All New Places

Well today is already crazy and that will continue for a few days…I leave in a few hours for Seattle to hang with family and then the Man. My nephew is graduating high school, which is the ostensible reason for going, but it’s also nice to have a change of scenery in summer. This house needs so much work. I’ve filled so many green trashcans with weeds and trimming and there is so much more to do. Things keep breaking and needing a small tiny part and more hand strength than I have to fix them. That said, I have been making art and reading books for my sanity…plus making wontons, because I never have time during the school year and I like them. Actually, I think I like the sauce more and the wontons are just a delivery system.

I’m not fully packed yet, because some of my pants are in the sun drying right now. Although the Man fixed the dryer, the part has already failed, so yesterday’s laundry got put (late, unfortunately) out on the line…which used to fit by the garage but someone (me) needs to trim the bougainvillea for it to fit now.

Doordash was probably amused. Not me, the boychild. I’ve never doordashed.

So I’ll be packed in an hour, whether my jeans are dry or not. I’m also trying to finish a book, an actual physical thing, so I don’t have to take it with me. I have a 900-page book on the iPad for my airline perusing. I dropped the parentals at the airport earlier, stopped to get my labs done so my doc will stop bugging me, then picked up Katie (the parental dog) and all her crap and delivered it here, put a bunch of stuff away, dealt with the greenery trashcan, watered some (still need to do more). Yeah. It’s been a little chaotic. It’ll be fine. Although I have to wear my hiking boots through TSA and on the plane because they won’t fit in my luggage. The Man can’t fit his hiking poles; mine fold up into thirds and his only half. It’s OK…my brother has that shit in Seattle.

Change! It’s weird. Good and hard all at the same time.

I did get the quilt to where I wanted it…Friday afternoon, I finished up Venus and started on Earth.

Who is up here and upside down.

I haven’t honestly decided which way is up, although now that I’ve said that, y’all will chime in. Just know whatever decision I make will be because I see it, not because you’ve voiced it. I’m not one of those who does the whole art critique stuff or group decisions about my stuff. I have a vision in my head and when it slots in correctly, my brain tells me. Art Brain doesn’t care about the rest of it.

That’s a Mars Rover on her hand…

Saturday was an art meeting and then we wandered up to the Phes Gallery to see this show…

That is Dinah’s Green-Eyed Dog piece…

And this is Nancy Lemke’s piece…forgot to write names down. Wait, the internet is my friend…this is The New American Crucifix…

Yeah. Disturbing. It’s a good show in a nice space. I didn’t take many photos, oh well, you should go see it anyway. It’s open until July 9, I think. Check the website.

Then we came back and I ironed Mars…

Which left putting it all together on a background last night…

Yup. I like it. I’ll finish it the week I get back.

I’m taking my sketchbook and some stitching with me. Hoping to solidify a plan for the next piece, hopefully a big one. If not, I have some smaller drawings that are already numbered and could step in to be made until the big one materializes in my head. So many things to consider for the next one. Maybe it will be another conglomerate of topics.

I’ve been mindlessly appliqueing pieces from Sue Spargo…can’t remember the name of this block of the month…Forest or Tree something obviously.

It soothes me to do this.

This poppy pod was fascinating.

I may add it to a drawing.

Still waiting for the caterpillars to move in to the milkweed meadow we made.

Most grown from seed. I have more in the fridge to be planted in early August. They won’t self seed here…doesn’t get cold enough for long enough.

OK. I have 84 pages of this book to finish, lunch to eat, packing to finish, watering to finish, and then I’m out of here, leaving the cats and dogs and plants to the whims and vagaries of the men. I’m looking forward to seeing most of the fam (niece is at a dig somewhere in Oregon?) and getting some stitching, reading, and drawing time in without the pressures of being at home with a dryer that needs fixing and weeds that need pulling and neighbors yelling all the time. I will miss the dogs and cats and probably my bed, but also looking forward to hikes in all new places.

Work I Love…

Yo! Last Monday of the school year. Am I done with grades? I am not. I’m hoping they are due tomorrow and not today. I should find that out. Tomorrow. Whew. I just thought of that. Nothing like going until the last minute. Trust me, I WOULD have been done by now, but we haven’t tested all the bridges yet and some kids forgot to turn shit in and I don’t even know what to do with the kid who at 2 PM on Friday, with an 11-day assignment due at 3:30, was begging for more time, and then STILL didn’t do anything. Sigh. So yeah. This is the crazy week. All the grades and awards and parties and promotion practices and actual promotion plus clean your room and lock it up because summer school will be in there and they will use all your shit.

Yup. Almost there. I can taste it. Almost. This week is actually really long. Friday night and all day Saturday I was convinced I was getting sick: massive headache, sore throat, achy all over, felt like crap. So I started with the immune protection stuff, emergen-c, and drank a lot of it. All day Saturday. I felt OK yesterday and this morning, so maybe I kicked it? Or? It will come back with a vengeance on like Wednesday, when I have to be outside all day. Yeah. Still taking vitamins just in case. Even if it’s all in my head. There are lots of things in my head. If it keeps me from getting sick right now, I’m good.

So Friday night, I sorted the Wonder Under…

It didn’t take long.

Then Saturday, I ran errands, bought a background fabric (two actually, but one was better than the other for this), and cleaned the office/studio…which started out like this.

I put all the fabric away, and then mopped the floor. It had been a while. It was driving me a little bonkers. But that’s all I got done in here.

The Man had a show on Saturday night and I was feeling well enough to go. In fact, there are times in my life when I feel like going out and dancing has kicked a virus out of my system. This may have been one of those occasions.

Also they played really local, which made it an easy decision to go.

It was a good time. They are taking a 6-month break because one member is having shoulder surgery and another one just needs to rest his shoulder, so this was the last show for a while.

They opened for Sonic Moonshine, which is also a good show.

Especially with the bubbles.

Sunday, I set up my ironing space…

Laid out the first 100 pieces of Wonder Under, picked the first fabrics…

And started ironing to fabric.

That’s where I’ll be every night this week, I think. With a few exceptions.

My post-eating stitching for the evening is still this Sue Spargo thing.

Brainless and easy. That’s what I need right now. Plus purple. Always good.

Simba agrees.

It rained AND his boy is gone. Very traumatic.

So traumatic that he was lying on my bedspace last night. Really, I think I was supposed to curl up at the foot of the bed, based on this arrangement.

I made him move. He was OK. Ever hopeful for that space.

The owls are wandering all over our little neighborhood, driving all the neighbors bonkers probably. Last year, they just hung out in our yard. This is a wide-ranging group. Which means we rarely see video of any of them on the owl box.

But we hear them constantly.

OK. Today I need to get through a whole lot of bridge breaking…Period 2 may be nigh on impossible. I think I need to do 7 of them in a short period. We’ll see how I do. Finish science and classroom orders, plus a staff meeting, finish grades. My quilt isn’t ready for pickup yet, unfortunately. I really need it by Thursday and I have limited time for pickup before that. Sigh. Ah well. Worst case, I’ll pay the extra for the ‘late’ entry (it’s not late, but there’s a cost break for ‘early’). I’m pretty sure I’m cooking (something) tonight, but there’s ironing at the end of it, which seems like more ‘work’, but it’s work I love. So that’s a good thing.

It Almost Doesn’t Matter

Ugh. It’s Friday Yay. Last Friday of the school year with kids. I feel like Ugh though. There are so many things for school that I am trying to keep straight in my head. I’m tired, really tired. I feel like I might just sleep the entire week after we get out of school. And that would be OK. Except for all the shit I have to get done that week…minor issue. All the stuff I haven’t been doing for the last 10 months. That.

But some cool stuff happened yesterday at school…we started testing these toothpick bridges. Some of them are pretty…

Like that’s classic.

By the way, we break them all. I have a bridge graveyard in the back of the room right now.

It held 6 1/2 pounds. Not bad.

But this one. Doesn’t look like much.

27.6 pounds before it broke. Seriously solid beast. Amazing. At one point, I looked up, and the entire classroom was gathered around as the kids said, “put another 1000 ml in it, Ms. Nida.” It was cool. Love moments like that. Holding onto that, because some of the classes are not cool. They’re just hard.

We still have more to break. Monday.

It’s exhausting doing this stuff, but rewarding.

At home, I am trying to keep the focus on the art. I do have grade stuff to do too, but I’ve been trying to get it done at school. Almost done with all of that. It almost doesn’t matter any more. Yay! Until next year. But the thought of 9 weeks with no grading, no worrying about lesson plans on Sunday afternoon, setting up on Friday after school? That’s delightful. No desperate searching for curriculum that makes sense. No ordering materials at the last minute. Lovely.

I got a bunch of Wonder Under cut out Wednesday night during book club and after…

Just a little bit left, but bedtime loomed. Last night, I finished it…

With Kitten for size comparison. That was about an hour of cutting. In total, 5 hours and 22 minutes to cut those out. Tonight, hopefully, I will sort them, and tomorrow, start ironing to fabric. I need to figure out a background fabric. I might need to go buy some tomorrow. Keeping that in mind. Fewer pieces goes faster. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the big quilts. The next one will be big, I think. Maybe. Gotta look at deadlines and see if there’s anything that I want to make art about.

I did have my stitching meeting last night.

Didn’t get much done. Tired. Distracted. Just worked on the window. Sue Spargo Homegrown. Been working on it for a long time. Will still be working on it next year at this time.

Look! The sisters like each other.

You can’t really see it in this picture, but Luna has a nasty scratch on her nose from her sister…some altercation. We’ve been calling her Harry Potter because it looks like a lightning bolt.

OK. I have to go to school. It’s a field trip day, to the local amusement park (super small, one roller coaster, a few rides, some games). The reward for getting through 8th grade. I’ve never done this field trip before, so that’ll be interesting. But then I come back and continue teaching 7th grade about STDs. Tiring. I’m going to bribe them…good behavior? No quiz. I have one class that will be fine with that. The other one has been awful the last two days. Better yesterday, but still pretty bad. I requested one kid be held out today so I don’t have to deal with him, but I’m pretty much guaranteed to have him next year too. I figure at least he’s the annoyance that you know. There will always be an annoyance (or 20).

Tonight, we’re going to an art opening; tomorrow, the Man has a show. Plus getting grades done and doing art. Close so close to a bit of freedom.

Waiting for Glue to Dry…

Always wear gloves to trim bougainvillea. I have three infected bits in my hand that probably have boug parts in them that need to be dug out. I never learn.
You know you are overwhelmed/tired/done when the email from Chewy that mistakenly tells you that you need to upload the vet authorization elicits an actual surge of anger. I mean, really. It’s not that big a deal. They do already have it. Maybe don’t bite their heads off. Which is something I need to remember for school today. If I can.

I wasn’t planning on trimming the boug. I was going to do the backyard. That’s my reasoning there. The other? I AM done. Mentally. I’m trying not to be, but some of the kids are also done, which is understandable, but if they could just chill out, like most of them are, waiting for glue to dry, instead of trying to put glue all over each other and/or poke each other and/or break the rulers? Yeah. Even in 8th grade, it’s the boys and they can’t just chill. So then I have to babysit stupid behaviors and I don’t have the fucking spoons for that. Seven more days. Two of those are different, not academic, probably easier because of that. IDK what stupid games we’ll be playing on the last day with 8th grade, but I also need to get my room cleaned and locked up, so I’d appreciate more just chilling than I got yesterday.

They’re building toothpick bridges. Hopefully we’ll be testing the first of them tomorrow and then finishing Monday, maybe Tuesday. Friday is a field trip. So it sounds fine, survivable. Until I get to three or four groups of boys.

Some are further along than others…

I’ve always taught sex ed at the end of the year, which keeps kids’ attention pretty well, but my (dumbass) school board limited what we could do this year, so 8th grade needed something interesting that wasn’t hard. More hands-on than brainiac. So this is a good choice, but there are still kids who are messing around. Not a lot. Just enough to drive a tired teacher bonkers.

And y’all, IDK how this bridge is even going to stand up, but that’s not MY problem.

Anyway. So today I’m giving them a short quiz (because I’m a bitch, that’s why…no, because there are actually forces in bridges and I taught them and hopefully this is an easy question…I mean, I think it is, but who the fuck knows what they will do with it) and then they need to get their bridges glued together so we can test some of them tomorrow. I also copied a bunch of mazes to hand kids who are goofing off (if you get a maze, it is because you are not chilling). Meanwhile, all of 7th grade will see an actual childbirth (on video; hard to get guest visitors to do that) and then move on to STDs. Scaring them into abstinence, as one of the teachers said. They weren’t chill yesterday either, but they had a sub in an earlier class and that shit makes them lose their fucking minds.

Yeah. So. I’m done. So done. I need to sleep for like a week straight. And it’s only Wednesday, so it feels like a vast expanse of the week is left.

Pros: It is the middle of the week. The boychild is home so he had the dog in HIS bed last night so I slept five hours straight without waking up. I have lots of Wonder Under to be cutting out, so I can just sit and watch a movie and not think too hard (except I picked a sci fi movie and spent most of it picking apart the science mentally, even though I don’t know enough about space to really do that).

Here’s the Wonder Under once I finished tracing…

Three yards and a bit. Not bad. Normally I can do a yard in an evening, depending on how complicated it is. Lots of big swoopy pieces and a ton of smaller pieces between them. I started cutting on Monday night…didn’t get far.

Last night, I finished the first yard and did the little piece as well…

I read a bunch last night, plus had a late pilates class, and then after I had eaten, while we were still watching our show, I worked on this background…

Of another Sue Spargo quilt, because I will never finish all of them, and that’s OK. This is brainless applique and I should have been cutting out Wonder Under, but my brain was too beleaguered to remember to do that, so this is what I did.

Tonight is a union meeting and book club, though, so IDK what I will get done. Probably more Wonder Under. And the last 23 minutes of that movie I was watching. Trying to decide who’s gonna die. Probably the older guy, even though he’s married, because his algae is all dead, so he can’t do the research anyway. The young woman has too much empathy; plus, she’s the doctor and they’re gonna need her.

Easier to think about that shit than anything else. I’m at 85% in my book too, but I don’t have time to read today. Sigh.

This cat, Nova, came out and sat on everyone yesterday because there were no dogs.

It was sweet. She asks nicely. Puts her paw out with one claw pulling at your shirt or pants. Can I please sit there? Yes. You may.

There was a baby bunny in the yard yesterday. I realize I have three to five barn owls on my property at the moment, so who knows if the baby bunny will survive that…

Certainly my indoor predators were offended by its existence.

Yup. Here’s where I’m at.

It’s not even stress right now. I don’t need to lesson plan, I’m mostly done with grading, I just need kids to not be assholes. Chill the fuck out. Put your head down if you can’t handle it (except don’t fall asleep during the pregnancy video, dammit). Ugh. I started planning next year’s calendar and I’m noting the issues. Not that there are solutions to the end of the year. Ever.

OK. Bridge building, testing, pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections or diseases or whatever. Union meeting. Book club. Maybe water and/or do knee exercises in between that, if there’s time. Also need to pick up cat meds and go to Home Depot and maybe my quilt will be ready for pick up sometime soon? Who knows. I do need to go to school though. Like now. It’s my job.

The Last Tired Minute…

43 days. I often come back to school after Spring Break with some sense of exhaustion, sometimes burnout, although usually Spring Break helps with that…and it did. I can’t imagine how burnt out I’d feel right now if I hadn’t had two weeks off. This year seems worse. As I was making new seating charts last night, the thought of actually being in the classroom, trying to impart knowledge to some of these totally checked-out kids, of the daily war to get stuff out there and have it matter on some level…plus stress about finishing grades and the school board being stupid with the sex ed curriculum, because that means having to come up with something else at the last minute, the last TIRED minute, plus realizing I should have spent HOURS on 8th grade because it wasn’t planned out past tomorrow. All that. I needed to not think about it for a while, so that’s what I did. And now I have to think about it again.

43 days.

Meanwhile, I finished quilting…

I did a marathon (not really…I’ve done longer) of almost 4 hours on Friday…

Even did a different color for once. I didn’t want the words to overpower the lab coat.

I only had a little outlining left…here on the head. So mostly I did background scribbling.

Stayed up a little late to finish. It’s OK. Saturday was chill. Well, I had to ship a quilt (did that), buy more boxes (did that too), and buy binding (yup). The quilt store I like has never gone back to pre-COVID hours, so I can only go on Saturdays before 3. It sucks, and sometimes means I don’t go there…I shop my stash. Which is a pain sometimes, to find enough…this one, I probably JUST could have found enough if I’d had the right color of batik (they’re wider than most of the others). But I’m glad I didn’t have to spend an hour dealing with that. It’s not ideal to buy more fabric or spend money, but it’s nice and easy.

Saturday, I trimmed the damn thing. Had to clean the floor again, but this time I had knee pads!

A friend sent me a link while I was camping after seeing the pinbasting post. It helped, although getting up and down with them on was a challenge. Probably I’m doing that wrong.

Then last night, I got the binding partially on…

Still need to sew the sleeves on and then handstitch the rest. Yeah, I do that. It’s OK. I don’t mind. And I’m fast. Emailed the photographer already. Then it’s time to do the next one…which is half done already. So I will start with sorting all the cut-out ironed-on pieces and go straight into ironing it together. Which means cleaning up the disaster of fabric that is behind me right now. Yup. Not looking forward to that part.

But first, I have to go to school and get my room back in order. They cleaned floors and luckily put my tables and chairs back, but the rest is a disaster. I’m gonna sweep it all behind the counter and trip over it for a few days until I can find a place for it all again. Yesterday was 6+ hours of school stuff…yes, because I’d ignored a lot of it for the last week. I did some on Saturday night, stuff I’d forgotten about. Whoops! And one academic assignment I knew I hadn’t done. But yesterday, I realized I had needed to probably spend another 6+ hours on 8th grade. I tentatively have stuff for the whole week now, but previously, only had through tomorrow. I need to figure one thing out for sure, but need time for that, and a 2-hour staff meeting about literacy will not help with that. Although it’s important. I hope the meeting is helpful. We’ll see. Part of the planning required me to draw three strands of DNA…here’s one.

Like you do. It was easier to draw it than find what I wanted online.

Persuaded the Man to hike on Saturday. I needed to get out of the house and we need to get back in the habit…

His back was bugging him, so we did flat…

Flowers were out though. And it was 3 miles of flat. Better than nothing.

I also finished the May Sue Spargo Homegrown blocks…

I have June and July left…

Not going to be done anytime soon, that’s for sure. But I enjoy stitching them.

Luna being sweet…as a counterpoint to putting her claws in your body parts when she panics and runs away because of some strange noise or movement she didn’t like.

Kitten being very needy.

Right there, in my face, as I’m trying to eat or read.

And Nova…

Taking up my whole chair. I think she moved a little bit to let me sit down and work…but not a lot.

OK. Need to go deal with my room. Get my head in the game. I think I’m doing genetic traits today with 8th and ecosystem cover page with 7th. Changed all their seats, more for my sanity than anything else. Two-hour meeting after school. Maybe a walk after that? Another habit I need to get back into. Zoom meeting tonight…I would have gone to the meeting, but the speaker is Zooming instead of coming, so it seems pointless to drive all that way. I can listen on Zoom and finish the binding. Easier after a long first day.

Up High…

From Organ Pipe, we went up to 5500′ in elevation, higher where we hiked. It was cooler, but not enough during the day to really matter. We considered (and deconsidered…unconsidered? Removed from consideration) one hike due to the climb with the heat. We’re out of shape and heat is hard. But it was still a nice place to be, Chiricahua National Monument, which might be a National Park by the next time we go. Which will be hard for it, because there are only 26 campsites or something like that. We had a great campsite when we were there in 2018 (minus the loud kids in the two sites next to us), but I couldn’t get that one, so this is the one next to it.

Not as good. Lots of sun issues during the day, lots of moving chairs to get shade. But not bad. The amphitheater was right next to it, though, and people kept going there to have private conversations and/or entertain children. Notes for next time.

The last time we were there, we had the energy to hike after we set up camp (WTF, who were those people?); this time? Not so much. We did sit through an hour-long presentation on paws, pines, and poop that was totally worth it. I know more about animal poop now than I ever did before. Did not help at all when I was on the trail, staring at scat, trying to figure out who had left it. Ah well.

There were many Mexican jays in camp.

They were pretty ballsy about being on the tables…

Good reminder to put shit away, which is good, because this is bear country…and jaguar, mountain lion, and bobcat territory, plus!!!

Our first time seeing a WHOLE coatimundi in the wild (last time we only saw the tail disappearing into the brush). This is a single male. We still haven’t seen a whole group of females wandering around.

Last time, we also saw deer. We saw them while driving this time…

But our evening attempt to hike to the meadow they like to hang out in turned into a mostly dark night hike, not so good for seeing deer. We were really bad at timing dinner this trip…either too late or too late. Really, we were always too late even when we tried to be early.

The first night, after the very long poop talk, we ate freeze-dried things and then the Man tried starting a fire, but it wasn’t in the mood and neither was he. I did draw by the dying fire…

The wind picked up while we were there.

The last time we were here, we missed a shuttle up to the top with a hike down to the visitor center (we only camped one night), so this time, we wanted to do that. The shuttle picks you up in the campground and drives you up to Massai Point, so you don’t have to come back to your car.

Last time, we went down into Echo Canyon and then had to climb back out in the heat, which was not fun. So this was more fun. Although it was still hot. So we have saved the longer hike for the next time, when we will either have to start earlier in the year or earlier in the day. Not sure which is going to be easier to pull off. PLUS be in better shape going into vacation, so no job shit that takes up tons of time, no scarlet fever or nasty colds. You know. Ha! Because we have control over all that.

Chiricahua is known for its hoodoos.

It’s different than Bryce, if you’ve been there. But still cool.

That said, it was warm and we were glad to mostly be going downhill.

Lots of different pine trees out there too, a nice change from saguaros.

Also these things are fun to consider drawing.

So this was about 5 miles down…

Mostly exposed…

Reminded us of home, honestly. But there was a breeze, which made it bearable. It really was only in the 80s, but at 6500 feet starting, the sun just feels hotter.

There was still water in the stream at the bottom though. We did another mile and half at dusk to Not See the deer, so we got our 5-mile Hike to Health pin from Chiricahua too. Cool beans. And we have reasons to come back.

I worked on this block in the car from El Cajon to Organ Pipe, in the campground at Organ Pipe, in the car from Organ Pipe to Chiricahua, in the campground at Chiricahua, and in the car home to El Cajon…

I go back and forth during the day between stitching (mostly brainless) and reading (requires slightly more brainpower, depending on the book)…nighttime is for drawing.

I finished it somewhere outside of Gila Bend, I think. Or going into Gila Bend. Hard to say. It all looks the same.

Is that Interstate 10 or the 8? And then I started the next one…got about that far in the car…

And almost finished it…

Crooked tree trunk and all.

So when we got home, we were there for less than 24 hours, and then left for a They Might Be Giants concert at Humphreys. We had reserved a room as a treat, and they gave us a balcony overlooking the venue! So I stitched there a bit…

If we’d been smart, we would have watched the whole show from the room, because it rained and rained (drizzle, but solidly wetly constantly drizzling)…

It was fine in that picture…

But no. We wanted to hang out and bounce around down where we could see the whole thing.

Although trying to see over the people in front of me got harder and harder. Ah well. And this video was because everyone was singing along to this, but you can also see the rain going sideways through it.

Amusing. And no, we didn’t bring raingear. This is freakin’ San Diego, y’all. In Spring. So I think I had 4 layers on, including a hoodie. The Man didn’t. We didn’t think it through. It was fine; we had fun.

Foggy/cloudy view of downtown.

We wanted to test out some of the AI art apps, just to see what they did. I find them frustrating, and gave up pretty quickly, but from that picture of us above, and the text “woman covered with cats”, I got this.

I couldn’t get it to do anything with my art. Ah well. I went back to stitching. The Man has 20 tries with mice with mushroom hats.

Here are better pictures of the four drawings I did on the trip…

Some were more complicated than others. Oh wait, there were five. But I abandoned this one.

It was after I’d seen a bunch of news articles about shooting and pregnancy laws and stupid political bullshit. Like this shit…

Which then turned into this one…and anytime they want to pull Viagra? I’m good with that.

Which I might make into something.

Here’s the windy night drawing…

I was reading about all this space stuff, which might explain her head. Might not.

And the last night, when we were both in pretty irritable moods honestly…

Although it’s not apparent in the drawing, unless you look at the really bad coatimundi drawing. Ah well. Shit happens.

I also managed to find the energy to quilt on Tuesday night…

It took a lot of caffeine…

And a certain amount of panic about the end of Spring Break always coming much faster than I’m prepared for. Yesterday, I spent most of the day working on a artist’s grant application. My CV is now up-to-date, I’ve found some relevant press releases, and I submitted the whole damn thing around noon today…probably about 10 hours in that thing, but if I get it, totally worth it. If I don’t? I can try again. I’ve done the hardest part already. Plus maybe it’s time to try for some artist residencies too, although they would need to be paid for in some way.

More quilting last night after staring at that damn CV for about 5 hours…

I’m more than halfway through the outlining. More today. I was expecting to be done with this by today, but reality is always a slap across the face. I have four things to grade, all the makeups and redoes to grade, lesson planning for 8th grade, posts for 7th and 8th…ugh. I will have to do some of that today or tomorrow, but the goal is to finish the quilting, pack up another quilt for a show, do some house and yard work? Maybe. Eh. Floors need cleaning. I want to go on a hike tomorrow. We’ll see.

Kitten has been stalking me. She’s very glad to have me back.

The other two are as well…

I’ll finish off with this…

Made me laugh.

OK. Yard? Because it’s still daylight and a little moving around won’t hurt me. Then quilting. I’m not cooking tonight (hurrah!). Then more quilting. Yeah.

In the Desert…

Well we’re back; told you it was a short one. A short one with limited cell service. I’d be sitting in camp at night and 3 texts would ping in but whatever service had brought those in whisked away with the wind. It was all good. Nice to not be tethered to all that for a few days.

The landscape, as always, was gorgeous, as are the animals and the stars and the moon (although we lost that the last few days due to the landscape). I do get tired of eating the same stuff and having to clean up at bear level (better than having bears in camp though). And if I had to camp for more than three days with no shower, I’d probably shave my head because I can’t stand my hair anymore after that. Last night’s shower was a delight. Usually we camp for a while and then get an AirBnb for a break, but because this was a short trip, we skipped that part. Which is why we got up yesterday morning and drove all the way home (from the Eastern side of Arizona). We needed a bed, a fridge, and a shower. All good.

We stop at weird little parks to eat lunch while we’re driving, just like I did when I was a kid and my parents drove me across the country to see every historic landmark in the US.

This mural was in one of those parks.

By the way, the landscape described as “high-density cactus forest” that is Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is absolutely gorgeous in spring…all flowery and green and weirdly amazing. Totally would go there again, even though the daytime is hot. They say April is the end of the hiking, and I would agree, unless you are hiking at night. Warm. Some shade, not enough.

I’m not really a desert lover…it’s hot and dry and often flat, but this was beautiful.

We were lucky to have gotten one of the few campsites with a ramada, which gave shade at certain times of the day, mostly the hot times.

You had to keep your car hood up and start the car at least once a day to keep pack rats out of the engine. I never saw any, but I did see a lot of hoods up.

Mostly flat desert makes for really nice sunsets…especially when there are some clouds out there.

We went to one of the ranger talks, about the moon, which I just finished teaching about.

No fire pits, but we managed fires in the grills. Good thing…the Man can’t stand camping without the requisite staring into the fire and managing the fire. It’s fire TV. I do a little staring myself, but mostly it’s my drawing time.

The moths were particularly happy about my headlamp on the first night.

It was warm enough to not even put socks on for a while. It’s been a while since we’ve camped anywhere that warm. And of course, that means it’s even warmer when we’re hiking, which is harder. But hike we did. The Arizona parks have a Hike for Health thing going on right now where you get a pin if you hike at least 5 miles in the park (proven by photos), so we did that in both parks. But honestly, we’re out of shape after a particularly un-hikey winter (health plus work plus weather). Normally we’d be in for 10-15 miles a day, but we did less.

We did Victoria Mine, which was close to 5 miles when we finished; we should have started two hours earlier to beat the heat, but we didn’t. The ocotillo was just starting to leaf out, so some had flowers and no leaves, some had new reddish leaves, and some had green leaves.

It’s a fascinating plant. I keep trying to simplify it for the quilts I make, because making it realistically is a very time-consuming thing. If I JUST made a quilt about one ocotillo branch, that would be doable. Anything else would be nuts. Says the woman who regularly makes quilts with over 1000 pieces.

I do love me some ocotillo though.

In Organ Pipe, we had pretty good cell service, so my Seek app for identifying plants was working. Since I just made my Desert Mother quilt last year and had researched all these plants, many of which I’ve seen before but never ID’d, it was cool to go around and see them in real life…the Organ Pipe cactus themselves…

Plus all the different chollas…

Saguaros of course…

So many saguaros…

I’d never seen the inside of one…

And some of them had fascinating growth patterns…

Lots of flowers because…Spring…

Spring is such a short season that I often miss the blooms that happen.

By the time I have a free weekend to go down to Anza Borrego, it’s done.

I called this Introverted Cactus.

Stay the fuck away cactus. It’s actually some thorny spike cactus (like no duh, look at that thing). In bloom, nonetheless! This was on the kamikaze half-run up a hill to see the sunset. We didn’t time dinner perfectly, so it was a bit of a rush.

The mine itself had these weird little ceramic sculptures that the rangers said they’d found elsewhere too.

Not original to the park probably.

Requisite photo of us, me looking very red and sweaty (’twas warm!) so we could get our pin.

It was a fairly easy hike, in terms of elevation etc. Just warm.

So that was almost 5 miles…then we rested for a while, cooled off, I took a shower with their solar collectors, so warm sometimes, sometimes not.

Then we realized how crappy our cooler was (seriously needed daily ice infusions, which was a pain)…so we drove into Why, Arizona, to get more ice plus drinks plus snacks.

Lots of cool mural stuff at this convenience store…with a quilt motif!

Pretty amazing…

And fun.

We tried a drive, but the ‘better’ dirt road was enough to persuade me that the 21 miles of ‘not so good’ dirt road would be a pain. The other drive was closed for repairs, unfortunately, but reason enough to come back.

Camp was fine. I had a book, cold water, a chair, and shade. I also had friends…this trapdoor spider by the water spigot…

A round-tailed ground squirrel who came up to my feet until I jiggled them.

Then a run up to the sunset…

Another proof picture…where I force that smile…

Yeah well. Still warm.

But beautiful…

Drawing on the second night…

I had actually started another drawing (I’ll post better photos of these once they’ve downloaded off the cloud), but couldn’t get my head around it. Something about protecting unborn children more than the actually born ones. And guns. And teachers. And banning medications for women, but not men. It was frustration. This second drawing is better and has the potential to be something. When I’m traveling, I just draw to draw, not to potentially be a finished quilt. I usually focus on the landscape around me, which is how this started, but I couldn’t get past the other crap going on in our country.

Which hello…this truck was in one of the campsites down from us…

I finally got all the way around it…

Nice sentiments…

Beautiful. I hope she was safe as she drove. I hope no one made it unsafe for her. Because that’s our existence too, more than half of the nation: women, LGBTQIA, children, people of color. Not safe for any of them. And it should be. I’m not sure when the politicians will realize they are outnumbered. I hope it is soon. As I make my work and it becomes more and more relevant with time instead of less…which is what I want. I want the problems to go away, for the world to be better, and it’s not going that way. It’s getting harder for all those groups and that’s just wrong.

OK, with that happy finish! Ha. Oh wait, I did start working on this on the road…

Just so you have a comparison to later. I always take too much stitching, and that’s OK. No one ever wants to run out of something to work on when you don’t feel like drawing or reading.

Today we are going to a concert, They Might Be Giants (my Xmas present to the Man), and are staying near the venue to make it easier for us old folks, so I need to get a bunch of stuff done, laundered, put away, etc before we leave. Early. Because we are old. Plus school stuff and other stuff…like shipping a quilt to a show! I got into Form, Not Function with The Way Out…

So that’s cool. More politics. Nothing like a Nida quilt with a uterus AND a giant vagina with a landscape in it. Originally made for a show called Portals. So there’s that. Good news all around. I have some work to do this week; even was quilting last night, despite being exhausted, so more of that today as well. First to make sure the pool guy put everything back after trying to flood my house, then another delightful wonderful shower, and then stuff to get done. It’s still Spring Break for 5 more days. More about Chiricahua and the second half of the trip tomorrow. Or Friday. We’ll see.

Breathe Deeply of Vacation

So I’m writing this in the car after sitting through a blob of traffic described as “The Incident at Dunbar” (road signs could say accident, same number of letters, because that’s what it was). We made it to the first rest stop and driver switch. We meant to leave at 9 AM, but shit happens. It’s fine. We’re not in a hurry. Just driving today to Organ Pipe National Monument. We are just doing a short trip this year; the Man doesn’t have a ton of days saved up and we have a concert in San Diego next week to get back for. And the weather is going to be much warmer than we’ve had for camping in a long time.

I did manage to finish stitchdown on the quilt.

That was Wednesday.

Thursday I lost internet on and off all morning, so I was trying to do the non internet things… like cleaning the floor so I could pinbaste…

Camping gear in the background. I fell the other night and banged up my knee, so kneeling for pinbasting was a challenge.

That was my goal, to get to this point. Come back from trip, quilt and bind in time for May 5 entry. Such a pain. Then I can finally iron the other one together and see if I can get a third one done.

I also finished the second May Homegrown block (Sue Spargo).

The bird just needed a beak and some feet. I have two more with me for campground/car stitching and I hopefully brought June’s blocks as well (hopefully because odds are I won’t get to them).

Luna trying to get packed. The animals freak out when we pack up.

Kitten rubbed herself all over my new boots so I wouldn’t forget her.

Anyway, time to stitch for a while. We are on the dead boring straight flat bit of Arizona. Lunch stop at some point, then campground and hopefully a sunset walk/hike to wear in our new boots and breathe deeply of vacation.

Reading a Lot…

There’s nothing like an 8 PM email from your principal saying there’s a meeting tomorrow morning to set off a bunch of teachers, especially right after the Nashville shooting. Should we be calling it a shooting? Or a killing? I feel like the latter is relevant. Seven guns. Seriously Tennessee. WTF. Sigh. Anyway, I’m sure it’s something like last year, where they promoted one of our admin right out of our school…in March…with three months left to go, leaving us with an open position right when our kids don’t need change. So it’ll be that. I’m just a lowly teacher; I can’t possibly understand the business acumen that goes into pulling a stable authority figure out of a middle school this close to the end of the year.

Also, my school board is populated with idiots who don’t want us to teach sex ed, despite the state law requiring certain things be taught. I’m glad that law exists so the stupidity that seems to permeate this nation can’t keep my kids from getting information they need to be healthy in the future (or for some of them, right now, because they already need it). Unfortunately, the majority of my school board IS that stupid. So either we’re not teaching it (and getting fined by the state, because that money couldn’t be used to educate children instead of glorifying the opinions of a few small-minded folks) or we’re teaching an older version with less offensive stuff in it (don’t even ask). I do know we’re supposed to be teaching it fairly soon after Spring Break, so these dumbasses need to be making a logical decision soon or we will have to come up with 5 weeks of curriculum that doesn’t currently exist, and that we don’t have the mental energy to create.

Somewhat frustrated this morning. Also this.

Three more days of school until break. Until I break.

I’m still cutting things out, which is good, because I am sitting and watching shows that don’t require a lot of mental energy. Monday night…after grading…

Tuesday night was complicated. I had physical therapy and then came home and finished my book instead of grading. So maybe it wasn’t complicated. I was going to grade, but then the flurry of texts came through about the email from the principal, and I had lost my impetus to grade. Maybe best. So I cut more stuff out.

It looks different. Still not obviously halfway, but I think it is? Not sure. Can’t tell.

I did a little on this too, until I remembered I had stuff to cut out.

Probably should finish this before we go camping, because it’s almost done anyway. I’ve got time though. We’re not camping until Easter weekend.

After PT, I went shoe shopping, which just means I tried on some shoes and then bought the same ones I already own because they were the most comfortable (the old pair is falling apart). Really, I just did it for the cats, so they’d have a bag and some boxes to hang out in. Luna appreciated it.

So did Nova…

She has an obsession with moths and geckos…

Hopefully my windowsill plants will survive her obsession. It’s been iffy at times.

I need to set up the rest of a lab this morning. I did most of it yesterday, but I need water at 65 degrees Celsius (I think?) and a bunch of pipettes in tubes that currently have lids on them. So 20 lids off, 60 pipettes in, water in, water bath on, then meeting of unknowness, then lab all morning, I don’t remember what in the afternoon, then pilates. I’m cooking dinner, I need to grade the thing I couldn’t grade last night (hoping mental status is more focused, ha!), then more cutting of the things. Sleep. If I’m lucky. I’m reading a lot these days; seems to help.

Different Shade of Red

Field trip day. Pros: no teaching in the AM, get to be outside (sort of?), and I’m chaperoning the introvert art geek girls (they picked ME! OK, I was one of them in middle and high school). Cons: I still have to teach 7th grade (hoping the annoying ones go home early or don’t come to school), I’m going to the Midway (ah, me and the military, such a fit), my knee is still not the best (I totally fell off my physical therapy schedule with getting sick), and I’m totally exhausted already. At least it’s different. I appreciate a different day every once in a while. A change in the routine. It isn’t until we’re on the buses, though, that it feels OK. Right now, it just feels stressful, but since my co-teacher did almost everything (!), I really shouldn’t complain. She’s awesome, IDK how she does it, oh yeah, she has a student teacher and I always say no to those. NOT rethinking that. The day I say yes is the day I get some perky little thing that drives me bonkers.

In other news, it’s Friday, hallelujah, even if I have to spend all of tomorrow doing taxes and planning for next week, I don’t care, because it will be here where I can pee when I want and make 7 thousand cups of tea and pet dogs and cats in wild abandon. Plus no annoying, gaslighting 13-year-old boys who are clueless about life. I do appreciate most of them, because most of them in 8th grade seem to be getting a clue or are totally mature and responsible and amazing. Which I tell them all the time. One of the gaslighters told me he would be a MAN next year (age 14, freshman in high school) and he would be nice to me when I was nice to him. OMG. SHHHHHHH. I told him I figured he’d be OK, he’s smart enough, eventually he would figure out what he needed to do.

So being away from all that shit for two days is a plus. I do appreciate a huge number of my kids…I really do. They do the things, they think, they try, they work, they ask questions, they figure stuff out. They’re fun even when they’re having a hard day, because they realize they’re having a hard day. It’s a pretty small percentage of those who drive us bonkers, but this year, the bonkers is taller and wider.

I ironed on Wednesday night…

I started ironing all the little figures the main figure is protecting. I needed lots of small runs of different flesh tones. Hopefully it works out.

Then last night, I finished those and started on the rest of the bits and pieces that make up the figure.

The top left bin is all the fabrics I used for the figures; there are 7 of them. I couldn’t even iron all their hearts onto the same red fabric. They needed their own shade of red. Crazy, I know. I have a few of the 300s left, and then I think I’m in the 400s. So more than halfway? I think? Who knows. My biggest issue is what to do with the main figure’s hair. When I decided to make her blue (on a blue background), I didn’t really consider hair. I might just go for some crazy multi-color thing. We’ll see. Probably tonight we’ll see.

The right eye is twitching again. It went away for a bit, but it’s back.

I also had my stitching Zoom meeting last night, so I worked on one of the May Homegrown blocks from Sue Spargo.

I’ve been working on these forever. Then again, her Bird Crazy (not its real name) quilt is still under my machine, and I think I started quilting it in January. It would probably take 2 or 3 hours to finish it…it’s on my list for Spring Break. So is EVERYTHING though.

I figured this out really quickly…

I have a screenprint from before the kids are born that is called Make It So. Someday I’ll get all my prints photographed (or copied from slides) and posted somewhere. Not this year.

OK. I have to go to school. Need to put a snack in my bag. Need to make sure I’m ready for later. Ha! I’m never ready for later. More tea. Don’t forget to pee. Phone fully charged. Lunch ready for when we get back (I’d better get to eat…it’s always an issue these days and that sucks). Exhaustion level high, but we all know how to deal with that. Six days of school until Spring Break. We can DO this. Also, I want to read my book. Hmmm. Later.