A Good Easy Place

I’m finally in a good easy place with this quilt. The torture (not really…I like it, but it’s hard to do if you’re not in the right mindset) of drawing it from my head is done. The man gets irritated that I am always doing something else while watching stuff on TV. He wants me to put all my attention there, probably so he doesn’t have to answer my stupid question that would have been answered if all my attention were on the show. I get it. But I don’t do well just staring at a TV. I do much better when the distractable part of my brain is half-staring at the TV (sort of) so the rest of my brain can do the art stuff. I usually have the TV (or computer) on while I’m making art…but not usually podcasts, because I’m constantly having to go back because I didn’t hear what they said, because my brain was only partially paying attention. I do that with TV too…I just try to pick stuff to watch that’s not that crucial. We want to watch Parasite, but that’s subtitles and those are hard for me. I will do it, because it’s supposed to be good, but it will have to be when I’m NOT tracing Wonder Under. Tracing is easier, less focus on trying to make a drawing fill itself in, but you still have to be watching what you’re doing. My brain likes multiple inputs.

So I have been tracing for 3 or 4 days now, and I have about 350 pieces done. Girlchild in the background…can’t remember what we were watching…

Cooking videos? That guy? Bas-something. He’s funny. I can only trace when the kittens are asleep, which seems to currently be when I am also on the computer for school meetings/class. Which sucks.

Also no one can sit on this couch. Well. One person can, but that’s where I sit and everyone else but Kitten (the grown-up one) seems scared to sit there.

Oh well. This is an art house. I’ve got about 6 yards of Wonder Under going at the moment, most of them with big empty spaces that aren’t QUITE big enough for some of the pieces I’m tracing. I keep them all out so I can fill in all the spaces with smaller pieces.

I’m very frugal with my Wonder Under. Which is funny, because it’s pretty cheap. You can see I’m drawing on one piece and I have at least three others lying around in case I need to try to fit a piece somewhere larger.

This is not a fast process, but it’s relatively easy. I find it very meditative.

So does Calli, apparently. She often is lying there while I trace. This was at night…kittens often sleep at night, although not always.

I’ve been tracing for about 7 hours so far…the bigger pieces take longer to draw, so that makes sense. I’m in the middle of the second and largest figure on the quilt. I’ve done her legs and uterus, and just started the ribs when I realized I need to get up at a reasonable hour to teach these days…so I went to bed. I’m watching Big Little Lies at the moment, in between the girlchild’s Criminal Minds, Bon Appetit, and Virgin River. I’m looking forward to more tracing today, after Office Hours and the panic that comes after that when I realize I don’t know what I’m doing, plus a walk, and making dinner. School is different. It’s not just the three hours on a computer…it’s checking what the kids did and didn’t do, previewing everything for the day, making sure I have everything pulled up and/or assigned, making sure I have a to-do list and have finished stuff for that. I don’t like it, but it’s better than nothing.

I’m still stitching on dots…this is a Sue Spargo thing on Instagram and Facebook. It’s a nice distraction during all this crap. Sunday night’s is the sunflower, bottom left.

I had issues with the bullion knots in the slinky thread…

But it turned out fine. I’m really not fussy.

This is Monday night’s cat…top right…

I didn’t have any cat-colored dots, so I went for green because the brown showed up on it.

But it’s a little chaotic. Oh well.

I also finally bit the bullet and started quilting my first ever wool quilt, a Sue Spargo block-of-the-month named Earth & Twig from I think 2012. It’s been pinbasted for a long time. I can’t say I’m the best quilter of wool…it’s the embroidery getting in the way that’s a pain in the ass, but it will get quilted.

This one actually has a lot of open space on it, so that will be interesting. I kind of want to add some quilting to the larger birds and animals as well, but thread color will be an issue. I don’t have the stash my mom has. We’ll see.

I did more yardwork on Sunday…the goal is to fill the two greenery trashcans every week with whatever seems to need pruning, sweeping, or weeding. There’s always a lot of it. This week, we cut up most of an acacia bush we liked but that had been knocked over…to see if it will come back. We also (wait, what’s this WE shit…I did most of it)…I also trimmed the bougainvillea and one large honeysuckle bush on the road, and then weeded sort of randomly. No one in their right mind could get all the weeds and grass that’s out of place, so I just go for what makes sense. I found more caterpillars…

This morning, the milkweed had three. I want more milkweed, but am not shopping at garden centers right now. I can; I just haven’t. And the avocado tree we planted has new growth…

It’ll be a few years before we see avocados on it.

I had one helper yesterday in my Office Hours…

They are not actually very helpful.

He gets a lot of cuddles…and sometimes he gets tired of it.

Like maybe there…

He is a cuddly sweetheart except when you’re combing twigs out of his tail. Then he bites.

This one kneads any sweater or sweatshirt I leave lying on the couch.

And this one needs attention whenever she’s awake. Luckily, she’s old, so it’s not often. She does follow me wherever I am sitting/standing.

This is from the book I finished yesterday…in general, I enjoyed this book, but this was heinous.

Does this mean the author doesn’t understand knitting? Because they aren’t sharp enough for that.

OK. Lots of tracing today. Some exercise. I’m not sure what else. I know I bought a bunch of stuff for painting that will be arriving by the weekend…well, and I just ordered something else that won’t be here for another week, but I can start with what I’m getting. I got a bug. An itch. Something. It’s a paint itch. Don’t question it. It’s related to a bunch of markers I got for Christmas. So I’m looking forward to all the supplies showing up. But first, I need some lunch before Office Hours. Hopefully they will be better today than they were yesterday, but it’s doubtful. Too much staring at a computer screen.

An Attempt at Control…

Trying to buy stuff online that I normally buy in a store. On the one hand, I’m grateful I can even do that; on the other hand, it’s not always the right thing or easy to find or possible to get it relatively quickly, whereas if I went to the store, I’d have it, but I’d also have COVID-19 if I did that all the time, and then we’d overrun the hospitals and it would suck for everyone. So I try to think about “do I really need it?” and “can this be put off for a while?” and sometimes that helps, and sometimes it’s just annoying. Much like all of this. We’re grateful we’re not sick and/or dying and that we can be at home and still have money coming in (not looking at the future with that right now, because my salary is paid by taxes and those will be an issue in the future with so many losing their jobs), so we can buy things and decide not to buy things. Each time we venture out for buying (usually food…groceries obviously, and then the occasional take-out to keep restaurants going), we are amazed by what people are not doing…not wearing masks, not keeping their distance…and it makes us wonder what people think about all this. And when people are protesting “their rights” about the virus, when it isn’t just their rights…it’s our rights as well. I guess that hasn’t changed at all…just the focus has…their right to go out vs my right to determine the state of my female body.

It is the state of the world right now…crazy. With an attempt at control. I’m managing small bits of control. I think I have a plan for teaching…for Monday. I’m not sure it will last after Monday, but maybe I have a plan for the week? Who knows.

Friday was just a bit of chaos. I did manage to finish drawing the big one…

The key really was waiting until the baby kittens (who are 7 months old now) are both asleep. Well. They aren’t always asleep at the same times or for the same amount of time, just like real live human children, so to finish the last bit of this…

I had to lock Luna in the bedroom for a bit. Because she wanted to play. With the paper. In a destructive manner.

In doing so, I was able to finish fairly quickly. Well. It took over 13 hours to draw this. I do know a lot of that time was staring off into space, but that’s the thinking part of the drawing and it has to happen. An awful lot of it happens while I’m doing other things (like sleeping), but also when the paper is there in front of me.

For some reason, I thought this was in the 50″-square range. Oh no. It’s way bigger than that.

71″ square. All right then. So then comes the numbering. Also needs to be done when kittens are napping. I did some Friday night…then it was too late and I was tired, so I finished Saturday morning…1541 pieces.

Well. That’s equivalent to last year’s big piece. I’m good with that.

I need something with a large focus right now. So the next step is to trace all the Wonder Under, another task that kittens are highly interested in. Luckily they napped for a good long time yesterday, long enough for me to trace most of the background land…

So that’s a lot of big pieces. I’m expecting to be tracing this all week, hopefully with kittens asleep at useful intervals. Since I’m starting school tomorrow, I don’t have as much flexibility with my time as I used to. So it will be a bit more difficult.

Here are the sweet babies awake and alert.

They have been in high-destruction mode lately. I had to cover this so Nova would stop tearing bits off the top of it…

Here it is before the destruction, with all three cats hanging out in my maker space.

OK, it’s true that large portions of the house are my maker space, and there are many things the cats would like to play with in all of those spaces. I do my best to keep them out of stuff. And then they want to be all cute and cuddly and lovey.

Sigh. Evil beasts. “Oh. You’re on the computer? I’M on the computer too.”

They are sweet, adorable, and monstrous.

In a year’s time, we will miss all the kitten shenanigans. Well, Luna I think has shenanigan as a middle name, so maybe not, and Nova eats paper and plastic now and will probably never stop.

The stitching continues with the snowflake dot.

Easy. Nice to have an easy one. Some are really time consuming.

Like Saturday night’s dot…

The one to the right of the blue thread ball. It looks simple, but it took a lot of time.

I also finished all the official bits on this, and now am just adding lots and lots of grass.

Everywhere. I’ll be here for days. Or until I run out of thread. Whichever comes first.

I’ve been trying to fill the greenery trash cans every week. It’s Spring, so there’s lot that needs cleaning up and trimming and weeding. My partner in yard work has been missing though. I did see some of these…

Which is nice…

I still think someone eats them before they become chrysalises. Sadly.

And the lime from a friend that we planted is growing and flowering…

The boychild did make it out to help me make a decision about a bush we had that the tree guys pushed down by accident. It wasn’t growing in the right direction, so we trimmed it way way way back and we’ll see if it will come back. It has the weirdest seed pods…

So bright! We don’t know what it is though…here’s the leaves and the pods before they dry out.

I have a trashcan and a half full right now…another half to go before tomorrow.

Yesterday brought a long walk…

Same walk as always…

This is where the construction on the path was…they spread a bunch of dirt out and there were just a few footprints…

I think maybe they didn’t want us on there, but whatever.

That’s Cowles Mountain in the distance. Not allowed to go there.

But I can go here…mustard…

And there’s the fam.

We passed each other going opposite ways…

See, it IS Spring…and there are hawks…

OK, there are always hawks…

They left Calli behind because she was limping again. Old lady.

She was very upset at being left behind.

OK. The plan: groceries and tracing Wonder Under and not panicking about school tomorrow. All good. It’s Sunday. I say that to remind myself. I don’t care if you don’t want to know what day it is. I need to.

Last Friday…

Hey. It’s apparently the last Friday of Spring Break. What does it feel like? A regular morning. I’m a little tired because I was awakened by a cat banging on the window blinds because there was a bunny out there, followed by one of those tree shredder things that sound like the branches are screaming when they go in. I’d be really irritated if it were a real Last Friday of Spring Break, like the last day before I had to go back to the stressful classroom and getting up at godawful (for us night owls) times. But in reality, most mornings at the moment, I get to sleep to a decent hour…it’s just a matter of how late I go to sleep the night before, which I do have control over. I’m not getting 8 hours a night, even now, with no real constraints.

I start school Monday. It might actually be easier to have that started and deal with it. I get the most anxious when I don’t have a plan or routine and I don’t know what things will be like. And I’m pretty chill at the moment, for whatever reason. I still don’t have a real great routine, but I’m doing things, making plans/lists, and trying to give myself what I need. When I look at my teaching team, some people are like me and not able to even look at the stuff, let alone figure out how to do any of it. And then some are banging out slide decks and check-in forms, and I’m impressed and thankful that they’ve done that. My brain just isn’t there. Maybe it will get there, but I don’t know when.

So Wednesday, I worked at school again, and remembered to grab a white board, pens, and a notebook. Sometime next week, I’ll grab some lab materials, or actually DO a lab at school and record it. I guess it’s a demo, not a lab, but whatever. It’s way more interesting than the dumbassery the district provided. Then I came back and spent some time on a friendly Zoom with other quilters. I worked on the drawing…

But Nova wanted to be involved…

This is right before that fang went into my toe.

“But I’m so sweet…”. Yes, you usually are, unless you want pets.

When that call ended, we walked the dogs…the old lady seems to have conquered her limp…the dog, not me.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures on that walk.

We did a lot of movie watching that night, so I did some stitching. I did order some dot-specific threads for this project, so I could stop raiding all the block-of-the-month packages. I needed brighter threads too.

I do wish I’d gotten a better royal blue. Turquoise is nice, but…maybe later. So I did the bee dot…

Which was fun…

Kitten was in my space, as always…

I’m really trying to finish the Folk Tails top…so the monkey got embellished…

Girlchild made these awesome conchas…

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for these guys to come back.

I found about three of them. We never got any chrysalises last year…I suspect something is eating them.

Yesterday was a school Zoom and a bunch of work related to it. But afterwards, I sat on the deck with these two watching me.

And I finished my drawing…

I also have my first mosquito bite.

My next Earth Daughter, COVID-19. I couldn’t work on the big drawing because the couch was occupied. Maybe today.

Then we finished the third season of True Detective while I stitched the flower down at the bottom.

A closeup, right side up…

And more work on Folk Tails…I did the hut embellishment and the flowers by the road from a previous month. I needed to sew everything together before I could do that.

The last bit of flowers is down at the bottom. I spent about 30 minutes trying to find instructions for those flowers, and I can’t locate them, even after searching emails from 2015 (it was probably answered in the email group we had back then, but it’s closed now, 5 years later). I can look at the drawing and color picture and figure it out, though, so I’ll get it done. Then I get to add all the grassy bits tonight during gaming. And then put the borders on. Wow! Finishing!

This is last night’s cat convention. They were all considering coming to bed with us.

We have a lot of calicoes here.

OK. It’s Friday. Remember? I want to finish the drawing and do some exercise and write the parent email and make sure everything is done for Monday. I should start with a shower. I’ve been up for a few hours, but I still don’t feel awake. Next week will be interesting with an advisory class every day and office hours four days a week. I’m hoping to take that down to two or three a week…we’ll see. I’m trying not to think about going back to ‘normal’ with no testing. I need information to feel safe. I can’t imagine being in a classroom right now without testing being part of the decision-making process. I understand the financial issues people are having, but when you say ‘only 2-3% fatalities,’ you have to consider that those are real people with families and loved ones, and 2-3% is an awful lot of those. Plus with opening schools, the majority of those fatalities will be teachers or adult staff. We already don’t have enough substitutes. How will that work? Sigh. Whatever. Can’t think about that. Gotta go do the things that help my brain process. That’s art. And exercise. And stitching.

Not Feeling Super Magical

I’m overwhelmed. It’s funny, because I’m not even going to work. We haven’t even started online teaching yet. I just went to two Zoom trainings yesterday and sat through explanations and zoned out, because that’s what a lot of random talking does to me…meanwhile my brain is like, “Well, how is THAT supposed to work?” “How am I going to do THAT?” “What is THAT going to look like?” Much like everyone now is doing about whatever it is they did before and now are doing differently.

Here’s how I Zoom train…

Seriously though, if I have problems concentrating in these things where people natter on for an hour plus and it’s useless, it makes me look seriously at what I might do with my kids. I don’t do a lot of direct instruction in science…because they zone out. But this is a different world. And I’m not just teaching science. I’m barely teaching science. I’m teaching a bunch of other stuff, some of which I think is really lame. Sigh. OK.

So I didn’t get to draw on Monday at all. There was a lot going on during the day and then the kids required family time. Well, the girlchild did…the boychild showed up as well, but he never really requires it. At least not verbally. So I stitched instead. The plus is that I finished the damn road on Folk Tails…

So I need to embellish a monkey and a hut, do some guinea hen legs, and then add a ton of grass and flowers. And I’m not allowed to make fun of the characters in Pride and Prejudice…though how can you NOT?

Maybe then I will learn to quilt wool, because this will be the third one of these that I will be finishing. Not any time soon…it also has borders…pretty simple borders, honestly, but they do exist. The other two are pinbasted and ready to go.

Yoga/exercise is difficult in this house without the animals being involved.

We’re lying down. They’re lying down. Monday night also meant doing the top middle dot.

I think the new threads I ordered are coming soon. I hope.

Last night’s was the trellis stitch one…it was so nice before I added the stuff on top that I wanted to document it.

And all the cat/dog hair that this piece attracts. It still looks nice with the stuff on top…

And here’s all 16 so far…

On Tuesday nights, the kids leave for their dad’s house, and the man doesn’t get home until late, because he’s working crazy shifts…so I went for a walk by myself…

It was finally warm today…

I know I’ll complain about it later, but it felt good yesterday.

Here’s where part of the flume trail fell down the slope with all the rain last week.

I got to climb past some major equipment to get here. I did get my three miles in though. Felt good.

Then I started dinner…some potatoes needed using up, so they needed to boil. While that was happening, I did this…

The start of a COVID-19 Earth Daughter. Turning out well. Plus I played some music and tried to ignore the screaming children outside. They eventually went in to bed. Plus it was ‘cold’. I heard them yelling about that. When it’s nice and warm, I should do this more. It’s peaceful. It helped me NOT think about school and how to do things and what kids need and how to get them that. I’m not feeling super magical at the moment.

I did finally get to the big drawing around 11 PM. It’s quieter then. The cats are down or playing elsewhere. The adults are mostly gone to bed/room.

So progress on torso of one and head of the other. Her tattoo says Flatten the curve. I’m still debating the background.

He’s not debating anything.

Except whether the pets and loving make up for us wanting to comb out all his tangles.

Yesterday, after the first Zoom training, which was way too early, and yes, I stayed up way too late the night before, I tried to take a short nap…first one of the quarantine, but then this happened.

He’s on my chest y’all.

Kitten interacting with my sock…

Yes, pajamas. I did not take them off yesterday. I did shower. And put them back on. Whatever. I changed my shirt. And my underwear. Don’t judge.

Our sourdough starter is finally starting.

It’s hard when you don’t pay attention to it.

The mom of one of the girlchild’s friends is a food blogger, and apparently thought we needed these. We will appreciate them, that’s for sure.

She must like my kid a lot.

I found this while doing yardwork on Sunday…

Definitely a hummingbird nest.

So. Things are happening. As with all of you. We are healthy and fed. Some of us are cranky at times. We are all trying to coexist. I’m not sure what this will continue to look like, but for now, this is what it is. I’m distributing lunches again today and then doing a stitching Zoom, although I’m not sure what I’m actually going to work on for that. Or where. That’s the hardest part in this house is WHERE to Zoom. This room has iffy internet, but the other one has people who make noise and/or want to watch movies that yell FUCK all the time, and there’s going to be some issues next week I think. But we’ll figure it out.

Hopefully today I’ll get closer to done on the drawing, get another walk in, and I don’t know what else. That’s all I can commit to at the moment.

Mostly I’ve Been Drawing…

Mostly I’ve been drawing. I’ve also been stitching on wool. And currently I’m watching a hawk in the tree outside my window, because that’s more scientific than some of the stuff I’m supposed to be teaching starting next week. It’s OK. We’ll fix it. It’ll give us something to do. I’m thinking during my online office hours, I can offer short draw-a-longs instead of science…or video of the hawk outside my window. Or the hummingbird nest I found while doing yardwork yesterday. Tomorrow I have two trainings on some of the online stuff we’ll be doing for school. I need a plan. I might have a plan. I certainly made a video for my students yesterday about my plan…which is funny. Because I don’t think I have a plan.

Anyway. Life moves on. We seem to be staying healthy, San Diego is not hard hit (yet?) by this disease, and the grocery stores are getting closer to normal. Not normal, but closer. Still can’t buy flour. We managed toilet paper though for the first time in a month. It’s OK…we had a lot. Cat litter will be the next issue. Although I think I can order that online. It just won’t come for a while.

The weekend was quiet…I did go for a walk on Saturday…

It was a nice day out…there’s that plant that makes the dog smell like maple syrup.

This part of the path had turned into a small stream…

Luckily, mud doesn’t hurt hiking boots. I saw bunches of people out on the street, but on this section, there was no one. Nicer that way. Easier than negotiating what side of the road you’re walking on.

Before I walked, girlchild was smart and sat out and enjoyed the sun.

Hopefully there’ll be more of that this week. The dogs like it too. Although yesterday, the neighbors violated stay-at-home orders and had another family (I suspect cousins) and grandparents there, screaming for hours. Ah, Easter. When God wants you to infect your family. My mom stopped by to drop off handmade Easter cards…but she opened the door and dropped them in (where we disinfected them…not really) and then briefly talked to me from the deck/driveway conduit. Which is much more than 6 feet away. I’m afraid we’ll get them sick…we have two essential workers in constant contact here. I don’t want to be the viral conductor. And today, I’m going back to school to distribute lunches…now with a mask and gloves.

So drawing…I spent over 8 hours ‘drawing’. Because a lot of it is just staring at the paper and trying to decide what goes where next…not actually putting pen or pencil to paper. I am still sketching it out in pencil before I do the ink.

At some point on Sunday, the cats started trying to eat the paper. Because that makes sense…

So I have a bunch of taped bits now. Thanks to this sweet biatch…

She is a sweetheart. Really. Except with paper. Her sister is more predictably evil…

So we have a big piece of paper that looks a lot like a kitten playground.

Mostly fixable. I kept drawing Sunday…

Not my first bat…actually did a lot more on Sunday…

The thought process is slow…but it’s moving.

The top half is done…at least as far as I know, it is. Now I’m in the bottom half.

At some point, the drawing starts to talk to me, and this becomes easier. It’s talking now. I’m thinking another couple of days of drawing and I should be done. Tracing Wonder Under with these cats will be interesting. I do a lot of it when the kittens are asleep. It’s easier than fighting them over the excitement of the big paper. Speaking of excitement…

Well, there’s Calli. She’s old. Toys are exciting though.

Two more dots…the snail on the bottom right…

That cat is so helpful…

Every night, I clear a space for her to sit in all the stitchery madness. Here’s last night’s dot…

Top right, basket of flowers.

And I also worked on the road on Saturday night…

Got a good chunk done while watching True Detective. I just need to connect the bits now, then put some feet on that bird, embellish a monkey and a hut, and then add ten tons of grass and flowers. No worries.

OK, so today I distribute lunches, plus draw some more and make a mask for a desperate friend. Then exercise in some way and stitch some more and tomorrow get my ass out of bed early for some school training. Woo hoo!

That’ll Do…

Hi. How are you all doing? I’m on day 6 of not feeling right. No fever, no cough, just a fun conglomerate of other symptoms that might be something and might not. So I’m just drinking a lot of fluids and hoping whatever it is goes away soon. I suspect a bunch of you feel the same way at the moment. Or not…

I spent yesterday’s school Zoom meeting lying in bed with a cat and the computer…there’s a quilt meeting today, but I don’t know these people, so I don’t feel like I can do the same thing, although my head’s a little slippy/slidey at the moment. Spacy. Headachey. All good.

I have moments of feeling fine, like Thursday night, when I walked almost three miles without any dogs for once…

It’s not because I didn’t want to walk with the dogs…they had gone over to the other house and I still wanted a walk…which is good, because yesterday, I so incredibly did NOT have the energy for walking, and today isn’t looking much better…hello Hawk.

I even finished my book.

Sitting in the sun…with Christmas socks on. Good choice.

My school team got our twinsies shirts on for the school social media…

And I did a bunch of stitching to get caught up on the dot embellishment…Dot 1…

Dot 2…

I’m just using whatever thread I can find at the moment…not always the right stuff.

Dot 3…

And Dot 4…

Then Friday brought spacey head and lots of digestive issues, continued over for Day 3 of Digestion Bingo at that point…now on the All White Food diet, trying to stay hydrated…plus during gaming last night, I did Dot 5, horribly over flashed, but there nonetheless…

She says each one will take 30 minutes. That last one took more than 30 minutes.

I’m caught up. For now.

I finished the outline quilting on this quilt…

I’d like to finish the background quilting today as well, but I’m not sure of energy and I’m supposed to do a Zoom in about 15 minutes. Ugh.

With rumors of San Diego going into mask requirement, I started trying to find materials in my office. Fabric is not the issue, but the ties…but I have a weird stash of truly old stuff…

I made the first mask from some pattern (please don’t ask me which one…they’re all over the internet and I only have half my brain functioning at the moment)…

I used batiks because they are a nice tight weave, but straight up…

I can’t wear this. I get claustrophobic in it and can’t breathe. Everyone else says it’s fine. So I guess this one is for the girlchild.

I then tried a basic surgical mask…much easier to breathe, but this is only one layer. Not very protective…

So I did a second one yesterday with two layers…not perfect…it only stays on if I have my hair in a bun or ponytail.

But I can breathe through it. Boychild doesn’t like the ties. I haven’t offered one to the man yet, because now that I think I might be sick, I’ve breathed into these and need to wash them before anyone else uses them. Sigh.

No, I can’t make masks for you. I can barely handle making these at the moment. Straight up, sitting up for long periods of time in an actual chair makes me dizzy. So I love all of you…go make your own please or go on Etsy, and if you’re making them for hospitals and medical workers, I love you more; please respect that I cannot. Sometimes we can only do what we can do. As I chug more Gatorade and wonder why it has such an awful aftertaste.

Have a cute cat picture…

And another one….

Plus this wide-awake one…

And lastly, this dog, NOT helping me review curriculum that decidedly does NOT cover photosynthesis.

Ah. School. You still drive me nuts.

I drew for a while last night. It was hard because I was pretty spaced out.

Yes, I am drinking chicken broth. All I really want right now is some really good chicken soup. I will probably settle for mashed potatoes and canned chicken again.

Usually I put my goals for the day(s) in this last paragraph. I’m tired. I don’t like food right now. I want to feel better. I want to finish quilting. That’ll do.

I Can’t Remember Where to Be When…

Ahhh. Yes. So. This new world order of school online and trying to figure all the bits and pieces out (there are a lot of bits and pieces). I’m supposed to call three families back and try to get them to get free internet. It’s like sales calls except the families are so embarrassed that they don’t have it already. I remember saying something in class about it, and one kid was like “WHO? WHO doesn’t have internet?!” and I’m like, whoa kid, lots of people, you privileged doofus. Which is funny, because I’m at a Title I school and there’s not a lot of privilege there.

So I’ve had too much stuff to try to get done in the last few days. And more today. Plus eyeballs on what’s happening in the country, on more horrors and do I need to make masks and why can’t we get the military folks off the carrier and WTF is going on with Florida or why do I care about that? In all that, I’m trying (like many) to do my job in a whole new way. Online meetings and trainings are fine, but they tie you down to where the computer can go, so there’s a lot of sitting. There were five of them yesterday, three for work and two social, but they were too long and too much, so I need to figure that out. Sooner rather than later.

I need a routine. For food, for work, for art. For life. Don’t we all? Here’s one of the social meetings…I’ve only been kicked off a few times, which should make it interesting when I’m doing school stuff with kids in a few weeks. I got kicked off this one a couple of times…or at least paused.

I’m currently listening to another training while writing this. Then I’ll shower (I hope) and try to get a hold of the rest of the kids I’m missing.

There’s been some stitching…I mindlessly sewed all 90 dots down…

For like 3 nights straight. Maybe 4. I don’t actually know what day it is.

Really, the hardest part was finding a color of wool thread for each dot. I have tons of it, but I kept missing one green here or there. They’re just whip-stitched down.

Why am I doing this? Because Sue Spargo is posting an embellished dot a day, so I thought I would add that to my crazy shit.

I finished yesterday during Zoom number 4. I find sitting through Zooms without something to work on just sucks.

My last Zoom was book club, and it would have been nice to have something to work on. So I need to be prepared for that shit.

Now I am four days behind the embellishment, so that’s today. Maybe. Plus I want to walk the dogs and sit on the deck and draw.

I finally FINALLY got my head around quilting last night. I’m getting close…

Got the arm done and the sky around it…

Easy stuff…just needed the mental space for it.

Realizing I’m not going to be able to go out and buy binding…huh…

Well. I guess we’ll have to wing that. WING. Ha. Ha.

Sigh. I still don’t feel particularly well. I’ve been dealing with something for about four days now. Headaches in the beginning, hot flashes and chills, minor, very minor fever (really, it’s hard to tell with me), plus digestive stuff showing up now. I think we’re all turning into hypochondriacs.

OK. Well. Then there were lots of animals involved with everything, because that’s how it is now.

They are on us and in front of us and next to us…

Which is mostly fine. This one can be a pain in the behind…

But cute, nonetheless…note that they are sleepy once you are up and out of bed. Before that, they are rambunctious and climbing the blinds.

Fuckers.

All three cats are in this photo…because my office is the best play space ever.

Disaster waiting to happen.

Guarding my thread…

Or playing constantly…

And lastly, the comfort foods. Yesterday, three of us each made one…boychild top left, girlchild fancy ones on the right, and mine on the bottom left (I don’t eat chocolate)…

There must be a need for comfort.

OK, I have no official duties today, besides finishing all the things I didn’t get done yesterday. I’m hoping to finish the outline quilting and move on to the background…maybe even finish it. Plus do the four embellishments (or at least two of them). And draw. And walk. First shower…and hopefully get my digestive system to behave. Sigh. There’s a sense of twisted normalcy here…but no routine. I gotta figure that out in the next two weeks. It will be easier then, in two weeks, I think because there will be required meetings every day. It’s just harder to keep track of these things. There’s no bell between homeroom and 2nd period. I don’t know when to eat lunch. I can’t remember where to be when. New world.

We Have Found the Sunz…

and we are lying in them.

I wish I had a kitten mindset…

Or an old lady dog mindset. But no. I am a worrisome adult human type. Although, this was Calli after the first thunder clap the other night…and me after getting an email from the teachers’ union.

It’s fine. I laid on the floor with her later that night for about an hour and a half, and she calmed down. The teacher stuff…it’ll be fine. I don’t agree with all of it, but it doesn’t really matter in the long run. It’s some routine, some normalcy. It might help the kids; might even help some of us.

I drew Thursday night…still trying to make different shapes and deal with spaces slightly differently.

When you have a recognizable style and you’re trying to fuck with it, your brain often goes back to what it’s comfortable doing. Which is good and bad. Stretch. A little. A lot? Always trying to stretch.

This is last night’s drawing…I think it went really well with the figure and maybe I should have stopped there and come back to it? I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter.

I’m just drawing. I was trying to get that feeling in my head that things are so weird and surreal and I can’t get a handle on any of it. So the body is good. Maybe that’s something I’ll save for the next one. With the Coronawood sign. But bigger and higher and something. I don’t know. Just messing around. Late night with a brain that wouldn’t shut up.

I found that damn missing windmill. I was sweeping my office and it just appeared. Fucker.

Maybe it will get its own quilt. Who knows.

Speaking of quilts, I did a little quilting yesterday.

I’m going to do more today. The machine is behaving now and it’s a pretty smooth process.

Still mourning Australia’s devastating fires…

Suspect this will just be a year of mourning.

Girlchild set a video of pup post-bath to this…

He runs around and rubs his body all over the carpet, like he’s a furry vacuum. It’s amusing. He got a bath because he smelled like the salmon oil we put on the old lady’s food for her arthritis. Or her skin. Not sure which.

Last night, we also had gaming…on devices. Multiple devices. Kind of difficult in some ways…

I do always stitch through these…it helps me pay attention.

Got the random hut and monkey stitched on. Now they need embellishment.

Hi Kitten…

It’s Saturday. Our plan is to grocery shop early tomorrow, so list today. We’ll find out today if the kids are here for the next few weeks without trips to their dad’s…waiting on a test result. It’s a beautifully sunny day, so I’m thinking some minor yardwork. Some quilting. I’m going to try some yoga…it’s close enough to pilates. I’m doing something exercise-like every day. It doesn’t feel like enough, but I also know I’m not eating particularly well…unlike most people, I seem to be eating less…not enough food is not the best plan as a diabetic. Next week, I’ll get trained on the new teaching normal and do some planning apparently (no idea what that looks like). My original panic stemmed from an email that we would need to work our regular school day (but at home) every day next week. I cleared a desk, tried to think what staring at a computer for 7 hours straight would feel like. They’ve backed that down a lot in subsequent emails, which helps with the anxiety. It’s more of a go-with-the-flow thing that I can handle. Of course, they train us, and then we have ‘two weeks off’ for Spring Break. It’s just weird. All so weird.

Art today. Definitely. Art and exercise and less of the news.

The Missing Hand…

Yeah. I skipped a day of writing. I don’t know what day it was though, so that’s OK. Been watching NYC weather this pandemic shit and it’s scary. Sending good thoughts to the whole city and everywhere else it looks like that. Certainly, many of us are questioning any sore throat or dry cough or now, digestive issue (dammit, stop eating beans then!), wondering Was that it? Is this the start of it? I think here in San Diego, we haven’t really gotten the full brunt of the virus yet. Give it two weeks. With that, I’m leaving in a few minutes to go distribute lunches to my kids. We’re down to only two people at a time, so we can socially distance.

Tuesday, we walked the dogs…we’re gonna do it again today. My parents are up to twice a day with theirs, which would be fine by me, but the old lady dog can’t do it. She wants to, but it’s too much for her.

We have places we can walk locally…this is just out the front door and sort of through a neighbor’s yard, although they’ve never complained…but now the house has sold, so who knows. We just go quickly and quietly.

There are no actual grapevines here any more.

But I still like the signs.

Mostly empty. We didn’t see any people.

And a lot of plant material. It’s pretty green this year…we’re over 13 inches of rain, which is a lot for us. There’s more coming tonight apparently. But then I think we might be done for a while. It’s cold and windy today…next week, we’re supposed to hit the high 80s. It will be harder to keep people inside.

I got an email today from an exhibit I usually enter, warning us that there are just a few more days to the deadline. It’s weird thinking about future art shows when it seems like the world is about to burn down in a plague. But I guess that’s hope for the future…hope that the venue will still be viable, hope that we will still be able to have art shows. Hope that we’ll all still be here to send work and hang work and see work.

Here was Tuesday’s drawing. I didn’t draw yesterday. I did other stuff.

Maybe I will draw today. So Tuesday night, the man went to bed early, because he’s working these awful long shifts that basically leave time to sleep and eat and little else, so I finished the lettuces on the last of the October Folk Tails blocks.

Although this was the 2015 block of the month, I didn’t start working on it until March of 2016…so I’ve officially been working on it (on and off) for four years. Yeah. You read that right. A lot of times, I just worked on it once a month at my stitching meeting, and then last year, because I was doing the embroidery patterns, I barely worked on it at all.

Anyway, as I finished that grasshopper block (well, it’s missing a road and flowers), I realized it was time to stitch all of it together. Holy moley. I had some larger bits sewn together, but pinned some more parts…

Sewed them until I had two long strips…

There’s still plenty to do…that hen has no feet, for example.

I feel like I’m going to have to go back through all the instructions to fill in everything I’m missing. Plus it needs ten tons of grass sewn everywhere…

And the road needs to be continued down through the bottom three rows…

I stopped there, because I realized I needed to sew over onto the other blocks and they weren’t sewn together yet. Plus apparently a hut is supposed to go there. Uh huh. Barely fits.

And there’s a spare monkey too.

So there’s still plenty to work on. It’ll be another year. Plus borders! But it was exciting to get it to this stage.

Girlchild is still cooking up a storm…and posting artistic photos.

The result of that photo was cheddar scallion English muffin bread. Very good.

So yesterday, I did quilt for a while…although the machine was being cranky…

As always…

Luna was being a pain…kept trying to hide in the quilt and climb everything in the studio while I was on a video call with stitchy friends…

Trying to get the light right, so the computer has to be in a specific place. Interesting commentary for how I’m going to do this when we start for school. There are a limited number of places that are lit right, have seating, and stay quiet even when people are here. And there are a few people here. Four adults take up room. I’m lucky to have a variety of spaces for people to hang out in.

And cats. Cats can hang out too.

While I was on that call, I cleaned up the huge pile of papers and crap on my desk. Well. I cleaned up most of it. I’m not sure what to do with the other part of it.

Wait for another day. Although the word from on high is that I need to start grading things. All right. I’ll do that.

Then last night, I wanted to start the second one of the Applique Stories blocks…Anna Maria Horner sends 8 fabrics and no instructions basically, and then you make a block out of them. Of course, most people make this flowery bouquet-type things, and I make naked women. But I like this…the one on the right is from January’s fabrics and then on the left, you can see what she sent for March.

I picked the backgrounds…which was hard in itself, let me tell you. Trying to find a color that won’t overwhelm the given fabrics, or clash with them either…it’s difficult. The blocks are about 19×20″, a totally random size that I can’t explain. They could be finished together, but it probably makes more sense to finish them separately. I’m not fusing anything…just cutting pieces and then stitching them in place…and then doing some embroidery. Slow work.

That one fabric just damn well set itself up to be breasts…seriously. How could I NOT?

These are a challenge. I would never put these together. I like a challenge.

I wouldn’t even BUY half these fabrics. That’s what I love about this. Really. It’s fun.

I probably did this for 2 or 3 hours last night…walked away, walked back…added a bird. No starting drawing.

No nothing. No more fabrics than those 8. Honestly, those 8 are the challenge.

She was off balance, so I added the hand…here they both are…oh wait, the hand is still missing.

Must have added that later. Oh well. I can keep adding if I want. Tonight I have a Zoom stitching meeting, and my plan is to stitch stuff down during the meeting. The actual stitch down is easier to do while it’s flat, rather than trying to hoop it. The pieces are really only held in place by a few pins.

Anyway. So that was the last two days. I’m coping. I’m not sick (yet?), but question every cough and sore throat tickle. I know people who are sick. I hope everyone is OK. I know the world will be a different place when this is done. I’m sad about that…like all of you. And sitting and waiting is not my superpower…I’m glad I have the art to keep my brain occupied. Maybe tomorrow I’ll show you the missing hand…but I’m thinking she needs fingernails first…

Normally, Right Now…

Normally, right now, I’d be staring at a pile of grading…actually, no, I’d be at the chiropractor, and she’d be adjusting me, and I would have just finished tutoring, because Tuesdays (it is Tuesday, right?) are LOOONNNGGG, and then I might decide not to do any work tonight because I’d done so much of it before. This week, we’d be starting our ecosystem part of the unit, which we were in the middle of trying to rewrite, because standards-based grading has changed how we assess kids. When we got told we weren’t coming back until April 20, we proactively picked up and moved everything on the calendar for that three-week time period, realizing we were going to lose most of the second-to-last unit. At this point, I suspect we may not come back this year in person, which brings up the question of what CAN we do remotely, and how in the hell are we going to teach sex ed this year? Or are we? It’s just unclear. And overwhelming at the moment. Worry about getting sick, about family members getting sick, already seeing friends getting sick, pile that on top of worry for students, worry about our jobs (if they figure out we can do this on a computer, will they just get rid of some of us? Will our kids even log in? OK. So let’s not dwell on that.). Let’s focus on the present. My head likes to dwell on the future What Ifs, which doesn’t really help.

What did I do today? I recorded three chapters of City of Ember for my students. I attempted 50 minutes of pilates with no equipment and a crazy woman who bends better than I ever did. I swore at the computer. I walked the kids and dogs for 2.35 miles. I avoided the cops. Apparently that’s a thing in the town right next to where I live, where they might pull you over and ask you why you’re out and about. I avoided humans, except for the three I live with. One has been at work for hours. I barely saw him last night. He has one more day of a hellish shift and then four days off. I potentially have four Zoom or Discord meetings in the next week. Wait. Five. I think. I refuse to wear a bra to any of them.

The series continues.

Managing anxiety is not easy without a pandemic. What helps in a pandemic? Blue skies and beautiful fluffy white clouds. Puppies. Kittens. Stitching. Reading. Drawing.

See? Much better. Making art, of course.

Yesterday, I pieced a backing for the quilt out of some light-damaged fabric I got from my SIL ages ago. I think that’s where it came from. I’m not sure if it came damaged or if that happened here, but it doesn’t matter if it’s on the back.

Yup. Those are some hippos on lime green. Great backing. I managed to pinbaste the whole thing last night…

I realize as I get older that this kneeling on the ground thing will get harder to do, but it still works for now. Keeping kittens off it took some assistance from the man.

This is funny. Luna’s like, “Hey Dad, WTF is she doing and WHY CAN’T WE PLAY WITH IT?”

Well yeah. You can’t. Every cat I’ve ever lived with at some point has skidded across the room into a quilt laid out on the floor and destroyed what I was trying to do.

In the middle of pinning it…every time I do this, I end up throwing one or two pins out because they’re too dull or they won’t close right any more. I never seem to run out.

I don’t know how that works. They must be breeding.

At this point, they can smell the edges. It’s all pinned. Can’t hurt it now.

So it’s ready for quilting. It’s a good thing I ordered batting before all this shut down…I didn’t have anything big enough in the house.

I’ve been lax with the two social-media things I’m doing this month, but #igquiltfest yesterday was Favorite Fabric. I’m like, yes, all of them. This is such a small subset of what I have…

It’s my palette. I have lots. I love all of it. Seriously, I tried to get rid of some once because I was like, there’s stuff I never use, so I was going through the drawers and only found like one fabric I thought I could get rid of. Now I just figure those will end up on the back of something some day. I haven’t bought fabric for backings in other two years. I just use what I have. Sometimes I piece it. Sometimes it’s something someone sent me. I don’t care. It’s on the wall. Who’s gonna see it?

Girlchild has been cooking up a storm…it’s been tasty.

I have to cook for myself tonight. I will survive. Somehow I persuaded her to prep the scones I like too…I think so she would have photos for Insta.

Because when I do it, they’re never lined up that nicely. Remember that for when I post MY photo. It’ll be like a jumbled mess.

She likes to cook. I don’t mind it, but I’d rather be doing other things. I stitched a little today, just wooly bits, because my head was being mean. Shut up, head.

OK. Well I haven’t done all the things on my list for today, but I did do about two hours of exercise. Still haven’t hit 10,000 steps for the day. During a normal school day, that’s easy. It’s a beautiful day. Spring is here. Weeds need pulling. I have sunflower seeds I could plant. I have a quilt to work on. There’s a bunch of food in the fridge, although we’re running low on eggs. I have nowhere to be tonight or all day tomorrow. Everyone I know and love is still healthy or managing their illness, as far as I know. I’m still OK. Not normal, just OK.