooking dinner. Then get through the weekend, getting as much done as efficiently as possible. Which is mostly how I roll. When I roll (read, hike, sleep should be part of this). Come back next week and do it again.

Meditation by Numbers…

OK, my art brain finally kicked in a little stronger. Not sure why? But I appreciate. Monday after school, I went to the ceramics studio and made a base and the start of the next piece. I really wish I had my sewing machine so I could start the fabric bits of the ceramics that are done, and I wish I had the brain power to figure out how to glaze the bisqued piece (too many decisions), but for now, I just wanted to start something new. I had an idea and there was a bowl in the studio to help me out, so now I have this…

A possibly much sturdier base than the previous one. I hope.

Then I started this…

Needs work…

Also needs to stay under 17″ so it fits on the shelf. Also has paper towel wadding to hold the butt up (it started to sag). So we’ll see how that worked on Friday, when I have time to go back.

Meanwhile, parts of the drawing were slowing me down…the one side on the left, for reproductive rights, and the bottom, under the women’s feet. I did add body bags to the right.

Monday night, I added the crouching woman with the man pointing at her, then last night, the rest popped in.

Thinking of women dying because they’re denied basic healthcare related to pregnancy, thinking of unwanted children or children born into families that can’t afford them because they had no choice, thinking about men who spill their sperm and are never held to the same standard as pregnant women, never have to be responsible. Society places all of that blame on the female. So yeah. I guess I channeled some of that anger. Then the base wanted a magma chamber underneath it all. Seems fair.

Here’s the whole thing…

The drawing is 42″ x 70″. Not small. Good though. I’m happy with it. Good thing because I’ll be working on it for the next three months probably. Time to draw it? Well the original drawing of the women was about 90 minutes to 2 hours (I don’t keep track ALL the time), and then drawing full size, which I do keep track of, was 6 hours and 12 minutes. Not bad. Lots of staring at blank paper though. Looking forward to making it. I’ll number tonight…hopefully.

I love when these things pop open. They’re so weird looking.

Nature is whack.

The book I started reading last night (that almost kept me from going to bed) had this great Author’s Note at the beginning…

I love that. I just need to know she’s gonna be OK.

Speaking of being OK, I have an eye doc appointment next week for the weird swirling black hole universe I see in the dark. They keep warning me about flashes of light and going to the ER (ah, retina detachment), but the last doc didn’t know what it was…he couldn’t see any evidence of what I was seeing (good? or?). So I got leveled up…to a 3-hour appointment. Woo hoo! Another morning off school. Ugh. Tomorrow is the boob surgeon. Next week, eye. Or is it eyes? I don’t really know. It seems to be the right eye, but I’m not sure it’s not my brain. So there’s that.

All fun times. Today? Teaching embryology (fun) and comparative body structures (also fun unless you have the kneejerk creationist class) who just refuse to see any of it. Whatever. I’m not in charge of you people. I’m doing my best to show you the things. And next week, with the doctor appointment and some picture thing the 8th graders have to do, I’m not sure where to put the lab I was gonna do. Ah well. Things will happen when they happen. It’ll be fine. Then pilates after school and book club (not sure which book, but pretty sure I read it). Then numbering that beast. I’m guessing 2000 pieces. And I’m OK with that. Meditation by numbers.

It Might Be Easy Next Time…

Hey Monday. Be nice.

So I was productive this weekend; always feels better than when I’m not. I got all three of the big plants I bought planted, although the first one was such a challenge that I thought the next two would be horrendous too, but they were easy peasy. Nice that. Don’t give up! It might be easy the next time. Am I done planting and weeding and trimming? Never. I met this guy…I left his weed standing so he could continue to shelter sort of under it.

It’s OK. There’s lots of weeds out there. I left a bunch. My protea is gonna bloom nicely this spring…

I have two volunteer tomatoes…one is inside (it’ll have to move) and one is tiny…

They’re both compost tomatoes. Best kind. I let the mice eat them really, they’re so tiny. Must have been cherry tomatoes.

So artwise, I got this one out of the kiln and now have to decide on glaze…

She’s from February and is meant to have a tiny quilt hanging inside her.

Then I got this one together and onto a shelf.

Hopefully she holds up. I changed her a little, moved the mug. Now I get to start something new…although I should figure out glaze first on that other one. Two drying, one bisqued.

Then I worked on the big crone drawing…

Added a barn owl and some bombers…and a cat.

Then sketched out what’s next down below…

Hopefully I’ll draw that tonight. And I did more up top…

Oh, I forgot, I framed this for a FIG show that will open next Friday at Liberty Station at the Dance Place hallway gallery.

My co-artist used this for a digital piece she made that I haven’t seen finished yet, and then I made that smaller quilt from another digital collage she did. So we’ll have four pieces hanging together in the show.

We also went on a hike Saturday…lots of flowers…

And one big coyote that kept traveling toward us until it found its way up the hill.

So one of the thing that has needed to be fixed for about 6 months is my stained-glass side window in the entryway. The supports had come loose and it would wiggle and make noise if the door was closed too hard. It’s been there since before we moved in, so probably from the 80s. The previous owner made it. The wood around it has been an issue too, so with the repairs related to the January flooding, I had asked for the wood to be replaced. It took a while to find a glass expert…

But he had a plan for it…enclosing the art glass in layers of tempered glass to protect it and weatherproof it and stabilize it. Sounds good.

So they leveraged it out of there on plywood…and now we have this lovely view for 4-6 weeks.

It has a tiny gecko door in the bottom left. The cats are excited. The entryway is also very dark now.

Saturday night’s dinner drawing…

They forgot about us so I got more of the drawing done. It’s been hard to finish one lately (and this one isn’t finished); they bring the food out so fast.

OK. So drawing tonight, clay this afternoon, staff meeting with homework (ugh). Teaching today is an assessment of what we did for most of last week. We’ll see how that goes. The previous assessment was eh. So many kids didn’t turn it in that it made it easier to grade. I did that this weekend, all but one class. So hopefully I can get through that class today as they’re doing the next assessment. Getting closer to the end…one more short unit, then test review, egg drop, sex ed, and I’m out! OK. That’s a lot. This week is a lot. Getting there.

The Wondrousness That Is Quilting…

Weird week. Grades were due (check). Roller coaster projects were due (check). Roller coaster project packets were due (check). I have a literacy meeting this morning, but teaching in the afternoon. Sub plans were due (check). Then Friday is a holiday. Gonna appreciate the hell out of that by getting 3 shots and 2 MRIs. Meanwhile, my heel is hurting again after a 16+-year break from no pain. Fun times. Can’t get a cortisone shot at the moment…blood sugar is confused by my existence. So hmmm.

In awesome sauce news, My Body. My Choice. got into Art Quilt Elements, at the Wayne Art Center in Wayne, PA, starting in March.

And I’m still quilting…in the fussy tiny bits that are the faces and hands of the justices. Monday night, I finished all the people under the umbrella, the umbrella itself, and one justice…

Then last night, I did three more justices…

And the roots under the Supreme Court building. I do end up quilting all their faces upside down, which isn’t really an issue. Seems weird as I’m photographing it though. I also cleaned out the bobbin enclosure. It wasn’t very dirty. I need to take the machine in once this quilt is done.

Monday, I tried to ship the sold quilt, but the UPS store that was supposed to be downtown and open late was no longer there. It was a big hole in the ground. When I called UPS (after walking a mile around downtown due to my stupid map app putting me half a mile away from a location that didn’t exist), they first sent me to another address, which also didn’t have a UPS, but at least wasn’t a hole in the ground, and then I called again (pretty pissed off by now, plus I saw more crack pipes in use on my wander around downtown than I have in a long time), and they were sure that hole in the ground had a UPS Customer Center in it. Nope. Very frustrating. Still frustrated. Emailed, told them to fix their website, make one store open later so real people could actually use it, etc. Ended up sending it with the Man to his work for pickup ($8 for that), because the UPS guy can’t come to my job, isn’t allowed on campus while I’m teaching, and UPS pickup can’t be an hour in the morning or afternoon, they apparently need a chunk of time. My last resort would have been driving around until I found a UPS truck, because the driver can sign for it. It’s insured, which is why I can only take it to a Customer Center. There’s one out here and it closes at 2 PM. UPS’ final answer was to get a friend or family member to take it. Great service, y’all. I hope she likes the quilt. I do. Yes, it’s OK to sell them, to send them off. I’m OK with that. The making is the most important part for me. As long as it’s documented in photos, I’m good.

I did grade all the roller coaster projects on Monday…well, I still need to do the math, but they’re done. And the kids evaluated them today, so I started cleaning up yesterday. They still need to take them apart, so that’s either tomorrow or Monday. We’ll see. They fall down really quickly.

They were pretty creative. I did cut this down from 5 weeks last year to 2 weeks, maybe 2 1/2 if I count the extra stuff we did at the beginning of the unit. No drawing, 3 days off the building, gave them labels (half of them still didn’t do them). No history of roller coasters. It’s not necessary and I wanted more time for electromagnets this year, plus more time for genetics, natural selection, and geologic time scale, which I barely had time for last year. So magnets, electricity (briefly), and light are next. I ordered cow eyeballs for dissection. Looking forward to that in January. Then we’ll do genetics, which is familiar ground at least. Although I need new stuff. The new teacher has provided a bunch of assignments, but no real logical story to how they all fit together, and then doesn’t answer emails or show up for meetings. I’m kind of done. I think this is about when I was done last year, although I still had hope for the teacher coming back from paternity leave. He gave me 6 weeks of help in February and March last year and then mostly ghosted me for the rest of the year. It’s just fucked up. Sigh. I spent an hour last night just editing a set of slides and a worksheet, plus I did happily find a book that has a ton of homework related to this unit. Bought that. Seriously, anything that helps. I’m tired of the workload. I’m either grading or planning. When I’m doing one, I’m behind in the other. Maybe next year will be better (she says until she retires).

OK. I miss my prep today. Better be fucking worth it. Need to plan literacy with my team after listening to the ‘coaches’ tell us a bunch of bullshit. Then teach…but it’s cover pages, which is chill. I might not have time to do my own cover page (again…didn’t finish the last one either) because I need to prep the labs for Monday. Hopefully my TA will be here today (she was absent yesterday). Then union meeting after school (ugh). Dark when I get home. I miss drawing. I miss embroidery time. I need to clean the damn house and take care of the yard. I am forcing time for reading my book every day. I’m allowed. The Man had tooth surgery Monday, so he is on soft foods for a few days…I probably will just eat leftovers tonight, work some more, then back to the wondrousness that is quilting. Blessed be.