Oh man I’m tired this morning. Probably the staying up until after midnight thing is part of that, and the other bit is where I’m working my butt off. And the dog just threw up. Dammit. That’s one thing I just can’t deal with in the morning: dog vomit. Aargh. I’m not even awake, let alone competent. So yeah. Throw a paper towel over it and hope I feel better about it later.

I did get some fabric stuff done last night though, mostly because I almost completely blew off work. I say almost because I did spent 45 minutes posting an assignment on Google Classroom, watching the videos, looking up viruses, and making a document to attach. I’m not looking forward to the next three years as we implement entirely new standards that take everything I teach and throw it to 6th and 8th grades so I can come up with completely new curriculum with no assistance from the state or the district. Yeah. I won’t have a lot of spare time for those three years. Labs, materials, units, assignments. All new. Fuck.

Anyway, so I finished all the stuff around the outside of the bathtub and then cut out the fabric for the tub as well…there’s some tub stuff…

A lot of whites just added to the mix…

Plus I think I did a sketchbook and a cat and some rug bits. Now I have the faucet and handles, and then I go into the water, which is laid out here…

The water’s kind of a pain in the butt, but there isn’t actually that much water this time, compared to the last bathtub. Because I see flesh down there too…the toes are in the 80s pile.

I did go to quilt class yesterday and started cutting pieces out…

So things are progressing…more slowly than I would have liked, but whatever. Sometimes you just have to roll with it. And I got socks for going to class…knitted by Susan…

Very cool…or warm, depending on how you look at it.

I am feeling totally exhausted this morning. I am counseling every failing student in my class, personally…sitting down with them and going over their progress report and what they haven’t turned in…they seem legitimately shocked by that. “I didn’t know!” Um. So I guess I have to go through how to check if you’ve turned stuff in? I started talking to all of them yesterday, and didn’t come close to finishing. It means I can’t get anything else done (cleaning up my room for Winter Break, which has to happen at some point; grades). Some kids are just blowing it off and making excuses to me. Some are honestly asking questions and taking it to heart, which would be nice if they follow through. Some honestly…I feel bad because they really don’t understand and they probably can’t ever do well in my class…we are so overwhelmed at the moment that we can’t process some of the kids who probably need testing, and even that, we know that half of them (or more) won’t qualify because they’ve only been in school for three years, if that, and there is not a large enough gap between what they are doing and what they should be able to do for them to get services. So they will continue to flail. And there’s not much I can do about it. I can’t teach a child to read in 7th-grade science with 34 kids in the classroom who need to learn science.

The damn dog wants back in. I want a long sleep with no interruptions. I need more time. I’m not ready for the holidays or even next week. But I can get through today. Today I have all under control, as much as I ever do. Well, except for that pile of dog vomit. I can’t handle that right now.