On Time Is What I Say It Is…

Oh yeah. Again. Lost days. I can’t remember WHY yesterday was a lost day, but it was. It wasn’t. I did things. I might not remember what I did, but I did things.

The current quilt: I’m trimming Wonder Under…

It’s remarkably slow.

I’ve made it halfway as of last night…

And it’s taken almost 5 hours. There’s two more yards to cut out. Just a lot of smaller complicated pieces. I won’t finish before I go on my residency. I’ll probably take the remainder with me, just as brainless filler. Along with other things. All the things.

I met with friends on Thursday and did some stitching on this…

I worked on it last night too, and it’s almost done. I’m taking it with me next week too. Like I said; I’m taking everything. Just moving the whole stash up to the cottage and then bringing it all back. Not really. But it kinda feels that way.

I thought I had finished all this until I was packing it up and realized the gun on the tank is not glazed.

In reality, I’m gone for a week and we’ll see where it’s at when I get back. This hand has broken off more times than I can say…it’s slightly lower than the board and the board doesn’t fully support it.

Stupidity on my part. Hopefully it will survive the next week. I am taking some clay with me…one thing that’s formed that I started carving into like three months ago. Another slab of clay to make something else to carve. I need to make the wet box today for that.

The girlchild is here for a long weekend. She cooked us dinner last night, but there is always time for Simba.

He likes it.

I screenshot this because I like it…

I actually have been trying not to use the word beautiful to describe people or smiles or eyes or hair or whatever. I’m not perfect at that though. But yeah, beautiful is not something I’ve ever been…and I’m OK with that. Or pretty honestly. And right now, I have another hole in my boob and an allergic rash from the adhesive patch and a scratch from Kitten. Oh, and acne at age 58! Ah well. I forgot to wash my face one night. So there we are.

Today. Today is packing and organizing and trying to be ready to leave tomorrow. Plus an art opening down in San Ysidro. And getting the office ready so Kitten can be in here without my carrying her out to the litter tray and food 5 times a day (yes, that is what I am doing at the moment.). Hopefully next week, I’ll be able to get lots of fun things done. And maybe blog on time (it’s my schedule, so it’s on time is what I say it is.). And maybe just be an artist for a week. I food prepped yesterday to help with that. I don’t need to think about what food; I just need food. Yeah. Looking forward to this, even though I am also anxious about it. That’s how the brain works. Art brain is racing forwards and the rest of my brain is trying to make sure there’s enough fabric. And it’s scoured. Crazy, right?

My Version of Late…

Hey. It’s summer and the weather is still nice, not oppressive. I’m still exhausted. Doesn’t help that I had to be up early today to take the dog in for his teeth cleaning. I keep trying to sleep in. Doesn’t work. I managed to get most of the office cleaned up, packed up and delivered two quilts to San Ysidro for a show opening July 12 (you should come…yeah, I know it’s a long way, but you should come anyway). I still have fabric that doesn’t have a home in the office. Maybe I should focus on that? I’ve scheduled 70,000 things, talked to a diabetes nurse about why my blood sugar is an asshole, and read way too many books. Is there such a thing as too many? I’m still pretty braindead, despite being out of school for a week now. I’ll get there. I’m just NOT there yet.

I haven’t been able to draw anything the last couple of nights…mostly getting dinner late and then it’s 10:30 and then it’s midnight, and I don’t even know what happened (see note about braindead). I did put the bindings on Sue Spargo’s Chirp quilt.

And sleeves. I found some fabric that had been in a plastic bin on the desk I use as a sewing table since the girlchild was in high school…it’s faded in a few spots, and it had a bunch of cat hair embedded in it, from when Midnight lived on it…or Babygirl? Not sure which cat lived in that box. But I washed it and the other stuff in there, recycled bits, stashed the rest. Got rid of the damn bin! There’s a lot of stuff in the sewing room/office/studio (it gets called all those things) that I literally do not know with what to do. Random shapes of cutting rulers. I don’t piece. I really only need the two I use all the time. I tossed some stuff. I had gone shopping for thread, now that Joann is gone (the store, not some woman), and I found three large spools of thread I can use in the bobbin for the next three years, if I can figure out how to set up the stand for them. Mooommmm!

So I need to do all the handsewing of the binding. I got about halfway through it last night. This is not a large quilt. I do have one more wool quilt that needs quilting. It’s bigger and way more complicated. I’m not there yet.

Last night, I spent 2+ hours at a school board meeting…this is the third they’ve held on the same issue, and they tabled it again. I get why, but jesus. I stitched through most of it.

This is a complicated block. Part of Rooted. Fun trees. It’s very portable, unlike Homegrown, which is the whole quilt at the moment. Sewing wool in summer is not ideal. But it works for braindead…and school board meetings.

No ceramics since Monday…maybe tomorrow. I’m worried about the pup at the moment. He had some weird bloodwork come back and then they called me and asked if he could have been exposed to rodenticide (um no?). So I’ll just feel better when he’s home in a few hours. This was the look on his face when he realized I really wasn’t giving him breakfast this morning.

Sorry!

I also put away like 10 quilts or more in the girlchild’s room and my own. Had to find one of the quilts to deliver today, which meant unrolling one giant roll, putting another quilt in it, and manhandling it all back together. Then a bunch of smaller ones went in three other rolls. I still have four (?) on her bed…three don’t have an official home yet. I’m waiting on one to see if it gets into a show. One of them is supposed to go in a roll that’s up in my closet. I figured after asking the Man (who is injured) to lift up and down two other rolls, I wasn’t going to do the third. I’ll do that today maybe. I figure once I get them all put away, I’ll get into something and need to pull stuff out…but I think that would happen after the girlchild visits, so we’ll be OK. She’ll be here in two weeks. Looking forward to it…figure the boychild will be gone on a fire strike team by then. He keeps getting called out and canceled to local fires. Which is good! We don’t want big fires that need strike teams. Well, I don’t. Fire crews get bored apparently.

OK. So put away the last four quilts, which means pulling that roll down. Eat lunch. Read my book. Draw some. Pick up the dog. Go to pilates. Totally not in that order. Stitch some binding. Doesn’t sound hard. Oh yeah, need to finish filling two greenery trashcans so I can put them out tonight. They’re both mostly full, so just some more sweeping and trimming and then manhandling those damn cans out to the front. See, I have a plan! Even though I’m running late on everything. My version of late anyway.

Boggled

I had to leave for school yesterday with only 9% of my book to be read. I think it said 18 minutes. Good book; wanted to know how it ended. Day job. It’s fine, I read during my prep period and then continued cleaning things and putting them away. I have a giant paper cut from all that, which I don’t appreciate. And a few bruises of unknown origin. Always fun. But yesterday was that great day when you get to the end, walk next door to your coteacher, and say, wait…what do we do with ourselves? Grades are done. Everything is set up for the next three days (well, besides whatever clusterfuck we don’t know about yet). I’m supposed to be at an awards breakfast in 25 minutes (ugh…that’s just for setup). But school is mostly done, besides the surviving part. And cleaning. It’s amazing. I’ve almost survived it. I don’t have to go home and prep, plan, or grade. A joy. Almost a joy. Still teaching today.

I still haven’t started a new art piece. I need to start drawing, and to do that, I need to not be exhausted at the end of the day. Haven’t gotten there yet. Wednesday night, I finished the Tinsel quilt for my mom…

It needs hanging stuff and I need to handsew the label.

Only 2 1/2 years. I thought it was less. Oh well.

Last night was my monthly stitching meeting with friends, so I worked on the June Rooted block.

Progress. This one has a lot of fussy little things in it. I’ll be here a while. This stuff is very relaxing though. I came home and kept stitching on the bits and pieces of the Homegrown borders, which have been sitting around and waiting for a good long while.

These are all Sue Spargo blocks of the month. I find them relaxing and fun to work on in between other stuff. I’ve got two of them to quilt as well, so I might do some of that in between other things this summer. We’ll see. At the moment, I can’t see past today, so there’s that.

Too true.

Dragging the Man out to a protest march tomorrow. I’m boggled by the crazy out there…not the protesters…the government. The lack of forethought for their behaviors. Yes, if you arrest all the farm workers, there will be no food, you idiots. One of my coworkers said they were only arresting criminals. You know who doesn’t go to immigration interviews? Criminals. People who are following the rules do. There’s no due process here, no checking to see if people have legal status. Hell, they keep throwing congresspeople to the floor. No questions! It’s terrifying. Mindboggling. Anyway. So I get to go to school today, sit through one promotion lineup, dump my kids off to turn in their Chromebooks, teach the rest of the day about goal setting (something no one is doing right now), handing back time capsules, then hopefully going to ceramics. Protest tomorrow. Two more days of school next week, mostly outside in the sun. Which reminds me, I need sunscreen for today. That’s important.

When AM I Reading Today?

I love that I said I’d be cleaning my classroom this week, because that hasn’t happened. At all. And it’s not likely to any time soon. I’m teaching, talking all the time, for the next three days, then we have a day of practice and crazy antics, then actual promotion. By the end of the day, hell, by prep period, I’m out of it. Today. Today I will use prep period wisely. I will. I swear. My coteacher and I will go get all the stupid signatures we need to check out. That’s my plan. The last of the to-be-graded assignments are due at 3:30 today. I have a union meeting after school, and then I’m grading. I came home yesterday and graded while on Zoom with my stupid school board meeting. Fun times. I had pilates (finally, I got in…I need the exercise and the time to concentrate on something besides school, something that’s good for me), so I didn’t go to the board meeting, but my stalwart coworkers stayed past 8 PM. It’s never an hour with this board…it’s always three or more. No efficiency there. We went to Belmont Park with the whole promoting class yesterday…my coteacher and I rode the roller coaster early (it gets chaotic after that).

Look! Real smiles! Seriously love me a good roller coaster. I didn’t go last year for some stupid reason. It does make for a long, exhausting day though. We combined our classes for the last two periods and watched Into the Spiderverse. We didn’t even start it over for the last period; just kept watching. For the last 30 minutes, there was a big ice cream celebration for most of our kids. We kept 7 and sat in the dark air conditioning. I don’t really know how I managed to stay functional during grading for an hour or so and then pilates, but I did.

The pro is that I’ve had some time to stitch in the evenings. I’ve been trying to get the flowers on the Sue Spargo Homegrown borders finally. It’s a lot of little pieces on a giant thing. During book club on Monday, I worked on her Rooted quilt…

Here’s the June block on top of her Tinsel quilt, which I’m finishing for my mom. It’s taking forever…

Teeny tiny binding requires tinier stitches. I’m finally on the sleeves, so hopefully, I’ll finish tonight. I have two more Spargo quilts to finish up. I did have a drawing pop into my head during pilates last night (don’t ask…it’s how Art Brain works…I’m trying not to fall over and it’s creating shit). I’m not saying I won’t start some art thing before finishing the two Spargo quilts…I haven’t made any decisions, because I literally don’t have the brain power for that.

Monday was ceramics…I painted the torso for the fourth time…this time, I actually covered everything, but I had to reattach that damn hand again.

I saved some of the mix of underglaze to patch the hand…smarter than usual. Friday, I’m hoping to start glazing more of the other bits, which will take forever. At least.

The base has been bisqued, but the colors were a bit much, so I finally decided to underglaze over them. I also want to do a wash over it all, but I can’t wipe that away without wiping the glaze away, so I’m going to have to fire it again. Expensive. That said, this piece has so many freaking hours in it, I’ll never be able to sell it. At this point, I just want to be able to finish it.

The crazy stuff I do for fun.

Here’s a sampling of kid stuff about sex ed…

Made me laugh.

A lot.

Sigh. That one. Literally they had a chart to help them fill this out. I mean, he’s not entirely wrong.

Anyway. I’m putzing along with all the things. I have a lot of things unfortunately. I did book my flight up to San Francisco to see the girlchild and all the art that’s up there, including my piece at Sebastopol. So my two summer things are planned. The rest of the summer is managing all the shit at home and getting things cleaned up and gotten rid of and painted and fixed and trimmed and planted. And sleeping and reading and making art. Maybe not in that order. Maybe sleeping first. For a week or two. Not that the living things (or my body) let me sleep for long. I would rather be reading my book today than teaching about sexually transmitted infections, but that’s not an option. Union meeting after school. Then grades. Then stitching of some sort. Wait. When AM I reading today (most important question ever)? Good question. Always.

Collapse

I had this goal to have written the massive Quilt National post by now, having missed two regularly scheduled posts. I had a great trip, easy travel, everything was awesome…then I got food poisoning once I got home. Fun times. I missed school yesterday…I think I actually missed the entire day mentally. Pretty sure all I did was sleep and try to drink things. I’m OK (shaky but functional) today, so I guess it’s all through my system. Going back to school today after missing three days with no clue how far they’ve gotten (although it does not look good). Today will be a catchup day, where I roll around the room on a chair, checking in with everyone. Egg drop Friday. Sex ed next week. It’s a lot. I’m not ready for any of it.

Besides the amazing quilts and people, I did do a few other things in Athens…not much though. I did some stitching…first on Zoom with my stitching friends…

Then more on the plane…

Finished this block at home on Sunday night…

I also went for a couple of walks…one with a friend…

And one on my own…

Ohio is very green.

Walked around an old mill that is now a garden center…

Some interesting things going on there…

Went to a winery…who knew Ohio had wineries? It was nice…

The girlchild was in Chicago at the same time…

This is how I learn geography.

I did manage to cut out some pieces for my quilt on Sunday night…

I finished the rest Monday night…before I went to bed for 24 hours straight. Or more.

I will get to the quilt post…it’s in progress. Today will be slow and lots of sitting down, I predict. I already canceled pilates. Pretty sure I’m coming home and lying down again. But who knows…maybe I’ll bounce back. Those younger years when that was easy to do…miss that. Not all of it…just that bit. This morning, I’m stiff as a board. Too much non movement yesterday. Sigh. OK. Take meds, go to work, survive it, come home and collapse.

In Between Time

Up early again…this week has been difficult for sleep, across the board. As I got more and more exhausted, I did a better job of falling asleep and staying asleep, until it gets light, which unfortunately is earlier and earlier. Ugh. Also state testing really messes with kid and teacher rhythms. We’re all off. It’s Friday! I’m not sure what day it feels like. Next Wednesday maybe? Unclear. Anyway, yesterday went OK except for the advisory class discussion on drop shipping as a current job choice. (No, they don’t know what tariffs are.) Like, dude, no one will hire you to sleep all day. Not happening. Anyway. There are 27 days of school left. Yesterday was also the pep talk of “you aren’t done yet.” Difficult for all of us. Today we start state test review for science…hard hard hard…all talking. Ugh. I may need some alternate stuff by the end of next week. Also, I thought I would be so efficient and get caught up on grading. Nah. Did not. Lame.

In art news, since I finished the banned-book piece, which I still need to photograph, I’m sort of in a stasis mode…by choice. I have a friend’s mom’s quilt I really need to finish, so that’s what I’m doing with my normal art time. It’s fine…it’s still quilting. I am doing a bit of embroidery (honestly, when I should be grading) on Sue Spargo’s Rooted blocks…this one is really nice.

Bowie wanted to smell this one in progress.

And I took it to my stitching meeting last night and kept working on it.

I think I have four blocks done of nine. We’ll be here for a while.

Then here’s the quilting…

I’m in the outer borders. There’s definitely something weird going on in the last border that I’ll deal with when I’m done playing thread chicken with the light blue thread.

I only had two small spools of it and finished one of them in the beginning of the third border, so unless I do a lot more squiggling stitching in the last two borders, I should be OK and not run out in the last two inches, but you never know. Then quilt around the corner blocks (fast) and the two outer borders just need outlining, and then I can trim it (it’s fucking huge…not sure how I’m doing that) and then putting binding on.

Meanwhile, here’s Kitten. She did not have a good day yesterday. It involved a ton of laundry and a bath. She’s looking pretty good considering all of that.

She was pretty mad at me at the end, but still loves me. So that’s OK then. It’s hard to know when it’s time. I keep thinking we must be close and then she rallies. Poor old lady. A lot of her current issues are because of the little boy cat, who doesn’t understand sick old ladies. Sigh.

OK. I’m waiting for solar to show up and turn off the electricity, probably soon. Then school, turn in huge packet (which I then have to grade), teach how to take a test (Step 1: stop freaking out. Seriously.). Then hopefully ceramics. Rescheduling telephone call with doc. The Man has a show tonight. I’m exhausted, but it’s a friend’s birthday party and I know the band is all freaked out because their lead singer may or may not have quit or taken a hiatus, so they’re all singing tonight. Well, not all of them. So I’ll go to that and see how much energy I have for it. Small confined space with lots of loud music and people and alcohol and whatever. Right now it sounds kinda hellacious, but sometimes it’s OK. Friday nights are rough though. Looking forward to going to sleep tonight and NOT having to get up at 6 AM tomorrow. For once this week. I did finish my book by the way. I know you were worried. I wasn’t.

Physically Impossible.

I’m sitting here with two computers in front of me, deep breathing, trying to get two things done at once, which is, of course, physically impossible. But one computer is incredibly slow, so I type in between, in the wait times while it responds. I’m also waiting for the electric company to show up to remove something so I can get a solar battery installed. Unfortunately, there are bees in my composter (right next to the freakin’ meter, talk about bad timing, y’all). I think they’re chill enough right now that it won’t be an issue, and I’m hoping they leave by tomorrow, because otherwise, I’ll need to delay the battery install. Sigh. I have an eye doctor appointment this morning, so things are already wonky and I’m already stressed…plus it took FOREVER to fall asleep (probably related to all of the above and other shit), so I’m tired. I’m always tired. This may not be any different. Also there’s the issue of not posting the assignments for school too early, so kids will actually have them to do in class and not have them done and be acting out. Yes, there are scheduled posts, but they work about 50% of the time, so sometimes, you just post everything early and pray a little to the Goddess of Education, who is a little over-stretched herself at the moment.

The weekend. Sigh. I meant to do some things and then got in the wrong headspace and didn’t. Love that for myself. I did apply to an artists’ residency, hopefully something I can do this summer. Maybe not though, depending on timing and availability. I got the banned book piece to the next step. I finished stitchdown and pinbasted Friday night…

Ironically, I un-pinbasted them on Saturday and put a backing on them…I think it’ll be better that way. Then I quilted them Saturday night…

All together, they took a little over two hours…

Not long. Not hard.

Little quilts are easy.

But still not cheap. Time is money? My time is worth something.

Then last night, I started construction…this is the hard part. Not exactly sure what I’m doing. Scary to cut it and not sure it’ll be the right size, but doing it anyway.

So hopefully construction goes well over the next couple of nights. Certainly I’ve done it in my head about 3,000 times by now.

Oh, here’s the bees…

I went out yesterday evening to put the compost in, opened the lid, threw it, and ran. I went back when it was dark, when they were all chilled out.

I knocked off the honeycomb. This morning, there were three batches of bees…one still on the corner, one down on the ground under that (the biggest chunk), and a smaller chunk on the lid, which still smells like home, but is 20 feet away now.

They’re fascinating, but I need them to live somewhere else right now. Well, always. They love the composters unfortunately. I have an anti-bee spray I’ll use this time. I wash with hot water and soap, but it’s not enough I think. This composter has had bees at least three times.

The SDGE guy is out there…he wants me to check on him in 10 minutes in case he gets stung and has an allergic reaction. Chill guy.

I did not make it to ceramics Friday. Had a meeting after school and then had to set up for the sub this morning, and I was exhausted by the time I was done. No energy. Came home and graded instead.

Here’s my dinner drawings from the last four weeks.

I can’t explain them. I just draw. No purpose.

I find it relaxing. Yes, I can talk to the people I’m with while drawing.

It’s the only time I really get to draw these days. Which is frustrating.

Sometimes they bring the food really fast and I don’t get to finish. Or I’m drawing super slowly and I don’t finish.

I thought the Man’s plants looked like they were talking to each other.

Laughing plants.

This is way too real.

Except I do finish things. I finished one last week. This current book is really good so far. Hoping it stays good.

I’ve been working on this in bits and pieces at meetings and things.

OK. Sigh. Today is chaotic, but I’m hoping it will even out once I get through them dilating my eyes, my going to Costco with dilated eyes, then getting to school and hopefully having my eyes undilate (last time, it took over 4 hours, so I’m a little nervous). Plus I didn’t tell the kids I would be out…some of them are just jerks when you do, so I just decided to make it a surprise. The SDGE guy did not get stung by bees (they are so chill still)…good thing. I want to read my book, I need to grade things, I want to go to clay (it’s quiet on most Mondays), and I’m hoping the eye thing goes well. The doctor wasn’t particularly personable the last time. Didn’t tell me all the things, but wrote them up and I read them later. I guess that’s a thing…if you read. Hoping to come home to no bees hanging around and plenty of time to try to make that quilt thing go together. And the headspace to do so. Mondays. They just are.

Already in the Weeds

We’re baaack. And already in the weeds. Not surprising. The yard is full of weeds. The house needs things. The animals need things. I apparently need to do some work, both art and school. All good. Not doing school yet though. Sticking to art and the yard.

Can’t remember when I last posted…ah yes, we’d made it to Santa Ynez, but hadn’t done anything yet. Our rule was hike then relax. I mean, hiking is a form of relaxation in itself, but we wanted to make sure movement was a part of this trip, because the day job makes it hard to do anything but the day job. Hiking has fallen by the wayside. It’s easy to leave out the exercise, and we didn’t want to leave it out. SO. We hiked first, up in the mountains, where we found out that the Lake Fire last year had impacted part of the hiking trails.

It was beautiful out there and there were a bunch of people at the trailheads, but we managed to be quietly alone for a goodly portion of the trail. Which we prefer.

Burn was pretty obvious.

Apparently the boychild worked this fire last July.

We did a little over 4 miles. The weather was perfect…a little chilly, not too warm. The flowers were starting to bloom. Some of the oaks were coming back, some of the other stuff too. We didn’t see the pines coming back, but maybe it takes them longer.

After that, we headed out for a wine tasting. We wanted a pro-white-wine tasting and wandered around Los Olivos with a lot of really drunk people and dogs until we found a place that was more white friendly. Like white wine friendly. To be clear. We’d done a lot of reds at the last place and they’re not my favorite. The last place did give us an extra tasting though and then a great deal on two bottles of white. This place was interesting…different wines.

But he revised the tasting for us and we appreciated that. Afterwards, we were in the mood to feed some ostriches and emus (like you do)…

If you’ve been to Solvang, you’ve probably driven by Ostrichland and thought WTF. But you know, these guys are truly prehistoric-looking and fascinating up close.

Also a little terrifying to try to feed them.

It was totally worth it. We had dinner out at a place that wasn’t really known for its food, obviously. No amazing food this trip…oh wait, the sandwiches we had from the fancy grocery store…they were damn good. But otherwise? Eh. We did get apple strudel (well I did) from Solvang. It was good.

Then Sunday, we had to come home. It wasn’t a bad drive (knock on wood) for once…Los Angeles can be hellacious. Although this was interesting…

Let’s get that out there please.

I finished one Rooted tree (March block, Sue Spargo) on the way home…it’s the only one I worked on the entire trip.

I started the next one once I got home…

Once we unpacked everything and checked on all the animals and I ran to the store for essentials because the Man had to read a chapter and take a quiz and write an essay. The furry beasts seemed happy to have us home…

Poor pup. And I started quilting the piece I was working on before I left…

And emailing all the people I was supposed to deal with while I was gone. Fun times. I’ll be quilting today, getting vaccines, already took the dog to the vet and survived an earthquake in a building full of animals (5.2 just east of here…felt bigger). I even have pilates later. Although my stomach is not happy with me at the moment. Hopefully it’ll figure that shit out before I’m lying down and exercising. Just felt another aftershock. That one got a boof out of the dog. Hopefully I’m back on a normal blogging schedule now. It was nice to just check out for a week, but for some things, I really am a routines person, for good or bad.

I’m Going for a Walk

Well I said that a week ago and I feel like that’s all I’ve been trying to do for 7 days. Mostly succeeding. No super long hikes like trips in the past, but lots of little ones. Plus reading, stitching, drawing, and staring deeply into fires. Also not having a clue what day it is, which is the absolute best thing ever. We didn’t do a long road trip last year because I had to pay to fix the flooding damage, and I really missed it. I’m glad we did it this year.

We’re not back yet, by the way. I just have some time while the Man watches some videos for school, and I’m not really in the headspace to draw…ironic since a quilt fully drew itself in my head about 10 minutes into our drive today.

So we left last Saturday and took a couple hefty drive days…California is beautiful, even from the car…especially in Spring.

We stopped in hotels in tiny spots off the main road, nothing exciting…although at one point, we were across the bay from the girlchild. I stitched the pieces I needed embroidered for a small set of quilts I will need to finish very quickly when I get back.

Here’s the San Rafael Bridge…

It started raining at some point on Day 2, which turned into a downpour. We ate leftovers in the deserted hotel breakfast area and hung out in the room. There was a plan to go out, but the rain put a damper on that. So I drew and stitched.

First I had to trace the second bit of stitching…love hotel rooms with irons and ironing boards.

The next day, we had a few hours to waste, so we searched for the Bertella Kildow Skinner Grove in Humboldt Redwoods State Park, which involved parking on the side of a road and hiking using two different topographical maps to figure out where the grove and sign should be. I know we were in it at multiple points, but couldn’t find the sign. It’s possible things were burnt in the 2003 Canoe Fire? Who’s Bertella, you might ask? I think she was my great great aunt? Or maybe three greats. I had these two old lady aunts who were awesomely strange in my childhood, and this was their mom, who I think died before I was born? Or soon after. But Jeanne and Bernice were definitely around.

We finally got into the campground just as it stopped raining, which was good, because it sucks putting tents up in the rain. As it was, the site was pretty muddy and damp and cold, but we enjoyed it.

I stitched in the campground too. We hiked in the AM, then more in the PM. Nighttime was for fires and drawing.

The Man had some moments…

Before showering. Definitely. In his creepy stalker stage.

The sky. It’s up there.

The Eel River…

Glorious weather for most of it.

When I was a kid, we traveled all over the US, but we never really were allowed to stop at the weird places. So the Man and I kinda try to do just that.

Legends of Bigfoot. And us.

After Humboldt, we headed for Sonoma.

More gorgeous green. I finished the embroidery that night in the bungalow.

So those are ready to be appliquéd into a quilt.

We hiked in the morning.

I scared a deer while peeing in nature.

Or it scared me. Hard to say.

This deer could not give a lesser shit about humans…

Which I appreciate. Also I never get good quail photos.

Plus our quail are much skinnier.

Flowers everywhere. Then we spent some time (and money, let’s be honest) at the Gundlach Bundschu winery (oldest in California)…

Beautiful day, needed a nap after. No shock. Did more drawing in a cocktail bar later…

I actually started drawing this over a week ago and just kept adding to it. I also started stitching a tree in Sue Spargo’s Rooted block of the month. I think this is the March block.

I worked on it today but forgot to photograph it. Today we left Sonoma and stopped in San Francisco to see the girlchild and her visiting friend, who worked with USAID, fuck you to the dumbasses cutting jobs without considering real live consequences. We had lunch…

It was nice to see them in person…from there, we negotiated all the Friday traffic past places we visited two years ago, maybe three? Down to Santa Ynez/Los Olivos, where we are now, researching hikes, wine, and ostriches. Plus donuts, due to the campground having a Donut Kebab van that just set us off on a donut tangent that has not been satisfied.

The cravings are real. The Man has an essay to write on Sunday, so it’ll be a bit of a kamikaze trip home so he can read the chapter in the book he didn’t know he needed. It’s fine. And I have things to finish too that I am currently ignoring quite well. I finished one big book and read two smaller ones so far, spent 12 1/2 hours doing the embroidered words, plus 4 drawings? All good.

We are currently sitting out by a fire pit, listened to Great Horned Owls and getting tired.

It’s almost the full moon and we’re ready to enjoy tomorrow.

In Between Everything Else

Good morning, ye Day of Chaos before Springe Breake. Yee? Not sure of my Old English. Ye. Definitely. Am I ready? For today, no. Today is supreme chaos, both at work and after. For break? Absolutely. Done. Exhausted. Need a space without school. Getting in a car tomorrow and hopefully finding it. The boychild can handle all the animals. It’ll be fine. Even if all I do is read in the car for 8 days. It’ll be fine.

I did spend some time last night prepping some hand embroidery for the next quilt for the trip. Hoping it works out OK. I found the thread I wanted, and thanks to my incredibly efficient spreadsheet, realized I had 8 spools of it around the house. So I don’t need to order any (which is good, because I left it too long for that). Wednesday night, I managed to pinbaste the quilt I’m currently working on…

Really need to replace the bulbs in that room. I’ll need to quilt this in like two days flat. It’ll be fine. No worries. It’s not huge.

Then I did some tracing on the next one last night…

It’s actually four small quilts that will work together. I traced 3 and part of the 4th. If I have time after packing tonight, I’ll finish the 4th. It won’t take long. And hopefully I’ll get all the embroidery done while traveling (there’s 4 pieces of embroidery)…and can start that one the following week. It’s got a pretty tight deadline. And grades will be due right after we come back from grade. Like to torture us. It’s like if you don’t grade over break (which I will eventually have to do), you won’t have grades to put in the progress reports. Ah well. I finished grading everything I could yesterday. Today I will be grading tests as they take them and homework as they hand it in, if I can pull it off. I also have to prep my room for having floors cleaned, which they just told us two days ago. Sigh. Good to have floors cleaned. Need more time to move shit. I do have after school, but I also need to go to ceramics and make sure everything will be OK for a week while I’m gone.

Packing is stressful too. Yesterday was a long conversation about coolers. I still don’t know what we decided. Minor issue.

Oh my. Well I don’t spiral into self hate at least. And being a teacher is pretty hard. I have not cured cancer or saved the world, though, and there was definitely a feeling that those things should have happened by now. All I do is piss people off with my quilts.

I’m taking a few months of Rooted blocks with me (Sue Spargo BOM)…but this one was almost done, so I finished it.

Although the fluffy bits were supposed to be two different colors, and I spaced on that because I was doing this in a variety of Zoom calls. It’s fine. So I have two of these done. They’re not hard; they’re fun and relaxing. I enjoy them. I’m also taking books to read and my sketchbook for drawing. No schoolwork. I’ll deal with that when I get back. In between everything else.

Today, I think we’re all giving tests. Mine is short and then they need to finish the rest of their shit…without losing their shit. My last class period may not survive. One class period was better yesterday because there was one kid missing. Ooooh. Interesting. He’ll be gone again today. Lots will be gone. We give them two weeks off and they take more. I had to do an independent study contract for the week after break because of that. Three weeks. Ah well. After testing, we’ll lose some more to the Middle East…or maybe not, with all the crazy deportations. Scary stuff. Scary stupid too. Lots of that around. But my future holds some bigass redwood trees and some wineries and some hiking and probably a banana slug or two and definitely deer. All good.