Spread-Out Thinking

OK, what’s weird about all this pandemic stuff is that time is still flying by and I don’t have enough of it to get everything done. In fact, I don’t know how my co-teachers are doing everything they’re doing, especially those with little kids, because I can’t even see straight some days, there are so many things on the to-do list. I did schoolwork yesterday for a good chunk of time, maybe 10 hours, with a break to empty one composter and have lunch. Then I was back at the computer stuff, which I finally put up on the ironing board, put some music on, and bounced around a little, because the loss of daily movement is annoying.

It helped a little. I ended up sitting a lot though, just because some things are easier that way, plus if you think about the correct posture and hand/arm positioning (as someone who had a tendonitis on the way to carpal tunnel syndrome, I wonder how all this bad office seating will affect people), sitting is easier for that. I did briefly consider a treadmill desk and/or a treadmill, but shut that down in the crazy brain.

Speaking of crazy, despite deaths continuing and the graph still reaching upwards, San Diego is opening restaurants and malls. We had this discussion at my meeting last night…how many are ready to go back? Outside? Maybe? Even then, big groups of people outside makes me nervous. The mall? Geez. No. Why? I’m sorry if you have a business that was negatively affected by this. I’m sorry for lots of things right now that I have no control over…people dying, kids in bad home situations who are stuck there, people losing their jobs, people who are still in the hospital, the elderly in homes who can’t see their family. But let’s not make it worse?

Yeah. That. Wednesday’s drawing during the staff meeting.

I’m going to redo it slightly today or tomorrow for my Patreon. Her head bugs me. We’ll see how that goes.

Or not. I just don’t know. I like it. I may do a large one. Just because.

I cut these out the other night, so I can iron these two little babies together.

Need to finish these two this weekend so I can give my Patreon patrons a choice.

I finally finished the back of the cross stitch…so it can hang up in here now somewhere that the students can’t see it.

Looks good.

Before I could start ironing last night, I finally had to organize by color. It was driving me bonkers. There’s a lot of different fabrics in this thing.

OK. I remember starting this. I think it was almost 9 hours ago. Seriously WTF where do the days go and how? My brain is all spread out trying to think about where I was and what I was thinking 9 hours ago. Fuck if I know. I went to school and stood around and directed kids to and from the locker rooms to empty their PE lockers. Then I went and scored enough flour for at least a month. Well. You’d think that, but then everyone made bread and the house smells like bread but I don’t think I’m allowed to eat any of it. I worked outside for a good long time and then came in and did math, English, and science in Office Hours. Then I completely forgot that my regular stitching Zoom had been rescheduled to whatever fucking day today is, I really don’t know, so I was late logging onto that. And I ironed some little quilts that I’ll show you later, and then ironed some more fabric down for this big monster of a quilt…

And now it is 5:40 PM and I am totally exhausted. This was last night though…a variety of weird medical things that are in the coffin that is in my quilt.

It’s not the first time I’ve put a coffin in a quilt unfortunately. So this was last night’s progress…

There’s been more today, but I’m hoping there will be even more tonight and maybe I’ll even finish tomorrow and get on with the next fucking step.

Dots? Oh yeah. More dots. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. It’s the one under the green spool…

It was pretty easy…ooh…now it’s to the right.

But not as easy as last night’s dot…under the yellow-green spool…

All chain stitch, only two colors, although I started and then had to redo it.

Yeah there we are.

I exercised yesterday. Luna was perturbed. Those are my art supplies, but that’s the girlchild’s pile.

Exercise is important. By the end of the week, I don’t get much of it. I want more. But I’m way too tired right now.

OK. So. My goals for the day have changed somewhat. I’d like to finish ironing this quilt, but I’m not sure I have the stamina for that. I need to make my dinner. I need to finish this monster asshole of a progress report plan that our team came up with and I could totally reject, and certainly thought about it, but it will be easier for the next three weeks if I DO do it, so I do it. And sleep. Can I haz sleep? Yeah. That would be good. Oh wait. I forgot the puppy picture.

There you go. Now everything is better.

Brain Hole

It’s the middle of the week. The middle of the week is different than other days, because I have a bunch of meetings in the afternoon, so it just FEELS different. I only see kids in the morning. I passed my math assignment. I know you’re glad. It’s always good when I can do 7th-grade math. (I was teaching the math with the website and the math teacher could see my scores, so I guess that’s a good thing.)

It’s now 4+ hours after I started writing this…I’ve graded a science assignment (well, the 25 that were turned in) and filled a greenery trashcan (my goal is 2 a week…but 1 will do), posted a blog post for one of my art groups, tried to avoid crying during an online staff meeting about the future of teaching in my district…didn’t finish my book, did a drawing, but I don’t know if it’s any good, and ate lunch. I think. Did I eat lunch? Right now, I want cookies.

What fucking day is it? Oh yeah. Wednesday. Moving on. This is school in a pandemic.

Mood? fucked. Thanks to all the humans who still talk to me.

I ironed for way too long last night, way too late. Whatever.

I got all of Figure 3 ironed down…except for some of the inner parts. I did do the hair, the lungs, the heart, and the eyes. I’m not sure what’s left…it’s a big pile here.

This is what’s left of 700-999? I think? Ah yes, a few body parts in there, but mostly Figure 3 is done.

There’s some stuff that needs to go into the coffin with her. So those need doing. Then I’m into the 1000s. I’ve already ironed a few of those that were body parts. But otherwise, I’m heading onto the hillside and the skeleton, and then the angels, and then I’m done. OK, that’s like 500 pieces, so don’t get excited. But 2/3s of the way done.

I walked yesterday and took a slightly different route. I get tired of the same shit.

It wasn’t long enough or interesting enough, but it happened. A few different flowers…

They were taller than me. Not that it’s hard to be taller than me.

This flower was freakin’ huge.

So there’s that. Fuck that sign. I trespass here all the time. The owners here are just jerks for that sign.

There’s nothing built there.

Nice view though, despite that huge monstrosity in the bottom left under the hill.

I missed a walk today. I did yardwork instead. I might go on the bike and try to finish my book.

I listened to a webinar today about modern quilting vs art quilting. Yeah, I’m no modern quilter. I don’t fit, but they are OK with that at the moment. This one? Um…the tree under the green spool.

It was pretty fun…

I think it’s a cherry tree.

And I finished the second Patreon reward embroidery.

OK. Well. It’s late already…well, 6 PM. I need to do more score-checking for tomorrow, I need to maybe draw another embroidery, cut some shit out, iron some more shit, exercise? I did say that already. And get my brain out of the hole it’s in. That might be harder.

Damn Rumination

It’s a little chilly this morning. I start the mornings with slippers on because my feet are cold every morning, no matter how warm it is outside. And eventually they come off and I am barefoot for most of the day. Pandemic clothing is pretty simple…looks a lot like my summer wear, except there are some t-shirts I can’t wear on Zoom when I’m teaching. I also have to think about what tea mug I’m drinking out of, because some have naked people on them. Plus the drawing that’s hanging up. I pin it up just in case. I’m pretty sure it’s too far away for the kids to see, but why take that risk?

I’m not sleeping well…not falling asleep quickly enough, try to go to bed earlier so the mornings aren’t so bad, but that doesn’t help. Just more lying around trying to fall asleep happens then. And then when the man gets up early, some mornings, I’m so exhausted I zonk out again, but some, I just lie there and ruminate. Damn rumination. It just messes me up. Weird dreams too. Last night, we were on vacation (VACATION!) and in a hotel, and this woman came into our room and started unpacking her stuff, because the hotel/Airbnb/whatever it was allowed people to double book or something? But she was someone I sorta knew? But it was SO UNCOMFORTABLE having someone else in the room, and that’s how I feel about going ANYWHERE right now. It’s just uncomfortable.

I finally FINALLY got to iron stuff on the big quilt last night. It’s not anybody’s fault…just gets too late, or the girlchild wants me to hang out, so I stitch instead. I’m still doing stuff I need to do…it’s just not this big quilt. I picked the fabrics for the third figure, darker…

This disease doesn’t care about you personally, but certain communities are harder hit…relative to health care options and poverty. If you have money, you’re better off? Or insurance? Or access to good healthcare? It all sucks. We should be taking care of everyone. All the time. Not just during a pandemic.

I didn’t finish ironing those down. It was 12:20 AM and I really need to go to bed earlier…but also sleep earlier. I can totally feel it today. I’m braindead and cranky as shit.

I also ironed the fabrics for the two mini-quilts I’m making for Patreon rewards…

That’s the bird laid out.

The heart in hands is on the right. I’ll cut those out later tonight probably. These go pretty quickly…just need to fit them in around everything else. This morning is two meetings, one of which is done (and was a clusterfuck, just so you know…makes me question my ability as a teacher in this situation). SIGH. Big Fucking Sigh.

Anyway. I also did dots. Strawberry, bottom right. Or some other berry? Don’t know.

It looks like a strawberry.

Then last night was this foxy dot…to the right of the white spool…

Ah yes…turned out pretty good, I think.

I also worked on the next Patreon reward embroidery…those are Luna’s legs under the coffee table…

And Kitten keeping me company on the couch…

I’m not sure how offended she is that I am stitching birds, not cats.

Hard to say.

What else is going on? Walks with dogs…

Someone weed-whacked. Hopefully that means fewer ticks.

Because despite that face, Simba hates combing.

Boychild made bagels…

I didn’t even know how bagels were made…

It’s a very strange process. Like how did we decide to boil FOOD in lye?

I feel like more of us should have died in the past just for our weird food practices.

Cats are always asleep…

She sits with me every day as I work…although this was last night…

It looks like the beginning of a horror movie. CATS!

There’s been some food-sharing issues amongst the cats. They are figuring it out. Certainly no one is starving.

And more of the conversations…although this is one I have often (minus my bro…usually it’s just the SIL and occasionally a kid)…

Everyone is going a little stir crazy.

Today? Today I make some decisions about my Advisory class, how I’m going to run it. I hate it, so it needs to change. Today I get some exercise, do some ironing, maybe some cutting stuff out and embroidery. Today I…sigh. I need more sleep. Maybe today I nap. Or draw. Or finish my book (I’ve been trying to do that for four days). Whatever. Today feels sucky. I will fix that. Somehow.

Realize.

I meant to write this yesterday. There are a lot of things I meant to do yesterday. I really should just remember that I am unfocused at least one day a week and that day is often Saturday. At least at the moment. Realize. It’s a word I should pay more attention to. Realize reality? As the county starts to open more things up, it’s harder to get away from crowds of people? Is it OK to go to Target to get pool noodles for shipping? Will I be shipping anything anywhere? Eventually. How do I feel about Target? I don’t know. I don’t know about anything. It all feels uncomfortable at the moment. Realize nothing.

I ironed nothing down on the Covid quilt in the last two days. Three days? Nothing since Thursday night. Let’s put it that way. That sucks. I was really tired on Friday and we had gaming…

I didn’t do anything after that except be tired. I did stitch on some dots…this was Friday night’s…the one under the green spool.

Simple flower shape…

And then Saturday night’s…just under the magenta spool.

I had another late finish and then mental exhaustion.

Pretty rose stitch though.

I also finished the first of the Patreon rewards…

And traced the second one on fabric, although I need to choose threads. And then I traced the Wonder Under and cut it out for the two small quilts.

I was hoping to finish picking fabrics for these yesterday, but brain fog won out.

I have a shit-ton of work to do for school this afternoon, so we’ll see what I get done. When I had finished the other embroidery, I didn’t have the next one ready to go, so I pulled this out of the pile and started on it while gaming.

It’s a Cozy Blue Handmade pattern. I suck at ironing stuff on. I bought this in Boston when I visited the girlchild a year and a half ago. Long time.

What else? The requisite dog and cat pictures…the deck is an appropriate temperature for us to live on some days, super buggy other days, way too hot at times. Simba likes it.

As long as someone is out with him.

Kitten has found another chair to sit on…although right now, she’s in her normal place…

Right behind me.

Simba loves the girlchild. She does not love his ticks.

There are a lot of ticks right now.

Yesterday was warm and tiring.

I agree, Luna…wholeheartedly.

I have a few new babies…I didn’t even do this right, and it made a baby. I’m so happy.

Succulents are amazing.

I think this one is my first…no second grandchild. I think the first one died. Or maybe it was incorporated into this one. But we do spend a lot of time thinking about them…

Yep, that’s our sourdough starter, version 2.0.

We did a short walk with the dogs on Friday, and then Saturday, I did a longer one, later, close to sunset, by myself. Everyone else was gone anyway.

It was relatively cool out, nice day, nice breeze, hazy skies.

Dumbasses on motorcycles zooming around in the valley, polluting the world with their tiny-penis noise. Seriously. Stop.

I like to just listen to the birds…not my neighbor’s lawnmower. He mows so many days. I realize it’s a ride-on and he likes his toys, but ffs, just stop. Let the lawn grow an eighth of an inch before you mow it again dude.

Most people out there have masks, although fewer on the walks in the neighborhood. One in the grocery store with no mask, though. WTF?

Apparently someone is painting these and leaving them around the neighborhood I walk in.

That’s so cool. I love that. More of that shit. More ravens just hanging out on wires.

Less noise pollution.

OK. Well. It’s 3 PM and I probably have at least 2-3 hours of school shit to do, another dot to sew, and then I’d really like to do some ironing. If I can. A good night’s sleep would be good too. One where I woke up the next morning and didn’t feel tired? That would be good. That’s a rare thing though. New week. Get it on.

I Dreamed I Was Sitting in a Restaurant Last Night…

Hey Friday. You make me tired. And overwhelmed. Nothing new there. Looking forward to some free time tomorrow, but who knows if I’ll be panicking about school and desperately planning stuff instead of ironing and stitching. It could go either way. I’m feeling a little constrained these days by the existence…no talking to anyone in person, like one-on-one, or lunches at work. I don’t know what’s going on with anyone except for the basics, because Zoom is always a bunch of people and mostly work-related, except for the desperate late-night texts about this program or that website, and occasionally on Insta or FB, I see what they ate or read or something like that. No deep conversations. No complaining about stupid shit. No venting about the job or the SO or sharing some awesome book or movie we’d love. Well, there’s a little of that in text and email, but not the same. I know, it’s because we’re trying to take care of everyone. I get that, but I dreamed I was sitting in a restaurant last night, at the bar, and I’m thinking it will be a year or two before that’s a thing. I love that so many states are ignoring science. 84,000 dead. And it’s only May 15. San Diego is still ticking up, but reopening some things. Malls opened this week, but not the stores in them. Curbside pickup only. I’m wondering what I really need the mall for anyway. Not much.

I’ve been ironing a little bit every day. I was hoping to be further than this, but work has been long and hard. So I’m about halfway, I think.

I think Wednesday night, after 5 hours of Zooming in the afternoon, only gave me a little ironing. I think I did the bat. He was semi-complicated. And some eyeballs. Pills. Oh yeah. Some Covid-19.

They’re all over the place. OK. There are only four of them. There’s a lot of fabric colors in this thing.

Still have three figures left to iron.

My Wednesday night companion…I get to step over her every time I go choose fabric from over there. I’m OK with that.

Last night, I think I got 30 minutes in…Kitten assistance…

But I also ironed in the afternoon with my quilt group. I’m at 17 1/2 hours. And halfway. It’s not been the most effective time, with only an hour here and an hour there. The work I’m doing during the day sucks up brainwaves and turns them into mush, so that doesn’t help. I’m staring at two browns and trying to decide whether to go darker or lighter, for a really long time.

The coffin is ironed.

Tonight? Tonight I’m hoping to start Figure 3. It might not happen until tomorrow. We’ll see. I kind of want to reorganize all the fabric in color order too…it’s looking really chaotic.

I also started stitching one of the Patreon pieces…they’re not big, but they’re not supposed to be.

I worked on this one during a staff meeting. My boss called it knitting. Whatever.

I’m still caught up on dots…the mushroom to the left of the red ball…

Kinda cute.

And then last night’s…to the left of the brown spool…is a dandelion.

I added a few wandering dandelion seeds…

More than halfway on that.

I wanted to draw the other night, but I was too damn tired. So I just sat on the deck and read while drinking tea.

Speaking of drinking, a Wednesday-night incident drove me to a margarita…I think I mentioned that. Well here it is…

Tasty. Created by girlchild, who also created an amazing dinner…

I feel like if she weren’t here, we’d be living on PopTarts and toast. She takes the artsy photo…

‘Twas good. Homemade pita on my shitty-looking cookie pan from my long-defunct wedding in 1989.

We do know how to cook. She’s just way better at it.

We pretty much cook the same stuff over and over again. This is tastier. I admit to not having the brain power for this.

However, these keep popping into my tiny little brain.

Seriously, she’s making me throw away potential penicillin. It’s OK. Also, I’ve been unfriending people on FB like crazy, all the conspiracy and liberal snowflake haters. I can’t deal with your dumbassery any more. I don’t understand how you like my work if you can’t think. So there. Go the fuck away. Most of you just want me to like your shop and buy stuff anyway. You’re freaking out because the quilt shows and vending opportunities are being canceled. I barely buy anything quilt-related online, y’all. I don’t need your long-arm services and I don’t want your cute fabric bundles and patterns. Friend me if you like my work AND understand my politics. I don’t want to read your crazy. You probably don’t want to read mine either.

Old lady dog asleep on the deck…

During one of my move-it-outside meetings. I wish I lived closer to the beach. Or had the energy to drive there after dinner one night. Not tonight. Don’t want to fight crowds on the weekend either. Maybe that’s a goal for next week.

Kitten playing time. Kitten playing with a kitten.

They’re funny.

Followed by the little boy, snuggling with his favorite tick-removing human…

I’m betting she’s on Pinterest or a recipe site.

OK. It’s 1 PM on a Friday. I have one more class. I need to plan for next week, set up posts, create some shit, make some decisions. I need to stitch on a dot. I need to iron. Gaming is happening tonight, and I want to walk the dogs, but I’ll need help with that. Also, weed-whacking needs to happen, but I don’t think I can fit that into all the shit I just listed. Also I want a long hike, but that’s not happening either. OK. Welcome to my online learning world.

Pros and Cons

Well I’ve been trying to get this written all day, but 17 hours of Zoom meetings and notetaking and adjusting shit and grading crap and dealing with my crashing blood sugar and only getting 3000 fucking steps today has gotten in my way. I did 32 minutes of Pilates though dammit and that’s it, I’m calling it, fuck this day, man. While eating Spoonsize Shredded Wheat before dinner because I need to eat and IDK what I did wrong. Except stop moving enough and stare at a computer (TWO computers and a phone at the moment) for way too long.

Pros: I finished things.

Cons: I didn’t finish other things.

Really I’m much more positive when I write this first thing in the morning. Right now, I just want to build a pillow fort and climb in there with an adult beverage. (I should admit that I didn’t finish this by 4 PM like I wanted to, and it is now 10:06 PM and I’ve had a margarita. I don’t drink margaritas except like once every two years. So that might tell you a little bit more about today.)

So ironing has happened. Here’s what that might look like. This is actually ironing the heart. Not really red.

A little red. This heart has flowers.

MMMM. Strawberry shortcake delivery.

Leftovers from my Mother’s Day thing. This was Monday night. I got the snake ironed and the lungs.

Big addition in colors. I’m still dealing with all the bits and pieces up into the 700s that are part of the larger figure; not done. Nope.

This is slow. Especially when I’m not starting until 11 at night.

Here’s some tattoos I made. Well. On her arm.

I guess I wanted it to use all the blacks and whites I could. I ironed some scissors, a scar, a uterus, a tree and leaves, or maybe that was the night before.

This is 12 hours and 41 minutes of ironing shit down and I’m still not halfway. Laughing hysterically here.

I’ve been trying to catch up on dots since last week sometime. I even started in the afternoon.

And kept working…this is the coneflower…just under the yellow spool.

Which makes me think I need a different yellow. There’s the coneflower…it was nice and pretty easy to do.

I did not use that extra time to get caught up, unfortunately.

Here’s a closeup of the chrysanthemum from last week. Lots of cat hair in this thing.

It will take me a while to get that all out.

Then Monday night was the cup to the left of the white spool.

Although I did it last night, not Monday. Last night I caught up on the last two. It’s a nice cup.

And then yesterday’s was this abstract flower…just to the right of the orange spool.

That’s 44 done.

Halfway after tonight.

I also cut out fabric napkins for the household…8 sets of two from fabrics that are often a million years old.

Now I just need to hem them all. IDK when the fuck that will happen. But it will. Before we run out of paper napkins, which will be soon.

Other artsy shit I’m working on includes doing some drawings for my Patreon patrons…some of them are coming up to their one-year anniversary of their tier, which means I make them a square, either embroidered or quilted. I’ve done two drawings, and will probably do the bird with something besides WTF in there as well. I did each one in embroidery format and quilt format.

I’ll give my patrons a choice on their anniversary as to which one they want. I haven’t thought about mailing these yet. I should be able to do it from the house. They’re small enough.

I went on two walks on Monday and Tuesday, but none today. Interesting things going on…

I can’t explain all of them. The kids were working on Monday and Tuesday, and the old lady was really tired (the dog, not me), so I just took the little energetic one on Monday.

He is a pain in the ass. Wants to walk in the middle of the road.

I’m still in flower discovery mode, as always.

Love flowers.

Don’t know what most of them are. No worries. Though I want to draw that one.

I’ve been watching this one for weeks. It’s near the end of the walk and I photograph less at the end. Plus you can’t see the big-ass boy dog woofing it up at me on the other side.

He’s wagging his tail too, but I worry about this one neighbor (not the dog owner) who has yelled at me before. So I go quickly through that area.

I think these are from Tuesday, when the dogs were at my ex’s with the kids. Views of El Cap.

Or is that El Cajon Mountain? Not hiking it either way, I think. Will just admire it from here.

Dead flowers among the living. Flowers are just amazing in all their forms. Another view of the valley.

I walk the same space on a regular basis, see something new every time. The cudweed is now drying out.

Makes your dog smell like maple syrup. Freakin’ amazing lavender? I think.

Fascinating things, flowers.

Today’s exercise was Pilates with two pillows, a matt, and these.

I need some in-between weights. I thought I had some but I can’t find them. I forget regularly how good Pilates makes me feel. Do more. While I have soup cans.

Somebody (the boychild) put Simba on the chair. He thinks he can’t get down. He can.

Cats asleep…well mostly.

They sleep a lot during the day. Until you poke at them.

They are definitely getting bigger.

And the old lady, relaxing on the deck with me.

Girlchild bribed her with the pool on Monday so she didn’t know I took the little boy on a walk without her.

Anyway. Wednesday. Thank you for all that. That is sarcasm. Straight up. I have a dot to sew, I might get to iron around 11, I didn’t finish all the grade inputting because the district was fucking with my access (straight up, they were), I had so many tech things go wrong and so many questions and conversations were happening at the same time via Zoom, email, text, and Google Classroom that my brain is quietly spinning in another room, waiting for me to go to bed so it can ruminate about how unsuccessful that all was. I have my finger on a LOT of buttons right now, and one might be the Explode It All button, and none of them is the Easy button. Tomorrow will be better. I might be better too.

‘Rona Fog!

It’s the ‘Rona Fog! You know, you haven’t even had coronavirus, but the stay-at-home, don’t-go-anywhere, don’t-hang-out-with-people has got your brain in a fog, a ‘Rona Fog. You don’t know what day it is, entire days disappear without your noticing, you know you haven’t exercised today, but maybe you also didn’t exercise yesterday. I go days and days without leaving the house, and then I leave the house three times in one day and it feels like sacrilege, I will be burned to the ground by a lightning bolt from the sky for daring to do such a thing. It’s OK. I had to go to the grocery store, plus dropped mom’s day gifts at my parents’ house (appropriately distanced and masked), and then to pick up food, which was kind of a clusterfuck, but it turned out OK. Today I went to school to pick up some stuff I needed, including the motherlode of Clorox wipes I bought from Costco about three months ago. And a smaller whiteboard. A clipboard for my papers that I use every day. Rubberbands! I need some here and I barely use them there. They had moved all our furniture out like they do for summer break, so they can clean. I sort of had a chance to put stuff away before all that…I think I took the time on March 13. That date was still on the board. I still owe 4th period donuts. I erased all that…and cried a little bit.

Saturday was a serious fog day. My brain just didn’t do any of the things it wanted to do. I couldn’t get anything done, except the book I was reading. Sunday was better for getting things done, but all of a sudden, it was 3:30 in the afternoon and so many things were still on the list. Today I will be better. I will be more focused. At least I will try.

I did get some ironing in on Saturday at least…this is fabric #1…you can see how little was left after I ironed those pieces down.

But there was enough! I have tons of fabric #2…it’ll be showing up in quilts for years to come.

It’s been in a bunch of pieces so far. I like that weird hint of turquoise in the pinky flesh color. Saturday night, up late, a pile of stuff done…just the rest of the flesh on Figure 2 and her hair, I think.

There’s still a ton to do for Figure 2. I just couldn’t deal with it yesterday. I pile all the stuff up on top of the laid-out Wonder Under so that little psycho kitten can’t get in there.

Tonight. Tonight I will iron. I hope. I have an extra Zoom today, I still need to eat lunch, and I’m walking between Zoom 2 and 3. Because I need to and it makes me feel better. This is my view on so many days…it’s usually the coolest room and I have access to two computers at a time.

It’s a little squishy with the ironing board in there too for ironing, but that’s OK. I also sort of let the drawing fold over during those school meetings. I don’t think they can see what’s on it, but it is a naked lady, so it’s better to hide it, just in case.

Such a pain. I live here, I work here, I rarely leave here.

And then there’s this…

Hi Luna. Hiding under the coffee table.

We did visit my mom yesterday, masked and socially distant.

We were there to deliver gifts of food and plants, but really, I guess we were there to pet their dog, Katie. Or Katy. I can never remember the spelling. It might even be Katey.

Oh yeah, she’s happy.

I’m still a dog behind. I mean a dot. I could have caught up Sunday night if Saturday’s dot hadn’t been fucking insane. Here’s Friday’s dot, which I did Saturday…just below the blue ball.

I actually did it totally wrong, because the original instructions said a double cast-on, and then they changed that to a cast-on bullion, which is a totally different thing. I was not willing to pull it out or cut it off, though, so I just improvised.

I might do it again. But probably not.

Last night, I worked for almost two hours on Saturday’s dot…a chrysanthemum.

I put a pillow on my lap, so I could stop stabbing the needle into my leg for the drizzle stitches…all 70 million of them. Top left…

My closeup photo sucks. I’ll take another one. Later. I’m still trying to catch up…maybe today. I just don’t know.

OK, I need to eat, teach my next class of Office Hours, then walk, be back in time for the next Zoom meeting for school, plus finish some other stuff on the to-do list, get two dots done, eat dinner, and hopefully iron some shit down. It’s a busy day. I’m not a fan. But it’s pretty normal.

Sewing Grass Is Pretty Relaxing.

Here come all the comments about that’s not what I’m supposed to do with the grass. Whatever. Coming to the conclusion that some days are easier for writing the blog in the current times than others. Thursdays are a clusterfuck. I resized photos and then worked and worked and had two stitching meetings but did schoolwork for the first hour plus of one of them, and the time to write never came. So next week, I will schedule more carefully…instead of every other day, there are days when this is easier and those are the days on which I will write. I used to do three days a week…I think I’ll up it to four, but it will be the same four…because I can’t deal with Thursday. This next week, Wednesday and Monday will also be messy, but whatever. So many meetings.

I’m tired this week again…still? I have been ironing until the really late hours and then falling asleep just fine, but between the early morning risings of the man for work (not his fault) and the cats afterward and that thing called daylight and noise, I can’t get sleep when I need it. Nothing new there. I should go to bed earlier, I’m sure. That’s always the case.

So. Progress on the quilt! First of all, I sorted all that Wonder Under…I need one bin for every 100 pieces, so 16 bins…

I label each one with a number, so 0 has pieces 0-99 in it. It takes about an hour to sort a quilt with this many pieces…

Luckily, no kittens were involved. Sorted!

This makes it easier for me to deal with the number of pieces in this thing. Next is the ironing to fabric. I got the fabric put away from before, then hung up the giant drawing so I can see where all the pieces go.

Then I deal with 100 pieces at a time, usually in order.

I bought a new iron. Again. Because I think the nonstick coating on the other one was not working properly. I couldn’t clean it. So hopefully this one will work.

I’ve fused stuff for years and always been able to clean them using Iron Off or just a rag…the old one just kept getting dirtier and dirtier and leaving that residue on the fabric.

This is what it looks like when I pick fabrics…I pick one section of the drawing and pull fabrics for that section, and then lay out the pieces on the fabrics…

And then iron them all down.

A half yard of fabric lasts a long time for me, because even with these relatively good-sized pieces, it’s barely using any of it. So I got some grass and dirt ironed Wednesday night…a good start, most of the background.

Thursday, I did some work during the day with my quilting Zoom.

Mostly I just work and don’t talk too much. I explain that I talk a lot for school, more than I used to maybe. Well. I guess I don’t have five classes a day, so maybe not. It just feels like a lot.

For this section, I actually had to pull pieces from the 1000 box because I have these two death arms, I guess I’ll call them, and they’re the same. Rather than try to remember 10 hours from now which fabrics I used for the first arm, I just did both of them together.

It takes about an hour per 100 pieces to iron…depending on the complexity. So for the first figure, I pulled a run of 6 fabrics, light to dark, and then I lay all the pieces out for that figure. This is the smallest figure on the quilt, so there aren’t a lot of pieces compared to the larger figure that comes next.

Then I iron them all down at once for that figure. While staring at the drawing.

It gets complicated sometimes.

This is part of why I’m up too late. I can’t stop in the middle. Between my brain losing its focus and the kittens fucking with the piles, it’s a pain. So I just iron until I’m done.

Here’s what’s done so far…and the fabrics I’ve used. Not a lot of color yet.

We’ll get there. Figure 1 isn’t completely done…just the flesh parts. She still needs a cytokine storm. And eyebrows and hair. Like you do. I’m in the 200s…but barely.

On to the embroidery…this is Tuesday night…the dot on the far right…

It was fairly simple…

Then Wednesday night, which looked fairly straightforward and then took two hours…and a ton of threads…it’s the one to the right of the sunflower near the threads.

It’s supposed to be a window box of flowers…

Then yesterday’s…I did it during my second Zoom stitching meeting of the day. Two others in the group are doing dots, although one is only doing the ones she likes. It’s the one to the right of the cactus…

It was pretty easy.

So I think today is Dot number 40. Still less than halfway.

When I finished the dot, I went back to the million pieces of grass on Folk Tails.

I’m just going to add grass all over the place until I run out of the two grass thread colors. Maybe. I might buy more. Hard to say. Sewing grass is pretty relaxing.

I might do it forever.

Other things that have been happening, mostly animal related. We had a plank challenge for PE, but Calli really wanted to lie in front of the computer.

I thought about moving her, but then didn’t.

Kitten just sleeps wherever I am.

That’s a lot of cat hair on that chair. This is better than when she tries to whack me with her tail because she wants to sit on the keyboard and mouse while I’m using them. She was playing with Luna for a bit.

Although the heat has slowed the kittens down during the day.

Well that doesn’t look friendly.

We did some hanging out by the pool on Wednesday, which was supposed to be the hottest day.

We put the big girl in the water…

The dog. Not the girlchild. It’s her favorite place to be. She’s kind of a pain about it. I graded while I watched her. Please throw the pinecone.

She likes to fetch them out of the water and then chew them to bits. Hence all the crap you can see on the concrete.

Nova stealing the dog bed from Calli.

Calli always lets the cats win. They have sharp bits.

Even when they’re asleep.

Seriously, she just follows me everywhere and sleeps there. Even on the browns.

Well. It’s already Friday afternoon. I’m so glad it’s Friday, y’all. I need a break from checking all these programs for scores and emailing kids and their parents to get them to show up and do shit. It’s exhausting. Hopefully we’ll go for a walk later…it’s cooler today than it has been. I’m also hoping to do some more ironing and get some schoolwork ready for next week, so I can ignore it tomorrow. I need to water everything and I don’t remember what else. I have office hours in 24 minutes, so I need to pee, get more tea, find my bra and put it back on (sigh), and consider the article I read this morning that said school districts may have to put all the older teachers who are immunocompromised in jobs that keep them away from kids. Ah shit. OK. Well. I have no idea where they’ll draw that line, so I’m going to take my old, diabetic self out of that mindset and into one of getting shit done today. Plus maybe just sitting on the deck for a while with my book. I worked hard this week. As always. I should relax a bit.

Not Making Sense

I’m trying to watch a video while I’m typing this, which should be interesting, if I can keep the two things separate and make any sense here. Perhaps I never make sense here. I have to say it’s not my goal, making sense. There’s a song about this. Maybe more than one. I’m watching a fabric designer explain her new line, which won’t come out until 2021 probably. I like listening to her process, and since I can’t meet people in person, this is kind of cool; all the people with daily or regular videos right now are maybe helping with sanity? Who knows.

I’m in between my morning class and science meeting and my afternoon class right now. I’ve peed the dogs and eaten my lunch and tried to figure out what I need to get done for the rest of the day. I need to add some exercise in there somewhere, but it’s starting to get warmer and that’s harder. I want to do it in the dark. There are mosquitoes though. And the dogs can’t deal with high heat. So it’s just a logistical issue. So many things are logistical issues. I forgot to assign something this morning and went to do that and it didn’t work. Three times. So I kept assigning, and then it assigned it once on two classes and three times on the other three classes, and kids are already turning it in on ALL THREE classes (of course), so my Wednesday/Thursday are going to be a self-made (well, tech had its way with me kinda) hellacious fuckbeast. Ah well. What’s new? The kids are doing yardwork for Grandpa and probably they are all infecting each other, which is annoying, but the man is also back at work, even though he’s supposed to have today off, because you know, when you’re the person in charge, you get the shit shift. Unless you’re a shitty boss; we all know about those, they give YOU the shitty shift and they barely work.

I barely see/hear from my boss these days. Which is OK, because there’s enough other stuff to make up for it. This week, we added a new program to track plus a new category of assignments, and I’m about to run screaming into oblivion, but it’s too hot out there for that, so I’m sitting here with the fan on, realizing I have 39 minutes until the next Zoom call. Today is pretty chill, actually; we’ve figured out next week’s science assignments and have the following week fleshed out a little better. Tomorrow will start the crazy race into the weekend.

So the last two days…I did finish cutting out all the Wonder Under last night for the new quilt…

Let’s see if you can tell the difference between 10 yards cut out and 11 yards…from Monday night to Tuesday night…11 1/2 hours of cutting…

Looks the same. But it’s not. Tonight I will be sorting them…or maybe even this afternoon. Hard to say what I’ll be doing after class. My brain is usually pretty fuzzy. I need to check some work, see if kids are turning things in. Set things up for tomorrow. Get my head around my existence. Persuade myself not to eat cookies (pretty easy since we don’t have any). I finished cleaning the office yesterday. All my fabric is put away except for stuff I saved for napkin-making, so I’m ready to iron to fabric. Looking forward to that.

This will be another big crazy complicated quilt…sometimes people wonder why I make them, when they never sell (too big and expensive), but these are the ones that get into lots of shows and win awards, so no, I’ll never make the money back on them, but there is a reward for me in the acknowledgement, but honestly, more so in the time and energy I put into them, that’s a good place for my brain to be, especially when things are hard or complicated, like now. Yes, they’re time-consuming, and no, they won’t sell, but they are the most ME. So I’m OK with that. I’ll get this one done and do a smaller daughter quilt or something after. Maybe. If I feel like it. There are deadlines coming up. I’m just not sure I care about them.

Still doing the dots…here’s Sunday night’s…just under the blue ball of thread…

It was a pretty simple one, even with the trellis-stitch center.

Some of them are amazingly time-consuming. This wasn’t too bad.

Then Monday night’s…just under the blue spool…

I’m getting better at bullions with Razzle, a shiny rayon bitch of a thread…

The center looks like a starfish on its way out. I think I’m on Dot 37 today? Or something. Simba was helping…

He never really helps.

What else is up? So much schoolwork. Yardwork, which brings bug bites. NOT sleep, unfortunately. These guys don’t help with that.

Here’s Kitten bringing me one of my slippers…

She’s a freak. Drops them in the hallway half the time. Every night, I round up my slippers and put them back so she can bring them back to me.

These guys are sweet until they’re not.

They get mopey when their dad is gone and sleep more.

I did walk the dogs, but a shorter walk, yesterday…only 2.3 miles. Like I said, it was hot.

No one else wanted to go…to their credit, the kids did yardwork in the sun all afternoon yesterday too and they were tired. Legit excuse. I just wanted to get out and move. Like every day. Here’s a flower I didn’t see before.

I like to look for the new things or changing things.

Also, Fantastic Fibers is all hung, although no one can go in to see it…yet…

There’s Womanscape on the left…a big complicated quilt from two summers ago that is just weirdly popular. The black and white piece is paper and ink, so not really a quilt…it is by Emily McBride, i never wanted you. On the right, before the corner, is Rachel Major’s Still Life. Just to the right of it, around the corner, is Alicia Decker’s Culture Shock and Hannah Zimmerman’s Place.

Funny, I thought it was huge until I saw it next to that black and white quilt…I need to go look online to see if I can figure out whose is what (not a quilt, see update above). Here we go…on the far left is Orb by Evian Zukas-Oguz.

Originally, this was three different drawings that ran for about 95″ horizontally…and then I pulled it apart, redrew, and added.

It’s always interesting to see what detail shots other people choose.

The show is open for a while longer…Not Open. But there.

Fun masks by Sarah Pramuk, Balaclava Tryptich…might be a little warm for Southern California right now. Pandemic fashion Winter 2020. Seriously, these are NFS because she needs them back.

OK, going to look for names on this…but class starts in 13 minutes, so…I got them! In time. So I can post this right before class starts. Wait. No. After class. My brain. Is fuzz.

The rest of today? Sort Wonder Under, exercise, start ironing to fabrics. Taco Tuesday! All good. This is the part I really like. Need to make some margaritas too. I think I have stuff for that. Maybe. We’ll see.

More OK with a Mask Than a Bra…

Now THAT’s the truth of my current situation.

There was this thing in my head last night that I was going to remember this morning to write about, but no. I was thinking, no, you’re not going to record it somewhere, because you are trying to fall asleep and you are exhausted, and it does not matter if you are exhausted, sleep will still be difficult, and I didn’t record it anywhere and now it is gone. I’m sure it was crucial to your day, to my day, to the development of the world. It probably has to do with people being stupid or making art or teaching, because that’s all I think about these days. But I got sidetracked by emails and plans and whatever my stomach is doing right now. I fed it good things last night and it liked them, but this morning it wants to talk about those things. I’m OK with it shutting up right now.

So even though no one but me was around for dinner last night, I wanted to get takeout, because I was tired and I’ve cooked a lot this week just for me and I’d like a night off, even if it’s by myself, so I picked a restaurant I’ve never been to in real life, mostly because I don’t think the man would eat there…maybe he would, minus all the green things, but that’s difficult. It’s the Garden Kitchen, which they claim is in Rolando, but that’s funny, because I used to live within a short walk of their location and it wasn’t Rolando then. The food was wonderful, even when I had to mess up the presentation by spatulaing it onto a plate (I don’t like eating out of the takeout containers) and it was still the right temperature and wonderful in taste and complicated combinations of stuff. And the old grocery store we went to was now a gym. Maybe it’s nicer to live there now, although the porn bookstore is still there, so maybe not.

The plus is that I have made stunningly awesome progress on cutting out Wonder Under, despite all the shit that’s in my brain. Although sometimes there are creatures who want to interrupt me.

She needs to pee. It’s OK. I took her out. She doesn’t ask anyone but me for some unknown reason. By the end of Friday night, which included a short gaming session to make characters and a movie, I had 5 yards of the 11 cut out.

Saturday included a quilt group meeting and some alone time at night, where I watched another movie, and I got 3 more yards cut out…

Two of them sitting here, which isn’t particularly comfortable, but works better for video meetings.

This is what 8 yards cut out looks like on the right…unless I’ve miscounted. Maybe I did 2 yards during the movie and 1 during the video meeting? I don’t know.

The trash pile is growing…

So if I’m right and there are only 3 yards left, I could do that in the next two nights, I think. I started cleaning the studio on Friday, did a little yesterday, and then gave up. I need to finish that and then sort all the Wonder Under, which will take an hour or so. By Wednesday, I’m hoping to be ironing onto fabric. Even though I won’t have background fabric until Saturday? I think I’ll be OK. At this stage, I only need the background to make sure that anything that will be showing on it will be enough of a contract to show up. This is the fun part! Although it will be long and hot, because ironing when it’s over 90 degrees is always sucky. Oh well. Making art is nice. And hopefully the kittens will stay out of here. This stage was exciting for them on the last quilt too.

I’m still stitching dots on time…Friday’s…

Is the pink dot with 4 leaflike things…

The one to the right of the pink spool. I was waiting for the right design for that shade of pink and finally got it. Generally, I just pick the next dot in the area, but sometimes color is an issue. Like with Saturday’s, the ladybug…on the far right at the bottom…

I wanted a color that contrasted with the red. So not a red dot…

The dark background is unfortunately a little TOO dark for the legs and head. Oh well. I’m not redoing anything.

Here’s the Anna Maria Horner fabrics I got for her color packages…the ones I think I will make into a different version of the naked lady Applique Stories.

We’ll see. It doesn’t have to happen right away, luckily.

Sleepy cats abound in the last two days…Nova when it’s hot…

Kitten follows me and then sleeps…during video meetings…

And movie-watching…

Sometimes they are into everything…like drawers in the coffee table. I thought she was too big for this now. Apparently not.

Sometimes they just want some love…

I will be ON you, even though you are doing something.

In food news, the girlchild is upping her cheese plate game…

And I excited the sourdough starter yesterday…

That IS exciting.

OK. It’s Sunday, which means putting a bra on for the grocery store. Oh yeah, and a mask. I’m OK with that. I’m more OK with the mask than the bra. Then a bunch of school stuff, and hopefully some exercise, because I’m feeling it, and a yard or two of cutting shit out. Plus sewing a dot. And gardening. And getting ready for another 5 days of what school looks like now. Ugh. It’s OK. We’ll make it, whatever it is. The sun is out, the flowers are growing, there’s a possibility of further-away hikes this week, and that is all good.

Ah yes. Teaching children. I remember having this conversation with my brother many years ago, although it wasn’t because he didn’t know the vocabulary.