Well some cat just puked on my bag apparently. I’m staying in here; letting someone else deal with it. Too tired. Did not sleep well last night…too much noise, too much dog. We had kids for the first time yesterday…my first period was a shitshow (actually changing seating chart on day 2), but the rest were fine. I’m in my 23rd year of teaching (I officially started midyear in my first year, replacing someone who quit midyear…crazy, huh?), my 18th at this school, my 10th with this team. Nuts. Here we are…my team on top, the 8th-grade team below.
Yesterday was as exhausting as you would expect it to be. Today will be pretty chill. I think. Except for first period, which will still be a shitshow and kept me up repeatedly throughout the night. In between the dog barking and the owls and the coyotes and IDK WTF else. I should sleep well tonight anyway.
I’ve managed an hour or so of cutting things out each night…no grading yet, so that’s a plus. Although this weekend will be the first weekly email to send out. Joy. Here’s Wednesday night…
Again, looks a lot like Tuesday night….I’m in the 800s here, still mostly in the swamp with swamp things (ICE agents and kids mostly…an alligator).
Last night, I went to stitching with a friend, so I did some on the July Rooted block (Sue Spargo).
These are very relaxing to stitch, but it’s taken me forever to do all those fly stitches. And then I came home and cut stuff out for another hour…
I can see 700s and 600s now. Yes, I’m going mostly backwards. I’m in the main human figure now. I suspect I won’t be done until sometime next week. I’m hoping to be ironing together next weekend. Goals! Of course, that will be all standing after the first full week of school, all standing. Still watching the blood sugar. It was all over the map yesterday.
I love this guy and his medieval picture translations. I am one with this elephant.
I’m not really angry. I’m frustrated with some things. School hasn’t hit a particularly painful stage yet. Give me a week. Seriously, that’s all it will take. Now my government? Yeah, already frustrated, well beyond that honestly.
There’s a lot of not good people out there right now. Sigh.
Anyway, today we color! First cover page, very chill, but I will also be walking around, learning kids’ names, and taking their pictures. Fun times. I forgot to set up my classroom before I left last night (I had to be home to meet the tree guy), and my morning self is a little stressed about that. My afternoon self has to be the responsible one because morning self is a little out of it. Then I’m going to ceramics after school (still fixing things that break), and I think we’re going to see some music tonight, depending on how we feel. Then SLEEP. Oh joy. Maybe. I mean, the dog could bark as much as he did last night and I might get very little sleep again. But I won’t have to be up at 6:30 AM at least. And that’s a plus.
Heyo. It’s halfway through…well, there’s one more prep day and then kids. That’s the hard part, although the first few days aren’t too bad…just a lot of talking. I could do without that. My voice could also do without it. I’ve actually enjoyed the last day and a bit in my classroom, because for the first year in a long time, I’m not panicking. I’m not unpacking everything out of a locked cabinet because they used my room over the summer, and I don’t have a lot of newbies to deal with, so I’m doing things that have waited for years. I moved some stuff in my room to be more logical. I put together a shelf thing I brought from home two years ago. I actually looked at the bulletin boards I never finished for 8th grade (I only looked at them; it’s OK). It’s been pretty chill. Hopefully that bodes well for the new year. Today I have a meeting and I need to copy stuff (the copier is not so chill, but that is always the case), but otherwise, I’m going to pilates. Yesterday I went to ceramics. Almost like a normal person. They let us sign up for afterschool duty for the first time ever, and I got an easy one. I never get an easy one…I’m always walking a long way because my classroom is closest to the front of the school, so I get the crappy duties, while other people waft through the easy ones for years. I get the same ones over and over again. But this year, I picked the easy one. I chose. I know, it’s silly, but let someone else do the light or the crosswalk or the bike rack. It’s time. I’m sure next year, I’ll get assigned something else, but the new principal wants to do things this way and I’m going with the flow. There are some things where I’m not going with the flow, in typical Kathy fashion. But whatever. I do my job and I do it pretty well most of the time. And when I don’t, it’s because I’m tired and burnt out. So yeah. Aiming away from that feeling this year.
Artwise, I haven’t had a ton of time each evening. Things like cooking and dishes…not so fun, but have to be done, ya know? And less time at home affects that. Always, it’s a bit of a shock to go back to the long days, although we are still in that sweet spot when I can come home and NOT work (well, I did on Monday). I can sit and read or stitch a little. Or go to the ceramics studio. I’m still breaking things on the torso. So frustrated with it at the moment, but I’ll get there. I’m building a crazy head for it though.
I’m gonna need room for the tree on the head though; it won’t fit on my shelf. Problematic. I’ll figure it out.
Monday’s staff meeting was long and mostly boring. Some new info, but they read the slides to us. And the ones they didn’t read to us were small and hard to read. But they won’t give us the slides until the end of the meeting, because they don’t want us on our computers. But there are still people on their computers. So I drew for the first hour or so.
I can’t just sit in meetings. My brain doesn’t work that way. It needs entertainment. This was good for that. The next hour or so, I read my book on my phone. I did listen. I heard most of the things. I just wasn’t particularly engaged. A lot of it is stuff I already know. It’s hard, because we have so many new teachers who know nothing but I don’t need to hear all that again, but we also have a new principal and some fairly new assistant principals who don’t know or remember how things work here. Like there’s a reason we don’t let kids in the hallway behind our classrooms. We used to and it was a behavior disaster. So now we have to deal with that again. Whatever. I won’t be responsible for the hallway; I already told them why. They can deal with it.
Certain parts of the quiltmaking process look the same every night. I mean, I can tell the difference, but when all I cut out are tiny pieces, the piles don’t change much in an hour. I think I’m in the 900s mostly? Going backwards…so not even halfway done. So here’s Monday night, right before I started cutting out the swamp trees.
And here’s last night, as I start cutting out the people in the swamp.
Still some swampy bits in the top bin, but there’s progress. I can see it. I’ll be here for a while though.
I’ve been stitching this stuff down all summer…in bits and pieces.
Most of the wool pieces are on…I think there’s a few more, but mostly I’m appliqueing cotton now. Which is maybe faster, IDK. And after they’re stitched down, they all need embroidery. I’ll be here for a long while.
We are back to one juvenile owl, I think. I could have sworn I heard a second, but I’m not seeing it, so I feel sorry for this lonely. It’s very loud.
That’s the moon, believe it or not.
It’s started flying around and squawking from other trees, so we are a few days to weeks out from it leaving. It’s weird how loud they are as babies and how mostly fucking silent they are as adults. They do squawk as adults, but it’s different and mostly threat related. And it’s usually just once, not all night. I apologize to the neighbors. A little.
OK, I have a morning meeting to deal with team stuff, plus meet a new teacher for some of our special needs kids. I get to ask why I have paraprofessional support in one class with only one kid who needs it when I have another class with six of them and no support (that actually goes over the 20% mark, so they will have to support in there…they just don’t know it yet). The email thread back and forth yesterday about one of the kids with the admin in charge of scheduling them ended badly. I’m just not going to sit and not say anything when what they’re doing is not best for the kids. Or me, for that matter, or honestly, the poor para who is sitting there with only one kid to help…which is fine if the kid needs that. I’m just curious if there was thought behind it, because last year, there wasn’t.
Then pilates after school…my body will appreciate that, even if my blood sugar doesn’t necessarily go along with it. Transitioning to school and stress and a different schedule has been interesting. I did very well yesterday. Let’s not talk about the other three days around it. It’s fun. My doc wants me to check in with a nurse once a month about the diabetes, and I’m like sure, here’s my first question about crashing sugar in the middle of the night (again). They have not called yet. Probably trying to decide which nurse will have to deal with me. I’m having positive results…I’m hoping to keep that going as school really goes. September is the best test of it…it’s usually absolute daily chaos. Then after that, I get to read and stitch and cut things out. Bliss. Remember your why! (teacher in joke)
First official Monday of the school year. Yesterday was the first Sunday and I totally ignored it…went to ceramics, prepped breakfasts (OK, that’s not really ignoring it), cut stuff out, stitched some things down. OK, I also did laundry and grocery shopping, so still not ignoring it…just not sitting down at the computer and sending emails. I did that Saturday briefly…wait, no, I did that yesterday. I so often end up in charge of things that I’m wondering, when I’m retired, if I will miss that. I will probably find something else to be in charge of. It is the way of my people.
Still need to get used to getting up at 6:30 in the morning and functioning. Not there yet. We night owls have a hard time with normal work hours. I do anyway. Today is an all-morning meeting about things, then nothing in the afternoon but classroom and prep. I’m sure I will have a few meetings pop up; they always do, but I’m going to try to leave everything at school for the rest of this week. I can do that for one week, right? Then my weekly emails from my team start, sent on Sundays. No grades until next weekend; that’s a plus, but I will have to do rosters and that stuff. Let’s hope there’s no other crazy stuff about to rear its ugly head. Here’s my team; apparently this is our 10th year together…
Mostly we get along. No really, we are like any group in that there are people who do certain things, and we work really well together and support each other, but sometimes, we need to isolate. So we do. That’s probably how we made 10 years.
I ironed Friday night; I really thought I’d finish, but then I looked at the clock and it was midnight and I was tired (up at 5:30 AM y’all)…so I stopped.
With about 5 planets to go…
So I did finish ironing on Saturday, despite having a long, mostly unproductive day, wallowing in Kitten missing. I’m still doing that daily…she was so tiny at the end and I held her until the end. And like I said before, here I am, in her space. Bowie keeps coming in and looking for her. Ugh. It’s fine; I’ll get used to her not being here. Maybe. So here’s the 187 fabrics I used in this quilt…
I love to sort by color. And here’s what I’ll be working on for the next week or so…trimming all of those.
I started that Saturday night as well.
Didn’t get very far; did another hour last night though.
It never looks like much at this stage. I’m going backwards through all the pieces, unless I flipped the pile at some point (which I did). But right now, I’ve cut out most of the planets, the stars, the sun, and I’m working on the spacey pieces in the sky. I barely started the barn owl. It’ll be a while. But it’s delightfully relaxing to sit on the couch and bingewatch stuff and not have to think too hard about anything. The sitting will help with the first two weeks of exhaustion too. Seriously.
I’m making a very strange head with a tree coming out of it for the ceramic sculpture I started in November.
Still needs eyes and stuff. Ears. Maybe. Yeah. Ears.
And I actually drew at dinner.
I’m going to have to start hiking on Saturday afternoons again so I can eat the dinner I want to eat. Revised. Blood sugar was high all day and then crashed Sunday AM at about 3. Fun times. When my body decides to be logical about how it deals with food, I’ll let you know. I think I’ve got it, and then it’s like, NO. You don’t.
Always true.
OK, meeting, then prep, then other meeting, then meeting here about trees, then collapse with a book. Then cut things out and repeat. Well, I don’t have to meet about trees again, but I’m sure tomorrow will be more meetings, just not full-school meetings in the library. For 3.5 hours. Ugh. Remind me to skip long meetings in retirement (which is still years away, but I’m still gonna think about it) unless they’re about things I love.
Summer Break is officially over; ironically, summer in Southern California is just beginning (it was like 97 degrees yesterday). We’ve got at least two months of ugh weather, depending on how bad the apparently nonexistent climate change wants to make it. At least I’ll be in air conditioning during the day, right? With 140 kids. It’s fine. I’m totally not ready and had to be up at an ungodly hour this morning…it was early enough that the baby barn owl hadn’t gone to sleep yet.
It was light out by the time I got out of the shower. I’m not feeling positive about today. I know some people totally get into the first day back, they’re all hyped up. I’m an introvert. A million people in the mall (yes, we are meeting in a mall on the first day) is not my idea of fun. Honestly, talking to people at 7:30 in the morning is not my idea of fun. They give us popcorn and soda (can’t have those) and then the new guy posted all the treats he has for us, and I can’t have any of it…it’s either chocolate or sugar or both (I’m allergic to chocolate, if you didn’t know, and diabetic). So whatever. I already have the nutrition menu pulled up for our lunch options, so I know the carb issues. How does a salad have so many carbs in it? Sigh. And that doesn’t even count the dressing. So I bring my stitching with me for the morning part, and I have a book on my phone, snacks in my bag, ready to walk if the blood sugar alarm goes off. Wearing my new school year shirt (we had to go in early and pick one up). I’ll be OK next week when the kids come. Just not a fan of the adulting part (the part with the hundreds of adults). And I get to be one of the first people to talk at our meeting this afternoon. I actually don’t care about that part. It works OK after so many years of doing it. Get up in front of a hundred people and talk? Whoopdidoo. Got it.
Here’s baby owl and a parent…
I’ve had a hard time being in the studio the last few days. Kitten is supposed to be in here. When she was an actual kitten, she was in here…
That’s my old office chair. I’m three chairs past that one now, I think. They’re always covered in cat fur though. Already just hanging out with me. Sigh. Poor baby. Miss her. Maybe I’m the poor baby in this equation.
So I spent a bunch of time futzing with Spargo stuff in the living room yesterday instead. I still have a million things to stitch onto the borders of Homegrown…
And then all the embroidery. I then checked on some of the other in-progress Spargos and cut out pieces for another month of the mushroom one (just finished a mushroom book…seemed appropriate), reminded myself I was close to done on one of the forest blocks, and remembered that the critter blocks are next on the embroidery list when I finish the Rooted trees…think I’m on June or July with that one, so another three? I think. I appreciate the brainlessness of following someone else’s pattern sometimes.
I did iron in here: two hours yesterday and two and a half the day before. I know it’s hard for you to see the difference between the days, but I can. Here’s Wednesday night’s progress…
Made it through all the swamp trees and maybe a little past that…looks like there’s two rockets in there.
Then yesterday…
I did all the space stuff…well the ‘sky’ stuff, which is the big blue and purple pieces you see, but not the planets and stars and sun…that’s all that’s left. About 100 pieces. Complicated because I try to decide what each planet looks like in terms of color, but not super hard like all the people pieces. I should be able to finish tonight and then start cutting them out. A good part of the process for the start of the school year…sitting on the couch and bingewatching a show the Man is calling “Call of the Midwife in India”, which it kind of is: The Good Karma Hospital. Light fare, but about helping people, certainly, which is what I need right now.
I was reading a book by T. Kingfisher, one of her shorter soldier series based on old stories (I liked the second better than the first, which was based on House of Usher)…and she wrote…
That’s definitely from the second one. They are definitely dark. And in the acknowledgements, even better…
I’m amused by that. The first is What Moves the Dead; the second book, which both of these quotes are from, is What Feasts at Night. The third comes out this fall.
When it’s hot, cats flop.
Nova makes biscuits. It’s adorable. Bowie is less adorable, but I still like him.
OK, damn, I have to leave in 15 minutes. Ugh. I did make it to ceramics on Wednesday, but it was packed, so instead of trying to get the big torso out, I worked on the head.
This thing will never be done.
And as we go back into the school year, one run by AI apparently (even in my district, they are pushing it)…see in June, when school gets out, what happens to the graph?
I am so amused. And not. Ah well.
OK. Back to the crowd in my head and my personal space. Remember to keep fabric at the forefront. Remember Kitten. Finish ironing tonight. All good.
Well. I have two days left of Summer Break. I feel like a lot happened. A lot of it was awesome and a lot of it was stressful and it’s ending on a very sad note. On Monday, Kitten turned 17. We adopted her from one of the rescue groups outside of a Petco. She had been adopted out and returned for being ‘feisty’ (yeah, that never changed really)…she was supposed to be a Christmas present for the kids (it was December), but she latched onto me and was never anybody else’s cat.
We had two cats and two dogs at the time, so it’s not like we needed more, but the other two were getting older, so? Her original name was Holly, because we had mostly been naming animals after plants (of course, the current cats were Midnight…named by girlchild…and Limbo…who was supposed to be adopted out, but I was pregnant with the boychild and well, it was a baby). But she never answered to it and it never really fit.
OMG…look, CDs! WTF. Back in the day. She was feisty, which meant she survived the dogs…you know, I think we only had Ivy at that point? I think Calli came in 2009. So just Ivy and Midnight and Limbo…so she didn’t answer to her name, but she did answer to Kitten. So she became Kitten, and eventually I had to tell the vet, because they would call about Holly and I’m like, who the fuck is that. Doing well, y’all. Even back in the day. The kids were in elementary/middle school. I had just started to teach in the valley here instead of driving 45 minutes plus into the mountains.
Already sleeping on sewing supplies, even in the early days. That never stopped.
She survived many other animals coming through here. In the last month, we basically had to move her permanently into my office (she was already living there for like the last five years, although she’d venture out, even sleep with me…best memories ever of her curling up under my armpit, however uncomfortable it was. But Bowie was insistent on bugging her, so we finally moved her food and litter into my office. Yes it was a pain and sucked for me (I hate stepping on litter and it’s always everywhere), but it was more peaceful for her, and she needed that. She slept a lot the last few months. She had inflammatory bowel disease for the last five years or so, and we’d finally gotten medications that seemed to be working, until the last week. She would have episodes, like they do, and she’d rally. There were many times in the last year when we thought she was done. She’d lose a ton of weight and stop eating and then she’d come back. But this time, she was sick over and over again and I knew we were probably done. It’s hard to make that decision, and certainly it’s one I’ve been debating for a few months now. She knew it was time, even if I didn’t; Because she was so feisty, the vet had tags on her file, and when I took her in, she was purring and chill and headbutting my shirt, like she does when she wants love. So I gave her all the love I could and said goodbye.
And it fucking sucks. And I really need to stop crying because I have to go get my eyes checked today and swollen and red will probably impede the eye doctor’s assessment. Sigh. This room sucks without her in it. It all sucks. And I know if you’ve said goodbye to a pet, you know what I’m talking about. Shit, I still get tears in my eyes when my damn phone shows me pictures of Calli (the Golden Retriever) or Midnight (one of the best cats ever). And yes, there are still three cats and a dog in this house. The Man even said I could claim one of his cats as mine, and they all give me love and I give them love back, but it’s not the same. She was a sweetheart who bit me so hard last year I needed antibiotics, but she was my sweetheart. Fucking sucks.
Also the Man wanted me to count how many quilts she’s in and it’s a lot. A bunch. She’s the cat in most of my quilts.
Wet washcloth on the eyeballs before I have to leave for the eye doc.
So yeah, had an awesome time in SF, then got COVID, then put my cat down, now going back to school, so not ready. At all.
I spent a lot of time with Kitten in the last few days, ironing in here. Almost 5 hours on Monday…
Only 2 1/2 yesterday…
Before and after going to the vet. Difficult. I made it through the swamp and the ICE officers. Still need to finish a bit up on them and add in the children they are dragging through the swamp. Then the trees and that gets me into the 1000s…with about 350 pieces to go. I could knock that out today, but think I’m going to ceramics. Debating book club. Not sure I can do that. They saw Kitten in all the Zooms and I don’t know if I can sit through that right now. Probably not. And I’m hoping to get into pilates (haven’t been in SO LONG), but I’m still on the waitlist and it’s less than 12 hours, so…it’s all hopeful. So I’ll iron some today and tomorrow and hopefully finish.
My craft room, my office, my studio is where Kitten was. So hard to be in here.
OK, and here’s the politics. My school board has members on it who lie. This is a flat out lie. The top two are a board member and his wife. Absolute bullshit. No one is paying us to show up. We show up because y’all are idiots.
And IDK who Amy is?
When I type her name into our district mail, it does not pop up…which doesn’t mean she doesn’t work for us…she could be new, and I don’t necessarily get everyone on email, but also, no one in the fucking district calls it by that name, because that name is WRONG. She doesn’t say here that we’re being paid to show up (we’re not; maybe those parents are though). Please open your eyes, y’all. People lie to get their agendas across. Luckily, we have three board members who are not Project 2025 sycophants, and they renewed our superintendent’s contract and finally approved the sex ed curriculum, which contrary to parents, does NOT teach kids to be trans or LGTBQIA. It does try to teach them tolerance. Heaven forbid we do that. God wants y’all to be tolerant (another staff member was quoting god things with regard to Trump the other day…this is what will drive me out of teaching). Read the Bible a few times, and you’ll see that. It’s funny when the atheist knows the bible better than the religious folk.
ANYWAY. Not shutting up about the stupidity…and it’s obviously not going away. Neither is my headache, so I’m going to go take meds, cold washcloth on the eyes, and do the things. And miss my baby kitty.
Hey it’s a Monday. The last Monday before I officially go back to work, although I am in fact going to go lesson plan today with my coteacher. Because that’s what teachers do, y’all. On summer. When we don’t get paid. Why do I do it? Because my later-August self will be so happy that I didn’t leave everything to the last minute. I’ll be exhausted because school started, but things will be mostly planned, because the planning days they give us will get eaten up by stupid meetings. They always do. So. That’s what we do. This will be the third 4-hour session this summer for us. We’ve done more in previous years; we’ve done less. Luckily (or biologically), as of Friday, I started feeling much better, able to stand and iron things, and I tested negative for COVID yesterday. The Man is still paranoid as shit (he started a new job this morning after 18 months of unemployment due to a work injury that has still not been solved), so he does not want to get sick. I agreed to giving him the 10 days of ‘stay away from me’ and even wore a mask in the car with him. It’s fine. He would get much sicker than me anyway. Although this is the third time I’ve gotten COVID (that I know of), and he gave it to me the first two times, including the first day of school a few years back. Fun times. Strangely, I was not sick at all last time (18 months ago) and was definitely sick the first and third times.
So, ironing!! Oh bliss, oh wondrousness. It’s funny. Often I put it off, OMG, it’s gonna be so hard, especially this time, because Kitten is now living in the studio with me (it’s not very big) and so I have her on a rolling office chair, her food and water is in here, with the damn litter tray, and the ironing board and another rolling office chair for my butt, plus the 17 tables that live in here. I finally just up and moved a bunch of stuff into the girlchild’s room (needs to be managed anyway…although now that school is starting, ha!). It’s crowded, and I can’t reach some of the fabric because Kitten is in the way. She gets freaked out if I move too much around or over her, and rolling the chair out of the way is problematic too. So it means I am limited to the fabric I can reach.
I started ironing before I went to San Francisco…got about 2 1/2 hours in, but hardly any pieces. This thing is complicated. Lots of little things. Friday night, I did about 90 minutes, I think…nah, almost 2 hours.
Definitely did some flesh in there, although there’s way more to come. Not much in the way of color yet.
Saturday, I felt FINE. And I had nothing else to do, so I got about 5 hours done.
Yeah…moved the pieces into a bigger box (had to find one that wasn’t being used). Lots of little people in this…still not very far into the pieces though. I was trying to keep track of what flesh colors I used for which arm (this thing has a lot of arms)…
Then yesterday, I went over two hours, no, almost three, and got the main figure ironed…
Still lots of brown and earth colors. But another Statue of Liberty. So far, I’m in the 700s, but I haven’t done all the 600s, and I’ve ironed for 12 1/2 hours. So almost halfway? It would be nice to get all these ironed down by Friday (the day we go back). We’ll see. I have all day tomorrow. I have some time on the other days. I had to move the dentist and the eye doctor to this week. Plus you know, all the stuff I was going to do all summer? Well, I never get it all done and so I should finish it all this week. Ha! Not happening. Never does. I know I need the down time, and I did so many fun art things this summer. I am worried about my ceramics. Don’t know if I can get there today though. We’ll see. The animals are going to have a shocking day with no one home. They’re already freaked out. Ah well.
I like this.
Especially as a public school teacher. But boss, the president told me to! New boss this year. Ugh.
I definitely need one of these, but I would just ignore it. I have a nonfiction book I’m trying to finish (so much harder than fiction), and I tell myself to read a chapter a day, but every chapter is LONG. Like 30 minutes or longer. Yes, I am spoiled by short fiction chapters. Remember reading real books (I’m reading one right now) and you would have to flip forward to see how many more pages until the chapter was over?
Well now it tells me how long it will take to read it, so I can read one more before I go to bed. Or work. Or whatever.
In reality, I just keep reading. OK, I need to take meds, find my work stuff (it’s all in the bag I shoved it in the last time we met, in the beginning of July), and get out of here for a few hours. Reality check. Not the fun kind. Wait, is there ever a fun kind of reality check? Huh. Then run errands and come back and find time to iron a bunch of things on the main figure, before I iron the ICE swamp. Second quilt ever with a swamp in it. Same president. Same fucking swamp. Enjoying the last four days before the next school year starts. Deep breaths.
OK. So I’ve been sick with COVID since Sunday night, apparently (sorry to my plane mates…I didn’t know). Yeah, I should have been masked, although I’m not sure where the girlchild and I both got sick. Hoping today is fever free. I am better…the first few days were very low energy and sleepy. I’m definitely increasing in energy, but was still running fevers yesterday on and off. I’ve canceled/rescheduled the dentist, exercise, lunch, not sure what else. I was planning on getting a booster shot this week, before going back to school. Oh well. Interestingly, the last time I tested positive, I had almost no symptoms. Not so much this time. Lots of sleeping and reading going on, and when I felt more energetic, I started appliqueing wool bits down to the borders of Sue Spargo’s Homegrown.
It’s mindboggling how long this takes.
Once I had tested for COVID, I moved into the girlchild’s room and my office, trying to limit the other people in the house from exposure. Hoping I wasn’t too late. It didn’t even cross my mind when I first started feeling sick. Silly really. The Man starts his new job on Monday and we’re hoping he doesn’t come down with it.
I’ve stitched down all the stuff on the top and bottom borders; I’m doing the side borders now.
Five flowers a side. Big ones. Time-consuming. Not hard though, which is good, because my brain is mostly nonfunctional. Amusingly, I’m also doing my district/state-mandated online trainings today, with about half my brain. Seriously, I’ve experienced over 20 years of integrated pest management and bloodborne pathogen trainings. The assessments are often stupid, making you memorize things that are not useful, like how big an opening a mouse needs to get in a building (all of them were small; you literally had to memorize which small thing they had mentioned in 28 minutes). I’m not saying we don’t need to know these things…it’s just a lot of minutiae.
Back to the stitching…there’s about 85 pieces that need to be appliqued down on the two side borders, and I probably have spent 8 hours so far. Not all of it this week…
Last night, I had Simba on the bed (past his bedtime) and Bowie coming to visit.
I kicked Bowie out later because he keeps climbing on shit and knocking things over.
Sleepy boy.
So I still have a ton of those to stitch down if I need more down time, which I probably do. I’d like to be energetic and well enough to stand in here (I’m in the office right now) and iron things to fabric…the thing I started before I went to San Francisco. I’d also like to have enough energy to go to ceramics, because it’s been a while and I’m worried about my piece. Not much I can do about it at the moment. I’ve had to move a bunch of stuff to next week that was supposed to happen this week, so it’s all of a sudden more full than I like. It is what it is, I guess. It’s now officially August and I have to think about school. Total mindset flip.
Meanwhile, the cats are all exhausted.
And hot…
Kind of with them.
There’s this…
No hubs but…and this is a joke, but I’d rather spend time making art, thanks.
OK, back to mandated reporter videos. I would like to thank them for making up a new complicated story for each year. Just watching this set of videos is traumatic. And having reported more than once, it’s too bad that humans can’t be better across the board. I have one anonymous card that I’ve kept for three years now. I do often wonder about that child and how they’re doing (multiple reports, police were involved, they sent the kid home with parents). Ah yes. And watching this training while thinking about the current government and the Epstein files? WTF. There’s a gap there that cannot be explained.
Sigh. Hopefully no fever today so I can be a little more active…starting tomorrow, I can be out of the house if I have no fever, although I need to track down a mask. Pretty sure there’s one in a purse or bag somewhere, or maybe in the car. I have a million at school…ironically. My gym bag? I’m glad I had enough books and brainless stitching lying around to entertain me, and furry beasts to provide sighs, boofs, and love. And someone to go out and buy more meds and food. Not that food is very exciting at the moment. I’m doing a lot of revising what I eat to get blood sugar to behave (hard when you’re sick). The CGM has been really helpful and I’m glad I finally agreed to it. Insurance is covering it completely, and if I keep up how I’ve been doing, my A1C will be coming down in the next three months. All good. Art. Health. Balance.
I really hate my ironing board. I would like a new one, one that doesn’t have sharp metal feet that grab my toes. One that is stable and doesn’t threaten to fall over. That said, when I’ve tried to find ironing boards in the past, they’re even more tippy and unstable than this one…this one was my grandmother’s, I think. It’s ancient. I put a heavy board on top that I use for ironing quilts together, because I need a larger space. At the moment, I have to move it around a lot because I’ve been trying to clean up in here and it’s problematic…I can’t put fabric on one shelf where it used to be, because one of two cats keeps peeing on it. I’m pretty sure it’s the old lady, but it might be the teenaged boy…they regularly are vying over the space. Probably the old lady. I even had piled some towels up that I was using to cover the fabric bins there, and then she peed on those. So. Yeah. I’m having to store bins on the floor and this room is not very big anyway…with two desks, a table, three bookshelves, a computer, a sewing machine, and all my fabric (well, not really ALL my fabric…that’s funny), it’s just crowded. The ironing board is always open and I move it around for what/where I need to use it. And every time I search for a new one, I get sidetracked by options and reviews and can’t make a decision. Because there isn’t an ironing board store I can go to and look at them (OMG I am old), so I have to do it all online, and the thought of trying to return an ironing board makes me break out in hives. So there’s that. But we might be there.
So the stupid stuff, eh? Overwhelming. But I could focus on the big fat ugly bill or Alligator Alcatraz and why we think it’s OK to treat HUMANS that way or the campers missing in Texas after the floods (look! God took the white Christian girls! See, it’s not any better, is it? It doesn’t matter what the kids look like or where they come from…it’s not OK.). Sigh. Certainly didn’t do much celebrating yesterday. My country is broken. OK, it always was broken. Now it’s just more in your face about it. So I’m trying to live my tiny life in the middle of all that. Plus this week, the Man will hear about a job (yes please) and I have a biopsy (ugh) and the girlchild is coming to visit (yay) and I need to pack for my residency (yikes). It’s not the chillest week in the world. My response to that is to read more books. And try to clean and fix more things. With the help of the Ex, the sprinklers are now back up and running. I tried but there needed to be more things fixed than the one I did (it was a valve). The two sprinklers that really weren’t working were totally corroded inside (ah, hard water)…so replacing those (and blowing all the dirt through the system) helped immensely.
This was a big achievement. I’ve had this on my list for months. I replaced one thing and then nothing worked. Sigh. I tried to patch the gap on the deck too, but I couldn’t get the caulk to move. Might just be too old? Frustrating though. So I think I’m going to Home Depot later. Fun times. I ran some errands on Thursday (waited until rush hour like an idiot) and ran into a former student, a not-pleasant reminder of him. I had totally blocked him and his entitlement and his annoying parents (mom mostly) from my mind, and now I need to reblock him. It’s OK. He’s a kid. Even as an adult, I won’t need to deal with him…and maybe he’ll get a clue by then. He’s smart, just spoiled.
So artwise, I’ve been sort of efficient. I’ve made it to the ceramics studio more times than usual, which is good.
A bunch of stuff fell/broke (I think it gets bumped on the shelf) and I had to fix a lot, but I got the greens done. Went back yesterday and reattached and reglazed stuff that broke, but that damn hand broke off again.
I’m close though. Almost there. Honestly, it’s glazed except for the flagpole and reglazing all the broken stuff.
I just need to finish it and get it in the kiln. Like this week. Hopefully.
I pinbasted my Sue Spargo Folk Tails, which has been done since 2020? I think? Seriously.
Mostly I hadn’t done it yet because I wanted to finish the bird one first (the bigger one) before stashing a bunch of safety pins in something that would just sit in a pile for a while. It’s a challenge to quilt this…mostly because I need to go AROUND everything. Not hard, just a pain. So it’s next on my list to finish this summer. But before I do that, I’m trying to piece together the improv piece I did on Zoom with Irene Roderick…
It’s all these random shapes that need to fit together, and then I need to make it into a rectangle shape. So I worked on that yesterday. I have it all in three pieces at the moment, with a freaking Y seam (not the first). Almost there. This is so not my style, and I realized at Quilt National that all the Irene people’s quilts look similar, so I’m deciding how to make it mine. I’m trying to finish this so I can take the design board on my residency next week. Whatever gets it done, right? I could probably finish putting the top together today.
Then I cut out all the wool/cotton bits for the side borders of Homegrown (another Spargo…yeah, I enjoy making them), pinned them on, and am slowly stitching them all down. I won’t get this one done in 2025. Bet.
The embroidery will take forever and then I’ll put it in a pile for a year or two before deciding to quilt it. Let’s be real. It’s not about the finished product; it’s totally about the making.
In art quilt news, I’m still tracing Wonder Under…
The dirt was a lot of big pieces, and then I had a bunch of little pieces that fit in between all those big pieces.
I tried a bund of people and then started tracing gravestones. Right when those dumbasses passed a bill kicking a ton of real live people off Medicare. Including one I live with…yeah, it won’t take effect until after the November elections, and hopefully he’ll have a job by then, but there’s a lot of people who can’t work or can’t find work. So we aren’t taking care of people any more unless they’re so rich they don’t really need to worry about it.
Last night, I made it into the low 600s…of 1366.
Not even halfway. I was hoping to be done with tracing today, but I would have had to be way more focused than I have been for that to happen. So maybe that’s the other thing I’m doing today. I’m still only on the second yard of Wonder Under…lots of small pieces to drive me nuts later.
My little quilt made it to my SIL for her birthday.
I love the location.
I lost the dog in the ferns…he likes to pee in there.
Really, this is yet another part of the yard I need to control. Ha! This yard is beyond my ability. I’d need a gardener and even then…
I found these guys (screamed a little because a bunch were on my shirt) while trimming shit.
They become some kind of beetle. But for now, they are in the greenery trash can.
I saw this…and yes, I feel like I need that but also, no I’m not doing that.
I’m putting it here for when I’m really old and retired and maybe bored (will I ever be bored?). That dissociative state is looking nice.
Although honestly, making art helps with that. And it’s too hot for sweatpants, but the other night, I found myself tracing Wonder Under with shorts and a tank top on, but also fuzzy socks, because my feet were cold. Love old body. It’s so inconsistent.
This.
So frustrating. Incredibly.
Simba after three hours of fireworks on THURSDAY night (not even the 4th, y’all). He barked the entire time. And I was tracing stuff, so I wasn’t making him feel safe.
Last night, he was better…only a little. Mostly because the boychild was back. For how long? We never know. His sister is coming to visit, so if previous years are anything to go by, he’ll be sent to some fire this week.
This is amazing. This is Liberty Bleeds by Niki McQueen.
I wish I had enough wall space for her work (it’s available as posters to benefit the ACLU)…it reminds me of my own stuff, the cutting open part.
I think Nova is the big softie that both Luna and Bowie turn to for love and safety.
Luna is so paranoid. And it’s hot, so it’s funny when they curl up together, because I’m like, don’t fucking touch me, it’s hot. And yet there’s always a cat or a dog (or both) next to me.
This is always true.
So yeah. I think I already decided I’m piecing things and tracing things today. The Man has a show tonight downtown, so I’m probably riding the trolley down and then getting a ride back. Their regular lead singer has ‘quit’ (we hope not permanently), so they’re borrowing a singer from another band. Should be interesting. Luckily they are the opening band, so it’s not a midnight thing. I’m too old for that stuff? That’s a lie; I happily stay up past midnight doing art things. I just don’t like mornings. My goal for the week? Be chill. Stay chill. Make the things. Find the supplies for next week. So excited for next week. Meal planning now. And making sure I have materials. I don’t want to get up there and realize I need one chemical I left at home. Inevitably I will forget something though. Truth. 33 days until school. I can’t find a countdown timer that works with the iphone widget or whatever they’re calling it now. Frustrating. That and the ironing board problem are an issue for another day though. Right now, I need to eat, shower, and do some stuff that refills the cup. Or something. Finds the spoons.
Sitting here waiting for health insurance chat to answer. So much wait time with health stuff. That’s not going to get better. And I’m glad to have insurance. Health stuff is stressful. Time-consuming. Expensive. Crucial. It’s so easy for some people to say, well get a job, then you’ll get healthcare…not always true, not always possible. My household includes someone who’s been trying to get a job with physical restrictions for over a year, and it’s not as easy as J.D. Vance and his compatriots think it is. People with disabilities who may need support at work; they just don’t get interviews, or they get one and then get ghosted. It’s stressful for all of us to see that and live with it. But hey, we’re not rich, so we don’t matter. We’re gonna die anyway. The politicians…sigh…I mean, at least Lisa Murkowski was honest about doing what’s best for Alaskans, but in doing so, fucked the rest of us. The rest of those who voted for that bill? What is wrong with them? Some complain and then vote for it anyway? And now the government is refusing to send all the education money that Congress allocated. As someone in a Title I school, where kids live in a variety of not-great situations, I’m worried; no that’s not a big enough word for what they’re doing to kids, to families who struggle, to anyone of color. I don’t get it. I’m scared by it. Worried is not a big enough word.
So in all that, I make art. And try to get control of my diabetes. And worry about the things growing in my boob. And worry about my cat…she’s old and not doing well, especially with the heat. Worry about my job. New boss. The damn sprinklers. How to paint the shed when one wall is right against a chainlink fence. Obviously need to make more art, exercise more.
Finished numbering.
Did you guess? I guessed 1500 based on where I was and how much was left. I was wrong…it’s 1366…
Give or take a few, because I always miss something or double number something. Not a ton, but a lot. A goodly amount. I could have filled the sky in and got more, but I kind of didn’t want to. So I didn’t.
Last night, I started tracing…
I’ll be there for a while. Like 12 more hours probably. Which is fine. I’d like to get myself to a place where I’m tracing for more than an hour a day, but so far, there’s been too much other stuff to do. I spent the last two days planning with my science partner, about 8 hours total. It looked a lot like this…
Well, and there was other stuff, but this is the only picture I took, and I took it because I realized when I moved all the files, I wouldn’t be able to find them in all the other files because most of them had illogical names. I can delete this picture now. THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE IT WILL EXIST.
Anyway, I’d like to say that my 8 hours (it was more than that; I did some at home too) of unpaid work was all I needed to do for school this summer, but that’s not true. We’re meeting again in August. We did well, but my late August/September self will be happier if I do a bit more specific shit. But not today. Today, I need to go to the ceramics studio and underglaze. I know I broke something on Friday. I felt it. Like every fucking time, I’m breaking shit. Sigh. And there will probably be a bunch of people there, but I couldn’t handle going the last two afternoons…I was so braindead after working, so I didn’t go. Oops. Oh well.
That political shit again.
And the amount they want to spend on ICE? Just terrorizing people who are actually trying to be legal and paying taxes and all that shit? Who aren’t committing crimes? So fucked up.
Attempting to ignore the political crap is impossible. I can hide in art, but my art is also political, so it’s not always hiding in a non-stressful way. Ah well. I can try to eat better and make art and clean the house and take care of the cat and paint the shed. I mean, that might be all I really can do at the moment. And I know that should be OK, but it’s not. Not for the planet or the country. OK. Going to ceramics…soon. Then I’ll just do what I can.
I know, I know, I’m writing super late. I worked this morning. And afternoon. And I didn’t want to get up super early, so I got the photos resized for the post and that was it. And then I did more work when I got home. So here I am, remembering I was supposed to write today. Which pretty much sums up Summer Break for a teacher. Yes, I did teacher stuff today. My co-teacher and I usually try to plan during the summer, just to get a handle on things we want to change for next year. Sometimes we get paid, but we aren’t this year. I think. Who knows? New principal. No one has a clue what’s going on. We’re backwards planning to make sure we have time to teach natural selection and evolution, the last unit, and then revising the first two units…three units. Well, we’re not gonna get all that done in two 4-hour sessions, for sure. But we’ll have a pretty good start.
So the weekend…I worked on the drawing…finishing up the bottom part on Friday night.
Mostly anyway. Then Saturday evening, I put some planets in the sky…
Bowie was absolutely no help.
Last night, I finished up some stuff around the planets and called it done, although I may change my mind about that tonight.
And then I started numbering, but I didn’t finish.
I knew I had to get up in the morning, so staying up until 2 AM writing numbers would be a bad plan, right? Don’t ask Summer Brain…they’re like all in with Art Brain and don’t give a shit that I can’t sleep in. So I was going to finish numbering this afternoon and totally that hasn’t happened. But maybe after I finish this.
I also finished the binding and sleeves on this during my local SAQA Zoom meeting…
Shitty picture, I know. Ah well. Need a place to hang it up now.
On Saturday, I also finished a present for my SIL…in October or so last year, to test the new Wonder Under, I made a small flying heart. She saw in online and asked for it for Christmas, but like finished, you know. A thing. So I said yes and then promptly lost it. I didn’t really lose it. I hung it up in my studio/office and then hung a drawing up in front of it, so I couldn’t see it and forgot it was there. For like three months. I found it in January when I took the drawing down…not right away though…it took me a few weeks before I saw it. Then I figured, oh, I’ll give it to her for her July birthday, so instead of making something out of it like right then (like a sane person), I procrastinated until Saturday and then finished it.
I mailed it today. It’ll be late. Ah well.
Saturday was also the wedding of a coworker to one of my former students. Weird, huh? Here’s all the teachers…
The bride is younger than my daughter. I’m laughing because Stace is grabbing my ass. She’s smirking in the back. We did not all plan to wear blue and green. Seriously.
And here’s one of my former 7th graders, now a nice young man who cried during the ceremony, making him one of my favorite guys forever.
Seriously…raise your boys to be able to cry at emotional events.
I did some ceramics stuff on Friday…more painting.
I keep breaking things off dammit. So I’m trying to get it all underglazed before more breaks. Not sure when I’m going in again. Tomorrow? Hopefully…if I’m not as braindead as I was today after lesson planning for four hours.
That’s too true.
I love this.
There’s so much negative shit out there right now. I love the little bits of fuck off I see happening. Because I just got my measles booster because of that idiot.
OK, normally this is where I’d say what I’m doing for the rest of the day, but it’s 6 PM and I just fed the dog. I might go do some yardwork because it’s cooled off a little. I did some digging (against the gophers) yesterday. Need more gravel to fix what they did. Sigh. Should probably water first. I’ll be numbering shit tonight and then hopefully starting to trace. It would be nice if I was done with tracing and trimming by Monday, and then ironed to fabric by the time I leave for my residency. Taking stuff to trim is always a good thing. I can’t think beyond that. I want to finish my book? Probably not happening tonight. But soon. Oh I entered a residency for next summer…hopeful?! I think that’s it. It seems like enough, doesn’t it?
Kathy Nida 