You Know It’s Gonna Be Alright*

You know, I make quilts about some controversial topics sometimes…or at least topics that challenge some. Sometimes they’re easy to make, and sometimes they’re just really hard…they’re too personal, hit too close to home. This is my 15th year teaching, and I’ve had two students die (that I know of), one of lupus and associated damage, and one from a stupid accident that proves you should wear your helmet AND actually strap it onto your head. I’m sure there have been other deaths…a casual estimate based on how many kids probably go through my classroom each year puts me at about 3000 students over the years. I don’t remember all their names or faces or even how well they did in my class (probably better that way for some of them)…but I still care about most of them. I’ve had a couple who were probably borderline psychoses of some sort that made them more than a bit unlikable, and because of the populations I teach, there’s a couple I would slot into future (well, current) offenders of the #MeToo variety…or worse. You know when I have to report a 13- or 14-year-old former student to their current principal for sexual harassment…that kid probably isn’t going to get the help they need to figure out why girls don’t like his shit. Unfortunately I can’t fix them all. Honestly, I can’t fix any of them. I just give them a tiny piece of my empathy (when I can) and some bits of knowledge about how things work and hopefully insight into how to think a bit more critically than they did before. And then they move on.

Why so philosophical? Not Winter Break…not the upcoming new year…a gang-related stabbing in the park next to our school Tuesday night. Former students. One dead, one apparently in critical condition. It doesn’t matter if they were good kids or annoying as hell in 7th grade. It doesn’t matter if they got good grades or blew off everything, or somewhere in between, like most of them. None of it matters except that some mom or dad or other family member is sitting in the hospital with one, and some mom or dad or other family member is sitting at home without ever being able to see the other kid again. Because of territories and maybe (probably) drugs and a whole bunch of other stupid shit that doesn’t save the world or care for a child or cure cancer or just clean up a piece of the world that needs it. There are so many better things to do in our world than this competitive stupid shit. I hurt for their families. I hurt for their own potential…to be good people who care about other people, to maybe be an awesome dad or a cool baseball coach or an amazing musician or whatever they had in them to be. Hopefully the one who is in the hospital will get it and get out. Meanwhile, because of possible retaliation, we have to shut down our after-school programs so that our kids are safe going home. Mourn the dead, but feel anger toward them as well…although the teenaged brain is not fully developed yet. Know that when I look around my classroom, these are those kids. Some of mine will grow up and do the same thing, and there isn’t much I can do about that except provide empathy and teach them some tiny bits about how things work and how to think and tell them I hope they make better choices so I’m not sitting here 5 years from now, staring at their 7th-grade classroom picture, all full of uncertainty and attitude at the same time, wondering what they could have been if gangs weren’t a part of what was known, expected, family, excitement, danger, a way out of whatever crazy they were in, but finally just plain stupidity.

So that’s where I was at last night. And this morning, still there. Going to go to school and process all of that with my kids. The ones who will make these choices…or already have.

My life continues.

I got the boychild’s room ready. He comes home tonight (hopefully…snow and ice may cause issues, as always)…Simba was prepping his favorite sleeping spot in his room…

The girlchild luckily doesn’t come home until the 23rd, so I have time to deal with this.

And then ironing. I cut out the pieces from last night. Kitten actually ventured out again to help. I’m glad to see her in her regular spaces, despite Satchemo’s attempts to scare her away. I miss her.

Ah. Yes. I’m relieved by this. It makes sense now. I did have to fix those spaces.

They bugged me.

Yes, I’m the only person who will really notice. What’s new? There’s something else in here somewhere where two pieces next to each other are the same fabric. They shouldn’t be. Oh well! Not sure I could find that one again if I tried.

So I added the cats on either side…not ironed down yet until I get the head(s) on there.

Got the head in the right place, ironed neck, chin, cats in place.

The first iron doesn’t hold everything down. I have to go back and iron with steam, 30 seconds on each section. Right now, I’m just basting it with a bit of heat. Arms and heads…

Here’s all the loosey goosey bits that need to go around the heads…

Still got a Kitten. Man, she’s fat at the moment.

She used to be tiny. Not so much any more. Old age.

Ahh…Midnight. Miss you kitty.

The top.

And the whole thing ironed together, too big to even get in there. But she’s good. I like her. She turned out well.

Of course, now I need to do stitch down and pinbaste and quilt and bind. In about 13 days. OK. Yeah. I can do that. I can. (This is what vacation looks like.)

Kitten. Still here.

So there are good things mixed in amongst the bad. Like always. We need more good. Although there may be a gang-related quilt in my future.

*The Beatles, Revolution

He One Spinal Cracker*

This is not the week of sleeping well. I’m hoping for that maybe next week. Well. Probably not. Maybe the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Sometimes I wish we lived somewhere that got more wintry weather…it seems (to me, ignorant) that it would be easier to sleep if it were darker and gloomier, instead of all sunny and 90 degrees with birds chirping. I could be wrong. I spend a lot of time thinking about sleep. Like the last 22 years. (Boychild will be 22 in January…that’s about right.) This morning feels like I got almost no sleep. I know that can’t be right, but it feels that way. Hopefully it will feel less like that once I get the first cup of tea down my gullet.

A vast sense of relief fell upon me last night. Seriously. That’s how it felt. I had my official observation yesterday. That’s done (well, except for another one when we get back in 2018). I finished my grades last night. That’s done (until March, when I have to do it again). My chiropractor was finally able to move the muscles that have been clamped down since late October, and that without a pre-chiro massage. Bad news? He’s moving to Phoenix. Huh. Too far to drive every three weeks. Just.

It just felt easier to BE all of a sudden. That was good. Hopefully I can hold on to that during the middle-school-fueled chaos of this week. Trying to ignore some adult drama…don’t need that, folks. Teachers should be responsible for their shit. It annoys me when they try to get out of stuff they’re supposed to be doing. Don’t get me wrong…we have to do way too much shit, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and do your part…stop trying to play the system. The system benefits kids. If you can’t handle that, get the hell out. Nobody’s in it for the money.

No, I never get voted for teacher of the year. Makes me laugh actually. I piss too many people off. Oh well. I accept my fate…science teacher until I retire (and work full time as a copyeditor, because I can’t ever afford to retire).

Anyway, that drama is also a done deal, one with which I no longer have to deal.

So just after dinner, my brain realized all those things were done and it sort of let go of some of the stress I’ve been carrying around for the last month or so. Nothing feels easy or perfect at the moment, but I can see progress all around. Good things. Getting all philosophical…

More on the lefthand wave. With 20 days left on this, I’m really just trying to fill in spaces. I should do something with that stuff on the bottom right. Too many holes.

Who needs expensive cat trees, by the way, when you can just build a box tree with everything Amazon sends you.

So I ironed some more…finishing all the little bits floating around the heads…

Trying to focus on what women are “known” for, but also what we should be known for. I had to change the dropper bulb on the right…it was black, and the background is pretty dark, so it wouldn’t show up. I keep trying to remember that…which is why all the kitchen stuff is not black.

So it was 250 pieces I did last night, but in all these small bits. That one is Kitten. She shows up in a lot of quilts. The calico in the older quilts is Juniper, my previous calico.

I was tired at the end. Almost didn’t do the cat etc. But I just wanted to be done, so I can iron the whole thing to the background tonight. It’s 16 hours so far. Ironing it all down, that will be a bitch…it’s a big quilt. I’ll have to clean the floor in the entryway first and then lay it out and iron it on the tile…then do a final iron down on the ironing board with steam. Pain in the ass, honestly. I should make a padded board for the light table, just to give me another option for ironing. It would need to fold. Huh. Just thought of that. It’s not happening before this one has to be ironed down though.

So yeah, after teaching all day and doing tutoring, coming home, making dinner, I’m going to be on my knees ironing. Ironically.

This box has all the pieces ready to go. Lots of loose little bits. Oh wait, the heads are on the teflon sheet still. So the torso is one piece, there are the two side pieces, and then the heads. Everything else can be done on the ironing board. Well, there’s the two cats. They need to go on with head and shoulders.

She’s almost done. Not really. Probably 10 hours of stitch down, then pinbaste for a couple of hours, then probably 20 hours of quilting and another 6 or 7 hours of binding. A small amount of embroidery and probably inking. So that’s another couple of hours. Maybe 40 hours left…in the next two weeks. I can do that. But only because I don’t have school next week.

My new app keeps track of how many hours I’ve worked in the last 30 days…73 1/2 hours, but more than 16 hours was copyediting. Still, 57 hours in a month of artmaking after working a good 60 hours a week as a teacher…my daily average is 2 1/2 hours. I did almost 2 hours last night and over 3 hours on Sunday. So yeah. I work a lot.

Still a cat in the sink.

Not sure what he wants. Not water to drink…because he’s in the wrong place for that.

Then onto the next project…that should be an interesting one. And honestly, I haven’t thought past that at all, for once. Although I just got notice that there might be another show with one group I’m in, plus I know there’s one coming up with a June deadline…although I might already have work that will fit. We’ll see. It’s not like this administration doesn’t give me plenty of content. Not that I ever needed help with that. I’d be glad to sacrifice my needs to get him and his cronies the hell out.

OK. School calls. Almost got a whole cup of tea in me. I can almost focus.

*The Beatles, Come Together

It Is So Strange the Way Things Turn*

There’s always a point in the task I’m performing while making my quilts when the scale tips, when I can see light at the end of the tunnel, when I know I’m close to the end. That was last night, when I got into the 1100s and realized I only had about 250 pieces (or fewer) to go. Then I can visualize the next step, maybe even the end, and start thinking about the next one. Not yet. Not with this one. Have to get clear of school to get my head around the next one, but it’s percolating. Fermenting. Bubbling away in my brain.

Puppy was very tired yesterday. This is how I felt when I got up in the morning and started grading for 6 hours or whatever it was. I still have to input the final stuff into the system tonight or this afternoon or whenever I can fit it in.

I ironed a little in the afternoon…had to stop mid-face for dinner.

I was three nights behind on this, so I put a chainstitched wave on the left side and started filling it in.

And then, because we were watching Westworld, I started cutting out circles for the Bird Crazy border (it’s not really called that)…I finished stitching the stem down finally. Satchemo is very helpful with cutting out circles…

More circles, covered in cat and dog hair, of course.

There’s only 90 of them. It’s only taken me a year to get to this point. They all have to be stitched down and embellished. Sounds like a Christmas Day project. Maybe.

Then back to ironing…finished her head…

Added the last of the arms…

I really like this head. It’s awesome.

Ah Midnight. Weird story. I was sitting here grading yesterday afternoon and felt something brush against my leg, automatically thought it was Midnight, because that’s what she always did. But she’s dead. And there weren’t any other animals in here.

Yeah. Well. Creeped out now. This is the room where cats always stare intently at the ceiling, like there’s something there, and then I whip around to see what it is, and they pretend it was nothing…until I’m not looking at them, and they start that intense stare again. Sigh.

Asteroid? Meteor?

The sun…

This quilt has a lot of floaty bits and pieces…here’s the sewing section…

Following by a spaceship and a condom. You know, like in real life.

Lots of birth control options here, although I would recommend against the screwdriver for that, and I think marriage is NOT supposed to be a birth control option. Although the current regime certainly thinks women shouldn’t be allowed to have any of it without marriage. Unlike men.

Sometimes I really hate people. I try not to. I try to mentally explain and respect their stances, until they negatively affect me and everyone I care about, and then they just irritate the fuck out of me. This quilt is about that. Things that matter: Women. Their rights. Options. Not having someone tell us what we’re allowed to do and when and how. Having a voice.

I have a draft of an email to another teacher on my system at the moment. I’m obviously more mature than I used to be, because I haven’t sent it yet. There’s a trigger I’m waiting for, and then it goes. I’m looking forward to break so I can hermit away from the populace. And make art. And hopefully not grade a million things. Ha! I already know I have an entire unit due Friday. Oh well. It’s still gonna be vacation.

*Peter Gabriel (and Kate Bush), Don’t Give Up

The Devil Take Your Stereo*

Whoa Friday morning. You snuck up on me, but I’m very glad to see you, although now I’m wondering (a) if my grandma got evacuated in the fires last night, (b) what’s for breakfast, and (c) why the hot water heater isn’t producing enough hot water to get me through a scant 10-minute shower in the morning. I really wish my brain could slow down sometimes, but no. I’ve already handled two Fed-Ex-related phone calls from the girlchild, wait, and a text, wait, a series of texts, plus two emails to the principal, and I still haven’t finished my tea, but it and my feet are cold, but it’ll be in the 80s today. Grades are due Tuesday, but it’ll be fine, it’s just progress reports and we didn’t lose or kill anyone on the field trip yesterday, so we’re all good. Seriously. That was the bar I had to reach and I did that.

Insert artsy field trip photo here…

Seriously, it was fine. Timing was good. All the food got eaten (we give away the extra lunches at the end of the day), no one got hurt, the wind was crazy, but the movie and the games were cool.

My agave spike continues its strangeness…

My quilt in a photo at the Schweinfurth Art Center (it’s the one on the left, in case you couldn’t figure that out).

I did something on the left. Filling in spaces.

Then we were still watching a show that hadn’t ended and I have all this nervous energy, despite feeling exhausted (I zoned out on the couch for about 45 minutes before starting dinner last night…I’m OK with that), so that nervous energy was trying to finish sewing this on.

With puppy.

He looks downright pitiful there. He thinks he’s a cat. Tries to sit on my lap like a cat too.

Then I made sure, when the show was done, to get in here and start ironing…STAND UP and get off the damn couch, because you’re falling into it…here’s the face…

Well, one of six faces anyway…it wasn’t particularly hard…

The arteries were a bit more challenging…so that got me through all the 500s.

So next I laid out the 600s, which gets me to almost halfway, and I got through one arm before my body and brain were like, hey baby, that’s it, it’s been two hours and we’re tired so please let us stop.

So I did. In reality, I had the time to iron for another hour to hour and a half, but realistically, when I’m tired, I’m tired. So 5 more heads, either tonight (might be a stretch) or tomorrow or Sunday, hopefully I’ll get a good chunk done. Probably not tomorrow. Sigh. OK. Not as far as I wanted to be…but we’ll see where I’m at by Sunday night. Iron the whole thing down by Monday night? It’s a goal. Then stitch down (ha! it’s the week from hell next week), sandwich by the next weekend? Quilt like a racehorse and bind it before Christmas? Holy crap. That’s basically what I have to do. I should email the photographer now. Crikey.

The crazy winds continue, the psycho fires continue…best of luck to all my friends and family dealing with both…nah, send that to everyone, because this is scary as shit and horrible to experience. May everyone stay safe, from human to domesticated animal to poor wild beast trying to escape the fires.

*Adam Ant, Stand and Deliver

Everybody’s Looking for Something*

Well. All plans went to hell. It’s OK. Shit happens. Sometimes my brain is absent. Certainly I got a lot done yesterday at school, and hopefully (knock on wood) we’ll make it to the field trip today without any more major issues. Usually by the time we get on the bus and it’s barreling down Interstate 8, I’m like, well, we’re OK now, right? Usually. Think good thoughts. If we can just get to 3:30 today, we’ll be good. We can handle all the crazy that happens next week if we can survive today. If I bring my headphones on the bus, I can listen to my meditation app on the way to the museum. Unfortunately, because I’m one of the people apparently in charge, I will not be allowed to do such a thing. Sigh.

Both eyes are twitching this morning.

So it’s not surprising that I didn’t get much done last night. I didn’t get much sleep either. Anyone besides me and the small barky dog feeling all those earthquakes coming out of the Julian area? Freakin’ me out. I guess it’s better for the fault to release a bunch of 3.0-4.0 earthquakes than to do one big fat one. I’m good with that. Scarily, we are teaching earthquakes next week.

More vine stitches on the left…

I did grade stuff. And then I spaced out for a good long time. Then at 11:30, I went in and did this…easy peasy.

Had to lay out all the 500s to get there. That’s the big head and the beginnings of the small heads.

I ironed the neck.

And that was all. Then I went to bed because it was midnight and I knew I had a bitch of a day today. Didn’t help, because I didn’t sleep much. Oh well.

Dunno why this field trip has been such a beast to organize…except some policies changed. And yes, they told us, in the flurry of emails that came out 3 days before school started. With no timeline of what had to be done when. I just hope the kids who go have a good time. And that no one is lost. That is all.

I’m not even going to predict tonight. I’m hoping to iron, but also know I might be a dead body on the couch. So low expectations.

*The Eurythmics, Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)

This Is the Flight Number of Our Galactic Sun*

I just realized what a wonderful word daft is. It’s not commonly used here in the US, but maybe it should be. Not sure what our equivalent is…in common usage anyway. Daft. I think I’m teaching that to my students today. After I teach them that wanting to go on vacation early is not a reason to ditch school. Trust me, it’s gone through MY head about 100 times in the last week.

Fires are back in California…that’s the down side of when we get lots of rain the year before. My heart goes out to Ventura and all the other communities up in the LA area fighting fire and winds. We haven’t gotten the brunt of the wind yet…supposed to show up tonight. It’s true that nature wants our hills to burn…it’s the natural order. But there are too many of us living in the hills now. We humans seems to suck at balance as a species.

Did I say three hours of ironing a night? Oh well. That didn’t happen. I had too much to grade. I was trying to balance! Grades are due Tuesday for progress reports. I’m actually almost caught up. Scary that. I’m trying to stay on top of it. The next three days may kick that in the ass, unfortunately.

I did another vine-type stitch on the left, but didn’t have enough thread in my piece to finish it. I should go back and fill in all the empty spaces here and there.

It was cold last night…I was cold even…the winds picked up for a bit. Everyone wanted to be warm.

I graded until about 9:30 PM. Then started ironing. This one is about women’s rights…

The right to breastfeed in public, the right to vote…

I tried to do the heart differently. If you think about the 100s of hearts I’ve drawn and all the hearts that end up in my quilts, they’ve evolved greatly over the years. Mostly, they’ve gotten way more complicated. I really like this one.

Then the other lung…the right to decide what to do with your breast post-cancer. The right to keep or lose the nipple, the breast itself. Society has told us what IT thinks is acceptable. As always, society needs to open its mind quite a bit more. The right to health insurance that supports women’s health. No birth control? Then no Viagra.

Torso is almost done…there’s one spot on the right side that needs ironing, but by then, it was just about midnight, and I had almost finished the 400s, so I would have had to take the time to lay out all the 500s and find the rest of the arm stuff to get done…and I do have to sleep, or I can’t deal with 12-year-olds.

So I’m not even a third of the way through. But I should be able to get the torso done tonight, and then I’ll move onto the heads. Although now that I’m looking at this, I’m realizing that I didn’t do anything of the background between the arm and the body. That might look weird. I love that I’m just realizing this. Sigh. I’m probably going to have to draw that space and fill it in. Fuck. Seriously. Sigh. OK. Not hard. Just time-consuming. Twenty-five days left on this. Yikes. Good thing I have Winter Break coming.

*Hooverphonic, 2 Wicky

They Know Me Better Than That*

There’s something about a drawing assignment on a Monday. The kids seem calm, more ready to work (not all of them, because they had to read before drawing). It seems impossible to plan so that Mondays always incorporate some type of drawing, but I think it would be a good thing…our version of a Monday meditation. There aren’t enough hours in the school year, though…we can’t always use the day that way.

So yesterday’s meditation involved redacted or blackout poetry, except we used it to annotate the lyrics of a song about the layers of the Earth.

So the stuff in boxes should be the important stuff. Hopefully. Some kid asked if there was a right answer. I said if all he boxed in were all the the‘s, then he did it wrong.

Afterwards, we had a 2-hour staff meeting that was all supposed to be fun and games. It’s hard to focus on that when you have a huge pile of work to do, though. I did make this Climate Change Snowman with my group. We won nothing.

But I did make this awesome cobb pipe out of fabric remnants. You gotta be impressed by that.

Came home, walked the dogs in the dark, made dinner, stitched on the top left side…trying to fill in still. Running out of days. Trying to be strategic about what I do.

I sat for a while with puppy. Guess I sorta tired him out. Yes, this was my post-walk wear. Very fancy.

Then I started ironing.

Everything is very pale, but it will eventually be on a dark background. Yes, that baby hand is tiny.

Ironed a baby…

Into a body. I have three pieces currently missing. Strangely. All in the same area. Not sure why. That’s where I quit, because I didn’t want to recut them unless I knew they were missing for sure. I hate getting 400 pieces further in and finding them in the wrong box. Such a waste of time. Plus it was after midnight. That’s probably a more important reason to stop. Really. Yeah.

So I’m in the 300s and I’ve spent about 4 1/2 hours ironing. Last night’s stuff was fussy little shit that overlapped in annoying ways.

You can see how big this thing is…I gots a lot to do.

I’m really done with school at the moment. Everything is irritating me, from the parent demanding we take her failing student on the field trip (too late), but not giving a shit that the kid turns nothing in, to people trying to force merriment, to kids harassing each other and refusing to work and not even coming to school half the time. That’s why I walked the dogs in the dark last night, even though I was semi-worried about coyotes. I stayed on the main road near here, but there’s no street lights, so it’s pretty dark. I heard them howling, so I stayed away from the big open space where they were probably hanging out. Seriously, I needed that walk more than the dogs did (although they were pretty damn excited…I hate when it’s dark when I get home).

I want to iron for a long time, until it’s done. The plus is that I don’t have anything else this week at night except grades and one meeting on Friday (I’ll be mentally done by then). So I can iron every night for a couple of hours. I still won’t be done by the weekend though, now that I think about it, and that was my goal. Maybe if I aim for 3 hours a night? I do have to grade as well, though…so really it’s the days I can get grading done at school, so I don’t feel pressured to do it at home. Sigh. Multi-tasking…see, that’s all I could think about at the staff meeting yesterday…I NEED this time for school stuff, dammit. I don’t care about the social stuff. Sigh. Although I do miss my team and I didn’t get to sit with them, because we had assigned groups. I never see most of them any more. Ugh. Oh well. Whatever. Obviously working on Grinch status at the moment. I’ll get out of it…probably on December 16…the first day of Winter Break. That’s sounding nice right now.

*Depeche Mode, The Things You Said

Every Single Night They’re Driving Me Insane*

Copyediting project is done…it officially took a week longer than I wanted it to take, thanks to the wonders of Microsoft Word. Field trip is a giant clusterfuck of bitchslapping. No worries. I may quit before then. Wait! No. Meditate. Get all mindful on that shit. Seriously. I can pull that mindset up WHILE I’m getting and answering texts about the buses going to hell in a handbasket…after 10 PM on a Sunday. I’m still stressed about it this morning, but I realize I can’t afford to quit. Yet (whoa! Growth mindset before a full cup of tea…if you don’t know what I’m talking about, well…you’re probably fine without it. And you’re not a teacher.).

I finished the copyediting and sent all the files after 10 PM, if you’re wondering how functional I was yesterday…the answer is, not very.

It got done. That’s what matters.

Kitten actually came out and briefly hung out with me in the office, all by herself. It’s been a while since she’s done that. Cat interactions are still somewhat fraught with drama here.

I title this, “Things that need washing”…

Yeah, he is a bit of a freak.

More flowers on the right…probably gonna have to move on to something else soon.

Then once I was done (and yeah, I graded and did a bunch of other school stuff), I started ironing again…

And realized I’d ironed these two onto the wrong fabrics. The gray should have been on the one in my hand…the tree was supposed to be green. Except I decided I liked it gray. I did re-iron the other one, because a volcanic cloud of ash probably isn’t very green.

It’s interesting, though, because I’d noticed that piece before when I was cutting and when I was sorting, and I was trying to figure out what it was, based on its shape and color, and I couldn’t. Well now I know why. (and yes, I usually do know what they are based on shape and color.)

Right side done.

Then I started on body parts…super light against the white teflon sheet, but will pop against the dark blue background. I honestly didn’t get very far. I was pretty tired.

Less than 200 pieces in…but not by a lot.

As it is, I wasn’t in bed before 12:30 AM. More tonight…hopefully with no school stress (ha! yeah right.). Seriously. School needs to back off and be nice. I don’t want to get sick before break, and increased stress affects the immune system. Sigh. Like I have any control over what goes on at work. Official observation, field trip, grades due, 2-hour staff meeting, plus the two weeks before Winter Break, which deforms the 7th-grade mind in a way I just can’t understand…it takes a strong immune system to survive all that. Y’all should thank a teacher sometime in the next two weeks. They need it. Maybe buy them dinner and a drink as well.

The two sides…the body goes between them…

Seriously looking forward to some more of this tonight. But right now? That Dream Police song is stuck in my head…dammit…

Now it’s stuck in yours too. Say thank you.

*Cheap Trick, Dream Police

Going Just to Be Sane*

Every new month, I read back through previous years of the blog for that month, looking for the clue to how to survive it better, to how it makes me feel, because so many things are cyclical. I guess it’s good to review that, because three years ago, I still was going to multiple night soccer games, freezing my ass off, and then dealing with feeding kids and all that fun stuff. Although they are coming back in a week or so. It helps me to have a space in my head to prepare for the next few weeks…knowing that the holidays are coming, but that makes school that much more crazy for the weeks leading up to it. Knowing that I have some free time coming up to finish this quilt, even if I have to really push to get through any of it right now.

Even yesterday, a wide-open day…I copyedited (I’m almost done!), I worked, I managed a bunch of stupid tiny tasks, but I did finish some stuff and start the ironing, and that was my goal. I’m totally braindead today (which is funny, because I really do have to work today and be incredibly efficient and I just don’t have it in me). One of the reasons I write this almost every day is because it clears my brain and lets me prioritize what I gotta do. It helps.

So after copyediting, I took about 18 minutes to finish cutting everything out, for a total of 17 hours and 38 minutes of cutting…no small feat.

Down to a small box full of 1360 pieces or so.

Then I sorted them. Here’s the before picture. I forgot to take an after picture, but imagine them all sorted by hundreds.

And then headed in to start ironing. I cleaned up the space a little first…

You can see the cat under the ironing board. It’s a popular spot.

That’s all I got done…because I had a show to be at, and the call was earlier than I originally thought. It’s OK. I was ready for a break…

Although I didn’t realize there would be an actual elk there. Am I the only one who thinks they sort of desecrated the elk by putting party decorations on it? Seriously. I feel sorry for all the elks I saw there.

It was someone’s birthday party. Not someone I know, of course…

I’m there for the band. I’m the groupie. Well, there are other groupies, but I’m the weird one who sits in the corner and draws.

As proven here. I spilled my first glass of wine…I wasn’t in the mood to dance (sometimes I do). I was tired. But it was an amusing people-watching event.

Yeah, the elk stuff got in there. And the American flag…because I am most definitely American. Born on an Air Force base in Alaska. You can’t deny my citizenship. But sometimes this country makes some of us feel alienated…well, an awful lot of us, honestly…for a variety of stupid reasons: sexuality, race, religion, even just for existing.

Here she is without the weird lighting…

And the wine spilling drawing.

Came home and waited for the musician to come home…with his cat batting at my face…”pet me bitch” is his stance. So I did.

Then did two nights on this, still on the right…just keep putting those big flowers in all the way down. They’re fun to stitch.

And that’s where I was last night. I did about 4 1/2 hours of job stuff: copyediting job and art job, mostly. Today will be teacher job and the other two. Yikes. Well I should get on with that, even though I feel fuzzy and brainless. I’ll get there. The ironing is already calling to me. I can be pretty damn efficient when I hear that art call.

*The Black Keys, Tighten Up

In the Key That Our Souls Were Singing*

OK. Well that was an exhausting week. I got to sleep last night, despite 46 texts from my kids while I was asleep, plus a text and phone call from the pool guy, and a very insistent, apparently starving cat. I have lots of plans for the weekend, but as always, everything small and tiny takes up all the time. I’m still in pajamas (hey, I was in pajamas all day yesterday) and the first cup of tea hasn’t quite kicked in. Probably need to make cup number 2.

In good news, we made concrete and learned about superplasticizer and nobody died or got concrete up their noses, so we’re good.

What’s funny is that they all had the same recipe…but look at the results.

That’s a sign of what we deal with every freakin’ day. I’m laughing, actually, because otherwise I would be crying. Two more weeks. Two more weeks with a field trip and an official observation. I didn’t leave work yesterday until after 5:15, because we had to clean up all the concrete stuff, help the company who came out pack up all the stuffs, and then try to revise our field trip and notify everyone in the world that we were doing that.

I made it to gaming…but brought shit to cut out, because I’m trying to be DONE DAMMIT. I’m a little over 17 hours in…

Home to puppy. Fell asleep soundly for a good long time…

So I’m almost done. The bottom has maybe 10-15 pieces left. And then I’m done.

Did I mention that I was almost done?

So. I can’t work on that until I get through the second readthrough on the copyediting. Doing that now. Then finish cutting and sort the pieces. Then IRONING! Woo hoo! Finally get to see it go together.

I got into a cool show this week that will be at the Oceanside Museum of Art February through July, opening March 17 from 6-8 PM (I can put 4 people on the free list to get in). It’s called Artifacts, and will be opening with two other exhibits at the museum, all based on the book Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, about a future civilization where we have lost electricity and many other things that make our society go. I did read the book before entering. I’ve seen the work that will be in our exhibit, which is with Allied Craftsmen, and it is pretty amazing…wood, ceramics, fiber, basketry…a wide variety of good stuff. So that was good news.

And I’m looking forward to some music and drawing tonight…need some down time after all this.

*Earth Wind and Fire, September