Pick Me Up and Shake the Doubt*

All the tireds. Too much dog barking at invisible things outside and cats invading space with loud meows and aargh. I think it’s cruel that sleep is so easy for little kids when we obviously need it more. Then again, I wasn’t that good at sleep when I was a kid either. I’d read my book under the covers because I couldn’t fall asleep easily (and also because books good, sleep boring…that’s still true, I guess.). It’s a rough start to a stressful week, though. Although really, the stress is what we take on sometimes. I dealt with 55 emails about late work yesterday, plus got one other assignment graded. Not the best weekend achievement, but it was something.

Being a teacher definitely is stressful. Too many demands on our time and patience, usually not enough of either. I have duty before and after school for the next two weeks. Morning duty is easy…I stand by the bike rack and nod at kids and make sure parents don’t drive into other students. Afternoon duty, though, is the crosswalk of death. Mostly because adult drivers don’t stop and all I have to stop them is my hand. Seriously. I need some sort of electrical thing that stops their car and fries all the wiring if they’re dicks. Because a lot of them are. It’s hot, tiring, and annoying. There’s a lot of yelling, mostly mine. I hate crosswalk duty. They’re supposed to rotate duty every year, but this is my second year doing it. Someone dropped the rotation ball. Whatever. So today, though, I have crosswalk duty, and THEN…then I have a 2-hour staff meeting focusing on a chapter of a book that I haven’t read (because they didn’t even mention it until Friday afternoon and then I forgot the book at school, plus I need more warning than that to read a pedagogical screed), where they want us to incorporate what’s in Chapter 6 into upcoming lessons. This is where I want to slap the principal and say, “Hey dude, you know most of us plan way further out than that (seriously, we usually do) and we also have formal observations coming up so leave us the fuck alone.” But generally that sort of behavior is frowned upon. Sometimes I think principals need to be required to be teachers for at least 20 years before they can be principals.

I’m sure it will all be fine. I’m annoyed by it now and I’m going to try my hardest not to be annoyed by it in reality. Mostly because it doesn’t change the stupidity.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time working. School working. I also managed a trip to the fabric store for some backgrounds. I was incredibly indecisive, mostly because there were too many people there and the one woman in the batik section was taking up too much space, some of it in my personal space, and I needed her gone. But I got these potential backings…

They’re all more blue in real life. Except the purplish one. I’ll decide later. I usually only get one or two…so yeah…majorly indecisive.

Then these were just because…

Although that purplish one would be good in the sky…maybe.

Eventually, after going to dinner at the parentals and making my lunches for the week (I love cooking…really…not)…I sat down and started cutting stuff out.

It’s actually going really fast. I only have one full yard and about a quarter of another one left. Notionally I could be done tonight and ready to sort. If I survive all that other shit.

A big pile of trash on the bottom; a big pile of pieces on the top. It’s good that I bought the background yesterday; the quilt store doesn’t stay open late any more. Besides, this week is a cluster at night…three nights booked. So that wouldn’t have happened anyway.

OK, gotta get outta here and go do the standing in front of the bike rack thing…plus getting ready for another lab day of kids not reading instructions and wasting materials. Fun stuff. I’m ready. Not.

*Yazoo, Situation

Well You Done Done Me In*

I’m sitting here staring at the television in my office, wondering why it’s still here when I never watch it. I used to all the time, before Netflix and Amazon Prime and everyone else putting shows on websites, like PBS. The only reason that the TV is still there is because it shows the time, and I’m pretty sure I could use that space better than I am. But that’s part of my larger plan for remodeling this room, a plan that is growing in my head, but will still cost more than I can deal with, I suspect. I can plan for years, though…so I’m good. Interestingly, the TV is not even currently showing the time (well, it’s the VCR below it), because dad turned the power off last week and I haven’t cycled everything on to put the time back on there. Ugh. It’s not even useful for that right now.

Yes, easily fixed. But every easy fix takes time. My to-do list for today is huge and deadly because I took time yesterday to go to the zoo for the first time in a long time WITHOUT 170-300 7th graders. It was much more relaxing. Although our field trip is coming up and I need to warn my team about baboon penises. The new Africa exhibit is awesome, especially the baboons and lemurs (the fossa was asleep), but those penises are gonna freak out my students no end. Lion balls too, although those are honestly less in your face.

There were lots of baby animals around…mom had her hand wrapped around this baby’s tail…

This guy is actually a dwarf…his teeth amused me.

Lots of penguin swimming capers…fun to watch them up close.

Bai Yun came out to say hi.

And this baby did the dance from Footloose right up against the glass until he settled down and waited for mom to catch up.

Polar bears have really big feet…

And they are definitely carnivores…that’s a meaty bone chained to the wall so we can see how freakin’ big they are.

Dromedary with a stick…saw an elephant with a stick too. Apparently that’s not just for dogs (OK, this guy is probably eating the stick or cleaning his teeth)…

We spent about 3 1/2 hours there and did 5 miles…not bad for a Saturday afternoon. Being members now means we can do this more often. I’m looking forward to going back with fewer people there, that’s for sure. Most annoying part about the zoo is the humans.

We went to a new place for dinner and were greeted with a Gloria Muriel mural (with some other guy, probably Alex Banach, since he’s done other murals with her). That dragon has hops in his scales. I was amused that the logo for the place was a dragon but there’s duck all over the menu. Maybe they should have chosen a different mascot.

Then came home and cut out two yards (ish) of Wonder Under. It went fast…more tonight, I think.

This week is busy at night, but I’m hoping to get the Wonder Under cut out and start picking fabrics, although that means I need a background. Crap! I totally forgot about that. Will have to see what I have in my stash, or add a trip to the fabric store to today’s to-do list. We’ll see. Teachers never get the whole weekend for fun without paying for it some other way…too much to get done in one day, that’s for sure.

*Jason Mraz, I’m Yours

The Room Was Humming Harder*

How not to start your Saturday morning, the first day of the weekend: interacting with the DMV website. Just don’t do it. Don’t try to be efficient and get the new ID now, because you know your driver’s license is up for renewal and that way you won’t have to do it again before 2020. Because you’ll have to take a day off work to do it, if you’re a teacher. So renew online now (after fighting their stupid registration system) and then renew again in the summer! Because that’s not a waste of time and plastic and aargh resources. I hate this shit.

But the girlchild is messaging me from Madagascar, so that’s cool. And I’m going to the zoo today, so that’s nice. And I will have to work today and tomorrow, BUT! I finished tracing Wonder Under last night on the new quilt, so that’s awesome. Actually, tracing is pretty calming and meditative, so I only really mind it if my feet are tired.

I came home yesterday and walked the little dog. I think we both needed it. He was so excited. It’s been a while. School is just not conducive to stuff afterwards sometimes. I did stay a little late at school, because Monday is Day 2 of labs, and after having to deal with lame lab results all day, we tested our calcium chloride and realized the old unsealed stuff really wasn’t working. So I cleaned mine all out and then set up for Monday, so I wouldn’t have to stress as much…also because I have morning and afternoon duty every day starting Monday (oh what fun). All I have to do is pour out the new CaCl and everything will be ready. All good.

I am no longer anywhere near caught up with grading. I think we thought we’d get some time this last week to grade while kids did stuff, but after the first day of interest in the topic, those who are lazy as fuck and would really rather pick their noses than complete things were behavior issues and I spent a lot of time managing them. On these larger projects, even though we break them up into really user-friendly to-do lists and rubrics, there’s very little understanding of “I didn’t finish that yesterday, so I have to finish it today.”

It can be very frustrating. But more labs Monday. Hopefully reading instructions will go better as well. Also a difficult thing.

So I really needed this walk. I needed a longer one, but puppy isn’t good at those without Calli (who was at her dad’s house)…plus it was close to sunset. I’m still wary of the coyotes…as well I should be…they’re everywhere.

So I was in this exhibit for Martha Sielman’s art quilt book series, in the People and Portraits book, and the exhibit started at IQF in Houston back in 2013 and then traveled all over the place, but when it got to Grand Rapids, Michigan, all hell broke loose, some woman imagined a penis in my quilt (there wasn’t one), and both quilts got pulled from the rest of the exhibit run. As part of the exhibit, they asked us to make a small sample quilt (I think this is like 11″ square) for a book where people could touch the pieces and see construction. I made this uterus in the hand (of course) and it then disappeared…I wondered about it briefly and then wasn’t sure who to ask about it, until I got an email earlier this week asking if I wanted to pay to ship it back to me, or (what they really wanted us to do) if I could donate it to the Texas Quilt Museum. Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure the TQM wants nothing to do with my uterus quilt, so I offered to pay to ship it back, but Martha is awesome and has been very supportive during this invisible penis crap, so she shipped it back to me. (The show and this little uterus were actually at the TQM in early 2014.)

I was expecting it to be dirty and maybe even looking a bit ragged after 4 years of travel and touching, but either people are scared to touch uteri (a possibility), or it travels well. It’s in great shape. I’m going to take the interfacing sleeve off that they used to put it in the book and pop it on Etsy, I think…just to see if someone wants it. It’s got a little fetus in there as well…gotta take a better-lit picture of it first.

It’s nice to see my stuff wears well. I don’t make a lot of little pieces any more. I made some for a while, birds and cats, and sold a bunch to people I know, but the market was saturated. I like the speed at which I can make smaller pieces, but I also like the immersion of a big piece. It’s like reading a long book…I love being hooked for days on the story and the characters, completely sunk in the experience.

After dinner and some space-out time with a puppy in the crook of my knee (he was very happy there)…

I went back to this and traced the last 100 pieces. It’s just short of 5 yards of Wonder Under there…

It was close to midnight by then, so I didn’t start cutting yet. Maybe tonight. It was just over 9 hours of tracing…I suspect it’ll be about 5 hours of cutting, so that means I should be ironing to fabric hopefully sometime this week. It also means I have to clean up the studio and put away all the old fabrics from the last quilt…maybe I should do that today just to get a head start. I know this week coming up has way too much going on…meetings and gaming and tutoring and 2-hour staff meetings…fun stuff. The fabric part is fun though…

Meanwhile I’m waiting on a connection for this show where we pair up with a male artist to see what we have in common artistically, as part of opening a conversation about women in art. Some part of me gets irritated that we still have to do that, but then I think back to my professors at UCI…all the art professors but two were male. I got along with one of the females, but the other was either completely absent from our class and let the TA handle it (male TA) or she was a dismissive wench. I purposely did this painting of a giant penis to try and get her to respond (I’ve always had authority issues, what can I say?).

Art classes in college…I look back at those that were the most helpful…the professors who forced us to be creative even when we didn’t feel that way, who made us talk about our work, who talked about their own work in a real way, like how do I go home and do this every day, how do I find the space and time and balance? There wasn’t a lot of that. I remember getting into an argument with one professor who wanted me to show up during the day, but I was a double major, so I had overlapping classes across campus. I had picked Independent Study for that reason. She didn’t know I was showing up every night at 10 PM and staying until 2 AM, until she realized all the work I had sitting on the racks drying (ceramics class). She wanted me to interact with the other students though, so I had to try to do that. But I was very much in my own head even then. That’s been a useful skill, because honestly, I don’t have a lot of interaction with other artists living out here in East County and working in fabric. I get more of that interaction online. Like minds populating the world, but not my neighborhood.

And I’m OK with that. But I have a troubled response to the male/female artist inequality. I guess that makes this show useful. We’ll see. One on one, the relationship of a male and female artist, our art speaking to each other…that’s pretty easy. I don’t know if it solves the larger problem, though, because I don’t know that it’s the artists who are willing to show with us who are the issue…or society in general, the larger structure of the art world, the male artists who think we’re better at babymaking? Anyway. Something to think about…to ponder.

But for now, I’m going to ponder breakfast…a shower…and zoo animals.

*Annie Lennox, A Whiter Shade of Pale

Banging On the Off Beat*

When I write these, it helps me (a) keep on task every night, because I know I’ll have to admit my lame-i-tude the next morning, and (b) it’s a brain dump in the morning that lets me get on with my day. Unfortunately this morning, I’m so tired that I can’t even find the right door in my head to let the brain vomit out. Ahh…sleep…as the week goes on, I need more and more of you. But I also notice that certain art-quilt-making tasks seem to engage readers more, probably because they have color and look like stuff, so people are like OOOHH and AAAAHH instead of staring at yet another picture of Wonder Under that looks remarkably like the other 17 pictures of Wonder Under, to the point where you might wonder (under…ha!) why the hell I keep taking pictures of it, because I could just reuse them and only two of you would notice.

And yet I do this.

I really wanted to be done tracing last night. Unfortunately, after going to the chiropractor and being gently adjusted (the new guy is very subtle and sorta New Age-y, not sure how I feel about that, but my neck is much better this morning), then redoing all my seating charts for today’s labs (interesting which kids abdicated that decision to me rather than try to pick friends with which to work), then going to the gym (where I ran into one of my students…wth…I go there specifically NOT to run into them)…well, then I ate dinner and it was like 10:30 PM all of a sudden and I had done very little of note. Except for all the things I just noted. Most people would just give up and go to bed. Not me! OK, maybe I should have…I honestly only traced for 30 minutes…so I still have another 100 pieces to go. But that’s how I get done…at least 30 minutes a night.

I think it’s one hand, one head, and the sun…and then I’m done. That’s totally tonight…and then I can sit on the couch and watch bad television while cutting them out.

A quick look at my phone, which keeps track of my entire life, shows I have 53 more days to finish. I’m fine. No issues. All Good. Of course, I came up with a totally arbitrary length of time based on previous quilts. But I’m 8 hours in…as always, tracing takes about an hour per 100 pieces, rounding up, usually with an extra hour or so in there, depending on size, complexity, and general something or other. How many times I have to take the dog out to pee…pretty much.

I think I’m at 5 yards, but the last one is mostly blank. That’s a plus…

It means the cutting-out part will take less time.

This weekend looks like tracing and cutting and grading and cleaning floors and bathrooms and watering this strange furry plant…

Bizarre cat. And the aforementioned sleep. Always looking forward to some of that. And maybe sitting on the deck in the sun and drawing! I always say that and it never happens. Hours just fritter away on useless stuff like paying bills and grocery shopping. I should be more mindful of that. Of course, having more daylight helps with some of those things.

OK, it’s a lab day, I’m tired, and we’ve been dealing with full-moon behaviors…plus some of my really barely motivated students are gonna realize today that I paired them with similarly motivated students just to see what would happen…so someone is gonna have to read the instructions and do the work, or they’ll just be sitting there picking their noses all period. Which I’m sure they’re capable of doing.

*The Fratellis, Henrietta

You Show the Lights That Stop Me Turn to Stone*

Somehow I came home last night after a long day at work, and instead of pulling out the last pages of the assignment I’ve been grading at school on and off for the last couple of days and finishing it, I sat down with a cup of tea and my sketchbook and vomited out one thing that’s been in my head for weeks.

I had two or three false starts, where the body or the head weren’t quite right…and this guy trying to get on my lap didn’t help…

Maybe he was just after my color pens. They are pretty awesome.

So yeah, nuclear bombs much? This totally reminds me of getting under my useless school desk in middle school…those Cold War bomb drills they did with us. Even then we were smart and savvy enough to know we would totally die if the Russian nukes hit our school while we cowered under those tiny little desks.

I think if this becomes an actual quilt, I will make it bigger to the sides, maybe change the figures under the umbrella, add more earth. Or not. Who knows…

Then I started tracing Wonder Under. I’m sure I ate dinner in there somewhere and sewed some more binding bits on, but I’m not sure when that was. Post drawing? Probably.

I took a break from tracing at one point and had both dogs back there…

Then back to the tracing. I have about 6 hours in and I think I’m just under the halfway mark…somewhere in the mid-300s.

It went slowly last night, because it was mostly the big sky pieces, and they take longer to trace. I think I have two completed yards traced, and another two in process…filling up all the little spaces…with fingernails and finger creases. I have the whole background traced and I started on the first of the two figures.

Next up is that back with all the tiny pieces…needs to be earlier in the evening to do that. So tonight…should be good. Hopefully I’ll get that assignment graded at school, so I won’t even need to worry about grading.

I’m hearing just a little from girlchild at the moment. I know she hasn’t figured out how to get the blog to post yet (wifi is the issue)…but here is her program center, where all her classes are.

Hopefully she’ll get the blog sorted soon…that and learning French. Meanwhile, I’m going to go to school and try to persuade kids to do some work. They like doing labs, but writing stuff down is apparently some high level of torture. Fun stuff.

*Ellie Goulding, Lights

Wonder Under Meditation

It’s pretty boring watching me trace stuff. But for me? The tracer? Oh my, it’s meditative. Pure brain alpha wave stress-releasing joy. Weird, really. I’m just sitting there drawing around lines I’ve already drawn. Except they’re upside down and I have to read the numbers backwards and I have to figure out where everything overlaps. But my brain is just so much happier doing it. It’s a repetitive task. It’s not even a particularly skilled repetitive task. I guess the overlapping part is, kind of…but probably you could teach a 10-year-old to do what I’m doing. If the pieces were bigger, probably a 5-year-old could.

After teaching all day (I basically demonstrated chemical reactions all day), I graded one assignment, cooked dinner, got about 3/4 of the way around one small quilt, handsewing the binding down…and then I traced for 2 hours.

I took a short break for the animals…and some ice cream.

Then back to tracing all the pieces…I hate wasting space on this, but at some point, it’s harder to fit the pieces in than it’s worth it to save Wonder Under. So I go to a new sheet.

I made the executive decision to make those eyeballs into French knots. They’re way too small for fabric.

I’m somewhere in the 200s…around 262 I think. Much more productive than the night before. I have one full sheet, one almost full sheet, and one barely started…all about a yard long. So maybe I’m a third of the way through.

There were 9 missing pieces at one point…I misnumbered, I think.

And so far, only one piece that wasn’t numbered. Not bad. I’ve made some pretty massive numbering mistakes in the past…100 pieces double numbered (2 of everything! What a mess…). That was the worst. I missed the entire uterus section on one quilt, so it got numbered from the end. That was annoying when I was ironing…to skip from the 700s to the 1300s and then back. Doable though.

Don’t number your quilts when you’re tired. Or drunk. I’m rarely the latter, so it was probably the former.

Hoping to continue the roll tonight…although at some point, I need to go to the gym. Probably not after tutoring…but maybe? Which reminds me…I have a parent meeting this morning. Ugh. OK…need to get going then. But meditation will happen tonight…Wonder Under meditation…best kind.

Sun’s Going Down Like a Big Bald Head*

The work week starts. I did not finish anything. Some things I didn’t even start. Some days, that’s the way it goes. I did drop off a quilt that will be in a show in LA opening February 25 (I should be at the opening) and then traveling to Sweden. I think I did most of the stuff I said I would. I believe I have one more awkward email to write, requesting something from someone who doesn’t even know me. It’s good. The worst that happens is that they ignore my email.

I didn’t handsew any bindings. I did cut out the bindings and sleeves for the newest quilt…but then dad was messing with my electricity and then I had to leave, so they’re not sewn on. I can easily do that sometime in the next few days.

I did start tracing Wonder Under for what we’re gonna call the scoliosis quilt for now. I’m sure it will have a better name in the future. The commission is on! So now I need to stay on task, which should be easy, because I like the process. I like having a goal.

So now that I have the final drawing and it’s numbered, I put it on my gigantic light table, inherited from a stained-glass person who was downsizing, and turn it upside down, and start tracing all the pieces. I trace with overlaps, so I have to decide as I’m drawing what is on top and what goes underneath. I don’t always do it right, but it usually works out.

Last night, I got a good chunk of the Earth that’s the base of this done. Not a huge chunk. Just a good one.

With only 740 or so pieces, I should have all the Wonder Under traced by the weekend…hopefully. That’s my goal anyway.

I also have grading goals, one thing a day/night. I did grade at my meeting yesterday…a little crazy, but hey, I got stuff to do. I can’t just sit and listen. I won’t get anything done in class today, because I’m demonstrating chemistry all day. But there should be time later this week, as the kids start to get into their projects. I hope. I say that and management of behaviors is often what happens instead. Project time seems to wanna be goof-off time. Annoying, but true. Some classes can handle being independent and some need constant reminders. So I try to balance that. There’s something to be said for letting them figure out that doing no independent work leads to an F, but some of these kids aren’t mature enough to see the connection.

Anyway…I’m hoping for some grading time in class; otherwise, I’ll come home every night and do some.

But mostly, I’m thinking, I’ll be doing art stuff. Girlchild is still trying to post her blog from the land of no consistent internet. I hear from her briefly, which is good…makes me feel better about her being so far away. I do wanna see what she’s seeing though. So hopefully she’ll figure that out…along with figuring out French. Not sure which is the harder task.

*Laurie Anderson, Sharkey’s Night

No One Told Me About Her*

I have these goals to go on long hikes on the weekend or go hang out at the zoo (new passes for Christmas) or sit down on the deck and do a new drawing (that’s a perennial goal for me), but often it just ends up being the grocery store and the compost bin and maybe laundry if I’m really organized. I have two openings coming up in LA, and the thought of having to drive all the way up there and back in a day is disheartening…although I’m gonna do it. Twice. Which means having to plan ahead for the school stuff I normally do on the weekend.

It’s not that I’m not getting anything done…I just always want it to be more. And I forget how much energy school sucks out of you (I have three THREE parent meetings this week…for parents who just figured out their kids are failing. Sigh. I guess I’m glad they figured it out.). Meetings and grading and explaining and planning and grading and sending the parent email (I did that at 11 PM last night. Normally I do it today, but I’ll be in a car for a significant portion of the day.). It’s supposed to be almost 90 degrees here today, but my feet are freezing. I should go sit on the deck. Really. It’s warm out there.

I am glad to say that I finally finished the quilting on the small quilt.

The lighting in here seems worse than usual…so quilting during the day is easier (although impossible during the week). I’ve been considering pulling this room apart at the beginning of summer, removing wallpaper, replacing flooring, painting the whole thing, maybe a new window, take the TV I never watch out and put more shelves in, replace a bunch of plastic drawers with something more sturdy and wall to ceiling, maybe even put in French doors instead of the sliding door so I can get more air in here…or something. But I don’t think I can afford it. I can think about it though and price shit out and see if it’s something I can do in the future.

At some point, I won’t be paying for college any more.

This was really quick to quilt because it’s small. The tree leg was the most complicated bit. It was only 4 hours and 45 minutes total.

But it was just big enough that I wouldn’t have enough fabric for binding…I generally buy half yards, and that’s what this was going to take.

But nothing worked. OK. Don’t lie. You didn’t even try. You wanted to go to the fabric store. It’s true. I haven’t been there in a while. I like the fabric store.

Here she is trimmed…

About 36 x 42″ or so. So I made a trip to the store and put all that in the wash…

Then settled down to some TV and finishing this finally. Packed up all three blocks to send back to Social Justice Sewing Academy…

And then graded for a while last night…cleared out all the makeup work (37 emails) and input those, plus pulled grades for another assignment from the website. I don’t have to grade anything but the last question…and then it gives me the score. Easy peasy.

Then heard briefly from the girlchild. With 11 hours difference, her day is my night etc. But this morning, I heard a lot. I’m going to let her tell her own story on her blog, though, although she’ll need wifi to get that posted. There are two posts so far, but she’s got another two written and ready to post. You can read her here if you want…all I can tell you know is that this is her bed in her host family’s house…and she’s feeling a little overwhelmed. (The bed alone would do that to me.)

I remember doing this…barely knowing the language, staying in a strange house. It’s hard. But worth it. I hope she feels better after a long night’s sleep. She’s trying to learn two languages at once and adjust to a new place and not get sick. Hard stuff. Makes me appreciate my host family even more. They were really easy compared to some.

Here’s the fabric I bought after they came out of the washer. I didn’t allow myself to wander and shop much. I didn’t have much time and I don’t have much money. Although! The first check for the commission piece showed up yesterday, so I’m going to be starting tracing Wonder Under tonight! That’s actually exciting. I’m looking forward to it. In fact, I got some of the purplish fabrics for the spacey bit I think. Or I just liked them. Yeah that’s it.

There’s the one I picked for the binding. I actually picked two, but couldn’t decide until I got home. The store was full of people, so I didn’t feel super comfortable throwing my naked climate chick out on the floor and trying binding fabrics out around her.

Sometimes you just have to buy more than one and decide in the peace and quiet of your own home.

So now I have three bindings to sew down, plus one quilt that needs a lot of hand embroidery…it’s going to be my go-to for after dinner but still watching the end of that TV episode. So it’ll probably be around for a while. I’m hoping to finish one of the others in January, just to say I finished something in January, because I’ve been lax as hell this month. Normally I do 50+ hours of art-related stuff each month, and the last month has been only 20 hours…and that’s WITH time off from school. Lame. Yeah, it’s OK, I know the kids being home and being discombobulated about what I was doing next was part of that. But I’m done now. I’m on a roll. I have 60 days to get this quilt done…partially because that’s what I put in the contract, but also because I leave on vacation in 63 days. Don’t laugh. I’ll be fine. I have a goal now, a place to look forward to. That helps so much. Really, it does.

I’m going to be feeling better this week. The cold is going to go away, I’m going to get some exercise in, I’m going to finish some things and start some things. It’s all good.

*The Zombies, She’s Not There

How to Bend Without the World Caving In*

One thing I can say is that I’m really glad it’s Friday. Some weeks just seem harder than others. This one maybe because I lost sleep the first night of the week and then got sick immediately after. I want to just lie around and sleep and read a book and maybe eat some ice cream. Really healthy stuff. In reality, I’ll be grading and sewing and dropping off a quilt and going to a meeting and doing the grocery shopping. But I might sleep in. That would be nice. Life goals! Sleeping in!

I’m quite a few hours from getting to that point, unfortunately. I did come home last night after running a few errands and I finished grading another assignment and put some stuff in the gradebook. All good. Very efficient. Good Kathy. Keep going. Stay on task. The fun thing about being a teacher is that as soon as you finish grading one assignment, they turn in two more. Some people (who do not understand my population of students…or maybe any population of middle-schoolers) say hey! Why don’t you assign fewer things that need grading! Well. They won’t do anything then. It’s hard enough some days to get them to read instructions (hence yesterday’s lab, which continues tomorrow)…I adjust my speech each period based on the things the previous period did that I didn’t tell them to do. My basic lab mantra is, “If I didn’t tell you to do it, don’t do it.” It makes it hard for any real experimentation to happen. The one kid who wanted to eat the hydrogen peroxide and yeast, I said, “Hang on, let me get 911 and your mom on the line…then you can eat it.” Sigh. Probably it wouldn’t kill him. Burns going down, eh? Did I tell you to eat it? Then why are you doing it?

These are the things they don’t teach you in teacher school.

So yeah, after grading, I made some dinner and read my book and cleaned up some random stuff. I keep finding piles of things the girlchild left, so I funnel them to her room (which now has some of my stuff back in it…but I went through one container and cleared it out…only four to go! And I have 100 days to do it! Actually more…she’ll be going home to Boston, not here.).

And then I felt pretty good…I went to buy the better cold medicine, the one they use to make crack, and it works. The other stuff just makes me feel woozy and clogged up. So I’m totally willing to give the government my ID so I can breathe!

And then, because I could breathe, I quilted! For over an hour!

I actually got close to done on the outlining…

All I have left is the wooden tree leg thing, which is actually really complicated, and the world stuff to the right of that. And then the background, which isn’t very big. Maybe I’ll finish tomorrow and find a binding. I could handsew a binding (or three, because that’s how many are lying around right now) at my meeting on Sunday. I don’t like just sitting around at meetings. Obviously.

At some point, I needed to fill a bobbin and this happened.

No. I was not watching. Do you watch your bobbins fill? I do not. Unfortunately, because this was unsalvageable and I have no idea how it happened. Also, at some point, after I ran out of black thread for the bobbin, I started using a dark gray. I have no idea when I switched to the lighter gray, but there it is. So the back is kinda funny looking. Not that I recommend you ever look at the back of an art quilt. It’s not going on a bed and the wall doesn’t care.

Then I got hit with a Wall of Tiredness. It happens. I sat on the couch and drew in my journal, but nothing worth looking at, just doodlings, and then this happened. Puppy is on me, everyone else to my left…

It’s still cold at night, eh? And everyone wants attention. I was OK with that. Petting warm furry beasts is not a bad thing.

Weekend plans? Grade. Finish quilts. Maybe start Wonder Under on the commission piece? Get some rest and get well. Most importantly. So probably more of those sitting-on-the-couch-with-all-the-beasts photos…those are OK.

*Jason Mraz, I Won’t Give Up

I See This Life Like a Swinging Vine*

Well the sick is going away, so that’s good. I did sit down for most of yesterday, though, and I won’t be able to do that today. It’s a lab day. It’s a walk-the-room-and-avert-disaster day. Although this one isn’t bad. Last year, though, one kid read the instructions wrong and destroyed a significant portion of the materials. We’re ready for that this year. Reading instructions is hard…especially when you’d rather just mess around and make people laugh. Cooperative learning is difficult y’all.

The girlchild is still alive. We’re currently using Facebook Messenger for communication and she’s posted one picture on Instagram. It will be harder later when she has spottier or nonexistent internet. She has to have some for school, but not every day, and since she’ll be living with host families for part of the time, there’s no guarantee that they will have internet. I thought about telling the boychild I was gonna have to text him more to make up for radio silence from the girl, but I knew he’d just ignore me. It’s only the first week she’s been gone…I’ll get adjusted soon enough.

I was more efficient yesterday, despite feeling like warmed-over crap. I graded two assignments and part of a third, including the stuff I did when I got home. Then I rested, because still tired, even if not that sick. And then I started quilting.

Apparently I did almost an hour and a half. I must have been feeling better. Honestly, as soon as I started feeling really tired and spacey, I quit. But I got some of the quilting done. Broke a needle too. Exciting stuff.

There’s at least 3 more hours of quilting in this. My quilt class tonight was rescheduled, so I can quilt…and grade…because I still need to get caught up on that. If I’m smart, I’ll bring my school computer home, so I can lounge around on the couch with animals sandwiching me while I grade. It is somewhat comforting.

This morning…up early for a meeting, so I get to see the sunrise in all its glory…

The phone camera never really captures the pinks and purples well, unfortunately.

I finished reading Leviathan Wakes, the book that was the basis of the TV show The Expanse. I wish I’d read the book first…it made more sense, but then I had the TV characters impressed on my brain. So it’s for book club and we usually read relatively recent stuff (not always)…so when it said there was a series in the plan, I figured, ahhh, I’m gonna have to wait to see the rest. Oh no. This book is not new. The series will have 9 books and 7 are already published…and if they’re all in the 600-page range, I could read them (presuming they remain being good) for quite a while. The second one was available for the Kindle on my library app (I don’t buy many books any more)…so it’s next on my list. I’m intrigued that two people wrote them…I always wonder how that works. I suspect I could Google that. Anyway, I’m hoping they stay good. I wanna read a big long story that continues for a long long time.

OK, well, I’m running low on cold meds…debating trying to get them before school, but think the pharmacy doesn’t open early enough (it doesn’t). I should have gone last night (I didn’t). Guess I will limp along on what I have here.

*One Republic, Counting Stars