I Have No Struggle*

Evaluate the three weeks you had off from work. You got one major quilt done. You could have done another smaller one, but your brain stopped working some time last week. You trimmed and cut bindings and sleeves for two other unfinished projects from a million (aka 10+) years ago. You graded 4 of the 6 assignments for school, leaving one for your TA and one because you didn’t feel like doing it over the last three weeks. You didn’t grade any of the late work. You planned and booked most of your Spring Break vacation. You ate many meals with other people, you washed a lot of dishes, you moved all the crap from the driveway up onto the deck, where it belongs. You read about 6 books. You dyed a bunch of stuff that’s been lying around for years (not 10 this time). You hiked 4 or 5 times, one good long one and a bunch of shorter ones. You did some hand embroidery and some drawing, but not a lot of either.

Well I always figure I must need the braindead time if it happens. It means I was using up too much of the brainpower before break and was probably really stressed out (I was…). So I guess it’s a necessary thing. There’s no point in looking at the break and thinking, ah shit, I did it all wrong. I did what I needed to do. So that’s the way it goes.

I spent most of yesterday wishing I was still in my pajamas but instead I was driving around with the girlchild, trying to figure out what she needs for Madagascar…around 3:30, I finally set up for the fabric dyeing that I meant to do in the morning. No, not beer pong. Not the cup game…

I have no in-progress pictures, because I didn’t want dye all over my phone and besides, it got dark. Seriously…I did the last two big pieces in the dark. Oh well. I’m not a precise dyer by any stretch of the word. I did a whole pile of underwear in black, then 6 pairs of socks to replace all my holey ones, plus hair things, because mine are all stretched out, and then there were two t-shirts in there that I forgot I had, plus two or three pieces of old embroidered linens that I was going to do something arty with, and at the last minute, I tossed in a pair of leggings I got in a sale box of stuff you don’t see beforehand because they were a color I’m not really fond of, so I just overdyed them colors I actually like. They have to sit for 24 hours and I’m out tonight, so I’ll wash them out tomorrow morning probably.

I need to buy new gloves though, because the right one leaked massively…it doesn’t actually look as bad in the photo as it does in real life…in real life, I have leprosy obviously.

I’ve washed twice with Reduran with some change in color. I find shampoo is also good. My other hand is tinged green and so is one toe. Going back to school with discolored hands is always fun. The kids freak out. I’m looking forward to that. That’s fun.

So I finished the first of the SJSA blocks finally…that was a lot of glue. The next one doesn’t have as much glue. I don’t want to do buttonhole again though, even though it’s the most obvious…so I’ll think that through I guess.

I combined the back of the skeleton with the metal…that is a lot of detail. But I like it.

And it will be enlarged. Need to draw more today if I can. I don’t know that I need the pelvic girdle…I just drew it so I’d have a basis for the coccyx. Which I then didn’t draw. Duh. I was braindead.

I’ve been working on scheduling stuff a bit more logically…I do keep multiple calendars and schedulers, both online and paper and whiteboard…but I like paper because I have to think about it more. Like what CAN I actually get done. It might not last, but it’s working for now. Next week is a bit messy. Welcome back to school. (OK, it’s not messy on paper…just in my head. I haven’t filled in the paper yet. You should see last week.)

I watched some Madagascar documentary stuff with the girlchild. There’s some wacky beasts living there. It’s nice to see what everything looks like, even though they’ve only shown nature and a little bit of humanity. It was animal sleepy time though.

That was the last official sleep in of Winter Break, I guess. Up not early this morning. Ordered meds…and damn, I am glad I have decent insurance…usually I only pay $10 for three months worth, so this one and one other are more expensive (no generics). I seriously think American insurance and pharmaceutical companies need to figure their shit out though…because if I had to pay full price for the whole year, that would be $3600 and I just wouldn’t be able to take it…and I have another one like that too.

The system is jacked up. This is not a new medication…I’ve been on it off and on for 10 years. Why the heck does it still cost so much? The other one, my insurance company keeps sending me notices that there’s a generic and suggests I take it. I did…for 5 years…it doesn’t work any more. But they don’t care about that part.

Anyway. Like I said, good insurance. Makes me scared to retire ever though.

So today, I have a meeting and an opening to go to, plus some other stuff I gotta get done; I actually drew more on that page last night. Tomorrow I get ready to go back to school…at least physically. Mentally, we’re never ready. Ready for all the noise and decisionmaking and headaches and meetings and trying to get kids to do stuff they don’t wanna do. At least we have a few 3-day weekends in the next two months…those help. I really do feel totally unprepared. Sigh. Oh well. Gotta do it anyway. (It would probably help if I looked at the school calendar to see what’s happening next week…but I promised myself I wouldn’t do that until tomorrow. Brain needs time. Give it time.)

*Zion I, Coastin’

We’ve No Time for Later*

It’s interesting…when I don’t have a specific project to work on (yet), my brain just fails to work properly. Maybe that’s being on vacation too. I did work (on grading) for a good huge chunk yesterday and will probably do that again today, if just to finish this stupid grading assignment. That will take me down to just a couple, plus checking all the desperate emails that came in after kids realized I had posted their progress report grades but there was nothing they could do about them. I don’t really understand that logic, but I’m not 12.

Don’t get me wrong, I have 17 thousand things I could be working on. I have three (count them!) THREE pinbasted quilts, one art one and two not-art ones, that I could work on. I have one art quilt that is at the fabric-trimming stage, and if I got my act together, I could probably finish it this week. I really should do that. It would be a good use of my time. I’m kinda rebelling against “good use of my time” at the moment. I have about 4 blocks-of-the-month in various stages of completion (and I did work on one of those for a while, both on Christmas Day and yesterday). I could be drawing every day, all day. I haven’t drawn at all. I did finish a book, The Power, by Naomi Alderman.

Interesting take on the possible reversal of power if women were in charge instead of men. Apparently testosterone is not the problem…it’s just power in general. She may be right. It’s an interesting story nonetheless.

The girlchild gave me all the ingredients for a Moscow mule (or 17). I love the owl cups and will use them for milk and cookies as well.

My ~~main~~ only squeeze gave me a drawing by one of my favorite mural artists, Gloria Muriel…this is Lilith…

Christmas dinner was tasty, although I only managed to photograph the cheese plate. I loved that bean dip…gonna make more…

Simba was spoiled for attention…

Calli was patiently waiting for ball-throwing activities…of which there were few.

See Simba? Asleep now. My parents petted him to sleep.

I cannot explain this picture…

Girlchild cooked it all…

See the damn puppy again?

I came home and did some sewing to fill in spaces on the left again…trying to sort of flatten out some of the edges, so I can use it as a centerpiece for a crazy quilt maybe.

Still debating that. Meanwhile, I pinned 96 spots on this Sue Spargo quilt from 2013…which has been pieced for over a year. It took me that long to put the green border stem on and deal with the spots.

There are 5 colors…I started sewing on the darkest ones. I think there’s about 19 of each color, so I’m going to be doing this for a while. It’s very meditative. And then they need to be embellished.

Boychild gave me fabric for Christmas. Well. I dragged him to the quilt store and made him pick some fabrics out, because he drew my name for the Sunday night party. I picked the red and white one…he did the rest.

I like adding fabrics to my quilts that other people have picked. It widens my range. I’m sure I pick the same types of fabrics over and over.

Then I ironed and dehaired the big quilt for the photographer yesterday morning. It had a lot of hair on it. Damn cats. Really need to clean the floor in here before I start the next one.

Then I graded and went to the gym and graded some more and made my own dinner because everyone was gone and read my new book, which is also good, and then did more on the left side…

Satchemo not helping with photography.

And sewed on more dots. Yeah. Forever sewing on dots. Spots. Whatever.

I wish I could say I have a plan for today, but I do not. I’ve been trying to plan our Spring Break trip, which is a pain in the butt. I need to grade more of those projects, just to get them out of my hair. I need to finish the ~~Christmas~~ holiday cards and send them out. I need to find some focus, but honestly, I’m OK if that doesn’t happen until next week some time. I’m obviously in need of some down time.

*Frou Frou, Let Go

The More I See the Less I Know*

Over 6 hours of quilting yesterday…apparently staying in one’s pajamas all day is good for getting work done. I even graded yet another assignment. Piece o’ cake!

Well, it wasn’t a piece o’ cake when I started yesterday. I had a thread breakage, thought I cleaned it all up, rethreaded, and then got these nests over and over again. There was a lot of yelling and usage of inappropriate words. Loudly. Unfortunately, that never really solves a thread nest issue…

The newer machines are harder to get at the innards, but my machine guy showed me one access point. Ah HA! There’s the bitch that’s fucking me over.

No real problems after that? Well. Of course. I have to say, I suck at just sitting and quilting. My brain goes kablooey. So I had to get up and do other stuff. Unlike this cat, who slept right there ALL DAY LONG.

Although he did wake up long enough to clean his head.

This is about a third of the way through all the outline quilting…

Ah Midnight. Miss you baby.

Finally up into the face. I had this goal yesterday to finish all the outline quilting.

I didn’t quite get there. Almost…the little heads are freakin’ awesome with the outlining done…

NOW you know why I do teeth.

After dinner, I did more fill-in on this…I think it was on the left side…

I also stitched down some rhinos…I had the last episode of The Crown to watch and I can’t do that while quilting. I also graded another assignment in there.

These are the July blocks…trying to get all the wool bits sewn down over break so I don’t have to worry about those any more.

Then back to quilting the miasma of birth control options…the screwdriver is not one of those, by the way…to be clear.

There’s all the heads!

They look awesome. I have one arm left to do, plus the moon and stars and an asteroid. Then background quilting. That’s today. I’m at 9 1/2 hours in the quilting. Then tomorrow, off to the quilt store for binding. No way do I have yardage for that at the moment. The back was a glorious mishmash and I’m OK with that…not so much on the binding.

So yeah, I gotta leave the house today. More blood tests, who knows what else? Calli isn’t leaving…

Silly old lady.

Seriously, I think I am more focused when I have pajamas on. You should try it.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Snow (Hey Oh)

I Just Keep Losing My Beat*

I think I’m voting today “the day I stay home and don’t go anywhere, not even to take the dogs out.” I wanna lounge around in pajamas and do nothing but read all day. Ha! Because that’s what some vacations should look like, but I’m not in that mode…quilt needs to get done and so do about 12 thousand other things. No reading for you! I tried reading during lunch yesterday, but the girlchild called…so no reading. Have to schedule that stuff apparently.

I graded another assignment last night. Two down, four to go. One of them is big, though. It will take a significant chunk of time. I’m not ready for that yet. (I may never be ready for that. Who am I kidding?)

Yesterday I went back to look at my developing Patreon site. I honestly don’t know if anyone would back me, but I came up with 4 levels of rewards and did some writing on it. It would be more work for me…but potentially could be a good thing? Or not. Waffling like crazy on the time/work commitment. Guess it’s back to the thinking board before I decide.

What I really did yesterday, besides get blood sucked out of me (get to go back, thanks to some weird results…woo hoo!), was work on the quilt…batting and backing on the floor…can’t go much bigger than this.

Calli gets upset that she’s not allowed to be in the entryway with me…

In fact, all the animals make an attempt to be in there ON things. The quilt top folded in half on top of the batting…

And nice and flat…boychild had to maneuver around this to get out the front door. It’s why we have more than one door! Not really. It just happened that way…

And yes, I have moved the bench and the table to get me more room to lay out quilts before…luckily, I didn’t have to do that yesterday. It only took about 45 minutes to lay it all out and pinbaste it.

Not the hour and a half I thought it would take the night before. But I was tired. And worried about getting enough sleep. I don’t know why…I’m tired again this morning and definitely didn’t get enough sleep.

Kitten in the sun…

Lots of weird animal things going on in the house this week. Boychild just put Simba on the chair, and then Simba thinks he’s not allowed to get down. Or he’s scared to get down. It’s hard to say.

Someone should clean the counter off. Yeah. Me. OK. Everything is me sometimes. Although boychild has demolished the rotting treehouse quite efficiently. Should send him out back with a chainsaw.

So I started quilting in the afternoon…

The machine is mostly behaving…some thread issues as I got to the end of a spool.

And somewhere in here we walked the dogs and I made dinner. Then I filled in more spaces on this…

And finished stitching down all the wool bits (FINALLY) on the June blocks. That took a long time. Not sure why. I did all the tree spots while watching Westworld…which I’ve decided is all about sex and killing…those are the only human purposes I’m getting out of it. Not sure if I like it or not. Guess that might be the point.

Then back to quilting. I’ve done both sides of the landscape, both arms up to the shoulders, and the baby.

That was almost 4 hours yesterday. I’m aiming for 5 hours today. Or more. We’ll see. I don’t really wanna deal with anything else on the to-do list. I took three quilts down from a show yesterday. I need to clean up the girlchild’s room before she gets home Saturday night (although she won’t sleep here until Sunday)…and all the quilts are in there, but I’m waiting on one notification tomorrow, so I made the decision not to clean the quilts up until I heard, so I wouldn’t have to put them away and then pull them back out (wishful thinking?). I’m ignoring the three or four boxes in there that also need to be dealt with.

I’m feeling annoyed by people, so that’s why I wanna hermit. Plus the redo on the blood tests is freaking me out. And the holidays are stressful. I probably need to go on more walks or draw some or just finish this damn quilt so it can get photographed on time. Right? Yeah. Well get on with it then.

*Queen, Somebody to Love

Do the Boogie All Night Long*

So many rants this year. Thanks Mr. President. Guess there’s no shortage of material in my head for the artmaking. Although this one is getting closer to done. It’s hard to be focused right now, but it will get done. I would have liked to finish the stitch down last night, but my eyes wouldn’t stop watering (allergies?), so I gave up around 11 PM. I know! So early for me. But I’m trying to make up for a lot of not-sleep over the last months.

I have about 5 1/2 hours into the stitch down…at least 2 more, I think…except I’m in the smaller part, so maybe not. I finished the head, but not the little heads or all the stuff floating around them. I might just try to kamikaze that out this morning. My to-do list is daily now. I did about 2 1/2 hours last night. I did a lot of other things too. Not a slacker.

Kitten is still brave enough to hang out with me in here. Today there’s sun, so she’s happily lying in it. Yesterday, the chair was good.

I barreled through the torso…

All the arteries and heart bits…

Into the upper head area…

I don’t have much to say today (said a lot yesterday). Just a lot to do. A lot to contemplate. And the next drawing is populating itself in my head…should probably send an email off to the hopefully future owner of that one. I’m gonna need some info.

Boychild has part of dinner in the crockpot (put him in charge of one night this week). I’m already marinating tomorrow night’s dinner. Dogs and cats are fed. It’s a beautiful sunny day in Southern California. And I’m not at school. Oh hallelujah. (No, I haven’t graded a single damn thing…shush.)

More later…

*Milky Chance, Stolen Dance

Follow a Rejection with an Entry

So I got news on two exhibits yesterday. One was earlier than I had expected and it was good news…the other was bad news and kind of upsetting, because I really wanted this piece to go out into the world…

This is Rooted in America, and yes, I made it for the Loaded Conversations show that SAQA is putting on with the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. I think it was a hard rejection not because I had made it specifically for that show…I do that all the time…but more because I had so much personal emotion stitched into it. A recent staff meeting had us going over what to do if a shooter is on campus (Run, Hide, Fight). As someone said, if 20 1st graders dying at Sandy Hook isn’t going to persuade politicians to change gun laws, nothing is. Until we replace those politicians. It’s a frustrating thing.

But I do understand a juror looking at a pile of work and trying to make what they think is a cohesive show out of it. I don’t know if this piece will ever be shown, though, because it is controversial…but it’s made. I guess that’s my part in it. I’ll keep entering it until it ages out.

The show I got into is at the Branch Gallery in Los Angeles, opening March 17 in the afternoon. Two openings in one day…could be a little crazy. More about that show later, since this is just a preliminary notification…not so official. But put it on your calendar if you’re in the LA area.

So the piece I’m making now is for a juried show as well, so it might not get in. As always. I’m used to it. I do handle rejections OK most of the time. And I’m OK now with this one…I was just really disappointed. I wanted to be able to say my piece. That your need for a gun is not more important than my students’ needs to feel safe. I still believe that.

Meanwhile, I’ve still got 40 hours of stuff to do on the current quilt before…well…the 26th. Yeah. Kinda crazy timing, but it’ll do. Boychild is on a roll of trying to get shit done around here…which means I haven’t gotten much done on the quilt since Thursday night. But I’m also still exhausted from school, even after 9 hours of sleep last night and a couple of cups of tea and a 2 1/2 mile hike with the dogs. OK, wait, the last one is part of why I’m tired right now.

I could nap.

Most of the grading I need to do is online, but I did bring this pile of Unit 3 home…

I have 6 assignments to grade and this is the biggest one by far. I don’t have a plan this year. Sometimes I say I will do ONE A DAY! UNTIL THEY ARE DONE! And I start with good intentions, get bogged down by the holidays, and flail mightily at the end. I don’t think I ever finish them all over break. So there we are. And with 40 hours of quilting needed on this quilt in the next 9 days, along with all the holiday stuff, I’m not promising shit at the moment. So there.

I had gaming last night. We are in a difficult situation that has lasted over two sessions so far and will probably continue for a couple more before we can stop and heal our people. I happily finished stitching the monkey while we rolled dice and tried to figure out what to do in hindsight.

That guinea fowl’s feet can’t go on until I attach this to whatever’s below it. But before that, I’m stitching the sheep block in the top right…

I think the guinea fowl on the right might lose his feet when I stitch it together…but I can redo them. There’s a third block that goes with this month…I haven’t even started the embellishment on it. Stitching this stuff is so relaxing for me. Stitching and drawing. Not grading. I have 23 days off. It sounds like a lot. It never feels like it though. At least 30 hours of grading in there, plus two hours when I have to do professional development, whether I like it (or need it) or not…I wish I could choose to develop myself in what I need. You know what I need for school? Rock identification. I need a geologist to sit down with me and all the rocks we have loose in the classroom and tell me what they all are, and then tell me how to identify stuff when I’m hiking. That’s what I want for PD. Not “How to Use a Computer” or some variation of that. App speed dating is what I have to sit through when I come back. Sigh. Really? Hope for the best on that one. I guess in real life, I would suck at speed dating. Nothing new when it’s for school.

OK, well, I’m hugely behind on the hand-stitching on that piece that will be done December 31…I should get caught up on that. I need to quilt. I need to enter another show today. I forgot about that. Gonna do that now. Follow a rejection with an entry. It’s fine. Moving on.

The Long Turtle in Earth’s Core

I am extremely confuzzled at the moment. Brain is full of fuzz and I’m trying to get my focus on for school. Boychild is home with no plane drama. Well, he’ll argue that it was delayed, but I’m like, you got OUT. You got here ON TIME. That never happens.

I got about an hour and a half into the stitch down at quilt class last night…at my quilt teacher’s house (you can barely see her on the left). It’s an absolute crap picture, much like my brain function.

That’s after reading a lot of warmups that went something like this.

Oh my, a long turtle. I have no clue what he’s talking about. Language learners can be amusing, even when they don’t mean to be. Add in the age (12), and there’s no end to the giggle factor. Or maybe I’m just bordering on hysteria. It’s highly possible. But the more I get graded today, the less I have to do over break. So I’m sticking with it.

May the end of the day come early…may the jerks stay home and be jerks to their parents instead of me. May there be plenty of cookies and wassail (the non-alcoholic kind, at least until I get home) to get the teachers through the day. May the stars align and everyone turn their shit in with the least amount of drama. May my room get clean so I don’t have to come back over the weekend. May I remember to get all the perishables out of the fridge so we don’t come back to a mold collection after break. May I remember to water the plants so they don’t die over break.

I think that’ll do.

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