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.

Never Gonna Dance Again

Woke up to Careless Whisper by Wham!. Not sure what to think about that, on the first day back to work in 2024. Can’t get it out of my damn head though. So there’s that. Hey you know there’s 74 days until Spring Break! You know the worst part about coming back is when you don’t feel rested and refreshed, and everybody is all asking you if you feel rested and refreshed and please share one relaxing thing you did over break, and I’m like I READ 78 BOOKS BECKY precisely because that was my escape from not feeling rested and refreshed. Also I’m just a cranky old lady sometimes, and today is one of those times. Not enough sleep. Not enough shit got done. As always.

Speaking of not enough time, I really am trying to up the ante with this quilt, getting it done in an insanely small amount of time. How? Grabbing minutes when I’d normally do something else. I had 45 minutes yesterday afternoon before driving out to an art meeting, so I ironed instead of lesson planning. I had 30 minutes waiting for the Man to get dinner ready…same deal. I got the room cleaned Saturday in the hour before going to see his show, and when he sent me an updated start time (later), I sat down and got half a really complicated exhibition entry done. It’s good, but it feels like I can’t ever just sit down and relax. Hence my post-break feeling of no, not rested, not relaxed. My fault, but semi-necessary at the moment. I’m not letting another year of school fuck up my ability to make art. I’m gonna figure it out.

So I had everything laid out and ready to go on Saturday…wait. Stop. I need to be chronological about all this.

First of all, on Friday, I ran a million errands. I even wrote the blog late because of it. I spent about an hour staring at this asshole…

Which is the slow annoying one, because our faster one has been broken down most of the fucking school year, so we’re stuck sharing this with the front office, who keeps telling us we’re not allowed to use it. Uh huh.

Fast forward to Friday night (I did other stuff, very little of it art related)…I drew at dinner.

I was in a pretty positive mindframe at that point. Except she is holding her head. Legit position. Then we went out to see a friend’s band play…

Sonic Moonshine…ironically, we’d be back here on Saturday night for the Man’s band, Radio Thieves. But some drinking and dancing happened, probably too much of both.

Saturday dawned early, as it always does. I had a quilt guild meeting, so I worked a little on her face.

Slow stitching forever! Might finish in 2030.

Then came home and focused on cleaning up the art space, putting fabric away, even cleaned the floor because there was something on it that made it very slippery in one area (don’t wanna know what) and I was afraid I’d fall and break something. Like my leg. That would make life fun right now, right? Oh wait! Before I cleaned up in there, I had to deal with this. So we have this older friend who isn’t a quilter, but she had these blocks she cross stitched, and then I sandwiched them for her and she quilted them (the white threads are all my basting threads)…

And then I couldn’t deal with the sashing on a quilt-as-you-go, so we mailed it to a friend who used to live down here (she’s retired) and she put it together, mailed it back to me, and then I took it BACK to our friend and she hand-stitched all the sashing sides down (I taught her ladder stitch…she’s really NOT a sewer). Then it came back to me and I put the borders on and shoved some batting in there on Friday and Saturday, and then I removed all that fucking basting thread I put in last summer or whenever it was (2022? this has been going on for a while).

See pile of threads in the top right? So that happened before and after the quilt guild meeting. I needed this to get off the ironing board so I could use it for ironing.

Then I quilted one of the white squares on Saturday…

And one on Sunday. Yes, I could just do it all in one go, but it would take a few hours and then I would feel like I got nothing of my OWN done, and I cannot abide that at the moment. Nope. So my goal is 1-2 white squares a day and then the damn sashing and borders. I’ll get there. It just won’t be quick.

Then on Saturday, I laid out the first 100 pieces (after cleaning the whole room, floor, etc).

It’s not a big quilt.

Then I went to see the Man’s band play (more dancing, a little drinking, learned a lesson there I guess).

Home again. Spent Sunday getting ready for school, but also carving out time for ironing. I’m in the mid-100s, I think…something like that.

I got almost 3 hours in yesterday. Good times. You’d think I’d have more ironed, but there were a lot of little things going on and they took some thinking.

I also went to an art meeting and sewed down (during dinner) 9 of the 48 circles I need to stitch down for my mom’s thing.

See, I AM doing all the things. I’m just cranky about most of it. Except the ironing for my quilt. That is joyous and not cranky at all.

I’m sure everyone has seen some cool art or fabric in a TV show and screen shot it…this is the wall art from an episode of Suits.

Fascinating. I had some stuff burst into my head from this. Too bad I have to go back to school today instead of nurturing my Art Brain with some drawing time. Luckily there are no kids today…just adults and the bullshit the district wants us to do. Am I still burnt out? Oh yeah. I am. Do I have some plans for keeping myself from fully burning out? Uh huh. I do. Watch this space. Still got that damn song in my head.

Happy Wonton Lunch…

OK. Self realizes last real day of Winter Break is upon us. The to-do list is heinous. The month is ugly. I’m still feeling burnt out from school…not a good sign after three weeks off. But it is what it is. What I can have in place is a giant pile of books to read as a reward for doing whatever yucky thing is that I had to do to earn the reading, a solid exercise plan that moves for nothing and no one (almost), an art project that has a deadline, so it cannot be shunted aside. It would also help if I had a cook and a cleaner, but I’m not holding my breath for those. Best I can do today is cross off a bunch of stuff. I’m dropping my school computer off this morning and getting a loaner so that I can actually use it in class. At home, I’ve been projecting it to another monitor, but I still can’t see the login box (I don’t need to see that to get in, luckily), and a goodly chunk of the doc and tabs are unavailable. So I’m glad they were available to get me a loaner today. I’m also shipping the Supreme Court quilt to its new owner. I made some videos before I packed it up, so I’ll be hopefully getting those processed and on the blog this weekend. I’m picking up another quilt from a show; I’m glad they were open today so I could do that. Trying to do all this stuff during a regular work week is really challenging…half of these places aren’t open late enough for me to even get there. Frustrations aside (is that even possible? I feel like it’s a daily occurrence to be frustrated these days…ask me after today.), I have today planned pretty solidly. Hoping to get a hike/walk in there, but we’ll see.

So I’m on the speedy track with the first quilt of 2024. Why? I have a collaborative project I’m supposed to be doing in the next few months, and I also need to (want to!) make a baby quilt for a good friend having her first. Also there’s a deadline and I don’t have anything at all for it, which is weird and frustrating (there’s that word again). So I traced the whole thing in just three nights, I think…

Spending more than an hour a night, obviously staying up too late, sigh, those are the hours I am most efficient, but also the hours I need to be asleep so I can get enough sleep so I can get up at ugh in the morning. It was less than two yards of Wonder Under. I started cutting it out Wednesday night after finishing the tracing…

Didn’t get far, but did the rest of it in a couple of hours last night…

Today, I’m going to sort it, make sure I have a background, buy one if I don’t, and start ironing to fabric, which means putting everything away from the last quilt first, and honestly, I need to put the borders on the other friend’s quilt I have had for a over a month first, because I need the ironing board and table for that. So do that first. Realistically, that’s a lot, considering everything else I need to do today, but we’ll see how it goes. You know me; I’m all about progress.

OK, I’m going to have to write the rest of this later; need to book. *** Time Passes *** So I wrote that at around 8 AM and now it’s 12:15. I’ve been productive. I have a loaner computer and mine is winging its way (well, probably driving) to Apple for repair. I copied all the papers needed for the first two weeks of school (one copier is already down, so I stole paper from it and went to the office copier, so that reduces my Monday stress). I picked up my quilt from Visions, because the show ended. I shipped the sold quilt with insurance, which is why I had to drive into a part of town I never go to…it has to go to a customer center, not a UPS store. Annoying because they’re not open past 2 PM, so doing it during the school day is impossible. I might even have partially solved the insulin shortage problem; we’ll see about that. Why am I short insulin? Long story involving a defective pen months ago that still isn’t solved. Yet.

I also washed my storage bins that I use for sorting fabric and Wonder Under. The pencil had been transferring off of the pieces onto the boxes, and I didn’t want the fabric to get dirty. To be honest, I only washed the first 6…because that’s all I need right now. So later today, I’ll be sorting fabric. I also checked my background stash and I have something that will work well for this quilt, so there is (unfortunately) no need to go shopping. Wah. But also, that’s probably a good thing. I’m waiting for the loaner computer to finish updating so I can go lesson plan for a while…not my favorite thing to do, but I have a chunk of time when I’m not super tired, so I should do that now. My future self will appreciate it.

I’ll take a break while lesson planning to put the borders on that quilt and clean up the sewing room, so I can start ironing to fabric later today. The Man and I have a date night planned, since he has a show tomorrow night, so we’ll be going out to dinner and to see some music for a while. Tomorrow, I’m planning for more lesson crap and more ironing joy.

Last night, during my quilting-friends Zoom, I made wontons from scratch, to provide me with three days of lunch joy (and last night’s dinner). It’s too time-consuming to make during the school year, but it’s one of my favorite meals, so I make it once during break if I can. Then I started pinning the snowflakes on the borders of mom’s Tinsel quilt. Oh, I put the borders on the other day…

We changed the snowflakes to two different sizes of circles…

And then changed the borders from the pattern, only using 6 of the snowflakes Sue Spargo planned.

One of the other participants did it this way and added a bunch of different embroidered snowflakes randomly throughout the border, and I liked the way it looked better than the original. So my job is to applique down the 48 circles. Then I hand it over to mom and she does the embroidery. Then back to me to sandwich and quilt…she could probably do that, but that’s OK. I’ll give it back to her to stitch the binding down by hand. Then it’s hers. And when she’s gone, it’s mine. Unless my SIL or some other close family member wants it more. Then it’s theirs.

So those circles are my evening stitching after eating dinner. It’ll be a week or two to get done.

Here’s where I’ve been lesson planning. It got dark last night while I was working.

It’s kind of chaotic, but it works better than sitting on the couch. I did finish grading that last academic assignment, so that’s good. I have progress report grades due in a couple of weeks, and I don’t want to stress about it. I don’t have TIME to stress about it. Every weekend from now until February 10 has stuff on it. Some of it is art or music, but that doesn’t make it any less busy (there’s also tree trimming and mammogram, so it’s not all fun and games). I’m eyeing February for camping or something, because I’m gonna need it.

Kitten is such a good baby. Fifteen and a bit. Definitely likes the sun.

And to be near me. Sometimes annoyingly so. But sweet here.

The composter in the front yard has a visitor.

Probably rat. Need to put more water in there. They don’t like it when it’s super wet.

Also, she’s touching me. Make her stop touching me.

Anyway. Coping mechanisms in place. I’m on some new supplements and hoping they will help with sleep and energy. And hot flashes, which may never go away. We’ll see. But for now, I’m going to eat happy wonton lunch and plan for a while and then not plan for a while. The art is what saves me, on a daily basis, y’all. Without it, I’d be bonkers, seriously nuts. I’m so glad I have that.

May Art Sustain Us…

Weird frame of mind. I don’t have a clear idea of what art I’m working on next, which is hard for me. So I’m trying to get that taken care of in the next day or so. Plus I’m realizing I have to go back to school…I ignored school for almost a week and then I couldn’t any more. I graded the last of the big unit yesterday, so I just have one really short and easy assignment to do next week. The bigger deal next week is planning for the rest of this unit and as much of the next one as I can get through. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and my brain is trying to plan things that give me some down time in class. Please give me more time. I’ve been just slotting assignments in without thinking about how demanding they are on ME…and I need to try to fix that. Best I can. So that’s next week.

Artwise, I took all my smaller sketchbooks (not the super smalls, but the 9x12s) to the copy store after skimming through and tagging some I thought would work. I copied 11 drawings at 250%…

I started at 200%, but the pieces were too small. Then I started cutting and taping them together, numbering them as I went.

Takes about 12-22 minutes a drawing, depending on how fussy the pieces are.

Then I stared at them and tried to decide what to do. These are all just random drawings, mostly while camping or traveling, some during the Winter Break Draw-a-Day things I like to do (no time this year). So they don’t have a purpose or a theme to them, which is fine. I think of them as practice for the real stuff, but although I feel like I just finished some really complicated stuff (still recovering from the Supreme Court quilt), I can’t just do a light, easy quilt right now. And most of these roll in that realm. Not really light, but not really purposeful. So I picked this top one (of the 11) and added paper to the bottom…which is where I’ll add some purpose. Whatever that is. I have some ideas, just not fully formed.

That said, we’re taking this weekend off in the mountains, not camping (it’s raining and cold), but a little Airbnb with some hiking and nature. A reset. Of sorts. Might need one a month to get through the rest of the school year, but that’s not an option financially. Ah well. This should be nice. Hoping. I am taking the drawing (and two more sketchbooks) with me. And books. And stitching.

I got all the embroidery done on this (mom did the majority…I just did the little in-between bits).

When we get back, I’ll put borders on it and sew the little snowflake circles (we’re not doing all of them), then hand it back to her for embroidery.

This year has been difficult. There hasn’t been enough time to make art, and I hate that. I managed to stop thinking about work for a few days, which was good, but yesterday’s run through town to donate fabric, books, and clothes seemed to let the work back in my brain. Not good. I’m trying to make some positive changes in the next half of the school year, though, and hoping the next school year is better, but I’m counting on nothing at this point. I remember drawing every week. I remember making art almost every weekend. I just need more of that. An hour a night isn’t enough. Keeping that in mind…

Here’s my tree, which is already undecorated and back outside, so it can (1) enjoy the rain and (2) not be eaten by Kitten, who keeps throwing up the needles. Sigh.

It’ll be the New Year when I’m back…so happy new year to all, if that’s how you roll. If not, happy weekend. May art sustain us, however we take it in or push it out.

We Do Our Best…

Well I’m off by a day again. Christmas seems a good excuse. I probably could have written this yesterday in between things, but I did other things instead. It’s all about choices, right? I’m the one who makes my rigid schedule, and there’s good reasons for it…it makes me write, but I’m also the one who can revise it at will. Besides, this is the floofy part of the year that has no purpose and no actual days of the week. Except for the one when the trash company picks up. You should know that one. And if you have to donate stuff by the end of the year, you should realize that is coming. And if you are trying to take advantage of some special sale deal thingie, they probably are up by now. Too late. So sad.

The holidays are days of chaos, no matter what your choices, I think. So Friday night, I picked up one friend and her kid from the airport and went out to dinner with them. I’ll see them next December probably. They live far away and I don’t get to travel much: money, time, all that. I kept quilting Friday afternoon and night…

And Saturday morning and evening…

Then Christmas Eve, I trimmed her…

Before we went to that party. I was wearing the outfit below, but with knee pads.

That was the Man’s holiday party. Then after Christmas night’s dinner, I put the binding on…

Hand sewing tonight and tomorrow…emailed photographer now. There’s a deadline on this one. So many have deadlines.

I managed to get all the applique pieces on this and started the embroidery at last night’s event.

We’re changing up the borders. I needed mom to cut a bunch of tiny circles. She has a machine and dies for that, which she brought to Christmas dinner…like you do.

It didn’t have the one size we needed, although the box said it did, which was just weird. So we cut some varying sizes. Figured we’d alternate between 1/8″ bigger and 1/8″ smaller. We’ll see. Certainly this is easier than cutting them out by hand. There aren’t dies though for most of what I do.

On Saturday, the Man and I went for a hike…

Apparently he was more excited about halfway than I was.

There’s been lots of dog activity. Or really, lack of activity…

Annie is still injured, so the cone is on most of the time. She licks her paw otherwise…occasionally she’s allowed out with supervision…Grandma is her favorite…

But she’ll settle for the Man…some sort of communal napping going on here.

Simba is always tortured by the girlchild’s costuming choices…

Poor little panda guy.

So I sucked at family pictures. Again. Here’s Christmas morning…

Chaos all around. Then dinner at the other house…

I didn’t even take pictures of the food. Spaced out. Ah well. We hope, as always, that we’ll have another year of it. Maybe I will remember photos in 2024. Luna hopes so.

But I have plenty of pictures of her. Here, she wants pets. More pets. This is after she hooked my finger with her claw. Bloody beast.

We also cleaned out the owl box.

We found the owlet I suspected had died in June.

Headless this time. Less of a haul this year. There were some rats too, but not all of them…heads missing. That might be their skulls. Hard to say. We’re leaving the box down for a few weeks. There’s 6 trees that will be trimmed in January, and the hope is that they will not destroy the owl box in the process. We might pull it off completely; we’ll see. Certainly I’m going to have to pull up some plants to protect them. Ah well. That’s January’s problem. And stress.

This week is not stress free. I have an arts application to complete, plus some stuff to ship out, plus donations to make before the end of the year. Lots to do. Grading still too. Hoping to get a good chunk done before the weekend, when we’ll take a couple nights of destressing. We hope. Then I’ll have to start planning the next unit and a half next week. Head down. There’s so much I can’t get done. I don’t feel very productive so far this break…or relaxed. I’m hoping to get there, but it’s been difficult. I know it’s supposed to be a mindset, but the weight of the to-do list is ever present. The only solution to that is to cross things off it and carve out some time for my sanity. Which is what the rest of this school year looks like. So not really thrilled with that. I did get some ceramics classes for Christmas…literally gonna carve those out of the schedule once I survive January. So that’s something to look forward to.

Hoping your holidays were what you needed them to be. I’m glad the official stuff is over and I can stop worrying about food and wearing stuff besides pajamas. Says the woman who needs to shower and go to the grocery store today. Yeah. Well. We do our best.

Gloom…

It’s dark and gloomy this morning. That California storm finally hit us last night, but not super hard. We’ve had over half an inch of rain and a tiny bit of thunder and lightning…nothing like up north. Enough that I don’t have to water for a few days though. Enough that I don’t feel a need to leave the house today. Wait. I need binding fabric for this quilt…I want to finish it before the 26th so I can contact the photographer and give him more time…and the fabric store I usually shop at has heinous hours these days. Which they say they aren’t changing. So it’s today or tomorrow, and tomorrow is more complicated. I did finish stitchdown on Wednesday…just sat down and did it all after writing the blog. That is one of the things I miss about teaching before COVID…coming home for the weekend and spending ALL DAY Saturday just doing art stuff. It’s hard to pull that off these days. I always have to do all the stuff I didn’t get done during the week. Stitchdown took a whopping 2 hours and 44 minutes, then I sandwiched and pinbasted that night, so I put in 3 or 4 hours.

Delightful. I still haven’t finished putting up Christmas stuff. Or wrapping it. Or putting it together.

But the tree made it into the house.

Yesterday, I was doing other stuff all day…it took 3 hours to put labels on two quilts, clean them up, iron them, and pack them up for shipping. They’ll both be traveling until 2027, I think. Hopefully I’ll see them in the traveling exhibition at some point. So far, they’ll be too far away. So I did that all morning.

Then in the afternoon, I had a couple of Zoom calls, one with stitching friends, so I started work on this thing…

So this is Sue Spargo’s Tinsel block of the month from 2022. I wasn’t going to do it, but mom likes Christmas stuff, so I signed up. I thought I’d just make it for her, but realistically, I wouldn’t finish until 2030, so I did all the applique, gave her three blocks last Christmas, three for her birthday in February (a little late because I got sick), and three for Mother’s Day. She did all the embroidery, which is the fun stuff anyway, right? Then she handed them back to me in September or October.

So yesterday, I trimmed them all.

One of the fun things about this is that the seam allowances sometimes get a little tiny. Luckily, I’ve done quite a few of these and know how to fix that. Sometimes you need to re-embroider something over the seam allowance…like that bottom tree branch on the right, and the bottom of the pot in the middle one…plus the blue bits at the top of that tree. No worries.

I pieced them on Zoom with my stitching friends.

Then there are some bits to be appliqued and embroidered after it’s all together.

Then put the borders on and applique some of the dots…I’m actually changing up the border embroidery. Mom likes it better too. I’ll give it back to her for the border embroidery, hopefully next week, and then she’ll give it back to me to be quilted and bound. Then it’s hers! It’s only taken a year plus. I’m the slow cog in the wheel, as always. I have another quilt here from a stitching friend who finished her part…so next week, I’ll put her borders on, quilt it, put a binding on it, and then hopefully hand it off before the end of break. That’s the plan anyway. We know how plans go.

Meanwhile, I did start quilting last night…did a little over an hour…

I’m going to continue with that this morning, with the plan of buying binding before the quilt store closes today. At 3. Too early, y’all. I probably won’t finish quilting all of it, but I can finish the outlining. I don’t want to be stuck without binding on Christmas Day. Yes. Ironic. There’s a break between morning and evening stuff, though, and a hike and some stitching is the best way to fill it. I know what I want for binding, and I don’t have enough of it in my stash. So shop.

I also finally framed and hung the last two Quilt National posters.

I had to email and pay for shipping to get them, because I couldn’t go to either opening…timing plus cost plus COVID. Annoying. Maybe I’ll get into another one to fill that space on the right, and I’ll make it to THAT opening. Sigh.

Simba’s eyelid seems to be fine. Hopefully the growth will not come back. He’s a good boy.

OK, so I’m outline quilting until it’s done, probably another hour or two. There’s thunder again. And more rain. Gloomy as shit this morning. Then to the quilt store. I have a friend and her son flying in tonight, so I am braving the drive to the airport this evening to get them and drop them at their hotel. Then quilting again tonight, hopefully, at some point. It’s movie night first. I think. Tomorrow is grocery shopping for Christmas, plus a hike, I hope. Finish quilting. Get a binding on probably Sunday? Not sure. Sunday is when family stuff starts for the Man, then mine on Monday. Y’all know how that goes.

Anyway, enjoy your holiday however you can/need to. I know for some it’s not enjoyable, so do your best. Read a book. Drink some spicy something-or-other. Cuddle up with a blanket if appropriate. Southern hemisphere, do what you need to do. Make some art if that’s a thing for you. I’m working on a fellowship application due January 4. Plus all the other things on the to-do list, including grading, unfortunately. It has to be done. But also doing some things that make it easier to get through the have-tos.

Absolute Delight…

Hey. Friday. Before Winter Break. I love you.

Actually, I’m stressed at the moment because of the next 8 hours, but then I love you. My brain at 3:30 in the morning was not helpful. My teammates helped me write a difficult parent email this morning (no thanks to 3:30-AM brain), so that’s done. Now I just need to juggle potential issues in advisory (which is short, hallelujah), then get everyone to be quiet, turn in a huge packet, and answer a simple question. While I get the room cleaned up enough to leave after school (they’re doing the floors over break…which is good…they look like crap). Today is, of course, an assembly day. Plus pajama day (it’s going to be 80 degrees) and Santa hat day (I don’t have the patience for itchy hot head today). And I have duty after school. Then a work party.

The girlchild arrived just before midnight last night, but I haven’t seen her yet; she went to the other house. But she’s here! Makes me happy.

OK, I haven’t been ironing much. I got an hour in on Wednesday night…

Scissors for scale. Those are my small scissors.

This is not a huge, complicated quilt.

I got nothing done last night, because I had my monthly stitching meeting with friends, which was nice…I worked on shutters on crooked windows…

Then came home and finished cleaning up the girlchild’s room, ran some laundry, packed up some gifts, and dealt with some art paperwork. Then it was 10:45. So I got ready for bed. Not sure if tonight will be any better? Who knows.

This is coming up…which is cool.

We picked a current piece and something that was at least 10 years old (mine was from 1993, I think). Mine is 2nd row down, 4th from the left. Screenprint with drawing.

My advisory holiday door: Fortnite Winterfest.

They did OK. I drew Jack because the kid in charge of that was absent. He colored it though. The tree coloring is particularly nice. We’re not going to win. To be honest, we never win. Some adults get way more into this than I do. It’s strange how proud they are of it though. This is one more thing I have to do after school today: take this down. It’s funny the party starts at 3:30 and I have duty until 3:45 and then have to get my room in order. Who knows when I’ll get there.

Yesterday, I met with my co-teacher-on-leave to try to figure out some stuff she wrote on the calendar last year. It was lovely to plan with her, even though it was 7th grade and I don’t even teach that right now (I will in 2025? I think?). So yeah, we spent an hour on stuff we don’t even teach. It was an absolute delight and relief though. To have someone to plan with and see the big ideas. I miss that. I cried on the way home…missed that. She’ll be back. It’ll be better. I refuse to say when, so the universe won’t slap back.

Anyway. I hate these days before break, but a lot of kids will be absent because of that. Pros and cons. I was really angry with my advisory for an incident on Wednesday; I’m still pissed off at a couple of them. Made it hard on a couple of classes for their behavior with the sub while I was in a literacy meeting. That said, I have the next 20-some days off (although, yes, I will have to grade and plan). So that’s not bad. I can do that.

Feels Different

Hey. It’s later than usual. It’s Friday and I’m not at work! And I’m not sick! And a veteran is coming over later to help me do some work around the house! That’s how you celebrate THIS veteran. Make him help you do work. Plus he has way better tools than I do. What other exciting things am I doing today? I’m getting three vaccines (like a nutball) and two MRIs. Yeah! Do not try this at home, y’all. I’m fully expecting them to tell me I can only have two of the vaccines. Three might be too many. Kitten has already drawn blood on my right hand (IDK what I did, but she didn’t like it). I braved nasty traffic last night to hang out with my stitching friends…got very little done on this…

I think some window sashing and 1 1/2 shutters, plus some running stitch. I’m impressed by the people who can stitch one of these in a year. I guess I have a lot of other stuff going on.

The literacy meeting on Wednesday allowed me to get some small things done, so that was good. It also netted me stickers.

I finished a good book last night, Shoot the Moon…it did not go the way I thought it would, which was delightful.

I finished that last night…came home after stitching group and just sat there for an hour and devoured the last half. I need more of that.

Then I quilted for an hour…because I knew I could sleep in this morning. So Wednesday’s quilting…I refused to work that night, so I did over an hour…

Got the torso done, and then started on the justices to the left (when upside down…when right side up, they are to the right, which makes more sense…not sure I planned that? But maybe I did).

In the longer time frame, I got through three justices that night…

Then did the other two last night…

My camera recognizes the faces as faces, which is weird. So now all I have left is the arms and head of the goddess and everything above her, PLUS all the background quilting. I’m at about 10 hours in…and I was figuring 15 or so? I think. And I still think that’s valid. There’s a lot of little fussy spaces to be filled. I’ve done some of it as I was outlining, but not all of it. So hopefully this weekend? I’m going to have to go buy binding tomorrow anyway, or I won’t get to until next weekend, which would suck. And it looks like I might be starting a new quilt over Thanksgiving, which is good, because I have two deadlines coming up, and one is coming very quickly. Yikes.

I’m so proud that I have finally been able to color in a unit packet cover page…so many of last year’s didn’t get done because two grade levels, and I never finished Unit 2 this year either.

My students say he looks lit. AKA stoned. I said it’s daylight savings week…he’s tired. Also asked them if they’d looked in mirrors lately. So yeah. Great.

Nova in the air biscuit competition. Still winning.

Will I have to work this weekend on school stuff? Of course I will. I’m also quilting and trying to install these lattice things to replace the old broken ones so I can plant a viney thing to grow up it and also clean some stuff and quilt…did I say quilt? Yeah. That. But today is kind of busy. My fault of course. It’s nice to have a day off though. Really nice. Feels so different than a regular weekend. Fully appreciating that.