Tracing Things…

I’m supposed to be dressing like the 80s today…you know, neon, leg warmers, big hair…but I didn’t dress like that in the 80s. I was thrift shop, sewed it myself, leaning toward suburban punk. I don’t own 80s wear. So I’m wearing a Keith Haring shirt to commemorate all those who died of AIDS in the 80s…also wearing red, to protest my school district’s refusal to bargain. Fun day. They’re doing a Field Day instead of a staff meeting, because apparently we’re stressed and very busy and competition helps with that. The end of school is always such a crazy mess…this isn’t helping.

I dropped three quilts off for photography yesterday. I’m entering a show with them; we’ll see if they get in. I started tracing the next big one onto Wonder Under, but before I did that, I traced this little one that needs to go in a ceramic piece.

It won’t take long to make this little one.

I finished drawing the new big one Friday night…

I think I actually added stuff after this…

Oh yeah, a crow or two and some body bags.

I numbered it Saturday night…I thought it was around 1300 pieces, but no.

1454 pieces, assuming I didn’t miss any or double number things. I’ve done both.

Last night, I started tracing…

Exciting for Scribble apparently. I had to move her off the Wonder Under a few thousand times.

Barely started. A million pieces to go.

My piece for Soul Stories: Threads of Existence is at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, MA. It’s been there since mid-April, but they had the ‘opening’ this last weekend.

Mine is the blue one on the left. There’s some amazing work in this show. It will travel to Birmingham, England, in August.

Besides art, I ran a lot of errands this weekend. Fun times. Shit that needs to happen. Some of it was fabric-related. I did finally start stitching the border flowers on Sue Spargo’s Homegrown. It’s all sewn together, so it’s big and not great for taking to meetings.

It’ll take me a while to finish this.

The little dog and I hiked on Saturday. The weather was lovely.

The rattlesnake was not. It didn’t even warn us until after it had moved back into the brush.

I did pick up the dog. His eyesight isn’t great and I didn’t want him lunging after the snake anyway.

The baby owls are out and flying around the neighborhood (sorry for the noise, y’all).

Much faster getting out and about than last year’s only, who hung around for weeks. I think this is still their homebase though.

I obsessively check the weather where my residency will be. Not sure why. Planning anxiety. I did order a bunch of stuff for the trip over the weekend. But look at the 15th.

Somewhat disturbing. Otherwise, the weather is not a lot different than here a lot of the time. A little colder, but it’s over 4000 feet in elevation. So that’s why. Summer will be warm.

Simba is irritable that Bowie is in his spot. Bowie is actually in MY spot and I am in Simba’s spot.

Whatever works.

Here’s a plan for the day…and the world apparently.

And here’s another way-too-real message…

Followed by this one, for San Diego and the rest of the world.

Way too real.

OK. Today. Teaching the last of evolution before the state science test on Wednesday (math is tomorrow). Then I’m probably missing the field day for an eye checkup. Still getting flashing lights in the right eye, over a year after vitreous humor detached. Then hopefully ceramics? And some stitching and grading (not in that order) and tracing. Getting close to the end of this year…that’s a good thing. They don’t seem to be getting easier. The adult part…the kids are fine (well, as fine as they’ve ever been…they should put their phones down more often). Gonna need more caffeine to get through it all.

What Day Is It?

I woke up in the early morning and panicked because I didn’t know what day it was. Would I have to be up soon? Could I roll over and not worry about it? What was I going to have to do today? It took me a couple of minutes to reconstruct yesterday, to realize today was Monday. I didn’t reach for my phone to check the day or the time. I let my brain get there, but then wondered WTF I must have been dreaming to wake up in such a time panic. Guess that’s where I’m at.

Grades are due today. Or tomorrow. Not sure. They keep changing shit. I finished grades Saturday afternoon, right when my boss sent an email saying there was no staff meeting today (Monday) so we could finish grades. Sigh. Thanks for that. Also, IT scheduled a bunch of maintenance for Saturday morning the weekend grades were due. I suspect they scheduled it ages ago and the principals didn’t tell them that they moved the grades to a totally stupid date. Honestly, there are times when I wonder how my frustration will allow me to get through the next three years of stupid decisions at my job (not to mention stupid decisions at the government level).

In other news, I finished the green head quilt. Named it. Named the other one, the pink one. Calculated time. They take notionally less time than my normal method…the pink one maybe not…maybe the same. The time I take on a quilt is compounded by the number of pieces normally. I guess the amount of embroidery on these. I embroidered around the bombs on Friday night…

I finished those on Saturday and added sequins, as promised.

I remembered last night that someone had suggested a bead as an earring on this one. I might add that tonight. It’s not going to the photographer until later this week. I love that I’m using my beads and sequins from crazy quilting days.

OK, to be honest, I bought more sequins last year to go to Quilt Con, for one of my classes, and then they didn’t come in time, but I already had a few sequins here and there from CQ days, but now I have a LOT and will have to use them all. Really. I already pulled four more dye paintings I want to work on next.

That said, I need to start the next big quilt, because I have limited time this summer for that. I’m not taking a sewing machine to the residency. Too big, too expensive for when we’re driving up. Too heavy. I had a drawing I copied back in January that I wanted to do as a lighter quilt after a few heavy ones. It was a drawing I did last August that I really liked. I’m not even sure why I was drawing that day…I could probably look back through the blog and figure it out. But it’s not political at all. It’s just nature. And a person. It was filling space. Oh, you know, it was probably a staff meeting. Or something like that. Anyway, I taped it together last night…

I had to make paper balls of the trashed bits I cut off to entertain Scribble to keep her off the drawing as I was trying to tape it. Then I added to the top and bottom, because this is a pretty idyllic drawing (although her head is on fire?) and the world is really NOT idyllic right now, so I can’t just exist in that space. I’m not sure how I’m going to express that in this drawing, but I am. Somehow. Without just being wishful.

So much for distracting the cat.

I went to an author event Friday night to listen to Martha Wells talk about Murderbot and other stuff.

This is the look she is giving the guy asking her all the questions. She was interesting to listen to. And inspiring, if only in the way that she made me think I could finish the book I started writing over 10 years ago. Plus listening to authors talk about their books and their thought processes is interested.

Shockingly, I stitched while waiting for her to show up. Bowie was not there.

I got the top of the acorn done.

Pretty good achievement, if you ask me.

Bowie is kind of cross eyed.

I always wonder if that explains some of his behavior. He’s a little whack.

I hiked 3.33 miles on Saturday. Not on purpose.

I mean, I meant to hike…just not that number. I was hiking behind someone, not by choice, pretty much keeping time with them. And I realized they were just gonna keep going the way I normally go and so I veered off on another path. There aren’t a lot of people on this trail usually and it was a guy, and I’m female, so I’m naturally always paranoid about that. Anyway, I turned around at about 1.5 miles, like I normally do, and was heading back, and there he was, heading back, must have turned back at exactly the same 1.5 miles. Ugh. So I didn’t follow him because now I was way too close (he must have gone into the bushes to pee), so I turned right and went up to where I normally stop, then turned around and was way behind him, although there were some places where my naturally paranoid brain thought, you know, someone could hide in there and jump out at you and you’d be totally unprepared for it, but here I was, preparing for it. Love that for me.

Yeah, this.

There’s been too many people lately.

Also this shit. So fucking frustrating.

We tried to make things better, a little bit, because shit’s not OK, and the people in charge are just dicks. Ignoring the voters, because you know, it’s not a democracy or anything.

And a lot of other arrested honestly. And war to stop and people to stop being illegally detained and that big old fat orange guy…needs to be gone.

It isn’t often that a Pisces meme/comic actually refers to me (I am an atypical Pisces), but this one felt appropriate.

That’s where I’m at. Also, here’s a bunch of owl videos…it’s definitely crowded in the box because mom’s been out.

I’m hoping I remember how to make them all public.

Lots of loud baby activity.

Last one…

OK, today. Giving a test on homologous structures based on the posters kids did last week in groups. Test is not a group thing though. It’ll be interesting. Then no staff meeting. I’m done with grades. I have to stay on campus for an hour, so I’ll try to figure out the next unit because I know my co-teacher is probably NOT done with grades. Then ceramics and I need gas (ah, Costco line) and to go to the other store and buy the yogurt and milk my store was out of and then pick up the dog and eventually think about drawing on those big empty pieces of paper on the top and bottom of my drawing. Something about voting rights maybe and the Epstein files and birth control and all that crazy shit. Fun stuff.

Distracted by Actual Squirrels.

Hey ho, why is there so short a time to write this morning? I guess I did things, and then I watched the squirrels running up and down the tree (they’re young ones, so they’re kinda funny about who goes first on the branch thing. But not sure how it got this late. Also I have no photos of said squirrels. Sorry.

So. The weekend. Seemed short. I did things, sure, but not very many things. I planted 5 things, 3 ceanothus (one that had been sitting in a pot for two years) and 2 milkweed. I weeded. I’m always weeding these days. I confirmed that my owl cam is dead (weather damage) and ordered a new one. I bought new deodorant! This is a big thing because I have to go to a different store than the grocery store and it takes me forever to get errands like that done these days. I was on a Zoom for two hours. I went to an art exhibit. I hiked only two miles because the dog wasn’t ready for the third mile. I did some art. I had a mammogram. Ouch. Hopefully no biopsy this year…knock on wood. They don’t find that shit in the squishy mammo…they find it in the MRI. So that’s in July, I think. Fun times.

Artwise, there’s finally progress, although it still doesn’t look like it (there’s three squirrel babies, by the way, and I am distracted). All photos with cat interference.

This was Saturday night…with Nova. I didn’t do anything Friday night because the Man had a show and we didn’t get home until midnight or so. I finished the pink though and then had to search through my stash for a good purple. That was chaotic because I pulled it from something I haven’t finished stitching yet and I have to remember where it goes when I’m done.

Now with Scribble. I have a few blue-green bits I need to go back and do and then I’m going to figure out what beads and/or sequins I’m going to use. There better be less cat interaction with those.

Friday night’s music stuff…

A friend had a 50th birthday party and the Man and his former singer did the last three songs of the night. They did actually sing and not just posture.

Saturday afternoon’s hike with the pup.

He’s old and gets tired easier.

The art exhibit is at Art Produce; it’s a protest show. This is Linda Litteral’s, one of her Don’t Shut Up pieces about childhood sexual abuse.

This is Nicholas Danger’s work,

Tool of the Trade (the machete) and The Orange Monster. The hat says ‘maggot’. Legit.

Back of the machete.

This is Michelle Montjoy’s Bluebird of Happiness.

She must embroider much faster than I do (yes, I know she didn’t do the birds).

We went to dinner afterwards and I was fascinated with the light on the brewery tanks.

Did you hear that San Diego wants to cut almost all funding to the arts and libraries? And give it to the cops instead?

Frustrating.

And ignorant of what the arts and libraries do for the community. Speak up! I don’t actually live in the city, but this will kill the arts in this county. And remember this.

You CAN do both.

I don’t think I had that. I had about 10 minutes when I realized I had planted and watered the 5 new things and then I realized how much more needed to happen and I only had an hour and spent most of it walking from one part of the yard to another with a shovel.

This is the reality.

Except I cleaned nothing; I only did yardwork. Well, I did do the grocery shopping and the laundry. And I made lists. And I graded, because I am always doing that. I also went to ceramics Friday night and I don’t think I took photos? Or did I? No one knows.

Finishing up teaching about pregnancy today, then preventing unplanned pregnancies, then staff meetings blech and finally ceramics, where hopefully I really will take a photo AND find room on the drying shelf for my piece so I can start the head and the owl. Ha! Hasn’t been space for weeks. Then home to dinner, grading (ugh), and more embroidery…woo hoo! That’s a plus.

Hopefully Well

Racing into Monday. A full weekend. But I got nothing done. Fun times.

Quilt stuff…OK, I got bindings done, but not quilts and not sleeves, because I’m leaving the sleeves unstitched until I finish the embroidery on these. Finished this one Friday night…

Got embroidery ideas for it. Then I started another one, with Scribble’s help.

Although she is definitely tracking a bug. A flying bug. In case that isn’t clear.

Saturday night, I kept working on that binding, with Scribble’s help.

Looks the same. Scribble likes it when I sit still.

I finished that one Saturday night…

Then Sunday night, I finished the small one…

One more to go and then I start embroidery. Or applique on that last one…got the fabric I needed for the speech bubble. Apparently profanity is out for this show as well as nudity. Ugh.

And then my local SAQA group had an opening of their new exhibit, Beyond the Canvas, at the Poway Performing Arts Center. I have two pieces in the show…

Lost in the Trees…

I was apparently done with smiling…Nowhere Else to Go. The show is up for a while…

OK, not a super long while…through April 5. Check it out. I have more pictures, but don’t have time to resize or post anything this morning. Morning meetings for 3 out of the 5 days this week, plus some demanding school issues.

I did make time to hike on Saturday…and I took Simba this time.

I can’t hike as far with him because he is an old man now…

He may argue against that.

But he can’t do 4+ miles anymore. It was warm but not horrible, unlike the rest of the week.

Here’s where I’m at politically…

And on the daily…

OK. Today is a test. Fun times for the kids who were absent last week. They won’t have a clue what to do. Oh well. I will have to figure that out for them. Meeting this morning, meeting this afternoon, then ceramics hopefully. Then grading (always) and the last binding. Then I have to start thinking about embroidery. OK, realistically, I’ve been thinking about it for at least a month, but now it will be real and I’ll have to make decisions. Possibly a bad choice right before Spring Break. Limited brain power. We’ll see how that goes. Hopefully well.

Don’t Really Know What I’m Doing…

Well. Here we are. It’s Monday again. I’m not sure how I feel about the last weekend. I did some things. I didn’t do all the things (I never do). I don’t feel like I did enough of the things (I rarely do). Sometimes though, it really feels like a dearth of productivity or enjoyment. So I sit here on Monday morning and remember that I did plan my summer trip finally; I actually have stuff booked. I should have done it two months ago, but I didn’t…but it’s good that I didn’t wait any longer. I had the mental space for that because the dog was up at some ungodly hour on Saturday morning and I just started and then I was done. I also started my taxes (see, this is why it doesn’t feel like a good time). My country started a war. You know, standard Saturday morning. What did you do today? Bombed a girls’ school. How about you? I accidentally shot my coworkers out of the sky. No biggie, right?

So let’s start with the art…I didn’t get much done. No ceramics on Friday because the dog needed to be let out. Adjustment in schedules for all of us when the boychild goes back to work. Honestly, we dissected eyeballs on Friday and I was pretty exhausted anyway.

Couldn’t go on Saturday because they were doing a class there. So it’ll be today. I quilted Friday night…

I’m adding a speech bubble. Gotta keep it clean for this venue. Then embroidery and binding.

Saturday night, I quilted the next one…

Definitely something needs to happen with the hair. Not sure what else.

Then last night, I started quilting this one…

It’s more complicated; requires more color changes. One of the colors was not happy about being sewn, so there was that. This one needs a lot of embroidery in the hair, I think. There’s one more after this to quilt, and then I can start the other stuff. I might put bindings and sleeves on first? Can’t decide…depends on if the sleeves will get in the way of embroidery. So maybe wait, since I don’t really know what I’m doing with that yet.

Four at a time? Unlike me. But it’s what I’m doing right now.

I hiked Saturday. By myself still. Which is fine. My brain wanders (not always good). So do my feet.

It was warm…over 90 degrees during midday, down to 80 or so when I hiked at 4:30 PM.

Lots of flowers out. Weird cloud formations.

Flowers were out at home too. I took a break from grading and planning and taxes at some point and watered things and moved a few plants.

Noticed some weird flowers.

Interacted with Simba.

Stressed about war.

And children.

And that’s kind of where I’m at today…not happy with my government…still…again. But I’m still going to work and doing the things. Although one of those stressed me out all weekend. Sigh. Parents using Chatgpt to make excuses for their kids. Fun times.

I’m glad I’m not a history teacher right now. Although we still get asked questions, stupid ones: “what do you think about the Epstein files miss?” WHAT THE FUCK do you think I think? Seriously. And I can’t really answer except to say, the man was in jail for a reason. In my head? More people should be in jail. Lots more. One big dumb one in particular.

So that was the weekend. Taxes are never a good way to spend time off, but it needed to get started. It’s fine. These things have to happen. Today, I give a test on the eyeball and kids turn packets in. Grades are due in a week. I’m behind in grading…still…again. Hopefully I get to go to ceramics after work and work on that piece that will soon need to go on a drying shelf, which means there needs to be ROOM on a drying shelf (there hasn’t been). Then home to read my book for book club (Wednesday, not done yet) and then more quilting. More fabric decisions, thread thoughts. Those are things I can look forward to today. I will have to grade before I get to that, but OK, I can do that. Keep it short, but get it done. Right now? I need to go take my meds and then drive the ex’s dog to doggy daycare so I can go to work. Deep breaths. Holding onto anxiety with this parent…didn’t read the last email. Didn’t want to lose more sleep over the enabling. Not worth it.

Good Place to Be…

I woke up this morning having an internal argument with a student about an email they sent last night, then realized I am not in the classroom today because after teaching sex ed for over 23 years (maybe more), I need to be trained in how to do that. For the third or fourth time…fourth. It’s the fourth. Don’t blame my school district; blame my school board. It is their fault. Good times. Luckily, we will get time to plan, which we desperately need. Not for sex ed, but for the upheaval in lessons caused by having to teach sex ed in the middle of April, before state testing, instead of after it, like normal. If anyone at the district says to me, “It’s only one year” again, I will punch them. And hopefully get fired, so I can stop doing stupid shit because adults fucked up. Well, probably not. It’s not like our government isn’t equally idiotic.

SO. I still have to go to school, make sure my sub shows up, set up my classroom, blah blah blah. Listen to an hour or so of stuff I already know how to do (I was on the committee that designed the damn curriculum) and then work. For real. Then hopefully ceramics afterward and come home and grade and I have a book club Zoom tonight, plus work on some fabric stuff. I delivered the newest quilt to the photographer on Saturday, and then started working with the dye paintings I did last summer. I have a show coming up that has to be no nudity, and I had four of those dye paintings with no nudity, so good start…

I had bought some border fabrics a few weeks ago. Originally I thought I wasn’t going to use borders, but they needed some space before the edges. On Saturday night, I bordered one of them…

There’s going to be embroidery on this thing…and then last night, I pinbasted it…

And bordered the next one…

Two more to go…

They are very different from what I normally do, so we’ll see how I feel about the embroidery part later. But I’m hopeful that I’ll still like them. Never know. That’s the whole point of branching out, experimenting…to see if different things appeal. I still have a drawing copied that was supposed to be the next quilt after the quilt two quilts ago…when I got sidetracked by deadlines. So it’s ready. It’s not political though…yet. So with politics all up in my face constantly, it’s hard not to make something political.

I saw a lot of art on Saturday…drove around to a few shows. This is the downtown library…Helen Redman has a small exhibit on the 2nd floor.

Cool drawings of babies. Then upstairs, in the 9th-floor gallery (where I had to wait for 20 minutes for someone to come open it up, after opening time)…it was FINE. The M(other) Tongue show is up there…totally cool. Here’s one of the paintings that was up there…

By Leila Khalilzadeh Aghdami. Beautiful painting…this is Invisible Identity 2. Lots of fiber stuff up there too. I also went to the SD Pottery Guild exhibit at the Coronado library…hard to get good photos inside cases, but definitely worth a trip out there.

Then at night, we went up to Oceanside for the Ace Gallery opening of Counting Threads. There’s some great stuff up there, but it’s a tiny space and it was claustrophobic (too many people) and hard to see stuff. Still worth it if you’re in the area though…this is a detail from Elly Dallas’ Story Quilt.

Fun embroidery sketches. We then tried to find somewhere to eat that had what we needed (clean tables, not a lot of screaming children, and beer and wine, plus something we could both eat). We got two out of the four things…and the pizza was really good, but not good enough to go all the way back and survive the noise…

Plus ET looks like a penis in that photo. Maybe he always did.

I hiked on Saturday afternoon…it was warm but not too warm; nice after all the cold and rain we had for the last week.

In a few weeks, those yellow daisies will be everywhere…

Yesterday, I ran all the errands I don’t have time for during the week plus graded for 5 hours, which sucked.

We had a squirrel infiltrate the bird feeder…

Remarkable picture through a screen for that. We moved the solar panel in hopes he would not be able to figure it out (he will; we know).

Some comparisons here…

You know, I lived in the UK for a year, married one of them for 13 years. They’re slow to respond sometimes, but I’m impressed by all this.

Whereas my people are fucktards. So there’s that. Speaking of fucktards.

Sigh. Idiot. People who don’t have to pay for stuff or who have so much money, they don’t know how much a loaf of bread costs, shouldn’t be making financial decisions for the rest of us.

And then there’s this. I’m not sick, knock on wood, but I have a fractured, possibly cracked tooth that needs surgery…

And may explain all the sinus crap I’ve had since last summer. Last Summer, y’all. Yes, I went to the dentist. More than once. And now that they’ve told me what’s going on, NOW I have pain up in that tooth. Now I know what that is. Damn. Can’t do the surgery for another week and a half. It’ll be fine. Motrin comes in big bottles.

OK. School to set up. To the district office to be edumacated on things I already know. Then planning. A professional adult lunch (not rushed into 15 minutes of shoving food in my mouth and running to pee before I teach again). Then ceramics. Joy! Then other stuff. I think I read the book for book club. Not sure I remember it. Will read a summary before the meeting starts. Then pinbaste the next quilt and border the third one. Good place to be with that.

I Don’t Remember Saturday…

Hey, yes it’s Monday, but I have the day off, but my car has an issue that makes it undriveable, so I’m up early (not a fan) so I can get it to the mechanic so hopefully they can fix it today. Ha! Gotta call a tow truck in a little bit and then hope it doesn’t totally fuck up my day. Getting an assist from the parents with a pickup and an extra car for the day, but I’m back at work tomorrow and it gets complicated after today. Today is complicated enough, because I scheduled my standard teeth cleaning and I don’t want to try to reschedule that onto a Saturday. So up too early, tired (this has not been a weekend of sleeping in, thank you very much Scribble for playing with the strings of the blinds, which I distinctly remember Bowie doing about a year and a half ago, driving us crazy then too). I have way too much still to do today, although I filled two greenery bins yesterday; the pool guy will be very pleased, but that’s about it. I did get a pot for the plant that was falling over, but didn’t do much time on putting the deck back together because I was doing the other things.

Quiltwise, I did stitchdown Friday night…

Finished that on Saturday, washed the batting, cleaned the floor, and pieced a backing, and then pinbasted it at like 11 PM

Not entirely sure why I didn’t get to it earlier. I don’t remember Saturday except for trying to deal with the car and buying some pots and cat food. Exciting day.

Scribble was very annoying…kept trying to bite safety pins (bad plan), brought her string in so she could play with it on the quilt, kept skidding into it.

Still love her, but holey hell, it was a challenge to pin it.

Started quilting yesterday…

Got about two hours in…thought I would get more. Maybe today? But I have a solid chunk of grading I need to get through as well. I did that for about 5 hours yesterday. Have at least 2-3 to go today, and not sure I will be able to fit it in around the other stuff. Ugh.

Hiked Saturday, three miles, barely in before sunset.

Borrowed the Man’s car. Hard to drive that thing…like zero visibility, worse if you’re short like me. But it was better than nothing.

Saw these flowers dressing up the weird metal guy we have in the yard.

I do love plants…they just take over things so easily and then I get overwhelmed.

Sleepy kitten with her auntie.

She’s been playing with the two older girls as Bowie gets over whatever he had; he’s still pretty antisocial, but has been coming out and sleeping in places he used to sleep. Still jumpy as hell though.

This is very disturbing.

I noted that I couldn’t hear the boos well enough. So I guess there’s that. I did watch some of the US Olympic competitors talk about how it is problematic or difficult to say you are representing the US right now, and I’m glad they said that, even if the orange puff freaked out over it. Those amazing athletes can represent me; I’m good. I am one of those weirdos who isn’t watching the Olympics AND didn’t watch the Super Bowl either. Go Bad Bunny, though, a true American.

This is too true.

I watch them try to figure it out as I’m walking around the room, doling out our team’s ‘cash’ (they can use to buy water or granola bars or pencils). I always tell them they don’t get As when they speed through it like that. I listened to one kid berate the kid next to him who was trying to do it before I got to their table. “Bruh, it doesn’t even take 10 minutes. Why don’t you do it in Advisory like the rest of us do?” Damn good question. Ah well.

OK, calling the tow truck, meeting Dad over there, borrowing his car, going to the dentist, grading, hopefully going to pilates, hopefully picking up my car, grading some more, quilting, maybe working on the deck. Folding my laundry! Totally need to do that. Sending the school weekly email! Forgot to do that yesterday. Three-day weekends are nice, but it doesn’t mean I’m more efficient. At all. Busy day, but it’s not at school? Still working for the school. I didn’t on Saturday, so that was a plus. Gotta buy fabric for binding today too! Forgot about that too. Ugh. Gonna go write myself a note right now. While I consider the need to detain and deport people who went through the legal process to be here, who need to be here so they don’t starve or die, people who keep our economy going, which it’s really not at the moment. When those people have not committed crimes, or the crimes are so minor that all of us have committed them. Putting untrained thugs in charge of detainment. Reeks of past history that did not turn out so well for anyone. Happy Monday though.

A Better Place…

Hey. Early Monday, too many things going on, too many things need to happen. I need to come up with a title for the piece I’m working on, and I don’t even have an inkling (no, I don’t want help…I just need headspace). Usually I stare at the picture, read some online stuff about the topic, stare at it again, go heat up my tea, stare at it some more, look up quotes, shake my head, go out and plant something or sweep something, pretend it’s a normal day, go to bed, and just as I’m falling asleep, it comes to me, and hopefully I’m smart enough to document it somewhere. But often not. And then I have to wait for it to wander back into my head.

Yeah. Fun times. OK, fast and furious here. I didn’t iron Friday night because we went to watch a co-teacher dance in a local performance.

I got home super late and went straight to bed, pretty much…and then spent 22 minutes finishing my book. It was good. What can I say? The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. Because this…

Too true. Saturday, I ironed for about 4 hours…avoiding most other tasks. Dude, I’m on a deadline.

There’s a certain stage when you’re ironing tree parts and freeway interchange parts when it is pure overlapping chaos.

Scribble in the room! Also, all those random things piled on the ironing board are weights to keep the rest of the piece from sliding off.

It’s heavy at this point. And still chaotic.

But getting there.

Then last night, I almost finished.

I just have the owl on the top right and then need to iron it onto the background. And come up with a title. No, I still don’t want your help. Thanks.

Sigh.

I hiked Saturday; the wildflowers are starting to bloom.

It was nice, except for the ebikes.

Annoying. No engines in nature, y’all. Unless they’re rescuing someone or something.

I think I need more hikes. I used to hike after school…ok, not in winter. It gets dark too early.

OK, I scrolled a lot in between grading and ironing.

Not surprising. And here’s Charlie Kirk on it all.

We’re there. The tyrannical part.

Humanity is the least humane thing out there in the US right now.

Please…arrest more people so we don’t notice how many rich white males are on the Epstein list. Take them all! Jail them all! I don’t care about their politics or what they do for a living. They belong in jail.

Yeah. I’ve been saying white men are the problem for years.

Sigh. So if you follow me on Facebook or Instagram, you may have noticed we’ve got some family stuff going on, trying to find the Man’s sister. She’s in danger. If you live locally and you see her, please call 911 and reach out to us if you can. I know it’s unlikely most of you will see her, but just in case…you never know.

I have an early meeting (hate Monday meetings), then I’m teaching the electromagnetic spectrum, and going to a physical therapy evaluation for my very cranky knees. Then hopefully to ceramics, but also have to pick up a handle arm thing for the toilet that broke last night (couldn’t break Saturday so I could go to Home Depot over the weekend, could you?), plus pick up meds that got sent to a local pharmacy instead of ordered online like I asked, then not sure what else. Maybe grading, definitely reading to dissociate, then ironing an owl. Good times. May the world be a better place by the time I get there…or at least not a worse one.

Drippy Icicle Lights…

I know, I know, it’s late. I had stuff to do this morning. I made wontons. I took a shower. Really that’s it. Oh, I talked to the girlchild. That was nice. So no, I didn’t blog this morning. Honestly, I love a 3-day weekend, but I’m not sure what the hell I do with the extra time. The bathrooms and floors still aren’t clean, I didn’t finish grading stuff, I didn’t finish inputting grades, I certainly didn’t finish putting everything back on the deck. My to-do list is still a shitshow. My green pants still aren’t wearable. This is crucial. I hope to fix this tonight. And the grades inputting. Maybe…no, I’m not doing a floor…c’mon, it’s almost 5 PM and I have a 6:30 Zoom? OK, maybe a floor or a shower. We’ll see.

Meanwhile. MLK. I watched a couple of excerpts of his speeches…man that man could talk…so beautifully. Made me tear up…especially in light of Minnesota…and Greenland…and Norway…and Venezuela…and another ICE killing. So did I do right by MLK today? Probably not. But I did talk to the plants I was moving about how the new pot would support them better than the old one. More about that later.

In the quilt realm, I did OK though. Friday night, I managed over 2 hours of ironing (I stayed up late).

I got the fleshy bits ironed down. Scribble was still not helpful.

She’s a sweetheart actually. After ironing the fleshy bits, here’s all the stuff that goes ON the fleshy bits…eyes and hearts and veins and lungs and trees.

OK, trees is weird, I know, but there was also ivy and a snake.

Saturday was my deck/ironing day (no school!), so I ironed for over 4 hours and got most of it done…all of it except the sun and the owl.

Sunday, it took another hour and a half to finish the ironing…156 different fabrics.

All in a bin…

So I can spend the next few days (few???) cutting all the pieces out. Usually that’s faster than picking fabrics…less brain power, less thinking. So now I’m hoping to be done with the cutting out by Saturday? That might be ambitious. The Man has a show Friday night that I’ll be at, and I have a meeting Saturday afternoon, and two meetings Sunday. But maybe if I hope to be ironing it all together by next week…because I need an ironed-together quilt top by February 15, but if I could get closer to done before that, it would be awesome. I will not be done by February 15, just to be clear, but I will definitely be ironed together by then. Total ironing to fabric time? 15 hours and 17 minutes. Longer than normal. Lots of little decisions to make.

I also did some underglazing on the bowl on Friday after school.

Clay is SLOW. I mean, I guess my version of quiltmaking is too. So there’s that.

I hiked Saturday afternoon…3 miles.

It was delightful.

The weather has been strangely warm. But nice. Spring is in the air…yes, it’s January, but it’s also Southern California, so the weeds are proliferating and the yard is a jungle and I could do yardwork every day for 8 hours and never catch up.

Speaking of yardwork, so the boychild and I replaced the deck railings, which were disintegrating. We replaced one of the railing posts too. So I had to move all the plants away from the railings. It’s been on my list for over a year to go through all the plants and repot things that were falling over or out of control, and to just generally clean up the space. But as I do that, I find more things to do. That space under the window…there used to be a planter that hung from the wall, and I don’t remember if we installed it or if it was here when we moved, and I don’t know why two of the slats are missing. I do know it all needs painting. So I pulled everything away and washed it down, and tomorrow, when it’s dry, I’m going to paint it.

Before I move the plants up against it. If I were really good, I’d replace those slats, but IDK what wood that is and it sounds more like hard work, considering the planter is going right up in front of it. So that’s a delay.

Here’s the long view toward that area…

All those planters were up against the railing before, but a lot of them need help. That plant in the front is leggy as hell. I’ve trimmed it before and it does well, so I’m going to do that again.

So basically, in two days. all I got done and set up was this small section of the deck…

Which is all the Man and the dog care about, so that’s fine. I’ll do the rest as I can. Or I’ll get tired of it and move it all back without cleaning it all up. We’ll see which Kathy wins out. I do like plants, but I run out of time.

This was funny…this is Instagram.

Almost 12 years, y’all…I didn’t know Insta had been around that long, but I guess it makes sense. They suggested I add a reel a week. A reel of what? Me talking to my plants? Scribble biting my hand? Yeah. Maybe.

Now for the screenshots that talked to me in the last three days…this one, for sure.

Although maybe I am a very hungry caterpillar. Hard to say.

W.T.F. I am boggled. Fuck the EPA.

Sigh. Why do people think this is OK? How do you live in this world and be OK with this? I guess it’s OK when it’s not you and your family being affected by it? Except they all are. Now we all are.

I could totally get behind this (I am actually part Danish)…

But this thing worries me…

I just looked up my insulin and it’s from Malaysia/India…which explains the emails when I had an issue with one of the pens. But I don’t wish death on the other insulin users, and I don’t want to worry about shortages for insulin users. Plus didn’t that orange fuckup tell us the meds would be 150% cheaper? Waiting on that too.

More people need to think about how this works…

Ecosystems include humans, even when we’re stupid and think science doesn’t matter.

I love this too…

I hope it goes away before it destroys the environment…although it may already be too late.

OK, well I go back to school tomorrow…teaching geese and canaries (sound waves and wave energy), then digital and analog signals. Spent some time with that today. Wrote a rubric that I remembered about at 2 AM. Thank you, school brain. Spent some time today finding a bunch of analog and digital things to show students (records, old video cameras, old cameras, cassette tapes in big wooden boxes). Fun times. Tonight, my local guild has a Zoom with Jane Sassaman, which sounds lovely. My book is due to the library Saturday and it’s for book club on Monday (a week from now). I’ll finish it; it’s good too. I have three Zooms this week (it’s a lot) and who-knows-what-else for school that hasn’t come to the light of day yet. Deep breaths. My neighbor above me still has their drippy icicle Christmas lights up and I’m not mad about it. It’s very relaxing to watch.

I Have a Plan…

Good morning (wait, is it still morning? Yes, yes it is) all (or well, most of you…I suspect if you’re reading this, then yes) on the first official day of my Winter Break (I don’t count the weekend…it doesn’t feel real until I don’t have to get up at 6 AM and drive to school with my eyes barely open…and I did go to school on Saturday to clean up because I didn’t have time on Friday due to union things that had a deadline and they’re doing the goddamned Winter Academy in my room so I had to move shit and lock shit up because teachers are the WORST sometimes for stealing and breaking shit. I still might go in that morning and glare people down. We’ll see. WHOA that was a long parenthetical comment.). So I am officially still in Stage 1 of trying to rest because that damn holiday Christmas is coming and there is no rest until it’s done. My gifts are mostly purchased…I think…probably…I am fed, showered, dressed, and waiting for the boychild, who bravely went to Costco to buy the meat for Christmas dinner and has not returned (it’s been over an hour; when do I call in Search and Rescue?). I will then accompany him on his shopping trips for Xmas dinner. My official role is to maybe push the cart and carry shit. I don’t even have to pay for it (the ex is paying for it? I think?). I started wrapping, but I hate doing that shit…I do have to finish before Wednesday night, because the girlchild is coming in Tuesday night and staying at her dad’s so she can work Wednesday (oh that sucks). So I have time. I also need to get firewood in the house before it starts raining, dropping the heavens down upon us, which is our Xmas gift this year. Fun times.

So. Yes, I’m grading. Yes, I’m still tired. Yes, I’m still recovering. I will be for a while. It’s two weeks usually before I get my head straight and break is only three weeks long. Bodes well. One thing I need to do is finish this quilt so I can ship it and five others in early January. So I quilted Friday night…

And then for 3 1/2 hours on Saturday…

When I got the outlining done and started the background quilting, which was dark blue thread on dark blue fabric WHAT the ABSOLUTE FUCK was I thinking. On Sunday, I thought, oh I should quilt during daylight; it will be easier to see. Nah. It wasn’t. I finished quilting after 3 1/2 hours on Sunday…

Nine plus hours total. I’m ready to trim and bind today. Already contacted the photographer. Got to start the next one, but first, I need to go shopping (who knows when I will finish writing this…).

OK, four hours later. Shopping is done, presents are mostly wrapped, tree is still outside, quilt is still not trimmed, brain is still fuzz (see comment on rest above). I’m planning on going to ceramics in the next hour or so. At around 1:30 AM last night, when I decidedly wasn’t sleeping, I typed a short note about the next quilt. That was an hour after I typed a short note about the next ceramic piece…but I have to finish the bowl first. Unfortunately, I’m not really sure what I’m doing next on the bowl. Minor issue. Either I carve or add clay, or I just paint. I kinda want it to be functional, and so I can’t carve the inside. It’ll make it difficult to clean. Huh. Well. There’s that. Some part of my brain (the very tired part) just wants me to stay home and not do anything with it. That’s what Friday brain said, but Friday’s brain had a better excuse. I did not teach all day today, then start cleaning my room up, then race over to the union office through Friday holiday traffic. These days before actual Christmas are just nuts.

I have lots of picture of cats not quite interacting.

And sometimes a dog…

I was sitting there between Scribble and Simba. Simba was on my leg; hence the weird position.

This was when I got home from work (pajama day)…

They appreciate my time on the couch. So do I, but there hasn’t been much of it.

I hiked Saturday and saw one of those weird partial rainbows in the sky

It was warmish…it’s been warm, even today, with the rain barreling toward us.

I appreciate the time to be out in nature.

I was trying to plan hiking before each of the holiday dinners I have, but it’s supposed to be pouring both days. Not sure how I feel about that. I might do it anyway. I need to exercise before eating holiday meals or I can’t eat anything…the gym closes early Christmas Eve and isn’t open Christmas Day, so outdoors is my only real option. I have raingear and I would shower afterwards anyway. We’ll see.

I took a video on Saturday’s hike. There’s this one rock that people always pile rocks on and it drives me bonkers.

And it’ll be back the next time I’m there. Leave no trace y’all! This is not a trail marker…it’s next to a fire road. Go pile your own rocks in your own yard.

I got home and noticed these two weird piles of dirt in the driveway…squirrels or gophers? It’s getting annoying.

The hardest part is always finding where the dirt came from and trying to put it back.

True that. And this.

OK. Well. It’s Monday, but it doesn’t feel like it. School would’ve just gotten out if it were a school day, but it’s not. I’m going to do a couple more things here and then go to ceramics and try to figure out this bowl thing. Then come back and grade a little. I never know whether it’s better to hunker down and finish all the grading quickly or to torture myself by doing a little every day. I know I don’t have the brainpower or the willpower to do it all right now, so I guess this is what I’m doing at the moment. Then trim the quilt and get the binding sewn on by machine and start doing the handwork. Tomorrow is pretty chill: a retirement webinar and then two freakin’ trips to the airport, all after 8 PM. Surely that will be a joy. Luckily the rain has pushed off a little so I won’t be traveling during a flood warning. Finish the quilt tomorrow and then draw the next one. No joke, I’m watching the recording of the Zoom call I missed because I was teaching about electromagnets and I need to have finished this quilt yesterday. The one I haven’t started. No pressure. Seriously. OK. I have a plan at least, thanks to my inability to sleep at night. Or ever. Pros and cons to that I guess. Happy yesterday was Winter Solstice Day and hope the holiday season is OK for y’all. It’s always a bit of stress here, but plenty of food. Maybe too much food. Better than the alternative.