Until I Have to…

So over the weekend, I managed about 7 hours of ironing this quilt together…but until I went and added all the time up, it felt like I hadn’t accomplished anything because I wasn’t DONE. Need to work on that mindset. I did OK. No, I’m not done…it’s true…and it’s possible I’m not going to get this done by the deadline. The world will not end. It’s still going to be a great quilt. It’ll show somewhere.

So where am I? I’m still ironing. Yup. Not done.

But first, a sleepy puppy.

Because he’s cute.

So I left off with the body done…but she’s holding this heart and sewing up a gash in it. So I ironed the heart together…

And then shoved it in the hole where it belonged…ironed some fingers together to go on top of it.

Strangely everything fit together fairly well. Then I ironed the hair in there and the face parts separately. They’re too hard to see with all the hair around, and I always iron eyes separately so I can place them correctly on the face. It’s less of an issue with just one eye. With two, I don’t want them crooked.

Face in place…all good. That hand is HUUUGE. I like it.

Then I laid out all the 700s…moving into the fireplace area…

And I ironed most of them down into the hearth. Seriously…that’s about all of the 700s right there.

I laid out the 800s, which is the stonework and the rest of the fireplace…and then I looked at the clock. Midnight. Damn. Can’t start out the week on too little sleep. It just snowballs by the end, and I’ve got stuff to do Friday night. Can’t be exhausted. So I went to bed.

All that’s left are the 800s and 900s…the fireplace and the stuff on it. Then iron the whole mess together and onto a background. I might be able to get all that done tonight. It’s more likely I’ll get most of it done, but not onto a background. Stitch down tomorrow night or Wednesday? One of those. It’s going to be tight, this quilt. I have to work hard at grading stuff at school, so I don’t have to bring it home. I’m not even going to think about next week. Until I have to.

Not Today

I have been looking forward to this weekend. No real events…just something tonight. No things I really HAVE to do, except work on these two quilts…which I should probably get going on. I slept in (but went to bed really late too). I need a swathe of unplanned time to just sit around in my pajamas and drink tea and maybe do what I want. Think what I want. Not really though. That’s what weekends SHOULD be…but I’m stressing out about school and getting stuff done and whether or not to give kids more time to finish something when I can’t really afford to give them that time. Because I need to grade it. Aargh.

Anyway. I don’t know who let all that shit in, because I was trying to keep it out. Deep breaths. Sip the tea.

I worked on both projects last night. I also wasted chunks of time doing hell I dunno what. Seriously. I really don’t know.

A student gave me a rose for teacher appreciation week (his mom made him)…I don’t pick yellow usually, but it’s pretty.

I traced Wonder Under for about an hour while my show was finishing up…I’m in the 300s? I think? All the way up both legs and now starting to do the stuff around that.

Then I moved into the studio and worked on ironing the second figure. He’s got legs…

And I did his hands (one hand is literally just the tips of his fingers)…

That hand was complicated. I like it though…and the arm attached to it.

I numbered the fleshy bits before the box he’s holding, so I guess I’ll iron all the body parts and then the box and then insert the box? Not sure. That was midnight last night and I was tired, so I quit…and then stayed up too late anyway. It happens.

Today I am braindead. So I’m going to eat, shower, drink more tea, and then start ironing I think. I have an event tonight, but I should be able to get a chunk done this afternoon. Kinda looking forward to it. Then tomorrow I can make a decision about whether to extend kids’ time or grade stuff or whatever. Not today.

It Could Happen

I really need to work on this thing where I sleep through the night. It’s like having a baby around…except it’s my brain or the dog or who knows what. Exercise seems to help, but I don’t always have the time or energy for it…like if I walk in the door at almost 6 PM and I’ve been working that whole time, except for a nice leisurely lunch with my coworkers because it’s teacher appreciation week and the only kids who appreciate me are last-year’s kids (I’m OK with that…we’re probably pretty annoying right now…by this time last year, they won’t still be annoyed by us)…well then I THOUGHT about the gym, but a wave of exhaustion hit me as I walked up the stairs to the front door. So I didn’t. I will later this week. I’ll just do it on a day when I get home before dinnertime.

I think mostly the sleep thing is stress. I have other signs: the twitching eyelid, the canker sore I always get, the tight jaw…yup. That’s stress. I’m trying. I really am. So last night, after getting some stuff done like rejecting one proofreading job because the timeline was too tight for someone who works during the day, dealing with beneficiaries on my life insurance (yo kids! It’s you! plus how did they spell my brother’s name wrong? It’s the same as mine!), and some other email stuff…I decided to start tracing the next quilt. Yup. I don’t hardly ever, as far back as I can remember, work on two at a time…except when I’m working on one and the deadline on the other is more important. Then I might set the less-important one aside to work on the more priority piece. But I’m doing these pretty much simultaneously. Mostly because I had a Netflix video that I knew my video-watching partner wasn’t going to like, and he was gone, so I could watch it while tracing, but not while ironing (two different rooms, only one has a DVD player. I wrote VCR. I mean, it has that too, but we don’t use it any more).

I traced for almost 3 hours. Meditative.

IMG_4249 small

I didn’t get super far…all the stuff in the bottom, ready to start on her feet. Maybe 150 pieces or so. Not sure why it took so long, but it did. My brain fighting the process. I’m still working on not bringing any work home…on getting stuff done at school and at meetings, so I don’t have to bring it home. Not sure that will last, but I’m trying.

I got a phone call this morning at 6:30 AM from a duct-cleaning place. Every other day or so there’s another message from one of them. That and the phone researchers…one called last night at 8:45 PM. Annoying…not sure how to get off those lists.

Early meeting today…hopefully I’ll wake up and find my brain by the time I get to school. It could happen.

I Am Superman and I Know What’s Happening*

Well girlchild is home. In Boston, anyway. Strangely, now I miss her more. Because she’s in the US but not here? Mom brain is a strange beast. I’ll see her in 2 1/2 weeks. Plus even better, we now can revive the mom-kids group text! I bet the boychild is thrilled about that.

I’m so tired lately…I know I don’t sleep enough, but usually that’s not a huge problem. Right now I’m not sleeping well AND it’s not long enough. I even went to bed early last night, but I still feel like a truck hit me this morning. End of year exhaustion? Starting in early? There’s 26 days left. It sounds like a lot. Six weeks sounds worse. And then I think about trying to finish these two quilts in that time and I panic.

All right then. Let’s not think about that. Back to a day at a time. Today is the first day of state testing. Never fun. One kid said yesterday that this must be the teachers’ favorite time of year because we love torturing kids. Oh for fuck’s sake. I hate testing. Arbitrary contrived bullshit stressing the kids AND us out…to what end? Accountability? Yeah right. Whatever. There should be a better way.

Yeah. I’m cranky. I’m going to be artmaking tonight (after school and a union meeting).

Last night, I managed to finish cutting out the last little bit of pieces (it was an extra 38 minutes, so if I’d done it the night before, I wouldn’t have gone to bed until after 1 AM, so it’s probably best I didn’t listen to art brain.).

Here’s all the pieces ready for the next step. It took 11 hours and 12 minutes to cut them all out. Much longer than I thought it would.

Ready to sort them all…I really hate this step, but it’s mostly necessary…otherwise I’ll never find the pieces I need in a pile of a thousand.

An hour later, I’m sorted…with a cat butt to assist.

I wish I could say I then got up and ironed or did anything, but you remember that part about being tired? Sigh. Not a particularly productive night. I always figure my brain (or body) needs the break, but it frustrates me. So hopefully I will frustrate myself less tonight.

Simba likes it when I sit down somewhere that he can cuddle next to me though. So there’s that. Abstract with dog.

I made the dog happy.

*REM, Superman

She’s Like a Chemical*

Two boxes winging their way to the girlchild in Boston (even though she’s not there yet)…check. College graduation announcements heading off to foreign parts…check. A chunk of the weekend schoolwork done…check. A huge blogpost for one of my art groups completely written, just missing one photo…check. Grocery list made and ready for shopping…check. Calendar created for the week and mostly populated with daily to-do lists…check. Not bad. Could always be better.

I finally got the video of the snake swallowing the lizard processed. Some day I will remember to hold my phone sideways. I swear.

Meanwhile, a baby possum is wandering around my front yard…not sure where momma is. Pretty sure he should be nocturnal, or at least hiding. Not sure if I should go out there and catch him…and do what with him? Yeah. Wildlife.

I cut stuff out for a chunk of time yesterday too…trash on top, to-be cut on the left, already cut on the right…

Mostly that was at night. I need to do more, obviously. Lots more.

Someone was impressed with my organization of all the fabrics used by color. Really that’s just so I can put them away easily (and because it looks cool). Right now, the office is kind of a mess…almost every drawer is open and rummaged in…when I’m ready to iron the next quilt down, I’ll put everything away again.

But for now, it’s a disaster. Semi-disaster. It’s been worse.

Sunday. I would love it to be a day of rest, but really, I’m going to do some work now. And then some artwork. And shit, I gotta make lunches for the week. Damn. OK. Well, at least I have some focus now.

*Elvis Costello, Pump It Up

Tomorrow Might Be Good for Something*

I have my Star Wars shirt on for school. Wait. No I don’t. I have somebody else’s Star Wars shirt on for school (mine is not necessarily appropriate for school, so I borrowed). May the Fourth be with you. I’m prepared for being a hella bitch today in class to keep kids on task. I’m going to engage my inner General Leia. I will only have to do that in two periods…the other three have figured out that they need to work and are doing so. Then we have a talent show at the end of the day. I have no stage talent at all, so I will be in charge of standing over kids and using sign language and my piercing glare to get them to behave (strangely, it works). I’m already cranky and tired, like almost every teacher at my school…it makes you wonder how we survive the last 29 days. I’m never really sure how we do it. With spit and alcohol and an occasional donut. But we do it. State testing starts next week, so the world gets a little wonky for a few days. I think there’s only two kids in my homeroom that might drive me bonkers for 3 1/2 hours of testing. Wait. No. There’s three. Maybe four. Fuuuck. It’s OK. I’ll feed them and use that piercing glare again and more sign language. It’s doable.

I had my monthly stitching meeting last night, but I am feeling a need to get this quilt done ASAP, so I cut things out instead of stitching…

I got a good chunk of the pieces done…and then I came home and ironed more…although I was tired, and that doesn’t ever help. I finished ironing down the heart-shaped box and started on the hearth.

Picking the fabrics for that was harder than I expected. The grays of the fireplace are going to be a pain in the butt. I guess the plus is that once I figure out what four fabrics I’m using (stones, shaded stones, grout, shaded grout), I will just have to pile the pieces up and get them ironed. That first part though, picking them? That sounds really exhausting to me at the moment. I bought one gray I thought would work, but now I’m looking at it and I’m not so sure. I guess at some point I will just make a decision about it. It never seems to be as crucial once I get the quilt ironed together…it’s more like, why did I worry so much about that one piece? I guess that is in my nature.

When I was done with decisionmaking, I hung out for a while. There was a cat for a while in there too…

But the other cat is nervous about hanging out…so she was still in my office. With an ancient art quilt.

Girlchild was traveling around. She sent me a lemur…

I still have most of the last 300 pieces to iron down. I have 9 1/2 hours into the ironing, so I underestimated how much time I would spend staring at bins of grays…because mostly that’s what I’ve been doing. I keep thinking there must be another drawer of them somewhere. I have a fabric I want to use and I can’t find it. I’m not sure if it’s in the grays or the blacks…it runs right in between…but I just can’t find it and it’s one of my favorites. Yup. I have favorites.

Anyway, I’m not busy this weekend (yay!). I have gaming tonight, so I’m not expecting much out of myself after that and school…but maybe? And then tomorrow, after taking limpy dog to the vet, I’m hoping to iron. Like until I’m done maybe. And then I do need to grade stuff, but that’s always a thing. Ugh. Maybe that can wait until Sunday. It’s nice to have an unplanned weekend, because the next three are kind of a mess. What’s new? Yeah. At least I can still make art around all that.

*Matchbox 20, Unwell

Then You Can Start to Make It Better*

Well good news this morning…my foot wound from last week did not grow anything heinous and flesh-eating, according to the culture they took…this is particularly good news, because I keep forgetting to take the damn antibiotics, so I would probably be really sick by now if there HAD been something in there.

The second piece of great news is that my mammogram has not been scheduled for July 7, 2022…the scheduler typed it into the email wrong as Thursday, July 7 (go ahead, look at a calendar. I did.)…she really meant July 5 of this year. Now I just need to have no jury duty that day (I figured the day after a national holiday midweek was a pretty good bet). I was honestly OK with waiting 4 years, even though the letter they sent suggested more often than that.

Also, it’s Thursday, and although the theme of the day yesterday was apparently “I don’t get it” and nobody let me know ahead of time, so I could prepare for it, in general, the kids are doing their stuff. Sure, there’s a kid here and there who is just sitting there clicking keys randomly and pretending they know how to use a computer for something besides active shooter games and sending butt pictures, but mostly, they’re doing it. Now if they could just do it without my amazing babysitting prowess, because when I was a babysitter, I got snacks and an extra bump in pay if the kid was a pain in the ass. Like the parents knew it and wanted me to come back, so they’d slip an extra dollar in there (back in the day, a dollar was a big thing, you know?). None of my students’ parents do that. Maybe they should.

I was home late. I finished my book. It was OK. I don’t know if I care enough to read the sequel. I read it for book club. Eh.

Ironing happened, but there was a break in the middle for ice cream, because the decisionmaking part of my brain just stopped…right in the middle…like, there’s no way I can decide what color to make the lungs because I have officially used up all the decisionmaking nodes and I must recharge. Apparently ice cream is an important factor in that process, because I got up and did another hour and a half before stopping. The lungs ended up being a blue-green color…more on the green side of that range. I realize you wanted to know that.

This is a giant heart. There are 3 hearts in this quilt that are visible…

I stopped right after that, because it was midnight and the next thing was large and complicated. I can do that tonight. I have about 350 pieces left to do…so here’s the pile to be cut out…

I moved them into a bigger box. I have the heart-shaped box (yes, for real) and then the whole fireplace and all the stuff that goes with it. That’s it. I don’t think I will be finishing the ironing before Saturday. I can try, but I don’t think I can.

I didn’t feel like organizing these last night. I was too tired.

Girlchild disappeared off the net for about 24 hours without warning. It’s OK…she’s alive. It always freaks me out though. I know better than to freak out, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Turns out that they’re showing them around the country, so internet is spotty at best.

Plans for today? Hope nobody says “I don’t get it” because I might lose it. Literally, we made sample student website templates to show kids what theirs needed to look like, but then the kids thought they were supposed to copy them and mine were like a;klsdhgf;aklsdhf; for the answers and they were like, so what are we supposed to write there? And I’m like, where’s the website with the QUESTIONS and the TASKS and the VIDEOS and the ARTICLES. The one I told you to open AT THE BEGINNING OF CLASS. It does not help that I have zero patience at the moment. I guess I must have an infinitesimal amount more than zero, because I don’t scream.

After school? Chiropractor. Not sure I like the new new one. Will decide today. Then stitching meeting. I finished stitching down all those balls! I have 7,000 palestrina knots to do next. So I might just take the quilt pieces and trim them instead. Then come home and hopefully iron for a bit.

I had a floating dead little animal in the pool, but the pool guy destroyed my net, so I couldn’t get it out. Luckily, a crow has pulled it out of the pool, but has rejected it, because it is too disgusting for a crow to eat. Sigh. Nature.

*The Beatles, Hey Jude

Tomorrow Gets Me Higher*

I’m very much in my head these days, with one quilt in progress and another drawing that reappeared on the light table so I could finish drawing. My brain is trying to schedule everything else around the artmaking so I can get two quilts done in the time it takes to make one. I still don’t know for sure that I can do it, but I can try. The drawing is rolling around in my head, because I know it’s not done, but I don’t know exactly what it needs. Something came to me the other day, but I was driving, so that’s not the best time to record ideas, and though I thought I could totally hold onto that idea (and in reality, it’s stored in my head somewhere), I lost it in the moment. It happens. It will probably come back. I do a lot of drawing and coloring in my head. It’s like art brain is at an easel in one of the cleaner corners of my brain, pushing the to-do lists aside, ignoring the demands of my job, and it draws…colors…stares at the paper for huge chunks of time until something is decided.

So somehow my art brain thinks it can work on both of them…and I’m not sure it’s wrong. I know at some point last night, it hurt to stand any more (a lot of standing happens in my job), so I sat…if I had the second project at a sitting stage, I could have gotten another hour of artmaking in last night.

After grading and making dinner and then more grading, then into the disaster area that is my studio. I have a plan for fixing this corner, but it requires a chunk of money and time that I don’t have at the moment. There is a cat in that photo though…can you see her on Batting Mountain?

I think the other cat was in there too…he tends to stalk Kitten a bit. He has a few places he likes to be in here.

I picked the first of two flesh runs. The two old people will hopefully be more beige or gray. This is the younger figure, the one on the rug.

I ironed for a couple of hours…and got about 200 pieces done. Way more efficient than the night before…

I didn’t add much to the pile…just flesh tones and the rug…which ended up being dark green.

I have about half the 200s to iron down, but that was the next figure, so I quit. That’s a big chunk of time to do the next figure. My feet hurt, I was tired, and I need to finish my book before the library ends my digital loan again. Without even asking me. How rude. So I read for a short bit and then gave up and went to bed.

I have to cover the pieces I’ve laid out when I’m not ironing, or I will come back to a cat lying on them, with Wonder Under stuck to their fur and chaos everywhere. The top right box is what I’ve ironed down. Not enough…

Gotta keep going. So much standing today in my future…

It’s a crazy week. But this is progress, and I like progress. I like to report on progress. Really, this blog is just to make me do stuff every night. It’s my motivation.

Calli has hurt her foot…she’s limpy. I don’t get home early enough from school this week to take her to the vet. I’m hoping her grandpa figures out his work schedule and takes her, or it will be Saturday. She’s sad about it.

She did this last year around this time too. Foxtail? Arthritis? Sprained not-ankle because dogs don’t have ankles? I just don’t know. Poor puppy.

OK, off to school for an early meeting that will inevitably be frustrating because of a certain staff member who’s definitely not in it to help kids, and then teaching website stuff and plastics all day…we moved the tables in both science classes yesterday to try to deal with some behavior issues. My 8th period pretty much freaked out about it. So the rest of the classes today should probably do the same. Exciting stuff.

Then home to ironing…

*Queen and David Bowie, Under Pressure

Gonna Go to the Place That’s the Best*

A mostly efficient and appropriate weekend: some personal time was had, a personal goal reached. I graded a bit and performed some school-related activities. I dealt with the giant-ass pile of leaves in the driveway, said pile containing the damn bougainvillea-thorned branch that sent me to Urgent Care last week. Groceries, laundry, dinner with parental units…all complete. I even did some ironing on the new quilt (more about that below)…but then sleep…sleep is so hard some nights. I kept trying to relax my brain enough to go back to sleep after something woke me up. It was rough. Sunday nights are bad for sleep. Anticipation of the week? Of the pace of the week? Who knows. Not conducive to good sleep…that’s all we do know.

I think the girlchild is officially done with all her school stuff in Madagascar. She comes home next weekend. That was fast. Or was it? I’ll be glad to have her back in the US, although I won’t see her until the boychild’s graduation in New York the end of May. She has a job for the summer in Boston, so that’s alternately good and sad. We’ll survive. But we’ll miss her. Boychild has another week and a half of classes and then goes into finals. I’m sure he’s stressed about the future. I would be. Hell, I am every end of the school year, worrying that my district or principal will do something stupid and move me to 8th grade science or move our principal to another school and give us someone horrible. Again. But interspersed among that worry is anticipation of sleeping in and making art and getting stuff done around here…slightly dissipated by the jury duty crap, but whatever. I’m supposed to be making a mammogram appointment…normally I’d do it in early July. Now I’m not sure what to do about it. Sigh.

Maybe that’s what’s keeping me up. Who knows. Trying to remember to do all the things…that causes some anxiety. So I made the mammogram appointment and I’ll cancel it if I have to. Reschedule. Whatever.

So my office…I put all the fabric away from the last quilt and then straightened up a bit so I could start on this one. I’m watching the second season of A Series of Unfortunate Events…it makes me laugh. The ironing board moves around the office…when it’s here, it’s totally in the way. There’s a chair in front of it for computer access, so I have to shove it back to sit in the chair, then push it up to fit behind it for ironing.

I generally pile fabrics all over the board when I’m picking them…but only ones I’ve actually used get to stay up there. I leave them on the ironing board until I’m done, so I can reuse them throughout the quilt.

Then to the right, I hang the drawing, so I can refer to it…figure out what number is what piece.

Behind me is the table where I lay out the Wonder Under pieces in order by 10s and 100s. I haven’t even finished the first 100 so far. It’s a backpack and a pile of books and other stuff. For some reason, it felt very complicated to pick the fabrics…a lot of consideration of lights and darks and contrasts. I’m two hours in and this is all I have done…

The next batch should go faster…the rug and the first figure. I pick the run of 6-7 fabrics for the body and then I can lay out all those pieces fairly quickly. My brain is still arguing about rug color (it started last night…maybe that’s what kept me awake).

Here’s the pile I had by the time I needed to go to bed…lots of grays…

It’s easier for me to see them all organized, and eventually, by color…I even managed to use the tiny hedgehog fabric. That makes me happy.

But I still have another 900+ pieces to iron down. Hopefully it will start going a little faster than it has.

Ugh. I’m really tired. Sigh. Well. Can’t do much about that. I don’t ever seem to get the right amount of sleep, do I. It might feel better once I get this whole cup of tea in me. Hopefully. Because there’s a 2-hour staff meeting in my future…could be ugly.

*Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky

In My Dreams…

Things that help: exercise, reading, interesting food, not bringing work home, even though you probably should. Things that don’t help: the weirdass dreams I’ve been having almost every night this week. I seriously wake up thinking I’ve lived this entirely different life in my head (and you’re all there, doing weirdass things), and my brain is confused by the alarm, by the bed, by the cat, by everything. I feel like I have to recite this mantra in my head: You’re a teacher. You teach middle school. You teach science. You will have to go to work today. Wait, I’m NOT discovering some weird anthropological creature in an underground dig in Mozambique? With my high-school chemistry teacher? Who’s probably dead by now (OK, maybe not…he wasn’t THAT old)? With 3 friends from elementary school and one from college, none of which I’ve seen in 30 years? OK. Brain reset.

Somewhat disorienting.

I went to the gym last night to finish my book. Oh yeah, and get some much-needed exercise. I’d forgotten how nice it was to do that. Must add back into calendar. Then I came back and made a lovely healthy meal. Also a good thing.

I pulled this picture of the girlchild’s travel group off the webs…

A motley crew for sure. They are all writing 40-page papers in the next three days, and then she’ll have a week of being a tourist, and then back home. Fast, eh? And then it’s less than a month until the boychild graduates from college, holy crap, when did that happen?

This is every teacher right now…especially as we realized yesterday that the full moon is this weekend…and that was fully apparent on our campus.

I have had to explain multiples times that they have almost TWO MORE MONTHS OF SCHOOL SIT DOWN AND DO YOUR WORK. Yeah. Rough year. Time to start teaching sex ed.

After the healthy dinner, I did more of this…not as much as I wanted to get done…

I only cut for about 2 hours, but I finished the second yard and started the third. I figure I’m about 2/3ds of the way through. Maybe another 3 hours? Sounds like tonight, eh?

I’m hoping. And then sort them and start ironing down…which means I should go buy fabrics today for the background. Store closes at 5…they used to have one late day a week, but no one (but me) used it. I can kamikaze over there after work…I try to never have meetings after school on Fridays. I need a break. Especially this week…it’s been meeting-heavy. And next week is May! Holy crap that was fast.

OK, today will be a lot of managing behaviors and pushing them through learning…hopefully it will go well. (in my dreams! ha ha ha…I don’t usually teach in my dreams…although I’m often at school. A girl can dream. Ha ha ha! I’m killin’ myself laughing over here.)