Recovering Dammit…

OK. Made it home. It was questionable for a while, but it all happened. The girlchild is sick so I’m taking all my meds, hoping my middle-school-trained immune system is strong enough to counteract hanging in a car with her for hours plus all the other exposures, because surely, she got it from the same people we were all with all weekend. My first day back at school, I wrote 5 referrals for the kids who couldn’t figure out how to deal with a sub…kicked them out for the egg drop. Got pictures taken and labeled during class of the egg drop materials. Got kids through their assignments (it helps that I overthink every day…the pro of an anxious brain is that I plan a class period in my head about 700 times before I actually teach it. This is also a con.), got packets done for the sex-ed opt-out kids. Need to set up materials this morning for the egg drop; I have one set for each table, but need to be ready to swap out stuff if necessary. I had to sub my prep period yesterday, but luckily, it was mostly a good class and I was able to post the things I needed to and start the seating charts for sex ed. I let them pick one friend to sit with, but then, you know, not everyone picks each other and some kids don’t pick at all, and there’s always too many boys in my classes. I had to kamikaze to the dentist after school while calling pre-anesthesia to make an appointment for the REAL pre-anesthesia appointment, which is before the REAL anesthesia. Gotta make a list of all my meds and supplements. IDK why my surgeon doesn’t have access to the same list I have to review with my doc, but they don’t. It’s annoying. Then I went to the ceramics studio to make sure my stuff hadn’t dried out, picked up my glazed pot that I forgot to photograph and isn’t that exciting anyway, and then went to Costco for the eggs for today. Dropped those back at school in the fridge so I wouldn’t have to do that this morning. Realized as I got back into the car at 5:30 Pacific Coast Time that I was hella exhausted. Like bone-tired. Ah yes. Because it’s 8:30 PM East Coast Time and my body isn’t really sure which time it’s on. Came home, napped, laid around half-dead for a bit, got up, made dinner, made seating charts. It took a massive amount of willpower to not just go to bed, but to come in here and iron for 24 minutes.

Got the other side of Christmas lights done. From a week ago. It’s a start.

I stitched on the plane once I finished my book and my bullet journal for the week. I finished the last house block for Sue Spargo’s Homegrown…

While watching Barbie. It had its pros and cons.

And I started the centerpiece…

While watching the first half of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes or whatever that title actually is. I didn’t draw at all this weekend. Didn’t have the energy or the brainpower. I constantly have to explain why I stitch other people’s patterns when I’m sitting somewhere or traveling. Mine isn’t very travel-happy. I couldn’t have ironed anything on this trip. I have taken stuff to cut out before, but only when it’s at a very controllable stage. I won’t do it on a plane. Too much possibility of losing pieces. Everything I have going is at the ironing or stitchdown stage, so not portable. Plus I don’t have to think about this pattern at all. Someone else already thought it all out for me.

Kitten was glad to see me…

She didn’t eat much and wouldn’t take her meds while I was gone. She doesn’t do well at the moment when I leave. But she’s bouncing back.

This is one of Luna’s most commonly seen facial expressions…

Not sure what she saw (but I suspect it’s usually a demon behind me, based on how she looks).

The ex found a duckling…

It’s OK; he has since found the owner. Apparently another one is wandering around somewhere (not good…we have coyotes). Crazy times. My yard has had all the normal wild animals, plus a chicken, an elderly deaf and blind pug, an injured crow (my neighbor dealt with that), random dogs and cats, but no ducks. Yet.

OK. Well. Today I do 50 egg drops…well, just under that. Plus pilates, which my creaky post-travel body really needs, although after the 500 squat lunges I did a day going up and down the steps in that rental house, my knees are still complaining, but the muscles are fine. I still haven’t watered, so I need to do that tonight, plus take the trash out. And then start grading all the late work. With only 12 days of school left, everything gets rather panicky. Must do it all NOW. Hoping the sleep evens out soon, and the stress too. Too many health issues on top of all that. The next person who asks, “so what are doing this summer?” might get punched. RECOVERING DAMMIT…from a really tough year. Plus doing all the things I haven’t been doing. The floors are disgusting, there’s drawers and cupboards and parts of the house that need a ton of work. I need to paint at least one room and the hallway, plus all the carpet. I don’t want to think about the rest of it. We go back to school so early this year, it just sucks. Anyway. So I’m gonna think about that later, and make sure there’s plenty of hikes and ceramics and quilting and whatever else makes me feel better. And be hopeful about the medical stuff because it’s really stressful to think otherwise. Plus read a ton of books. Sound like a plan? And go see the girlchild in San Francisco. All good.

Whoa Traffic

I’m writing this on a plane back home that I was about 50% sure I’d miss…traffic leaving Maine was hellacious. It took 4 hours instead of 2 and we risked a bathroom stop even knowing that might be why we missed the flight.

Spoiler: we didn’t miss the flight. Girlchild and Boston not-traffic saves the day. There’s girlchild taking some lake time. More lake time would’ve been nice. Ah well. Another week would have been nice too.

Animal friends included turkeys, a porcupine, Canadian geese, and a loon…and cute little racing chipmunks.

The smaller fam. There are bigger fam pix but I can’t deal with all of them right now. This is me, my parents, my daughter, my niece, and my brother. Pretty sure it only matters to those who know us. I’m proud of this kid for making it through and finishing up. She rocks…

There’s my kid again.

And the loon…although I feel like I have a better pic of it. Ah well. Trust.

I stitched during baccalaureate, graduation, and part of the family bits. Too tired to draw all trip, unfortunately. Something about having to get up at 4 AM my time multiple mornings in a row. I’ve actually almost finished this block now…

I started that tree at baccalaureate and did not finish until last night. Three hours? But meditative and calming.

House from the lake. We had 11 people and at least 4 snorers, so there was some movement at night to manage sleeping.

Girlchild and her cousin…five years minus two days apart. Missed the boychild on this trip…

Anyway. We’ll be home soon enough. Still tired. Man that doesn’t end. Tomorrow I have a dental appointment and I need to make a Costco run for eggs for the egg drop. Thank goodness for a fam that’s fun to hang with, and whom we love even when we’re all irritated at each other. Now I need some more caffeine…and a nap.

Panic Friday

Hello panicked Friday. Have you seen my work to-do list? Yeah? Me too. I’m deep breathing right now. Literally couldn’t get through everything on it today if I could clone myself (and I wish I could). I wish my district could figure out how to say no to parents, but they can’t. I suspect none of them can at the moment. But when you do that, it all falls on staff to deal with…and I’m done. Yesterday was a clusterfuck of tiny fires threatening to be big ones. I put most of them out, and then after school, there were more…this morning, more…I either need to up my meds, stop sleeping, or call in sick for three days. Just to deal with stuff for a tiny few kids. Can’t deal with the large majority at all. If I stop taking time for myself, to make art, to read, fuck that, to eat and sleep and poop, well then I might get through it all. Deep breaths. Let’s hope that I’m efficient as hell today and get through a healthy enough chunk that I can do one fun thing this weekend. ONE.

Trace trace trace.

I’m 15 hours into the tracing…and just hit the 1300s. So I have about 350 to go.

Pretty sure my original guess was 20 hours.

Last night, I traced a barn owl, two bombers, and a bunch of bombs. Fun times. Oh, and the moon. I’m getting there.

I also stitched with friends, although I tore out the roof stitching 4 maybe 5 times.

It’s not like the picture, but it will be fine. This is the last house I need to embroider for this block of the month. Then the center piece (which is large) and put it all together. Then borders. Finished by 2035.

I was watering the other day, and saw these…

And this…

And this…

No time to water, plant, clean. Ugh. OK. Gotta go in and start dealing with all the things. Which includes some literacy meeting time. Ugh plus at least I might have some time to work. Maybe. We’ll see if I have the brain power for it. Clay after school (after doctor’s appointment). Then grade things and trace things. I’m really trying to carve out time tomorrow for a museum visit with my guild. We’ll see. Also a hike would be nice. Hanging out with the Man might be nice too.

We have both parents! But still no baby squawks. Me sad. At least they’re both still there. Presumably there’s eggs? More of them? They can lay up to 13 apparently. Get on it, you owls!

Did I Say Ugh?

Chaos weekend. Grades are done though. Last progress report of the school year. Hallelujah. Today is the day all the kids panic because they realize what their grades are and that they didn’t do anything in time to bring them up. Ah well. Learning experience. I can say it every day and it falls on mostly deaf ears. Moving on.

Today and tomorrow are lab days; not preferred to have them run right next to each other, and there’s a fire drill or something today I think that wasn’t on my list of things to avoid, so we’re gonna figure that out, but with a doc appointment Wednesday and some portrait thing for all of 8th grade on Thursday, there was really no way around it. Ah well. We survive.

I did do some art stuff this weekend. Friday afternoon, I did some clay stuff, getting the figure up on the world and making it look more worldlike, although the continents are a little wiggy.

I draw them wiggy too, so I’m OK with it.

The butt sticks out too much. Hopefully I can fix that. It looks good from the back, but the side view is a bit much. I also glazed this…

I was overthinking it. It’s not precious. I can always make another one with the 17 million ideas rambling around my head. I could make hundreds of them if I wanted. Or not.

I started tracing the big crones quilt. Nova was watching…perturbed by the big paper coming over the couch.

She’s scared by the weirdest things.

When she was little, she’d do everything she could to go under. I’d have to wait for them both to be sleeping to be able to trace anything.

I graded a good chunk of Saturday. It wasn’t fun. I don’t recommend it. I’m not really planned for this week yet either. Saturday’s dinner drawing.

It was also trivia night, but we sucked at that. Mostly. We weren’t planning on trivia night. It just happened while we were there.

Ah, grading middle-school boy work.

Nice udders.

Need more milkweed…

Tried to get some a week ago but it was hella expensive.

My haul from the neighbor kids throwing fruit into my yard.

There was another tangerine, but it was deep in a bush, so I left it.

I had an art meeting yesterday and they had this cool flower…

Fascinating things, plants. Finished stitching this during the meeting.

One more house to go.

OK. I need to get out of here. Construction people are here to tear up the outside of the house where it leaked. Fun times. Teaching gravitational pull today, plus apparently another lockdown drill? Ugh. I’m really done with school. I finished making all my test review docs yesterday. Just need to check them and then get them printed, do sub plans, post all the crap for this week, decide what the sub can actually do, then write an academic question. Plus clay and book club. I think. Ugh. Did I say ugh? I did.

A Hole in the Middle

Hey. Am I glad it’s Friday? Fuck yeah. This week has been a mother. Not the good kind who takes care of you. The other kind. One more day of school…well, 44 more days of school. Had a third of my kids out yesterday, more like half on Wednesday. And yet we teach on! We’re so close to state testing that we can’t just stop. Since the start and stop of Ramadan are dependent on the sightings of crescent moons, some kids didn’t know when it would start (they should watch the news!). And some came back yesterday…but some said they wouldn’t be back until Monday. And then the other kids seem to be out in sympathy with them? Or? Whatever. Most of this week’s school stress has been adult-related or program-related or organizational-related. This whole year has basically been that. The kids are not horrible…they’re not great sometimes. There’s a lot of apathy that drives us nuts, but there’s no constant bad behaviors that make the days horrible, like last year. So that’s good. It’s just a lot of other stuff: do this, do that, now do this. Ugh. I don’t have time to do all the things.

Anyway, today they are working on a natural selection comic, which is pretty chill, so I can like grade homework or plan space…I should plan space. I’m teaching that a week away. I need to figure that shit out.

So exhaustion. Too many late-night wake-ups, not going to bed early enough. This morning’s blood sugar was high…because I was dreaming? I don’t quite remember what I was dreaming, but it was stressful. Environmentally stressful.

Keep making things. That’s my plan. So I had enlarged a drawing I did before. I had some ideas for a crone quilt, but these women are too young, but that’s OK. I think I can make it work like I want. I don’t like the middle head, so I’ll need to fix that. Anyway, Wednesday night, after pilates and working on school stuff, I started taping this thing together…

I did not finish. There’s a hole in the middle. There’s more legs. It’s going to be big. I’m OK with that.

I also started the handstitching on the binding last night…

I should be able to finish this over the weekend. The Man has a show tonight and my brother and part of his family are in town, but since I need to deliver this next weekend, it needs to be done. Also I need to find some decent matboard in my stash to frame the drawing that will hang with it. Ugh. Time.

Absolutely no clay has been touched since Monday. I was hoping for today, but I have to take two animals to the vet after school for regular tests/etc so they will continue to give us meds.

Luna looks like she’s about to attack Simba, and Simba looks like he knows it. The boychild is working part of the week, so Simba gets to sleep with us. He’s been pretty good.

I did have my stitching meeting last night, so I got this mostly done, except for the flowers…

Check out the book Kitten’s reading.

It’s a very visual way to figure out what things in nature are. I read through a bunch of it Wednesday night when I couldn’t deal with life. It’s always amazing how little we know. Fascinating stuff though.

OK. Watch them draw today, encourage them to be done drawing. Finish planning. Do the other things that need doing. Take animals to the vet, figure out dinner, then go watch the Man’s show, which thank goodness, is early. Then sleep, beautiful sleep. Or maybe stitch for a bit first. Then get a million things done this weekend. No problem.

A Day Late…

A day late. That’s OK. I was in the mountains. I forgot it was Friday. Today is Saturday. If I keep telling you what the days are, maybe I will remember them myself. I have doctors’ appointments next week; I have to remember to go to them.

We were up on Palomar Mountain for a couple of days…one full day really. It was nice. It was cold. There was still snow up there. We had a discount to stay in a really nice yurt and it was cool.

These are nice yurts (Baileys on Palomar)…take advantage of discounts if you can. We had a mid-week discount. I’m pretty sure it’s snowing up there right now though, so I’m glad we came home yesterday.

Inside was warm, sometimes too warm. But nice.

My drawing brain was mostly out of it. This one isn’t going anywhere.

And this one might. Maybe.

We couldn’t get a fire started the first night…pretty sure the wood was wet from the previous storm. The second night, after 5 firestarters and some weird juju of frustration (the Man’s, not mine…or the fire’s, for that matter), the fire started and kept going…me drawing by the fire…

The Man telling me about something circular…

It was cold out. I think this was still firestarter fire, not real fire.

Eventually we got cold and came back inside and got violent and slappy with this game.

I won.

That was after hiking to Palomar Observatory, which I’d never been to. The hike wasn’t hard or long…well, it was 5.3 miles with 800 feet of elevation. So not too bad. Certainly my legs were feeling it yesterday.

Those are some really big acorns…

My app says Canyon Live Oak. Acorns and their caps fascinate me. I brought caps home. Dunno what I’m going to do with them.

It’s funny, I only saw the observatory once from the hike until we were on our way back.

It was cool. San Jacinto in the distance…definitely snow up there too.

It was a nice day to hike…mostly not hot, mostly not too cold.

Definitely at elevation snow. Not a lot by the time we got there.

I stitched a little too…finished this block.

I remembered a chalk pencil for the bike. Started another block while I was there.

Forgot the proof of life picture. Yes! We were in the same place together.

It happens.

We came back, cleaned up, I peed some dogs. The one on the right is hunting bees. Or bunnies. Hard to say which.

Stood in line for 3 hours at a quilt store that’s closing so I could use up my gift card and my mom’s too, because she showed up halfway through and handed me more. Then held my place in line so I could find more stuff to buy. She’s a good mom. I’m supposed to be at the ceramics studio right now but there was a full on flood-level band of rain that came through and dropped like half an inch of rain, so I didn’t drive in it. I will now, because I think that band is done and I can wait out the next one. There’s an art opening at Oceanside Museum of Art tonight, though, and that’s gonna be a slog if it’s still raining this hard. Ah well.

Last night, I suffered cats. Lots of them.

They missed us. And then I finished trimming this one…

Time to sort and then to iron. Meanwhile the girlchild and friend camped in the Northern California band of this storm last night. They were not washed away.

There is a tent under there. There is also a rain fly. The tarp is just extra. I wonder if there is a tarp underneath as well? Hmmm. Did we train her well? Maybe not.

OK. Art opening tonight. Ceramics studio for now: gonna see what came out of the kiln plus do another level on what I’m building…maybe start something new? I need to be back here by 3 PM I think. Ugh. I’m sure it made sense to sign up for things weeks ago, but today’s brain is not up for it. Typical.

Problem Child…

Yo. It’s Friday. I woke up almost every morning this week hoping it was Friday. Exhausted. Daylight Savings has kicked my ass this week. That and my schedule. I know I voted for this craziness to go away, yet here I am, battling fucked-up blood sugar and feeling like a truck hit me. And my life is relatively simple. I get up, go to work, come home, go to sleep, get up. Right? Hmm. Not quite. Yesterday, I didn’t have a meeting right after school, so I came home and graded two periods of an assignment, and then felt relief that I had finished that. Although there’s another one I assigned this week. Ugh. I lost most of my prep period yesterday to just crap. Today’s needs to be focused as hell. But it’s Friday and probably we are short subs so we’ll see how that goes. And then I drove north to my stitching meeting. So not so chill.

So the little quilt for the show that opens in late April, early May, is progressing. I ironed two nights running…here’s Wednesday’s progress…

Lots of letters…

Then last night…

I was so exhausted after my stitching meeting and getting food that I didn’t think I would have energy to do this, plus it was already almost 10 PM, so then I started on the leaves, but then the arm spoke to me, and then I was going to bed late. I like it like this, actually, but I’m gonna add the bugs and bird and sun and see if that makes it better.

My next plan is either for a boob quilt or a crone quilt (or both!), and then I have a proposal with a venue for a possible duet show, except the other person just pulled out, so IDK what’s gonna happen. I thought I was the problem child, but we are all problem children, eh?

I had my stitching meeting last night and spent most of the two hours on the roof…

And didn’t finish. It looks cool though. I should maybe do more of the embroidery on these blocks and less of the applique, but the applique is so satisfying for some reason on a night when I am exhausted. All of them. That’s all of them at the moment.

Anyway. Today has no meetings. Oh wait, there’s one this morning; that’s why I’m up a little early. Then teaching Darwin (who apparently thought women’s brains were inferior to men’s??? WTF? Oh man, I gotta teach something about that bullshit. I’m sure this is how I’m brainwashing kids.) and giraffes and natural selection. Tonight we are using up a restaurant gift card so no one has to cook, and because tomorrow night (our normal date night), the Man has another show. Another 4-hour show. I have a ticket this time, but I don’t think I’m staying until midnight. I just don’t think I have it in me this week. Honestly, a quiet night at home sounds lovely. With my book (that I don’t really like, but need to finish for book club so I can read another book that I might like more. I mean, you can’t love ALL of them. That’s just reality.). And a cat/dog combo of some sort. Yeah. Sounds lovely.

Bandwidth

So. Midweek. Full school week. Not heavy on the meetings, unlike the next two weeks. I should enjoy that while it lasts. Not a lot of normal quilt art happening, for a variety of reasons. Grades are due in less than a week. I might actually have them done with a margin for once. If kids stop trying to turn everything in late. I had to rush to grade an academic assignment so I would be able to give them two days to fix it. Of course, you give them a deadline and they ignore it and try to resubmit for days afterwards. And then they tell you it’s HAARRDD and you show them that they didn’t even read what you gave them. It’s hard because of that. Not because, like they say, I didn’t teach it to them. They literally didn’t look at the information provided. That shit is always frustrating. I refuse to dumb down all the assignments for the post-COVID laze. It’s been a rough trimester. For all of us. I’m certainly looking at being 2/3s done with the year and feeling like I just can’t do another one. Another 12 weeks? Can’t. Uh uh. I’m so tired of the planning and the adult incursions on my time. The kids don’t really bug me this year. The adults? Ugh. Too much. Admin: Here do this. And this. And you have time for this, right? I took on one thing my team asked me to do (of the many) and they didn’t tell me it involved this Portrait of a Graduate thing the district is pushing, that I really don’t get, you don’t have buy-in from me, but all of a sudden I need to write an elevator pitch for it? I don’t have a pitch. Y’all haven’t inspired me INTO a pitch. Sigh. I have homework. I get paid for it, sure, but what I’d like is time to fix my house and make art and read my book. Ugh.

Yeah. So. Good times. Make shit up. Google it! Hey, I’m just like my students sometimes. I understand it. I don’t have the bandwidth at night, when I get home, to do homework. And I do so much of it as it is. Why did I agree to add more? Sigh.

OK, so in the art stuff, I’ve traced nothing in the last two days because I need to get grades done and that baby quilt done by Saturday. So the last two nights, after grading, I quilted.

Nothing fancy, although it’s for a baby girl, so I quilted a little woman power in there.

Both the woman power that’s gonna bring her into this world, care of my good friend…

And the power that’s been sheltering her for the last 8 months or so…

On the back…

I quilted her parents’ names into it too. Going for all the good juju. Anyway, I stayed up too late last night to finish the borders, so I could start binding it tonight. I should be able to get it done in time. Baby shower is Saturday.

It’s gonna feel good to have all these have-to things done so I can do my own thing, to be honest.

I went to my second ceramics handbuilding class last night…coiling. I love coiling. Although I did not use the extruder…I think I’ll try that in two weeks, when we get to do whatever we want.

I did ceramics in college quite a bit. But honestly, I don’t really think of what I do in ceramics as art? It’s more like what I do with embroidery. It’s a creative outlet and I enjoy it, but it’s more meditative relaxing process than creating something that evokes something for me.

I’m considering a membership at the studio. It’s reasonably priced and I can go in whenever. Sounds nice.

Then I think about my time and what little of it I have at the moment. I’m sacrificing artmaking and gym time for this. And it’s totally worth it and fun and I’m loving it…

But I’m not sure what to do with it long term. I might get a membership in the summer, if there are any available…

Or…I don’t know. I’d like to think I could carve out some time, but this school year has been so bad and I don’t think it’s getting better. Certainly not if I have to fit surgery in before the end of the school year. No call yet. Damn health carrier is getting a new scheduling system, so they’ve basically shut down scheduling completely until it switches over this Friday. Sigh.

Anyway. So there’s that. That pot is gonna slump some more. One of the issues of trying to build so fast in a short period of time. Normally I’d work for an hour and then let it harden a bit. Didn’t really have that option. Ah well. Not sure what I’m doing in there anyway, except playing. Which is fine. I’ll have a lot of pot shapes at the end probably. I’m not very good at the practicality of it.

Monday night, I stitched during book club. Kitten did not help.

Just stitching things down is about my head space at the moment.

OK, so today, my kids are making pedigrees about a genetic disorder using a genealogical history we reviewed yesterday. They got to choose their groups. I’m wondering if I should have done groups of two instead of four. I’m seeing some loser behavior going on. As usual. Sigh. Well hopefully they’ll do the things today and tomorrow and I won’t have to work too hard at getting them on task. Yesterday, all I did was talk really. I need a break from that. I’m trying to plan the next unit, but I need about three hours of blank headspace to do it. Not sure when I’m gonna get that. I really did spend most of yesterday explaining inbreeding and intermarriage. Fun times.

The pool pump died yesterday. Expensive replacement. How am I supposed to pay to fix the house when shit like that keeps happening? The fridge will go next. I’m surprised it hasn’t already. It’s been going for a good long time and appliances don’t do that any more.

Pilates after school, grading again, then making dinner. Hopefully getting that binding on that quilt. Dreaming of art stuff. I’ll get there…soon. My art drive is strong, always has been. 18 school days until Spring Break…not that we have anything planned. Sigh. Except stuff here. No money except to fix shit.

Rolling…

This week is rolling by. I guess that’s good? Except I’m supposed to make some phone calls today and all my potential times when I could do that have been sucked up by other people’s needs and meetings. That I didn’t have on my calendar previously, and I get it, because like my last informal observation probably would have happened when I had COVID, so that’s not my fault, but that’s the reason, so coming in yesterday and trashing my prep today is understandable. And part of it is because I gave the long-term sub COVID (probably my fault) and she needed stuff, also fine, she did it for me, I’m good with that. And then I’m a union rep so I have to do union rep things, but when other teachers don’t get that you can’t meet with them while you’re teaching? WTF. I don’t get that at all. On top of all that, I was lucky to get a biopsy appointment for Friday (cancellation) instead of having to wait two weeks, which will help my brain with shit, so all of a sudden, I have to finish everything in two days for next week. With meetings after school both days. So. Well. I might have to go BACK to school on Thursday after the sex-ed meeting just to set up? We’ll see if someone trashes my prep tomorrow too. Not a fan, y’all. This week is a shit show. Happy V Day! If you’re into it.

Quiltwise, I need to pivot this week into some other things, just to get them done and out of the way. I’ve been quilting that friend’s quilt; I’m almost done with that. I’m on Zoom potentially with her and other friends tomorrow night, so I’m hoping to get the binding on then. I couldn’t bring myself to quilt last night. I was too tired. I needed cat petting and book and chai tea time. So I took it. And then worked. I did get this quilt to a decent pausing point: This is Monday night, with just a head, a head, and an arm to go.

So last night, I finished those…they were fussy and had to be ironed separately. Lots of little pieces.

But everything mostly fit. I had to stretch the arm a bit to cover things. It works with fabric though. It’s stretchy.

Then I ironed it all down to a background.

Looks good; needs stitching lines for definition, but I like it. Relationship quilt for V Day, eh?

Anyway, I need to start the baby quilt tonight. The baby shower is in two weeks…faster than I’d thought, but that’s normal. I still need to start the FIG drawing. I was mentally drawing it last night instead of drawing. And I need to finish that friend’s quilt. All the things.

My monthly stitching meeting was also Monday night. These are part of Sue Spargo’s Homegrown block-of-the-month. I’ve been working on it for ages, but I’m almost done with the houses. I finished the left one and started the right one.

I think with that one, there’s three more houses, and then a giant block for the middle and borders, so that’s a 2029 finish if I’ve ever seen one. Mostly because I don’t work on it regularly enough. It’s fun, but I don’t have time. Which sucks. This relaxes me; I should do more of it. In my spare time. After making phone calls. Which brings me to this…

I’m not close enough. This year though. This year. Is not when I’m retiring.

I’m trying to figure out how to use this when teaching space. I suspect the word ‘melons’ will mean no. I’m pretty sure this is an XKCD graphic.

My kids won’t get this anyway. But it amused me.

And so many of them would end the year with no sword.

Trying to get them to do anything right now is just torture. I’m up to 9 kids in my advisory at risk of not graduating. And they’re either not motivated or just assholes about it. Fun times.

Anyway. Yeah, I’m not having fun at the moment with my job. It’s just been a hard year…after a hard year…after a…you get it. I hope next trimester gets easier as high school looms for these kids. I hope it gets easier for me and my workload. It could potentially get worse and I’m trying not to think about that. I do know I need to get off this computer in 2 minutes (ah time, you fuck me over so much). And go do the meetings that weren’t planned and try to make a phone call in the middle of all that. Yup. After tonight’s meeting, which they promise will be done by 5 pm, I’m hoping to quilt and read and start cutting things out. We’ll see how that goes, because I also have to grade things. In the way of the teacher. Ugh.

Bring It…

I did not fall off the face of the Earth…I just had a ton of stuff to do. And if you’re my school district, trying to figure out where I went this weekend, the answer is NOWHERE. I didn’t travel anywhere. I really didn’t. I did take a necessary day off though, and they don’t like that, especially before a 3-day weekend. I had a sub though, which is a plus.

There was a lot of art this weekend, which was good and necessary to the processing of my brain. There was also a lot of schoolwork this weekend, which was unfortunately also necessary to my surviving the next month or so. This week, definitely, because I am entering the hell of 2-hour meetings for the next three days, all school-related. Sigh. Not looking forward to that bit. And some medical stuff, which is what it is, and can’t all happen after school hours, much as they’d like it to.

So the quilt in progress went from all ironed to fabric Wednesday night? I think…

98 fabrics…in just under 9 hours of ironing.

Then Thursday night, I started cutting them out…

Finished Friday night? Again, maybe that was Saturday night…yeah, I think I’m off by a night on all of this…

That took a little under 7 hours…I was on a roll. And then Sunday afternoon, I sorted them…

Sunday night, started ironing together…

And this is last night’s progress…

With all those 2-hour meetings, it’s gonna be a fight to get an hour in each night, but that’s my goal. More than an hour, actually. I have about 200 pieces left, so I’m figuring I’ll be done Wednesday, iron to the background Thursday, start stitchdown by Friday. Tight deadline, but I’m going for it. Have I mentioned grades are due next week on top of all those meetings? Yeah. And Saturday is shot to hell by a mammogram and an art meeting. There is no down time.

Ooh wait, here’s the cutting-out I did on Thursday night. Hmmm. Maybe I finished ironing fast and then cut stuff out?

I’ll ask Nova. She might know.

Setup for a class I took this weekend…

Loads of fun. Totally recommend taking classes that aren’t related to what you’re doing at the moment.

I also went to an opening and an artist talk, and I have photos from that, but no time to process right now. Because I need to get to work, need to beat the tree trimmers out of here.

Friday night’s dinner drawing…

Cute sister cats…

This current quilt is small enough to ALMOST fit under one teflon ironing sheet.

IDK when I’ll have the brain power to do something bigger this year. I’m supposed to be doing a drawing this week as well. Deep breaths. Might have to wait until Friday to have the mental space for it.

My succulents are making cute little flowers…

I hadn’t been paying attention to the plants with all the other crap going on.

I hate that.

Also finished mom’s snowflakes, so this went back to her for embellishment…

Then it’ll come back to me for sandwiching and stuff. Not sure what stuff entails at the moment. Haven’t touched the other quilt I’m doing for a friend…it’s been a rough week. It’s still a rough week.

OK, work today, something to do with light and UV damage (I feel like I should know what the something is), then a 2-hour sex-ed curriculum meeting, then I get to cook tonight (woo!), then more ironing. Full-on survival mode this week. Bring it.