It’s a Very, Very Mad World, Mad World*

Reeling. More worried about how to walk into my classroom today and let my almost 100% immigrant kids know that they are safe here in TrumpWorld.

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Because I’m not sure they are.

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Reeling for women’s reproductive rights…hell, women’s rights in general. LGBTQ rights. Human rights. The Supreme Court. My taxes. My kids in college, paying college fees and loans. My health insurance. But mostly knowing that I am currently under a government that doesn’t care about those things. Or me. Or my students. And people around me voted for them…not just Trump, because he is just one man, but a conservative, racist, misogynist man who takes the slightest offense and turns it into a Tweet war, and a government that might be on his side.

I started having a panic attack around 7 or so, so I turned off the news and started tracing. I traced for over 3 hours. My kids were texting me all throughout. It’s possible the girlchild is rioting right now, while the anarchist boychild plots some sort of political overthrow. I’m OK with both of those right now. (And if they’re not, maybe they should be.)

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I guess that was my meditative solution to the stress levels.

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I’m about 540 pieces in. Another night like that and I’ll be done.

Simba tried to help. Petting animals is supposed to help.

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Yesterday’s new unit cover page.

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It’s pretty cool, but I’m more horrified by my country right now than pleased with my cover page.

Peace on people. Stand up. Get educated. Yell loud. Don’t stop yelling. Don’t give up.

*Gary Jules, Mad World

Everything’s in Order in a Black Hole*

I don’t talk about politics much on here. I mean, I talk about political things, but the election crap this year has been more than I wanted to handle. Too much crazy. I voted weeks ago, basically as soon as I got my ballot and found 3 hours to read everything (San Diego ballot this year was hefty hefty hefty). I suspect most of you might guess my politics just based on my regular rants, but just in case, I got this…

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which might be dangerous in my part of town. But whatever. I stand by it. And I raised my kids to stand by it. Luckily, I will be distracted by teaching all day, so I won’t have to hear about voter turnouts etc., and I can choose not to watch the chaos tonight. I’d really just rather wake up tomorrow to a new world. Except no matter what happens, tomorrow will be filled with chaos. Ah well. At least I now have the right to vote, despite my uterus and its apparently harmful effect on my brain.

Whatever your thing, go vote. Then hold them to their promises. Or fight their crazy. Whichever seems appropriate.

This text from the girlchild from yesterday morning is still cracking me up.

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(she was writing an essay.)

So yesterday, I finished grades. At least mostly. Which is good, because they’re due at 2 today. I dumped a couple of assignments. They just weren’t in the cards. That happens. And then I bid on a copyediting job. Which seems crazy, when I look at my deadlines, but it’s a pretty compact job, though not small, and would give me a good chunk of money towards paying the next college bill. I can’t ignore the multiple thousands I need to come up with in the next 6 months. I can’t just scrimp and save to get them. I need to do more work…work that’s paid. So if I get that job, the next few weeks will be a bit crazy. Oh well.

Then I finally made it to the artmaking space…both in my head and on the light table. There’s no motivation like the potential start of a new time-sucker to get you going…

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It’s not going particularly quickly, unfortunately. I didn’t start until after 10 PM and I’m only in the mid 200s…with 800 pieces total in the drawing. And the next big assignment to be graded gets turned in today. I’m not ready. I need a break from hours staring at a computer. That’s the thing…it’s never-ending.

So I trace for three more nights? Get done (might be wishful thinking…there’s meetings galore this week). I have Friday off. It all depends on whether I get this other job. If not, it’s a piece of cake. I start ironing over the weekend and cutting stuff out next week, ready to iron together over Thanksgiving, then quilt etc. (while finishing grading…and possibly copyediting for hours). Yeah. So I’m kind of in flux at the moment. But much much MUCH happier and more relaxed today after tracing last night. Interesting how that works. Make time for art. Shee-it. You’d think I would always be able to do that, but apparently not.

*Arctic Monkeys, Fluorescent Adolescent

She Isn’t Sure Where She’s Gone*

I would love to say I finished grading and got down to the nitty gritty of artmaking yesterday, but it was not the case. In fact, I’m still semi-buried. Remind me next time to close the gradebook a week early. That would have been smart. I still have kids sending me makeup work. I’ve just stopped looking at it. I’m just dealing with the last big project at this point, and it will get done today (even if it kills me).

My internet is still fucked. Gonna have to deal with that. But I can’t deal on a school day, so it’ll have to be Friday or Thanksgiving break. I think everything I need to do in the world is falling on Thanksgiving break. It’s a little scary.

I’m artistically frustrated right now. I feel off balance when I don’t make. I get cranky with no creation. Working on it, art brain. Trying to get there.

Some of yesterday’s delay was because I was trying to help the girlchild with an essay about political crap I barely remember…usually that involves her sending me an essay and FaceTiming me while I tell her what doesn’t make sense. At this point, I think she was reading to me out of her professor’s book.

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Before that, I was trying to grade projects with puppy asleep by me…

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Which is significantly easier than when he tries to play with me while I grade.

At some point, my input wasn’t enough…so we enlisted the boychild as well. We tried to get all of us on Google Hangouts…

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But we couldn’t hear the girlchild…hence her sad face. So she FaceTimed her brother in his dorm room in Ithaca while I was in Google Hangouts with him. Super complicated. And in the end, we all ditched her to her words…

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She finished this morning…or at least, she resolved all the comments we made.

I took a break and finished my library book because the loan was ending this morning and I only had 50 pages left of a 680-page book. And I didn’t want to wait until it was available again dammit. Puppy moved up to cat position…

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It was chilly last night…and then I went back to grading until I realized it was late and I was frustrated.

This was earlier, when I was grading on the computer with Kitten’s help…

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She’s very good at standing in front of the screen and knocking papers down.

So an entire weekend of grading stuff, a few breaks in there. And I’m not done. I feel like I’m doing it all wrong. That’s the problem with assigning these big engineering projects…at the end, you have to grade them.

And the part driving me nuts…four days with no artmaking. I wanted to be done with tracing by tonight. That’s so not happening. I wanted to be ironing by the weekend. I think that is also a no go. It’s going to make this one a really tight deadline. Deep breaths. Because when this one is done, the deadlines stretch out a bit and I have a little more freedom on what I do. Maybe. Hard to say. Certainly with school taking so much more time this year, it seems like I will never stop grinding my teeth. And someone called me about a side job…supposed to call them back today. Aargh. I need the money to pay for college, but I don’t have the time for this. I have to make time for it. Sleep. Whatever.

*Talking Heads, And She Was

Light Strikes a Deal with Each Coming Night*

Well I can’t say I made art yesterday, but I sold some. So I guess that counts. Certainly it’s good news, although amusing in some ways, since I really need the money right now to pay for college fees, and because the show is traveling, I won’t see the cash until both kids have graduated. Oh well. Life goes on. Plan a vacation for 2019? Maybe.

The Goddess of Never-Ending Chaos sold at IQF in Houston yesterday…it will still travel with the Tranquility/Turmoil exhibits, but at the end, it will go on to its new owner.

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So that’s nice. I’m happy. I wish I’d been able to be there for the opening and to meet the new owner, but such is life.

In other good art news, the exhibit I was in last May, Feminism Now, will be traveling to Stockholm, Sweden in May 2018. Yes. We plan that far out. So that is also cool.

My piece, And Then There Was One, will be part of that show.

Kathy Nida Quilt

Meanwhile, I really need to find time to make the next quilt. I’ve started thinking about the work for my show at Visions next July. I have one drawing sitting in my head, waiting for time to draw. Like. It’s fully drawn in there. Seriously. But the piece I’m tracing right now is due quickly too.

Meanwhile, grades are due for school, so that’s what I’m doing all weekend…basically until I’m done. We took 240 or so kids to the zoo yesterday…

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Which was exhausting…yes…but fun. I forgot the sunscreen…luckily, it’s November, so I am just a bit pinky red.

Let sleeping bears lie, I say.

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This guy. I threw the ball 40 times this morning before he gave up. I felt bad for him after two nights of my being gone at openings.

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And now I’m grading while he runs around outside, barking at anything that moves. Also lying in the sun.

OK. Back to work. Art is in my head, but unfortunately, not on the radar. Hopefully tomorrow night. Otherwise, I think every teacher I know is grading shit right now.

*Iron and Wine, Each Coming Night

No Discrimination Here, Squirrel*

Huh. Yeah. OK. This week. I started a blog post. Internet (or lack thereof) just ate it.

Some weeks…some days…I get up and I eat my breakfast and take my meds and get showered and dressed and shuffle through. And it’s already a trial, so I do that thing in my head where I try to talk myself through it or persuade myself there’s some light at the end of some shortish tunnel. But some days. Weeks. Are just hard. October was a bitch. November can only be better.

It has to be. There’s no other way to go but up. Cooler weather (90 on Saturday. Shit.). Days off from school (piles to grade). Shut up brain. A chance to hike. Maybe go to the movies. Just be instead of having to be it all.

So eventually last night I got up off the couch (I was trying to grade…until I just plain gave up) and started tracing the new deadline. I’m really tired of deadlines. I need to stop thinking of them as a deadline and think of them as a way to make another quilt. But themes kick my ass at the moment. I’m tired of themes. I just wanna make stuff.

So maybe I will figure that shit out.

I didn’t get far, somewhere into the high 50s. But that’s OK.

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There’s only 800 pieces in this one…so about 8-9 hours of tracing. Probably not getting that done before the weekend, especially not with Trimester 1 ending and a field trip. Really I should just go back to bed and take a few days off. Ha!

Calli’s got it. She understands.

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Here’s the one I couldn’t post yesterday. I decided it was a laser for radiation therapy. They probably don’t really look like that at all, but tough shit. I’m OK if I’m the only one who understands my art. Today at least.

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Ugh. This mood. Sucks. Operation take care of Kathy. Going to the gym and reading my book tonight. That’s a start.

*Outkast, The Way You Move

In This Time, Give It To Me Easy*

Technology is frustrating me. My pool is frustrating me. The neighbor who is blasting PBS radio to the whole neighborhood is frustrating me. ICloud is frustrating me. My internet is frustrating me. Or maybe that’s the wifi or the router or the repeater or the modem. Fuck if I know. My schedule is frustrating me. My to-do list is frustrating me (notice a theme yet?). Shit. Seriously.

The only plus is that Sears finally sent me a check for the service they never did (probably my swearing at the 9th person I talked to when she told me that they installed on the 25th of August and my husband let them in might have been the impetus for them to finally write a check. Don’t make shit up, Sears. I fucking hate that.).

Last night, I fought tech and then graded stuff for a while and played with puppy, and finally had to leave the house. Just to find a brain. I went and watched music for a while and then came back and couldn’t function at all. I varnished the nightstand again. It’s got three coats and that might be enough.

I stared at the drawing…

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And couldn’t decide what to draw. There’s no point in fighting it. I can’t MAKE stuff come out on paper. It has to go with the idea I’m working with on this one. I wish it didn’t. Part of the problem is that this original drawing is months old, so I have to reacquaint myself both with the drawing and the ideas behind it. Apparently that worked down in the leg area, but up here around the head? And the head is part of the problem. I already cut off the bird that I originally drew because it was god-awful, but I’m not real happy with the face either. I’m seriously debating cutting her head off.

Seems appropriate for Halloween weekend. In fact, yes. I’m going to cut her head off.

So there we are.

I still need to trim this up a little for the opening next week. Not a big time consumer there, but I had this pair of pajama pants lying on it that needs fixing, and then I was thinking they needed to be part of the show too. Not sure.

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I guess this brings up a whole bunch of ideas about who sleeps naked (um. It’s hot here. I have hot flashes. Did I mention hot?). I don’t ever actually sleep in pajamas. I live in them in the mornings on weekends and after school if I know I’m not going anywhere, but I take them off to go to bed. Too hot (see hot above). So I don’t know. I’ll think about it.

This was last night, after music, when I was feeling spectacularly unmotivated to do shit.

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Apparently I am an animal magnet. Hi guys. You’re not helping.

OK. Cut off her head. Draw a new one. Draw a bunch of other related shit. Number it and start tracing it because Deadlines Abound! My SIL offered to fly me up to Seattle for Thanksgiving, but I really need to stay here and make art for 9 days straight. Tempting. But no. Work. Also. Grade a bunch of shit. Input it into the grade program. Try to make kids get a clue about how grades work (I can’t grade invisible things. I am not that special.).

Tonight? Apparently crash some Halloween party to support the band (that’s what I did last night, but it was probate lawyers. Yeah. I know.). Also go to one art show and drop some coloring books at a local gallery. I gots a plan.

*The Zombies, Time of the Season

Wrong Way on a One-Way Track*

Well the wifi is strangely working again today. It was only one side of the house, you see. I actually powered up the ancient Mac Mini and did grades last night in the kids’ sanctuary. Pain in the ass. I figured it was the repeater dying or something, but today it’s fine…which means either it’s still dying, but this is a gasp of renewed life, or it’s the damn cable company screwing stuff up somehow. I don’t have time (or patience) for that. Too much to do.

The Feminist Artists Coloring Books are going to be in two galleries after this weekend, plus the Women’s Museum. Plus it’s on Amazon. Plus there’s me…trying to make back my investment and earn some money for the group’s next big show. Plus maybe even pay me for some of my time. What a concept in the art world, eh? Paid for your time.

Anyway, the nightstand has another coat of varnish on it…it’s making it look deeper somehow…although not in a philosophical sense. I think at least one or two more coats.

But I was frustrated this week, trying to get done with the nightstand, AND all the grading I have weighing me down. And realizing I have another deadline in December (wow, I actually get a whole MONTH or more)…plus deadlines piling up in the spring. I had pulled the beginnings of the drawing for the one in December…and I just couldn’t do much more than tape more paper to it. Very creative process that.

Until I finally just penciled some stuff in. Ironic after drawing a ton of stuff on the nightstand without penciling anything in (didn’t think the paper would hold up to lots of erasing), last night, I needed graphite support. But once I started, it got easier…

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I was missing the normal quiltmaking process. Drawing on the nightstand was artmaking, but it wasn’t the same. I’m still not even sure about the product. The quilts though…they have a satisfying finish to them.

I’m still fascinated with layers below the ground, with digging around down under there, or what’s hiding under there. So I put her in a hole in the ground. I’m still debating a dinosaur somewhere in the distance.

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Anyway. So this is the next one in process. I’m trying not to add a ton of tiny pieces (don’t look at the snake’s face and you might just believe me). This school year is stressing me out and I need a break from it. I think art is going to be the only place I get that, honestly. Although I’ll be glad to have the deadlines behind me.

I’m just really glad to be starting a new quilt. Really. And yes, I need to grade like crazy over the next week, but hopefully I’ll get a good start on this quilt too. And start drawing for the next two major deadlines. Which I think are right on top of each other. Yikes. No stress. Grinding my teeth dammit. It’s only October. And the next unit in science? I don’t fully understand it. Minor issue. It’ll be a relief when we get to photosynthesis and cell respiration. I know that shit. And I know a shitload more about elements and the periodic table and atoms now than I did two months ago. So there we are. I’ll be fine. It just feels really stressful in the moment to realize you either don’t remember anything, or that they’ve discovered new shit that you didn’t even know about because you were focusing on a different portion of the science world. Yeah. I’m not feeling stupid or anything. Sigh.

*Soul Asylum, Runaway Train

Can’t Stop the World*

Well first of all, I’ve been working on this beast technically since June, I think, but it’s finally done. I created and edited the Feminist Artists Coloring Book for one of my local art groups, and I’m really excited about it…first because I think it’s an awesome idea and second because now I have the skills to make my own. It has 47 drawings by 18 of our feminist artists, ranging from nice and simple (you could even zentangle a few) to super complicated. Topics are adult, so this is not a kid’s coloring book. It includes three of my drawings, one of which actually exists as a quilt…

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You can find it on Amazon here…or if you know me and live locally, send me an email and we’ll figure something out.

Here’s one of my drawings that’s in there. nida_3-revise-small

YES! The next step is to make my own coloring book. Give me a minute to get there though, because I’m a little buried at the moment.

When it gets crazy at school, our natural tendencies come out…this is me and my co-teacher in science. Yes. These are our yearbook photos. Next year, we’ll actually plan ahead and do something even weirder.

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Katie was really trying to entertain little Mr. Annoying last night. I was playing tug o’ war with him and then she grabbed the end and dragged him off. I think she was trying to help.

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Or she’s just jealous when he gets all the toys (yeah, that).

Eventually the big dogs calmed down, while the little one went on a rampage throughout the house. He’s kinda driving me nuts…

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I was trying to work on this. I did OK. There’s a lot left to do. A lot more than I thought.

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It doesn’t help that I graded first, so I didn’t even start until almost 11 PM. One of the other artists came over to pick up coloring books, and she said it would look good. I’m still not sure about it, but at this point, I’m just going to keep going.

Because I really don’t have a choice!

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The next two deadlines are weighing on me as well.

Meanwhile, this weekend? I’m not getting any of this done. But that’s OK.

*Modern English, Can’t Stop the World

Using Your Headphones to Drown out Your Mind*

Artmaking is the core of my existence. It really is. I’m not happy without it. If I look back over the years, when I was just out of school, first married, I made art a few days a week. I actually had a studio downtown for a while, which was nice, but still…I had a life outside of that. I went places. I hung out with my husband. I worked on the yard. Walked the dog. I still did art…probably a good amount, because I made about 6-10 new pieces a year (this is before quilting, so screenprints). I entered shows and got rejections and acceptances and shipped stuff all over the US.

Then the kids came along and that kind of put a minor wrench into it. It was a lot harder to find the time, so I shifted from screenprinting to making quilts, because I didn’t need big blocks of time and I could carry parts of it around with me. It wasn’t a quick shift. It took a long time to figure out how to do what I wanted to do. Sometimes I think I’ve figured too much out about the how…it’s not a challenge any more. And then I remember all the images I want to make into fabric, and I tell myself to shut up. I do about one piece a year that’s a challenge, usually for this feminist artist group I’m in. So I’m good. I usually get significantly frustrated with the process and feel some relief at going back to what I usually do. So I guess that’s good. “I’ll never do THAT again,” is often how I feel after one of those.

Now the kids are at college, gone 3/4 of the year, and even though I do have some social stuff, I mostly do art. Yeah, I’m an introvert, so honestly, at the end of a school day, I need fewer people around anyway. I need some quiet space.

So I have two for this feminist group at the moment…the fabric one is going OK…not TOO out of the box…I pinbasted the top part…batting and a backing even. Like a quilt. Going onto a bed…

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So I’m making a quilt of someone sleeping on a bed. To go on a bed. Weird.

My cat…because she’s there almost every night…I’ve always had a cat in the bed.

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Here she is modeling for her next cameo

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Oh yeah. And before I did all that (and made dinner and graded stuff), I walked the dogs. It was nice. Not hot (unlike what it will be later this week). We got the whole three miles in. Only one horse (two of the dogs go a little bonkers at horses…I have to stand off the trail and rein them in).

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I found yesterday very frustrating. I’m getting a lot of that this year. Some difficult kids. Trying to build a relationship with someone who acts like an idiot most of the time is a challenge in itself. I’m not sure I always have the patience for it. Sometimes I’d really just rather find a job that doesn’t follow me home and stress me out. Then just make more art.

*Regina Spektor, Eet

Now I’m on My Knees*

Yesterday went sideways fast. Never assume that because the mornings are going well that the afternoons will follow. Afternoons at school are like recalcitrant, tired, hungry children. Sometimes you can get them back to normal with a snack and a nap, and sometimes it’s a clusterfuck. Yesterday? Clusterfuck. I swear. I need to find that balance.

I even came home and worked some more. I have to. I barely have time to grade at school because of planning. This one made me laugh out loud…

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Dammit. Why isn’t the floor salad? It should be! I love my language learners…sometimes I can’t figure out what the hell they’re saying, and sometimes I know what it is but it just amuses me.

But then after dinner and hanging out, I finally got to this point…I took all this glue from school, where I hadn’t used it since I taught art up at the other middle school (9 years?)…this glue never dies, people…

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And I found all the books Prudence got, plus the one I already had, and then I did something I have been trained for years NOT to do…

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I tore pages out of those books…and I mixed me up some gluey water…and I started to decoupage. Yeah. That.

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So my feminist art group has a show coming up about nightstands, about the women who sleep next to them. Prudence and I have done all our brainstorming via email, because both of us are too busy to ever be in the same room together, but we both read in bed, sometimes to fall asleep, sometimes because we can’t sleep. And so we picked books by female authors who either had to write under a masculine pseudonym or one so anonymous that you wouldn’t be able to tell…and this thing is covered with those pages.

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It probably took 2 1/2 hours to cover it. I’m OK that they’re not flat. I’m sure a perfectionist would have issues. Now it’s ready for the drawing stage! Oh yeah. You read that right. I’m not sure how that’s gonna fly, but we’ll figure it out.

At the end, I took a break with the puppy, who needed some lap time. I needed some wine.

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Yes. I did decoupage in the middle of my living room on the coffee table. Gotta love living alone sometimes. I was a little worried that I’d wake up in the morning and find a cat glued to it, but they stayed away.

Calli was significantly uninvolved in the project. So was Katie…

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I think they were afraid they’d end up in the project.

This goes with the fabric one I’m working on…they both have to be done by November 1st, possibly earlier. Ha! Yeah. I’m working on it.

Speaking of working on it, this is what I face to get out of my street, my one lane…

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They move the plates back over so I can get out, but it takes time. Pain in the ass…for the next two months on and off. Sigh.

*Peter Gabriel, Shock the Monkey