I downloaded photos on Friday for a post, and that’s as far as I got. I think I briefly considered it on Saturday, but then got sucked into other things that needed doing and lost track of that thought. Last night, while I was trying to fall asleep, my ever-helpful (not) brain was trying to remember if I’d posted on Friday or not…not is the answer. So here we are, back to Mondays, back to school, three weeks of crazy to survive on many levels, not ready for any of it…except the next stage of the quilt. Oh wait. Not ready for that either. It’s chaos in here and I can’t iron a quilt together in chaos. So. Yeah. But I’m going to have to…and that might just be the best explanation of most of my adult life right there: can’t do it; gonna have to.
OK, quilt…the quilt that I’m a week behind on…easily. Here’s more cutting out, with Scribble.
And more cutting out…
with Scribble’s tail. And more cutting out with Scribble.
And the final push…
14 hours to do it all…
And I have a lap cat. Which is nice. She quickly learned to keep her paws out of the bins, until last night, when I started sorting…
She definitely wanted to be IN the bins. But wasn’t violent about it (unlike Bowie a year ago or so). I didn’t finish sorting last night…started late and then was tired and needed to go to bed to get up early this morning.
More Scribble pix…she is allowed in the sewing room if I’m in here.
Although she has already found Kitten’s cave, where she hid on and off for the last 6 years of her life…
I mean, it’s full of batting. Why wouldn’t you want to hide there?
The girlchild is here; Scribble is friendly.
Which everyone appreciates.
She just settles in and lets the other three cats try to figure her out.
Even Bowie is starting to come around; he wants to play with her, but he’s not sure how.
Three cats vertically in a row. So it’s been a good transition so far. Of course, today is the first work day, when there’s no one around for most of the day. That will be different. But she seems very adaptable…
Strangely enough.
The Man and I hiked again on Friday, because…
we had my family’s Thanksgiving on Friday…
Both kids cooked…nice food choices.
My dad fell asleep on the couch with Annie…
I think he was in her seat.
Saturday night dinner’s drawing…
Not finished, but I only have the time from when we come in the restaurant until they serve the food.
I finished the pomegranate seeds on May’s Forest for the Trees block.
At the moment, all I can handle is the applique. I’ll get to the embroidery, but who knows when? Going back to school has sucked up any loose time I had.
I still think we’re not allowed…
But I appreciate the sentiment.
OK, there’s so much school stuff I didn’t finish over break. Always. I have seating charts written for 2 of my 6 classes. Today is chill, though…starting a new unit, so just vocab and cover page and a short lecture on how to bring your grade up and it doesn’t involve Google or AI. Then staff meeting(s?) and hopefully ceramics. I need a porcelain patch kit from Home Depot too…purposely didn’t go get it this weekend, but I still need it. I also need to finish the other sgraffito frame at the studio before it dries out. I had plans to go Saturday and Sunday, and both fell through. It’s fine; other things happened and it was good, but I need to go today. And tomorrow. And Thursday. Or something. Three weeks…I can do three weeks. I think.
Wrong day. I’m all discombobulated. Usually I work Fridays. Well, I still worked Friday; I graded all day. But not at school and not with kids. I finished one big assignment; today, I started the second one and got side-tracked by the possibility of a new kitten tonight plus having to clean out the girlchild’s room for new kitten AND girlchild (not at the same time), and then took all those assignments (packets in plastic bags, cat toys!) back to school and went for a hike and then came back here and continued to try to organize quilts and the room. Didn’t finish. I can’t get a handle on storage at the moment. I have some ideas for boxing stuff up and putting it in the garage at this point. I don’t know that I still need all the books I used when I started teaching school. I don’t use them any more. Not quite ready to totally get rid of them, but close. Because I use the internet now instead of books. So much more. But organizing takes time and this week off never has enough time to do a lot. Too much family and other obligations. Plus grading is always an issue. It’s not enough time off for all of it.
Anyway, so I’m still in the stage of hoping to get a lot done but haven’t gotten a lot done. Fun times. I forgot to write yesterday because it didn’t seem like Friday. I don’t know what day it was, but it wasn’t Friday.
So Wednesday night, I ironed things down…
And didn’t freakin’ finish. So frustrating.
Thursday night, I finished.
18 hours and 54 minutes, 152 fabrics. That’s a lot. There were a lot of small detailed things in this quilt…stuff I love, but that is time-consuming on all levels.
Here’s everything that needs to be cut out.
And then I barely started cutting things out.
It never looks like much. Last night, I did some more…
We went out and watched friends of ours play in a different band, so we got home at 10:30, but I still had about an hour in me.
This is the Chameleons, which is really the lead guy and then whoever he decides he wants to play along with him…
But three of those people are in the Radio Thieves, so we got free tickets and hung out and watched them and talked to some friends, and then skipped the main band, because we’ve seen them before and we were both tired. The Man did actually go to work yesterday; and I am tired all the time, so there’s that. There will be no sleeping in during break. Cats don’t care that I need more sleep, and I stay up later, so I’m fucked. Ah well.
I did manage to gently chisel the base off the head; I used the base to hold up the head in the kiln and the clear glaze dripped down and attached them.
And managed to seat the head, although not quite how it originally fit.
There’s going to be acrylic paint on this thing. No way not too. And there’s a lower part too. Anyway, I’m hoping to epoxy these three pieces together, but also to get the tree for the top of the head into the glaze kiln too. And add the wire for the coathanger, and then design and make the little quilt that goes in the belly area. There’s so many hours in this thing, it’s insane. It’s definitely been a learning experience. So many things broke off so many times.
I did hike about 3 miles today to make up for not moving at all yesterday.
It was nice and cool out.
Threatening rain with no rain.
As I was walking, I thought I saw something up on the hillside, but it didn’t move. I even walked forward a little ways and then came back, decided it was a tree stump, then took a photo of it as far as my phone camera could zoom, and still couldn’t decide. It still hadn’t moved. I hiked on and figured I’d check the spot on the way back.
Of course, looking at it now, that’s a fucking coyote, but at the time, I really was seeing a tree stump. My eyes vs the camera’s eyes. It seemed too dark to be a coyote.
I got home to a beautiful sky.
We had a lovely cool, rainy in bits but not horrible, week. This coming week holds no rain, and then it comes back the following week. It’s pretty cold at night (for me)…definitely in my sweats and socks and slippers stage. I must be getting old, because my neck gets cold, but I hate turtlenecks. I have a couple of scarves, one a friend made and one the Man brought back from Denmark? I think? They are doing the trick.
I saw these on a friend’s reels and loved them.
Please pause. I shall return in a better place. I will be pillow-forting for a few days first. Don’t mind me.
Yup. That too. Bingewatching bad TV, reading books, and dreaming about all the things I could finish if I just stopped sleeping and eating and peeing. Really.
These sweet boos.
It must be cold for them to not be killing each other. And I’m about to shake up their existences with another cat. Woo!
This is too real.
Anyway. There’s no school all next week, and I am thankful for that. I am thankful for being done with the packets, and for getting a new furry baby tonight. Whichever one I pick. I was interested in one and then someone else had gotten in before me (this was the third time it had happened), and I’d been offered a slightly younger one, and figured it would be fine from the description, and then the 3rd one came back up as available, so I’m meeting both tonight and somehow I’m supposed to decide. Which is why there are two carriers in the back of the car right now, just in case. Then home to acclimatize whomever ends up coming home with us, some cutting stuff out, some kitten time, more cutting stuff out, more kitten time. You know how that goes. And grading. I should do more of that unfortunately. Ugh. But also relax and hike and read and pee when I want. Plus drinking my tea warm instead of cold. Teacher dreams.
Late start on this. And if you’re gonna tell me about how YOU don’t have the day off, well, you probably didn’t work through the last three weekends, did you? So there’s that. I did a bunch of things this morning, because I have the day off, yay brain. I went to the doctor, I went to Fed Ex and copied a drawing for the next quilt, plus shipped a quilt to a traveling show that is opening somewhere, but I don’t remember where, ah well. I’ll figure that out. I got dog food (for the dog), plastic wrap (for Wednesday’s lab…forgot to get it at the grocery store yesterday), a new sprinkler head (that seems to be problematic and probably won’t fix the problem; might need to consult with my sprinkler guy, who happens to be my ex husband), plus more glazes/clay tools (local clay place is only open M-F 9-4, so they get very little of my business honestly), and the ceramics studio, where I did things that I forgot to photograph. Like a ditz. Seriously. My head is still in the glaze kiln and my tree is still waiting to be bisqued…probably that will all happen tomorrow and I’ll see stuff on Friday. OR I have a ceramics class next Saturday and I’ll see it then.
Came home, tried to fix the sprinkler, failed, ate lunch, started the dishwasher, made a mammogram appointment (they are scheduling 6 freakin’ months out ffs), read a chapter of my book, and am now trying to get my head straight. It’s OK. I need to do yardwork, but it’s like 90 degrees out there. It’s freakin’ November. Too damn hot. And mosquitoes. Sheesh.
OK. So quilt progress. I’m ironing bugs Friday night
Purple and green bugs. Then Saturday night, I did the body bag and some other stuff, like faucets.
And last night, I did the water. A satisfying grayish brown color. Or is it a greyish brown? Hard to say.
I’m in the 200s, I think. But nearly done with them. I’m ironing stuff on a rug next. Or a darts target. Something like that.
Friday, I added these shapes to one of the frames.
Today, I underglazed this one in black and will start sgraffito on it on Friday probably. I added some shapes to the other frame and didn’t take pictures of either of them. Good times.
I allowed myself a little stitching on Friday night…
Almost done stitching everything down on this one…then embroidery. I’ve had so little time for embroidery or any handwork lately. I’m struggling to get the time to do any art. School is just such a timesuck. I graded all day Saturday, then finished the major assignment last night. I’m not doing school today, except for posting a video I took on Friday for the absent kids.
I’m Floating in a Most Peculiar Way is traveling with Fierce Planets. It’s currently at the Stamford Museum & Nature Center in Stamford, CT.
I’m hoping to see this show when it wanders west.
It looks nice.
I didn’t have time to put all the planets in my quilt…maybe need to do a bigger one?
That piece on the right is fascinating: Jennifer C. Solon’s Untamed Fury.
I have another piece traveling to Connecticut…The Way Out is part of Enough Already, work from the Sara M. +Michelle Vance Waddell collection. It’ll be at the MOCA in Westport, CT, opening November 13. I’m excited about how much it’s traveling with this exhibit.
Speaking of traveling, Simba and I went for a hike on Saturday.
He can’t go as far as he used to, but we did a solid 2 miles. He needed a bath after due to the unfortunate genetics of his butt fur.
Check Bowie out, sleeping like a normal cat. Not parkouring across the coffee table.
Not body slamming my teacup. He must be growing up. Might be time for a new kitten. He’s reached 18 months. Might be out of the velociraptor stage.
This is me always.
The night is better.
I did read the article. And sigh. But the comment above it is the best.
Because we all wanna know.
Anyway. I am not grading today or tomorrow. I have fabric to iron, a political project I joined that I need to do something for, lots of yardwork, some housework, books to read, always books to read, maybe some actual sewing. We’ll see. Short week of school. Nice. Chaos though, because I planned two labs. Like a fucktard. It’ll be fine. I’ll get in fast, won’t kill anyone, get out and take a day off. Sounds perfect. I think I’m giving them a test in between too. So that’ll be exciting. But for now, breathe deeply and wonder where winter…or even fall…is.
It’s pajama day at school today. It’s also supposed to be 90 degrees. Not sure those two things go together. But I am in pajamas. Flannel. Yup. With pockets though. I have a lighter pair, but they don’t have pockets. Yes, I know how to sew…clothing even…I could easily add pockets. In my spare time. I got none of that. In good news, the parentals are home, safe, not ill, and their lovely aged very deaf dog is back to their responsibility. In bad news, the day job continues to give me acne, bad sleep, and canker sores. I’m sure it will get better. Someday. Not this week though. This week is our first real lab and IDK how that will roll…this is where we can really see what last year’s teachers wrought upon us…that and the first long writing assignment. My hopes are not high. I realized (we realized?) last week that this group is not particularly independent, even when assignments are. I couldn’t grade anything, prep anything, even sit and help a kid I know needs it and won’t ask for it, because of all the kids requiring help who just didn’t listen to directions or quashing attempts to be social when supposed to be working. It was exhausting. Yes, there’s always some of that, but this was too much. So I brought home all the grading I’d been trying to do all week and did it at home…much faster. But eating up my time. Not OK.
Quiltwise, I knew I needed to do some embroidery on a couple of ICE vests that were too small to cut out words for…so I did that Friday night.
I was exhausted; I went to ceramics also and then my parents for the mail, so even though I had mostly prepared the night before to sandwich and pinbaste that night, I figured I wouldn’t have the energy. The boychild went to bed, then the Man, and Art Brain persuaded me to mop the floor, iron the backing, pin it to the floor, finish drying the batting (someone pulled it out of the dryer not dry…yes, I know who), iron the front, and then pinbaste the whole thing around 11:30 pm.
Absolutely some level of fucking nuts.
But honestly, much easier to do with everyone in bed. Dogs, cats, people out of my way.
Saturday night, I started quilting…
Made it through a healthy chunk of the dirt…
Then last night, I did the little people and most of the ICE agents dragging children through the swamp.
I’m sure I’ll be doing this most if not all of the week. And then I realized, how the fuck am I gonna buy binding? The store I usually shop at is open stupid hours and I’m going to LA on Saturday for basically the whole day. I’m not sure how I’m solving that problem yet. I’ll figure it out. Shop somewhere else, probably. Fewer choices in fabric unfortunately. Oh well. If you’re never open when working people can come in? Then they won’t come in.
This was the bed when I tried to get in it on Friday night. Eventually some moving happened.
Cute though. The Man is in there and those are all his babies.
I’ve been hiking every Saturday, late afternoon, about 3 miles, so I can eat a dinner I choose, instead of one my body allows.
It’s also relaxing, mostly. There were a lot of people this last Saturday. Less relaxing. There’s a fine line between hiking safely as a woman and being annoyed by all the people on the trail.
I drew at dinner…this was a two-dinner drawing.
The faster they serve the food, the more dinners it takes to draw.
Speaking of drawing, some of my students are truly amusing.
The arm gestures of Josh. So cute. Yes, I realize they drew a dead person, but it’s also a stick figure.
Girlchild is in Japan…I’m so jealous.
I asked what was going on in this photo, and apparently it’s joy.
This is not very iconically Japan…
But she looked more cool. So we get daily photos and videos of cool things in Japan. I’m very jealous. It wasn’t really on my bucket list (I was last there in 1967 at the age of nine months. OK it might have been 1968.), but maybe it should be?
And in political news…
Yeah maybe I should start saying that. What is your problem?
This is too true.
Sadly so. Also so much disinformation about this. I’m sad for his kids and wife; I’m also sad for the family of the shooter. I’m sure this isn’t what they wanted for him. But hey y’all…it was a white, religious, right wing extremist. Not the democrats. Not a trans kid. Not a woman. Not a person of color. Can we focus on the bullshit coming out of all those politicians’ mouths? And the guns…can we ever say the guns are the problem? I’m boggled by the about-shifts in social media with some of these people.
And this…with teachers and professors being fired over statements about Kirk. My partner says the world is a better place now. Is that a fire-able offense? Dowd is divisive? Seriously? I’m boggled by the rhetoric and the bullshit. Maybe I shouldn’t be. But I am. And the ignorance of history. That too.
OK. Well, all that aside, I do still have to teach middle school today. Energy! Still. Transformations of energy. Writing about energy. Using more than one vocabulary word in a sentence. Writing complex sentences. Things most science teachers don’t teach. Welcome to a literacy school. And two teachers who are readers. Then two different meetings after school. I’d like to go to ceramics, but I’m also trying to go to my quilt guild meeting, because Lea McComas is speaking there. It’s on Zoom, but it’s not the same thing. So IDK how the rest of the day will go; I just know I’ll be quilting at the end of it.
I think I just ran around all weekend. I don’t feel particularly rested. Well, there were two late nights. I can blame one on Art Brain…I would have gone to bed. The other one, I blame Delta for flying the boychild in 90 minutes late on an already late flight. It’s fine. And last night, the new glucose sensor is off by 40 points again so the alarm kept going off…which is when I silenced it (it still buzzes) and put it on the floor. It’s still off this morning, so it gets 24 hours. Last time, that worked. Annoying though.
I did get the top ironed together on Friday night. I was exhausted (long short week), and was just going to piece the background, but once I had it all laid out, I’m like, it’ll be fine. How long will it take? That’s art brain talking, because the answer is 90 minutes past bedtime.
Awesome sauce. Looks good on that background, which is always nice. I pick those out when I start ironing all the pieces to fabric, so I’m never really sure what it will all look like in the end.
I started stitchdown on Saturday night.
Going about 100 mph, while singing along (probably quite badly) to whatever my phone was playing. Good thing the Man was also on headphones. Then I left at midnight to go pick up the boychild from the airport; he’d been hiking part of the PCT up in Washington.
And last night, further on in the stitchdown. Lots of details takes a bunch of time.
It’ll look better with outlining when I quilt it. That skeletal middle finger will be obvious.
I did a lot of school work this weekend (ugh). I remember now how trying to do the house stuff, run errands, go to meetings, but still have some time for art, reading, and relaxation…it feels like you’re constantly running.
I took a little time to sew stuff down on this during dinner TV time.
I also worked on one of the Rooted blocks during my quilt guild meeting, probably the first one I’ve been to in 6 months. First Saturdays are hard. I’m gone for the next one; I know that. A lot of the people I like to hang out with weren’t there.
I finished a cover page in science…a miracle for the first month of school!
Yet another roller coaster.
This show, with two of my pieces (one in the bottom right corner), opens this Friday.
I unfortunately won’t be there…and will never see this show, because it’s at Coastline College in Newport Beach and they are only open part of the week, certainly not the weekend. Ah well. It isn’t the first show I haven’t been able to attend. If you go, send me pics.
I also hiked 3 miles on Saturday…
It’s been hot still, so I didn’t leave until like 5:30 PM. The Man’s back still bugs him too much to join me, but hopefully in the future. It was still warm, but there was a cooler breeze in the second half.
I met one human and her massive (unleashed) dog…who saw me, stopped, and then started loping toward me. Kind of nerve-wracking. She’s searching through her pack for the leash and calling the dog, who isn’t listening at all. Sigh. I don’t care if he’s the gentlest giant around; if I’d had Simba with me, there would have been a problem. Leash your fucking dogs, especially in wildlife preserves, where it’s required. Humans are annoying.
Seriously, he was huge.
I saw this while driving home.
I chose to read it as What Would Jesus Do? Get rid of those two buffoons. Also badly centered ‘Vance’, which might be a metaphor.
Back to teaching, this is part of my regular job apparently.
The kid typed the stuff on the left. I mean, it’s probably true, and I did tell two kids that Spanish was OK, but Turkish is out of my knowledge realm. How to get these kids to write in English! I mean, I could have them write in their native language, then use Google Translate, then have them read it to me in English, then write it in English, but that would mean the other 32 kids in the class are just sitting there while I do that for 10 minutes (there’s multiple language kids in one class). This kid, legit writes in English most of the time, so I’m OK with it, but the three Spanish speakers have been in US schools for over 2 years and won’t even try in English. Sigh. I can’t do all the things. There isn’t enough time for all of it.
And for those thinking Chatgpt is teaching for us, we had it read through a set of stations we did in the past and consolidate it into 3 stations, instead of 6. It produced a ‘worksheet’, for some loose definition of such, and I spent over an hour turning it into something usable. I’m not saying it wasn’t helpful; it was definitely a shortcut, but don’t tell me it produces stuff I can use right away. Because it doesn’t. It probably saved us an hour of trying to decide which ones to do and what to cut, and then formatting it slightly differently so it all fits on four pages instead of 20. Still needs a ton of work and planning brain.
OK. It’s Monday. Another full week. Trying to fit exercise and ceramics in…not sure how that’s gonna go, honestly. Today? I’m teaching forms of energy. Mostly notes…a couple of demos. We built in some independent time this week (we’ll see how independent they really are), so we could NOT be direct teaching (which is exhausting for us and the kids) all week. Also maybe we could grade some stuff at school instead of bringing it all home. We have a two-hour (torture) literacy meeting after school today, ugh, with lesson and all. Not fun. Hopefully useful. They haven’t been, really…just been performative, which is annoying. They did let us plan our own learning this year, individually (although me and my co-teacher are doing the same lessons). For once, we get to decide what our kids need. What a concept. Then home to deal with a broken blind and the guy fixing it, with two dogs in the house. Then book club. And some stuff in and around all that. I think I read the book. I don’t remember. Oh yes! I did. It was nice. Not amazing, but nice. Then more stitchdown! Which is where I really want to be.
Well today started at 4 AM as a 5-skittle morning, thanks to my blood sugar alarm. Better than Saturday night, when the alarm kept going off because (according to the guy on the phone) my antibodies were attacking the filament of the continuous glucose monitor and I would just need to wait it out OR the monitor was faulty and he’d send me a new one. Sounds like something my antibodies would do. I love that all my medical staff is trying to figure out why my body doesn’t do what they think it should…when I ask about the early AM crashes, they move things around, meds, when I take my insulin, etc, and damn if those crashes don’t keep happening. Fun times. Yes, I do keep skittles in a drawer next to the bed; don’t you? I’m down to one crash a week, which is…um…still annoying as fuck. But maybe we’ll figure it out. Maybe they’ll start doing more science on women and how their bodies are different than men’s (ha! Oh holy fuck, not for another…1243 days? Is that fucking right? And that RFK guy? He’s a scientific dearth of information. He doesn’t understand anything since the early 1980s, I think. He certainly doesn’t understand how the food pyramid works (that we don’t use anymore). Froot Loops at the top of the pyramid…YASSS, because we’re not supposed to eat a lot of the stuff at the top you dumbass and you’re not supposed to eat a lot of Froot Loops! We’re all gonna have brain worms at the end of this. If Biden or Obama had put a guy in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services that was this incompetent, the Repubs would have lost their fucking minds, but now they’re all for it. Crazy shit. Absolutely batshit. Go get your measles shot if you’re like me and only had one as a baby. I feel like that’s gonna be our downfall.
Anyway. This was an arty weekend, as well as being a weekend full of trying to get my work head on straight. I have a bunch of pictures from the Oceanside Museum of Art opening that I don’t have time to deal with today (maybe Wednesday), but we did go to that and I’m glad…it was really cool to talk to some people there. I also ironed things together…here’s Friday night…
Didn’t get far, because I also had to lay stuff out…here’s the first 100…
Laid out in groups of 10…check out the tiny bones on the bottom. And then I had all these that separated…
This is after I paired up a bunch of them…so I’ll figure this out as I go. I’ve already found about four of them, but also had to retrace another 10 or so, which is annoying. Ah well…this is what happens with tiny pieces. And one of them that I retraced, I found it in the next box, so sorting is also sometimes tiring and hard and I fuck it up. Fun times.
Saturday night’s ironing…
With a closeup…
So you can see the skeletal hand that will look way more awesome when it’s outlined in stitches so you can see all the bones. Some level of insanity there. Then last night’s ironing…
I’ve ironed about halfway through the 200s, I think? There’s a pile of stars to go on that flag, and then I start on the little people who are kneeling on the edge of the flag. This is not fast, but it is pretty rewarding, because it’s the first time I get to really see it in color, besides in my head. I really love the red African fabric I used in the volcanic bits…it shades from bright to dark and looks really good. Yes, fabric makes me happy.
I also spent a shitload of time trying to get my classes organized and the basic shit documented. I didn’t finish grading, because there were two harder assignments and I wanted to save those (aka, not grade all weekend). I did read all the kids’ surveys though, for the first time ever. This kid is a snarky one…
Also, so many of them want to not work at all this year or at any time in the future. So that bodes well for the country…not really; I don’t have huge expectations for 13-year-olds. Also the kids who don’t want to be scientists; they want to be engineers. Um. Hello. What do you think an engineer does? So amusing. I wish them all luck in their futures.
I finally finished appliqueing all the border flowers on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown…
Looks really cool. Now I have to spend the next two years embroidering them all. No really. I don’t think this will be fast. It’ll be amazing when it’s done, but it won’t be fast.
Saturday was hot (real feel 103 degrees), but I need to walk/hike on Saturdays or I can’t eat what I want for date-night dinner…and we were going up to the museum show, so I had to go at like 3 PM, which is earlier than I would normally hike anyway, but still hot. I headed for the hike that was closer to the mounting rain clouds, and I did have a breeze and eventually it cooled off a bit.
I only did 2 miles instead of 3 because of the heat, drinking water and dribbling it over my head the whole time. The Man almost texted me at some point because he heard thunder (I was already in the car on the way back) and thought I should get the fuck off the trail. Yeah. Nobody else was out there, for sure. It worked, though. And so that’s my thing for Saturdays, when I can pull it off. Go hike so you can eat stuff.
This is too true. The pendulum of shit they do care about makes no logical sense.
You care about our health, but you get rid of programs that feed children. I guess it’s OK if they starve as long as they’re healthy about it.
The Man took this picture of his bug-eating plants…with an actual bug NOT being eaten.
Impressive.
And here’s my sweet, very hot, very panty boy.
He’s been a pain at night (because he’s hot and then he makes me hot and then he pants and I can’t sleep through it). But he is a sweet baby.
Speaking of not being able to sleep through it, our baby owl is still here.
So the deal is that they squawk when they’re hungry, expecting mom/dad to provide, which they were a couple of weeks ago. I saw a parent deposit a mouse/rat/small rodent on top of the box for the baby (much squawking ensued), but last week, I saw the baby in the tree outside my office, squawking very loudly about catching their OWN rodent and tearing it to bits (predator birds are impressive in that way), so I know it can catch it’s own food. In the past, we had a pair of babies and then triplets, and the mom/dad chase them off at some point so they get the fuck out of the nest and go take care of themselves. They would still come back sometimes, but not sit on the box and squawk all night. This one is an only, and IDK if the parent is the problem, not chasing them off. We’re pretty sure last year’s parent died in the box (not sure why, but we had two skeletons and one was definitely adult-sized and one wasn’t). We never got a fledged one last year. Maybe someone poisoned the rodents? Who knows. So owls return to the same nests every year, pretty much, so maybe this is one of the previous babies as mom? And she’s enabling the SHIT out of this baby. I’ve heard her a couple of times in the last week or so, screeching away, and then the baby leaves for a while, but keeps coming back. Last night, it was gone for longer, so maybe we’re close to being a big bad adult owl, but it just cracks me up that some parents let their babies live at home and take care of them for so long…I joked that housing prices are so high in San Diego that the baby can’t afford to move out. Too true.
OK. School. Teaching about AI today…responsible uses of it and unacceptable uses of it. It’s not going away, so I’m going full disclosure and how you will fail my class if you use it to take a test. Fun stuff. Then a 2-hour staff meeting after (ugh) and book club tonight on a book I didn’t love. But ironing after. And I think it’s supposed to be cooler today. So that’s a plus. Real summer hasn’t hit yet. We’ll go over a hundred degrees for some time in the future. Not looking forward to it.
Hmmm…there’s nothing like waking up on a Monday morning, getting ready for school, sitting down to the computer, and realizing there was something you were supposed to do over the weekend and you totally forgot about it. Oh yeah. I totally remember how school feels. Like that. Like this morning. Damn. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. There’s always tonight. Sigh. Even yesterday, I knew I had work, some work, and normally I would have done it in the afternoon, but I didn’t feel like succumbing to school on the weekend yet, so I didn’t do it until 8:30 PM. Not the best plan. Oh well. It’s done now. I will go write this other thing on the to-do list (which I made Friday and did not look at all weekend). Also, there’s nothing like food prepping a variety of breakfasts to get you through the next two months, and not wanting any of them when you get up in the morning. Score! Fun times.
OK, first full week of school with kids. Always a challenge. I think I mostly prepped today’s activity on Friday, which is good, because Advisory is only 6 minutes and I have to be on duty at 8:30 and I’m rolling late already. On Friday, I was amazing! I made it halfway to school before I remembered I hadn’t taken my insulin. OMG, yes, I had to turn around and drive back, so I didn’t have the day prepped, and first period suffered. I too suffered. I’m going to take my insulin right now. I used to take it at night and it was much easier to remember, for some reason. Morning brain foggy? Sure. That’s probably it.
I am still chugging along on the trimming…closer to done. Here’s Friday night, when we were going to go out to see a band, and that totally didn’t happen…
I can see some of the main figure pieces in there. Saturday night, I cut some more…
Saturday, we vacuumed the whole house, washed all the cat bedding, and I got the special pleasure of washing all the cats. Fleas. Ugh. The meds the Man was using were totally not effective. More meds are coming, but blech. It was a lot of work. So I’m glad Nova still loved me enough to sit with me. She made the most amazing yowling sounds during her bath. I think I started cutting out the flag there.
Sunday night, I’m definitely in all the little people and the gravestones.
And some veins and stuff from the main figure. I can see the bottom of the box, but I still think I’m two or three days away from done. I have almost 12 hours in at this point.
I went to ceramics on Sunday afternoon (hence part of the work chaos)…I need to get this part of the torso in the kiln, so I need it to stop breaking. Fuck me. Here’s me with everything laid out to reattach and reglaze.
Luckily, there was only one other person in there. She was spread out even more than I was. I have over 75 hours into this piece. Crazy. That’s the head in the front, under the plastic. I’m hoping to work on it today. But also to finish fixing things. I think there’s only one unattached thing right now (knock on wood), but some glazing needs to happen. Depends on how crowded it is. Hard to do with a lot of people around.
I did a little stitching down of things on Friday…with Nova’s droolio help.
I am really hoping to get these all stitched down soon. Too many other things to do. I delivered two quilts for a show up in Newport Beach on Sunday…the show opens September 12, but I can’t get there for the opening (it’s a Friday night…can we talk traffic?). So I cleaned those up, put a label on one, cut slats, packed them up, etc.
I hiked 3+ miles on Saturday…trying to make sure my blood sugar stays down for date night! And they moved the trail…
I hadn’t been here for a while and the entire middle section of the trail moved…not a little bit, but a lot. Weird. Maybe there was a sensitive environment over by the river that they were trying to protect? I could probably figure that out eventually.
This crazy ass caterpillar was in my yard this morning…it’s apparently a Rustic Sphinx moth…
Or it will be, if a bird doesn’t get it. It does seem like it’s ready to cocoon itself. Massive.
OK. School. I’m already getting texts this morning. Fun times. Teaching safety today. Then going to ceramics, then doing the work thing I forgot to do this weekend. I took pictures of all the kids and I need to put names on them. Ugh. It’s fine. I do it every year. It’s just time-consuming. Useful though. Helps me learn names and faces. Time to go. Get out of here. Go to school. No really, go.
Ah yes, finally typing this on a computer. Not everything is fixed and back to normal, but I am no longer fighting a 10-year-old computer that is slowly (very slowly, because it’s the only speed it had) dying. Yes, it’s taken like three weeks to get functional again. There are some things that I just can’t easily do on a phone or an aging iPad (also needs replacing this year). The boychild was a massive help, although in the end, we didn’t use the backup service I’ve been paying for for years…so fun that.
This weekend was another in a series where I don’t get 1/10th of the stuff done that I wanted or needed to. It’s just my life, maybe? Hard to say. I did some grading and some school stuff but mostly didn’t. I spent time in Home Depot (must be spring) and digging a hole that probably isn’t big enough. I finished one book (actually two) and started another. I made some art and went for a hike. I don’t feel ready for the week. I’m fighting a cold…I’m hoping I can hold the worst of it off, because we have a field trip this week. I’ve drunk a lot of Vitamin C this weekend in hopes it would boost things enough to kick this thing that’s trying to sneak in. Who knows.
OK, art…I ironed a lot this weekend…
I did like three sessions on Saturday…there’s the setup with one computer backing up, one being set up, and the one I was actually watching stuff on…
Too many computers…there’s the beginning of the flesh fabrics, which I spent most of Saturday ironing.
Got through the whole pile…they were interspersed between the 200s all the way to the 600s, so I officially have no clue how far I am in the ironing. But I got the actual flesh done and then still need to do all the eyeballs and the heart and lungs and all those fussy bits that aren’t flesh colored.
I really wanted to be done Sunday, but that didn’t happen. It took too long to do everything on Sunday. I don’t even think I got an hour in, unfortunately.
More of the bits and pieces though. I suspect I’ve got another three nights before I’m done. We’ll see. I have a ton of schoolwork to do as well. As always.
I’m underglazing the base in clay…with Bart’s help (not really…he was wet from outdoors and tried to headbutt the part of this that keeps breaking off).
It just takes forever to do this stuff.
Coral is done, some other bits and pieces in that color range. I’ll be back at it tonight.
We hiked Saturday…got the full 3 miles in this time.
With two coyote sightings…
Broad daylight…
Went out for dinner…
I did draw…just totally forgot to photograph it.
Ah, falcon payments. This lasagna thing was from the book for The Electric State, which was very different than what the movie seems to be.
But lasagna…
The next puppy I get…
This is maybe too real and also applies to my quilts…
Lastly, in cleaning up hard drives all over my office, found this from around 2001 (not 1994 like the time stamp says)…
One of the best pictures I’ve ever taken of the kids.
OK. School today…with an impending incipient cold. And still tired. But hopefully a chill day. Turn the things in, y’all. Then staff meeting (ugh but short) and ceramics (yay). Then home, grading, and ironing (more yay!). Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all who celebrate (most of whom aren’t Irish in the slightest). And may the government fall into a deep hole it can’t get out of (we’re close, but not quite). I checked my retirement funds over the weekend. Thanks to the billionaires in charge, I’m now down a significant amount…well, we’re gonna ride it out y’all…just let me retire when I need to.
I have a new computer. It’s still restoring all the stuff from before. It was at 12% when I went to bed last night and it’s still at 12% this morning, like no time has passed. Granted I feel the same way about the amount of sleep I had last night. I know I went to bed at the appropriate time for whatever time hell we’re in now, but I was still out of bed in the early dark feeling like I hadn’t slept. So maybe the computer feels the same way. It’s gonna be a rough week, for me and the kids.
This weekend was my 58th birthday, and I did my best not to work. There’s some level of having to pay for it during the week, but the week is already a shitshow, so I probably won’t notice much. What did I do? I read, I made art, I went on a short hike. All good.
Simba appreciated it. Maybe.
It was a little closer than I like to be to coyotes, but it reminds us that they are always there.
I did a little ceramics on Friday. I was tired though. There’s a bunch of stuff going on her arms.
Fun times. My glazes came in Friday as well, so that’s hopefully what I’m doing after a two-hour staff meeting after school. Ugh.
Friday night I finished tracing…
Four yards (just under) of Wonder Under. I spent almost 4 hours cutting stuff out this weekend…
And not a lot else honestly.
There are never enough hours in the day. I did a little yard work; I have bulbs to plant. but I quit when I accidentally trimmed a branch with a hummingbird nest and broke two eggs. Mom bird had lots to say about it and I felt (still feel) horrible, so I quit. It’s spring! Don’t kill baby animals. If you can. I was actually trying to avoid another thing that looked like a nest so it felt even worse that I fucked that up.
I had two dinners out, which was nice, and got a pile of books to read and my mom’s stash of silk ribbon, which is fun, so that didn’t make up for the hummingbird babies, but I also found out there’s a grove in Humboldt named after my Great Great Aunt Bertella who was an obstetrician, so we’re totally visiting that over Spring Break.
Government still sucks, if we can call it that. Our National Parks are at stake here. And people’s lives. Sigh.
I am coral. Ok, gotta teach and professionally develop and clay.
Woke up early because annoying hot flash caused by small fluffy dog all over my legs, trapping me. Then the heat went on because morning. And my brain rolled over into Why the Fuck don’t they understand that the LIGHT is doing all the things and not the OBJECT, and also why do they think they can just copy the notes and that is proof that they understand something. Sigh. I sense a mini-lecture coming in class today (it was coming anyway…I just spent the last 30 minutes when I could have been asleep preparing it in my head). I then spent 35 minutes on the phone with the online pharmacy trying to get a refill on something that showed refills but wouldn’t let me order it. I hate that shit. I appreciate the woman that helped me, but it’s annoying to have to deal with all that. In the morning. Have I mentioned I’m not a morning person? I’m not. Really no.
Didn’t mean to wake up early. Didn’t want to. I have the mini-lecture all noted out on a piece of paper so I don’t forget the genius I was at 6 AM.
Where am I at this week? Trying to eke out time for artmaking, often at the detriment of other things, mostly sleep. Monday, I cleaned the floor just in time for the boychild to tromp across it in muddy shoe, completely avoiding the towel I was trying to put down. Fun times. Then I trimmed the quilt.
I didn’t think I’d need kneepads for a short trim, but my knees stated otherwise. They’ve been pretty bad lately. Hoping it’s the weather. Not just increased ouchiness for fun.
I bought the binding last weekend…good thing, because I didn’t have time this weekend. I got the binding on Monday night…
And last night, I put the sleeves on, zigzagged all the seams because I was trained as a clothing sewer before I became a quilter (does everyone zigzag their seams? I just think it holds all the layers together in a more stable manner so it’s easier to fold the binding over and stitch it down.). Then I pinned the whole thing and stabbed myself a million times. Yes, I know there are clips and basting sprays (ugh) and other ways to bind quilts. I like how this looks, so I stab myself a bunch of times for the pleasure of the final product. Tonight, I’ll start the handstitching part. I’ll be working on that for a while too. But the quilt will be done in February. Not December. Not January. Sigh. WHATEVER. 2025 might be kicking my butt at the moment.
I’ve been reading (listening to) this book series and it yells out “NEW ACHIEVEMENT” on a regular basis (really long story) and I’m hearing that in my head right now. Finally made it on a hike/walk with the dog and the Man.
Finally had the TIME to do it. I think my knees appreciated it? Not sure. I’ve been doing pilates all along and regularly, but have missed the hiking (and the gym, but that’s going to be a new level to unlock when I get through the next two weeks of traveling). So NEW ACHIEVEMENT! Hiked this weekend. More of that please. And fuck the clean house. It doesn’t last anyway. I still need to clean one of the gutters out and it’s raining today and tomorrow and I raked some stuff away from the house, but I think I’ll be on the ladder tonight in the dark trying to clear this one gutter. In the rain. It’ll be fine. It’s not torrential until tomorrow.
OK, on the one hand (Comparative Literature major here) this amuses me, and on the other…
It irritates the crap out of me, because unless you’re doing something to make my life easier right now, my shrew has a legit complaint. And she doesn’t need taming.
I love that my brain can hold both those feelings at the same time.
Today. Well, you already know I have a mini-lecture all drawn out for my classes today. Mostly they’re taking notes and I’m prepping for eyeball dissection tomorrow. And trying to finish the next unit. Ha! Not finishing. But I need a table of contents. By Tuesday. Copied. Tonight is a union meeting AND book club (I checked. I read the book. I didn’t really like it.). I don’t have to cook though (pro). I do need to get more grading done during school today. Somehow. It’s all good. I had a plan yesterday and got a whopping 2 out of 5 classes graded. Then came home and did the other 3 in like 45 minutes. Not even. Efficiency without kids in the class is AMAZEBALLS. Right now, I need a big hit of caffeine and to brush my teeth and take my meds and then off to school…it is (strangely) wear dark colors day (it’s kindness week? Not sure what dressing like a ninja has to do with that, but I’m doing it…not hard…I have lots of black).
Kathy Nida 