It’s a Wash

I’m a little slow on documenting stuff these days. I honestly keep losing days. How is it dark already? I remember getting up. What freaking day is it anyway?

I have one week of Winter Break left. I know I am lucky, because many teachers go back tomorrow, and I’d be really not ready to do that. I’m two weeks in to this ‘vacation’ and I’m still grinding my teeth. I think I stopped for two days, but that’s it. My to-do list is heinous. Then I get distracted, like today, obviously, and trim a bunch of plants that have been bugging me for two months, instead of crossing things OFF the to-do list. I mean, the plants didn’t even make it ON the list. Sigh. I think I focus better when I’m totally overwhelmed with teaching, simply because I have no choice. I have to do that…for survival’s sake.

So back to the 48 hours where we ditched the world. We got up the next morning, opened the front door of our Airbnb, and saw the chicken. The man says I have to call him a rooster, because it’s a definite sound difference, but I will argue that he is still a chicken. He kept trying to come in…

Finally shooed him out and figured out he wanted breakfast. I hope he liked it.

The place we stayed was definitely not the Ritz, but it was fun…this was in the bathroom…

And this was embedded in the floor…

What it lacked in niceties (a fireplace, working oven, consistent Wifi), it had in character in spades. After breakfast, we headed out to the Mecca Hills Recreation Area for some hiking. We’d hoped to go to one section, but my car wasn’t keen on the 9 miles of dirt (sand? ruts?) road out to it, so we headed for the Slot Canyon hikes on All Trails. The parking lot was definitely sand, but just off the road and pretty solid.

Again, hiking in washes…although we started in a really big one…

Signs of 4WD vehicles and shotgun shells for a while, but no people…

Eventually we turned into some smaller canyons where only people could go.

It was cold and windy most of the time, and kind of a trudge. Lots of sand and rocks and a slight uphill…

Very little wildlife to be seen, not even birds, and not a lot of living plants.

I like a good hike though. We got to a point where the canyon we were in would require climbing, and that was enough…I spent most of my brain power trying to figure out how to escape the water if it started raining (it wasn’t going to start raining, but I am the paranoid type)…

Weird cactus. So it was about 5.7 miles. Not bad. You have to like sparse desert landscapes and rocks for a hike like this.

We came back and wandered around Bombay Beach for a while to see the sights we’d missed the night before…the balls light up at night…it’s quite pretty…

It’s also an Airbnb. Same owner as ours, across the street. I like ours better because the yard was fenced. Lots of people wandering through the zigzag yard.

Not fancy. Quirky.

The trailers and sheds had art in them too. Interesting place.

Wall of TVS…turn right at the TVs to get to our place.

Down the road from there, is this wondrous beast…

Pretty sure it’s related to the one we saw in Joshua Tree back in February. Oh yeah, it is…Randy Polumbo did both. This is Lodestar; the other was Angel Queen. Fun stuff.

From there, we headed back to the beach, further down from where we were yesterday…

I enjoy random metal and concrete sculpture personally…

And a good sense of humor…

And some good colorful grafitti…

The museum was not open, unfortunately…

And pigeons lived here…

I’d seen photos of this online and was glad to find it…

The hardest part of all these installations is finding artist info to go with them…

All I can tell you is that it is in the Bombay Estates.

Back home for dinner, reading, and drawing, because no TV…fine by me.

Very 70s. That night’s drawing…

And morning chicken…

We stopped by the drive-in on the way out…

And then kamikazed back home after talking to almost no one.

Meanwhile, back here…after New Year’s, I proceeded to make 17 more mistakes on this…had to rip out an entire tree, because it was half a stitch off and that won’t work.

Nope. Wasn’t drinking. Promise.

I’ve been ironing…it feels like this quilt is taking forever. Because it is. I got this leg done so I could insert it into the landscape…

And then worked on building the stuff up on the other side…a cat and a quilt of a cat…

Ironed her separately and put her in the landscape as well.

Here’s some bits and pieces I had left to do…mostly snake and bird, I think.

Progress as of Friday…

Leg in place. It’s just a really detailed piece is all.

Then Saturday, I kept going…

Pain. In. The. Ass. Yeah well. I’ve done the 600s and the 800s and barely started the 700s, plus I think a few of the 900s are done as well. So I have about 300 pieces to go? Or 400? I don’t know.

Great Horned Owl…

Which brings me to one of my Xmas presents, now installed and ready for inhabitants…

My very own owl box. I’m happy. And it’s on a system that can be lowered for cleaning, hopefully not when owls are in it. Awkward maybe. We’ll see.

Other things that happened. This cake made a spaceship on top.

It was the boychild’s 25th birthday yesterday…

His cake request was intriguing. No, I was not smart enough to take a picture of the final product. Apparently it’s better warmed up. IDK. I’m allergic to chocolate.

Coyote print from the front yard. They are here, y’all…right here.

Couple photo from the Salton Sea, stolen from the man.

My eyes might be closed.

So back in March, I asked for paint pens for my birthday…or maybe Xmas last year? I can’t remember. And then when everything shut down, I ordered gessoed canvas. I had see some posts Judy Coates-Perez put on Instagram (it’s a guide on there; can’t remember how to find it, wait, no, go here to her Instagram and then click on highlights and you can get to it there.) for how she paints and then uses the pens to decorate her paintings, and I wanted to try it. It took forever to get the canvas, and then school sucked and summer came and stressed me out with all its We Don’t Know What School Will Look Like shit and then Real School happened and kicked my ass, although at some point, I cut up some of the canvas into smaller pieces with some ideas to make some different stuff. Well, y’all, it’s been on my to-do list since fucking April, and I’m finally doing things with all the paint and pens. OK…just the paint so far, but I’m hoping to get the complicated stuff that requires plastic and water done so I can draw in peace over the next month or so.

Luna inspecting the biggest one. I drew a faint outline of a human figure in pencil on this one…

And on the others. I prepped four of them.

I wanted to just block in some color shapes to start…

I’m not really a painter, but it’s OK, because I’m going to draw all over this, Nida style. I think. We’ll see. Because I usually only draw in black and white and these are colors.

Obviously, right? I’ve got some more painting to do first. But I think this will be a nice change for me. We’ll see how it goes.

Also still baking sourdough, y’all, although the girlchild gifted me a lame, so I can stop using the box cutter to score the bread, and this nice glass starter container, so I can stop using the crappy plastic container.

My starter is still super happy to be alive. So that’s a plus.

From the book I’m reading, Gods of Jade and Shadow…

A good thing to remember for the new year. Well, like I said, I have a week before I go back, and now I need to actually do schoolwork (again) this week. I have one ungraded assignment, a few late assignments that kids have turned in, and a bunch of prep to do for all three classes. Science is mostly planned, but there’s details to get done. Art is a clusterfuck. Don’t even ask me, because I don’t know. Plus I’m dealing with the car, my teeth, and who knows what else this week. Making 23 videos about the elements (periodic table elements, not the other kind). And hopefully finishing the ironing of this quilt and the painting of those backgrounds, and somehow steeling myself for the next 6 months of teaching. UGH. I’m so not ready. Luckily I don’t have to be. Yet.

Over the Top…

Ugh. Monday, you were over the top. Remind me not to answer work emails at 3 PM…or honestly, ever. Without a 12-hour break maybe. “Dear teacher, how is my kid doing?” “I don’t know. They don’t come to class or turn anything in.” It was a day. We thought we could grade an assignment while monitoring the chat during a quiz, but the monitoring became overwhelming as the day went on, and I couldn’t concentrate enough on what I was grading…which required thought and long feedback, lots of it. Pro: I think this batch of kids is better than the last batch for writing claim-evidence-reasoning (probably because we told 6th grade they had to do some of the prep work). Con: They still need lots of work, work that is harder to do online. I have more to grade today, and an assignment that hopefully will allow that. We’ll see how that goes. Teachers can’t be ON all the time. We burn out. Yesterday was long and required a lot of energy and I don’t even think I got all the way through it. And I didn’t barely even TALK. Just typed in the chat while they took the quiz. Today is a staff meeting explaining our new schedules for the week of the 28th…which should be interesting, because I need to understand it myself so I show up for the right class at the right time. Which could be an issue. No worries! I will draw a picture to get me there. Block schedule, but online, with two subjects. OK. I got this. Three grade levels. OK. I still got this. Ask me in late October how I feel about it for realz.

Meanwhile, not much visible art has been happening. I’ve been doing research and posting on my Patreon and gathering show information, but my brain was too tired the last two nights to do anything more than that. I really really hope that changes tonight.

Our air quality is still off. Makes for beautiful sunsets and sunrises though.

Maybe they’d be just as beautiful without the smoke particles.

My most recent sourdough was also beautiful.

Lunches from this. I have become a character in Little House on the Prairie. Or something. I make my own bread. I never leave the house. Pa! Pa! OK, I left the house yesterday to pick up my sewing machine. Crucial stuff. Laura Ingalls never did that. I’ll leave the house today to walk. I need to walk. It’s been a while for a good long solo hike.

Simba thinks he’s a cat.

He barks too much to be a cat. Our hot weather popped back up for the rest of the week. Sigh. No thanks. I can do without. Just like the construction. I had to shut all the windows yesterday so I could teach over a concrete saw. Like just fucking be DONE with it! It’ll be done soon. It has to be.

Yes. My clothes are always covered with cat hair. But I’m at home, so you can’t tell.

Apparently they are very comfy.

I finished my book last night, Middlegame by Seanan McGuire. Apparently I have been saying her name wrong in my head for years. Very good. I didn’t much like the other book of hers I read, but this was good. What’s funny is that book club meets tomorrow night, and I was going to read the book for book club first, but this was so good, I didn’t. So I think it’ll be the first time I go to book club and I haven’t read the book. I might get some of it read today and tomorrow at lunch. We’ll see. It’s also supposed to be good, but I just haven’t seen anything but the cover yet.

That’s the closest I got to artmaking last night.

I made it in the office and ironed some brainless stuff and looked at this thing (the drawing, not the cat…she’s fine…it’s not her fault I can’t focus) and was too tired, looked at the clock and it was almost midnight, and I gave up. Part of my time issue was deciding to exercise at 10 PM. It needed to be done and there wasn’t time or mental space before that.

OK, wishes for today: efficient grading, some understanding of my future schedule, a successful teaching day, time for a walk, mental space for art, a calm and restorative dinner hour. Might be wishful thinking, but it’s my goal and I’m sticking to it. Better air too. That would be good.

Not a Fan…

Well it hasn’t hit a high temperature yet for today, although yesterday broke records at 114 degrees F. Not a fan. I’m not a fan, I mean…I had fans running everywhere. Right now, my office is only 94 degrees…it was hotter than that yesterday. After my quilt guild Zoom meeting, I put my legs in the pool to cool off and read my book. The pool is in the sun for a goodly portion of the day, though, so I can’t even be out there until later in the afternoon. Plus I had a bunch of stuff to do yesterday…still do today. These 3-day weekends at the beginning and end of the school year are amusing…they just give us time to get caught up on work, I guess.

That was yesterday before the guild meeting.

I did grade stuff during the quilt guild meeting. It was mostly listening to bylaws and all that anyway, so I multi-tasked. Got me some of this…

I am taking a guess…what? And this is what happens when we Google shit, children.

Pretty sure I didn’t teach that. Maybe should use your notes y’all. Plus some of the kids put “Ireland” as their answer, and that’s related to that panel. So weird. I guess Wednesday will be a short discussion of “I don’t grade Google. I grade YOU.”

I still have a ton of grading to do…it’ll get done.

Yesterday afternoon, a fire started up east of us, about 20 miles east. It’s fire season…

It was scarier at night…

The smoke smell this morning was strong…

And as the day went on, the wind moved that smoke around and a few more distinct areas popped up. We’ve been watching this fire map…

The fire switched direction after I screenshot this…now it’s heading southeast, which is good for us, because we’re the black dot on the left. The fire would have to burn through a lot of residential area to get to us, though…in fact, I think all 5 of our senior parents would have to evacuate first. So we’re good. Just hot and smoky. It was over 4000 acres the last I saw…and that was this morning.

Hoping no one gets hurt and they save as many animals and buildings as they can.

What else? Because my brain is fuzz in this heat. My quilt I Can’t Be Your Superwoman won honorable mention at Form Not Function. Did I mention that? Can’t remember.

There are three of us in this show who live about 5 miles apart, and all three of us won awards…Marty’s piece got Best of Show and Linda’s got an Award of Excellence. So we met at Marty’s house and had a socially distanced toast of champagne, thanks to Marty.

It was nice to be in the same space as other hoo-manz. Besides the grocery store. Now back to making art.

I had no energy Friday night for artmaking, but I had two blocks for my quilt guild’s quilt for their annual show…so I did those. One was easy curves and one was not as easy…

I had to rip the curve on the right twice, but the one on the left was easy peasy. Kind of annoying.

So those are done and I delivered them yesterday. When the whole quilt exists, I’ll post a picture. It’s the Modern Quilt Guild, which I mostly don’t do. But they are accepting of me, and I knew I could sew these, so I did them.

Then Saturday morning, I cleaned this beauty up and labeled her and made hangers for her and packed her up and shipped her to my Patreon patron.

She turned out well, although she’s bigger than I had originally planned. Learning for next time, I guess.

And then last night, I finally had some energy for cutting things out. It’s too hot to think.

Still plenty left to do on that one. Maybe tonight? Hopefully. I’d like to be ironing her together at some point this week.

When I was out shipping the Patreon quilt and dropping off the quilt guild blocks, I got an email to come pick up some clay. WHAT? You said clay? I said clay.

My art group is building a labyrinth thing in 29 Palms in November. I need to build a thing for that. I explained how I was going to build it and how big it would be, and she handed me this. I’m excited…although I’m going to wait until it cools down a bit to start. I don’t want it to dry out too fast. Maybe next weekend. I have until October 1, so plenty of time. I’m really looking forward to doing this. I used to do clay in college and for a little while after…it’s been a long time. It’s a very soothing process.

And remember the bread that I completely fucked up on following directions?

It’s the best loaf I’ve made…

Just further proof that my mantra about reading the directions and then finding your own way (unless you’re a student in my class and your version of ‘finding your own way’ is to not do anything) is the way to go. With bread? The girlchild says I can’t totally ignore the science. I didn’t! I just fucked with it. And it worked. I can’t repeat it. That’s the funny part.

More cats in class…

Apparently trying to knock computers off a desk is a thing.

Nova was below the light table, but behind me…

And Kitten settled on the back of the couch.

When I’m the only one home, they all want to be with me.

They’re mostly sweet.

Yeah. Glad to have a job. Glad to have accommodations for my job. Glad to have a roof over my head. Glad to have the animals and people around me. Wish it were cooler and I slept more and felt more like I could make art right now. Instead, I will take the dog in the pool, breathe in more of the smoky air, and grade something. My office just hit 97 degrees with two fans on me. It’s only 108 outside. Oh good…could be worse. Stay safe, stay well…

What Has Been and What Can Be…

Writing on a Friday morning gives you closure to the week, a focus for the weekend, some reflection on what might work better next week, and a tiny prayer (not really, because I don’t do those…mantra maybe? Affirmation? I don’t like that word either…) to what has been and what can be. BEEE. I love bees.

SEE! That’s how my brain works. I’m thinking about work, what I’m teaching today, the bread that’s going in the oven this morning (that was a cluster, more below), and how to close out the week and survive the hellacious temperatures of the next 4 days, and my brain goes off on BEEES because I misspelled BE the first time. Creative brains are fun. I realize it makes me hard to talk to sometimes, but y’all do it too, more than you know.

Back to the bread, because the timer is going off soon to put it in. I fucked the bread up monstrously. School is part of the problem. I remembered to feed the starter at lunch (should’ve done it at prep), and then right after school, I did the float test and it failed, but two hours later, it passed, so STUPIDLY, I started the process. At like 6:30 PM. “Sure, it’ll be OK. There’s enough time for the sits and folds and stretches and more sits.” Yeah, there would have been if I’d stayed up until 2:30 AM. Not a thing while teaching. So I debated with the boychild and I put it in the fridge overnight after 4 stretch and folds. To its credit, it was doing really well. I took it out the next morning and tried to warm it up. Barely warm oven, etc. And then I forgot to set a timer, totally forgot about it for about 4 hours. Whoops. During prep, while discussing science with my coteacher, I pulled it out of the oven, shaped it, and tossed it in a banneton and back in the fridge. Totally forgot to let it rest 10 minutes in the banneton before putting it back in. Then realized that 16 hours later was 2:30 AM again (fuuucckkk), so this morning, after 20 hours in the fridge, it’s going in the oven as soon as its warm enough. Surprisingly, it doesn’t appear to be over- or underproofed. It also currently looks better than any loaf I’ve made. Which is great, because if it’s awesome, I will not be able to repeat whatever the fuck I did.

Just call me the lackadaisical cook. I am.

It’s supposed to be hot as hell the next few days…107-111 degrees F tomorrow and Sunday. No A/C. Gonna die. Today is only supposed to be 97 degrees, which is good, because I don’t think I could teach with 111-degree temperatures. I can’t think straight. There are people in my physical classroom during the day, so I don’t know what I would do. Can’t go to school and just sit there. Quietly sweat to death…although I rarely do anything quietly.

OK, bread is in the oven now. All we can do is wait. Mine have all been too dense, except for the first one, really. It was the best. When I knew the least. Interesting, that.

I’ve been chipping away every night at the pile of things to be cut out. It’s nice, because I just get to watch shows and chill out. This week, I seem to (so far, knock on wood) have solved the problem of my feet swelling by the end of the week…it might help that it’s cooler…it might help that I’m standing more during class, even though then they can see my ceiling and the underneath of my chin. Ah well. I am not vain, y’all. Ah, so funny…here I am cutting out a vein. Or an artery. OK, it’s probably an artery.

I’ve been doing a little each night…

It never looks like much.

Until it’s done.

But the pile is getting smaller.

Five hours and 20 minutes smaller. Lots more to go. It’s OK. I didn’t want to start ironing this quilt together this weekend. I need it to cool the fuck down before I do that.

Strangely, we have a 4-day weekend instead of a 3-day weekend. Some schools are going back on the 14th, but middle school is going back on the 28th. We got an extra day to put our classrooms back together. My online schedules will change to match in-person school, which is just weird, but whatever. Block schedules online? We’ll see. My lunches will be an hour later, so there will be some juggling of the foods for the blood sugar. I love changing my schedule again. Yesterday morning’s staff meeting was all about how we teachers have to meet the state requirements for accountability for engaging kids. Or something. We have to record attendance differently. It’s more complicated. We’ll get used to it, but honestly, it’s hard for me to see it on the computer screen, so it won’t get done during class any more.

Cats coming to class.

They sneak around.

I did fix the screen. All good. It’s their one-year birthday today.

They’re still hyper as shit sometimes.

OK, today isn’t too challenging for teaching, luckily. Walking kids through the shit they didn’t get done yesterday and introducing them to the new science program, which we hate. OK. We like bits and pieces of it. Mostly we hate it. The teachers’ editions were apparently on campus the whole time, just not in my room. Nice. My coteacher will track them down today. That will help. I will keep cutting stuff out this weekend, finish something for my quilt guild, ship some stuff to shows and peoples. And maybe read a little. Sweat a lot. It would be nice to have a long weekend with better weather, but whatever. Enjoy the sleep? The short week next week? Hope my principal doesn’t do a back-to-school night online? Yeah. That. Don’t do it. OK. Off to school. In the other room.

At Least I Have One A…

Well hey there. It’s Monday. Apparently that’s how new weeks start these days. It’s the first day of my last full week off of school for a long time. I didn’t sleep much last night (thank you, brain. I really appreciate these hours we have together when I am tired and want to stop thinking and you do not agree). I was up earlyish because dogs. And cats. The boychild is up in the mountains helping the old folks (my parents would be offended. They are not old. They are well-seasoned.), so I am the only entertainment for 5 furry beasts. It must suck to be them. So sleep is something they do in the middle of the day…which is why they’re up at 7 AM looking for attention. Ah well. What is sleep? The thing I’m supposed to do more of…that’s what it is. Sigh. Classes I’m enrolled in right now: Sleep, Healthy Diet, Exercise, Sourdough Breadmaking, Artmaking, and Housework. I do pretty well with Healthy Diet and Exercise (although really hot days don’t help with either), so maybe a B there…proficient, but not above and beyond. I rock at Artmaking, straight As on that, definitely going above and beyond. Housework? Eh. A solid C. Same with Sourdough Breadmaking. Proficient? Not great though…maybe almost proficient? Approaching proficiency. Sleep? Fuck me. That’s a D on a good week, and there hasn’t been more than one good week this summer. Let’s not even think about that clusterfuck they called Distance Learning in the Spring. Needs Improvement! It’s not even Emerging or Basic. I guess I know how to do it; I just don’t do it well. At All. That’s me. Better get a work improvement plan going and meet with my parents to motivate my ass to get better at it.

At least I have one A.

So I started the last of the embroidery pieces, the small ones.

I’m going to figure out how to finish the embroideries…I think in hoops. And then the two leftover quilt tops I’ll make into small quilts. They’ll go on Etsy when I’m done. I need to get my act together.

I also drew and numbered the larger Patreon reward piece yesterday. The patron herself is a gardener and makes beautiful things in fabric…so I played off of that when I drew her piece.

It’ll be 10″ finished or so. There’s 111 pieces in it, which isn’t bad. The image itself is about 8 1/4″ square. I did start numbering these tiny flowers, but then decided to embroider them…

And then I was working on the next big quilt…finishing up the drawing…I added COVID in the air…

Flying around, like we now know they do. This drawing was originally done in April, about 30 days after the start of the Shelter-in-Place orders. Before we knew some of the stuff we know now about the disease. So I added some stuff to the bottom, because the original drawing cut off the arm and didn’t go into the ground, and I like to ground my pieces.

I worked on that last night and got it all done…

It’s about 44″ wide and 48″ high right now. Image only. It’ll be bigger than that finished.

Then numbered…

A mere 820 pieces. No worries.

So Wonder Under is the next step for both the big one and the little one.

Just had a discussion with the girlchild about the sourdough not rising enough…

Not enough big spaces…but getting there…

It tastes good though…

And on the gardening front, I planted all these offcuts from a succulent.

One has decided to grow. Hopefully the rest will too. We’ll see.

When the dogs leave on Saturday, there is often a cat convention.

They gather and sometimes play and romp. Sometimes they just want loves.

The dogs when it is hot…

The weekend was ugh warm. It’s cooler today.

Saturday evening’s sky was starting to be pretty…

Below is where my neighbors’ pool will be. We need to move some plants around to block views and noise, I think. It is taking them a long time to get to the next step. I’ll be trying to teach from home (hopefully) while their pool noise is happening? We’ll see.

And then the moon came out…

A lovely summer night. It’s been warm, but it cools off at night. My house doesn’t cool off very quickly unfortunately.

OK, so the day is half gone, but I’ve done some work and Pilates and it doesn’t feel like much, because I was interrupted a few times. I need to go to Costco this week, and I was going to do it today, but now I don’t know. Maybe I should just get it over with, because I find the days fill up and new tasks appear. I have a webinar at 3:30. I need to eat lunch, but I’m already late for that. I can’t remember what else I need to do (hence the bullet journal in the other room). I will be tracing Wonder Under tonight no matter what.

I feel this. I’m waiting for them to request emergency sub plans.

And this…

Cursive is no longer a thing. It’s a coded language we old people can use to confuzzle the youngers. OK. Whatever today is, I need to do some things…sooner rather than later. Gonna do some of that.

Ready, Brain.

Hey y’all. It’s Saturday, the day when I feel most like escaping the house and doing something semi-normal, like walking or seeing art or whatever. It’s also the day when the most people are out doing the same thing, and in my county, not doing a great job of wearing masks, although probably better than in some counties. Yesterday, the Governor of California mandated that schools couldn’t open in person until county infection numbers were on a downward trend for 14 days, something I believe is safe. I know some people think kids need to be in schools, and so do I, but I would like the county to be taking it seriously, and they’re not. That said, many of our new positive tests are in the 20-29 age range, which isn’t necessarily the group that is most invested in kids going to school, so that’s a tough one. There’s limited science out there on transmission in children, maybe partially because we pulled them out of school, so they’ve been less exposed than normal. Maybe not? This science is hopeful for schools reopening…I’d like be able to go back in person and feel somewhat safe. My biggest issue all along has been with the adults, though. I’ve seen adults at my school not social distancing, not wearing masks, and that is where we will get sick…through them. It’s not just our young teachers who don’t take it seriously; I don’t want to get sick and/or die because the adults on my campus are lackadaisical and let their guard down. I don’t trust them. I guess when we do go back (because we will be going back online in August no matter what), I want to be prepared to be an awesome online teacher (as awesome as is possible) and to be healthy and safe when we go back in person. I won’t be able to hide in my classroom and only socialize distantly with those I feel are following rules…I’ll have to move from classroom to classroom all day. More science please! I want all the sciencez.

Meanwhile, I’m quilting. It’s meditative. I always say that. Art is how I save myself from myself. Plus I’ve been revisiting iTunes. I spent a lot of time listening to Pandora, which is nice, because I don’t need to own the music, but my iTunes felt lonely. So I’m playing songs in order from most-listened to least. Some songs haven’t been ‘heard’ (on iTunes at least) since 2012. I feel bad for those songs. Like I’ve let them down.

I quilted a lot in the last few days, and I’m not done.

I quilted during my stitching meeting…Zoom…

I finished the third figure and went back to completing the taller figure in the middle.

I got one arm done and everything up to her head, and then decided it was bedtime.

Yesterday evening, I started on the other arm…

And got her hair done and the cat…with the help of Calli on the floor and Kitten in the other chair. Help might be a strong word.

Yes, I use a normal sewing machine to do this. I have neither the money nor the space for anything bigger or more useful.

Then I finished the angels. So all the outlining is done, with 12 1/2 hours in. I just need to fill in the background now. Maybe some of it will get done today. Considering my walk options. It’s hot. I still want to get out and move. I can’t stand all this sitting around inside. It drives me bonkers.

I also started one of the small Patreon embroideries…this is faster.

I need to get some done this week…embroidery and quilt.

What else? I tried making bread again…

It behaved better this time, and…

It looks good, but I lost all the airiness of the first one. Still a work in progress. No gumminess this time, though, so that’s a plus.

I walked a couple of days, because the gyms are closed down again…another painted rock…

And then when I come back, the cats fight over who gets to rub their head all over my boots.

It’s very strange. Almost as strange as Kitten fetching me slippers again. She meows really loud (with the slipper in her mouth) and brings it from the bedroom and then usually drops it about 6 feet from me.

Such bizarre behavior. Sometimes I put them all back in the bedroom for her, and sometimes she takes them back.

These two are waiting for their daddy to get out of the bathroom. They do that a lot.

They are really intrigued by our litter tray behavior.

Yesterday, I felt just wiped out, exhausted, so I attempted a short afternoon nap. But people kept interrupting…

Well, and cats (not this one) did too. So much for the nap culture here. The cats have it down.

Yesterday morning, the ex showed up with a chainsaw (like you do). I have this palm tree that is too large for the entryway and has been rubbing against the roof. We’ve talked before about trying to get rid of it, but it’s a really tight space, so digging it out would be an issue.

Well. There’s always this route…

It’s just too big for the space. And you can see what it was doing to the eaves and the roofline. He took it down a little farther than this (all his chainsaw could do)…

I’ll ask my tree guys to take it down to about a foot or so above ground and then put a pot on it. Or I will learn to carve palm trunks with a chainsaw. One of those two things. Whichever seems easiest.

Here’s the girlchild in Boston, about to get a new(er) car. Hers has been problematic…

It’s been a lot of phone calls and FaceTime, but I think she did it.

Oh yeah, to Trump and DeVos…

There is an argument to be had here. But since we know it’s really about money and votes, I guess that’s why. I want kids in school. I want them safe. I don’t know what classrooms will look like when we can’t work in groups and do labs and collaborate in the ways we did (yes, I know we can do it online…it’s not the same, y’all, you know it’s not)…I know it will be a difficult and often troubling and depressing year, so I’m trying to set myself up for success. I have a book about online teaching on its way to me, I’m trying to get my head in a space to plan for digital with kids I’ve never had…and more importantly, I’m trying to relax now to get my brain ready.

Something on That Magnitude…

Well, it’s been a rough week. Hopefully next week will feel better. The girlchild is finally in Boston, the sourdough starter and I have been close and complicated, and I have 9 new boxes of fabric. The boxes are new to me, the fabric is new to me, none of it is actually new.

Before you do anything else, watch this video. It’s the 4th of July, a weird one, to be sure, but this is video of Frederick Douglass’ speech about what the 4th means to him, read by his descendants. And it’s hard to hear, because so much hasn’t changed…but they all still have hope. I have hope. Didn’t mean I didn’t cry to hear the words, because honestly, it’s hard to know how to fix it all (burn it all down! and start over…). But watch them. It’s only 6 minutes of your lives. You can give them that.

Yeah. Told you they were awesome. In youth, I see hope.

So. It’s Independence Day. It’s warm, there will be fireworks, but we can’t see them from here, and we can’t gather…so we’re gonna take a drive to my parents’ house and see if we can see them from there. I spent yesterday mostly copyediting…I’m going to do more of that today. I set a goal to be done next Saturday, so I’m sticking to my 4-5 hours a day. Nothing else really needs to get done, although exercise would be nice.

I did finish all the blocks for the Abstract Arcs quilt on Thursday…

They all need to be trimmed and sized…

That’s next week.

I’m not great at piecing accurately. I don’t do it a lot. I did lay them all out and stare at them and move them around until I got this…

I’ll have to stare at it for a while and decide if that’s it. Right now, it looks mostly OK. My real goal was to get the piecing done so I could start the stitch down on the big honking thing that was on my ironing board…

You wanna talk meditative? It’s pushing and pulling this thing under the machine, stitching down every piece. And I did a good job attaching everything in that four hours I took, so it’s been really easy and trouble-free so far (knock on wood, because that’s not always the case).

I am running out of thread, though, and I haven’t considered the background. I don’t really WANT to go to JoAnns for thread (or anything), but it seems we’ve moved past the “only buy stuff online” stage that I was at with the last quilt, and now we are in the “you can go to stores, but be smart about it” stage. There’s probably another 7 hours of stitch down to go…

I am going out more now than I was 3.5 months ago. I don’t necessarily like it, but I try to be careful. I have something right now that needs to go to the post office, another thing where I can go to the post office with it or go to the actual store to return it. They warn that mailing it will take 4-6 weeks to refund. Hmmm. Then I need a TB test for school, which is two trips…one to get poked, one to get the poke seen. Maybe the second part can be a video call? Who knows. They were jerks when I called, so I will find out when I go in. Plus I have dentist next week. And today, I drove to a friend’s house…she’s moving and downsizing her fabric stash. So I benefited…

Oh yeah, that’s exciting. I really do like adopting other peoples’ stashes. I tend to buy the same types of fabrics, and this is a way of infusing my stash with another person’s eyeball. Stuff I never would have bought gets incorporated into my quilts. Now finding room for all this will be a challenge, but the boychild and I were talking about some of the stuff in my office that I never touch that could be boxed up. So now I need some big plastic boxes for the garage, I guess. Summer is all about organization.

It’s also about breadmaking. I started with sourdough starter back in March; then the girlchild came home and took over (I’m pretty sure she tossed my starter and started over). She’s kind of awesome and obsessive about cooking, whereas I am mostly lackadaisical. That’s probably not a great trait for baking bread. Many people have sent me links to easy recipes, but I’m following the one my daughter liked, which is A Beautiful Plate, her artisan sourdough. No, it’s not easy. But I have an expert I can text at any time.

This is useful to me. Plus there’s videos. Here’s my starter after being fed yesterday. Then I incorporated it into the autolyse…

And then I stopped taking pictures. I did a bunch of things to the dough yesterday afternoon and evening, and then it went into the fridge overnight, where it still is…doing its thing. Hopefully later today, that thing will be baking bread that is tasty and has the appropriate number and size of holes in it. We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, it’s a thing I’m doing. Better than this…

Although that might be a stress reliever of sorts.

Calli needed pool time, so that’s up to me or the boychild now…

She’s old and now gets all the treats. She’s eating a pine cone and just happens to be lying on a plant runner that really should get trimmed the next time I sit out there with her.

She’s a good girl. I keep telling her that. She’s another thing that makes me cry this summer. Ah well. Lots of pets and dips in the pool and maybe even bits of bread, because she really likes bread. A lot.

Luna has picked a box and will be in it. Her feet are the best part.

All the cats have their spots. Kitten has claimed this green fabric drawer.

No one may have fabric from this drawer. Only her.

Here’s the bunny who lives under my front deck and thoroughly irritates the little dog and the cats with its presence.

It’s cute. Watch out for coyotes! We’ve got those, for sure.

OK, so the internet was an asshole while I was trying to write this, so I did some other things, like eat lunch and find the ricecakes the girlchild left here and no one else will eat. I might feel that way about the raisins too, but I’m willing to listen to the boychild on that. I really want to do some creative fabric things right now, but I’m being a responsible adult and will (a) process the video for my Patreon July post, and then (b) do some copyediting. And then we will figure out the whole dinner-on-a-holiday thing and drive to my parents’ house to see if we can observe fireworks. Then back here for sleep and all that. It’s not exciting, but it’s relatively safe, so there’s that. Next week, I will figure out how to buy thread and organize fabric and do all the things I’m supposed to do. Happy 4th for those who celebrate, and if you don’t because you are an American and it doesn’t feel very American, I’m sorry. I love fireworks and staring up into the dark blue sky to see them explode, and I hope you get to enjoy something on that magnitude.