Teaching Kittens to Fingerpaint

‘Tis Wednesday and I am trying to type this while a senior cat headbutts my chin and licks my hand. Also my right wrist hurts…and trying to figure out if it’s (a) all the computer grading I did yesterday, (b) lifting weights at the gym, or (c) tracing a few really big pieces of sky on Wonder Under is really pointless, because I think it’s all of them. Note to self: take computer off stand to grade. Also go find the wrist brace because last time you wore it for a day and things were better. My chiropractor is already going to have fun with my neck and upper back on Friday. Let’s not add other injuries from your silly job. Tiny little laptop keyboard plus bad angle of body and wrist. Silly.

So I’m not feeling like there’s much progress on the tracing, because I’m up in the big swoopy bits of the sky and the pieces are huge and a pain to fit onto the Wonder Under, so they take much longer to trace than all the small pieces I was doing over the weekend.

I think the first night, I only traced like 25 pieces. But they were big and fussy. Last night? Last night, I started on piece 411 and finished on 441. I’m still in the sky, but I’ve moved from the back right to the back left, and there’s not a lot of it left. So that’s a plus, because I’m used to doing about 100 pieces an hour and this does not feel like movement. I’m 8 hours in and still in the 400s. I’m only getting about an hour and 15 minutes of tracing each night during the week. I went to the gym last night, prepped breakfasts AND cooked dinner on Monday night. Tonight I have an art meeting on Zoom, tomorrow a stitching meeting on Zoom plus science planning. It’s hard to get time to make things right now. But exercise is important and so is the socializing. Most of them are back on Zoom for now, until omicron fucks off. I’m still getting a few quarantine contracts each day…wait. I don’t think I got any yesterday. Is that possible? Knock on wood, knock hard.

I will go back and fill in all those little spaces with the smaller pieces I’ll be tracing tonight or tomorrow night. I hate wasting Wonder Under. I save pieces that are bigger than 3″ square for when I need just a small piece to retrace something (happens all the time) or when I need to make a label for the back of a quilt.

Speaking of quilts, there are three in Escondido at the California Center for the Arts right now in the California Fibers’ exhibit Surface, Substance, Structure…So Cal Mama…

I Can’t Be Your Superwoman…

And Portrait of the Artist As a Young Woman…

I haven’t made it up to the show yet. It’s up until March 6, so check it out.

And I also have a piece in the A Better World exhibit at Visions Art Museum, Bill! Bill! Bill!, a tribute to Bill Nye.

They’ve been closed for the last week or so; I haven’t seen this exhibit either, but I did see it in person when it was at Road to California? I think? Can’t remember where…it was pre-COVID, though, so fuzzy brain. It will be there until April 3. Lots of opportunities to see Nida originals! OK two opportunities.

I’m trying to finish up Sue Spargo’s Chirp before this year’s block of the month starts, ironically because I haven’t finished last year’s either. Silly, but a goal anyway. There are 24 flowers around the edge.

There are four of each type of flower. I have finished three of the types, so 12, so halfway! Woo! Wait, this also might have something to do with my wrist hurting today…those yellow cast-on bullions are a pain to do.

Every flower has them. I’m getting better at them. I guess that’s the plus. I did start the fourth flower type last night, but this is not a fast border to stitch. I suspect they got complaints, because last year’s easy BOM had a super basic border. I like a complicated border, but when you think you’re almost done and then there’s still 6 months of work (I do these slowly), it’s a hard mind thing.

OK. Time for me to get my ass out of here to school, where it’s a Wednesday, so I teach ALL the things, four different things, it’s like my hair is on fire…

Yeah. Welcome to my job in pandemic times. It’s never really a cake walk anyway, but this stuff just makes it harder. My morning science block will be like pulling teeth…I know because I did it with three classes yesterday. The afternoon block should be slightly better? Maybe? But then 6th graders in art. We are starting something new, though, so maybe that will help. It will feel less like teaching kittens to fingerpaint? Hard to say. Tracing the damn sky tonight though. That’s a thing.

Cannot Verify Identity

It’s morning and Apple cannot confirm who I am. Same, Apple, same. I know I am exhausted after a 4-day week (and I haven’t lived through the 4th day yet). I have 78 thousand things happening in the next 4 days, including grades. I need to get tested today. I need to catch my kids up with my co-worker’s classes…IDK how we got so far behind. IDK a lot of things honestly. I can’t decide how to paint my house numbers on my newly painted mailbox. This seems crucial. I used regular acrylic paint last time and it was not a good thing. Honestly, of all the things I need to do in the next 4 days, that is the least of my worries.

Is COVID over yet? I have 3 more contracts to do this morning, and then IDK what’s going on with who’s come back and who hasn’t, but it looks like none of them have done any of their work. At all. So there’s that. Well, 2 of the girls did work. Everyone else thinks it’s a vacation.

I think I need a nap. I feel like if you live in a house with people, you should check your phone late at night to see if your partner texted you from the other room about how loud the television is. I had no energy to get out of bed and complain. It’s OK. I put the pillow over my head, and woke up 2 hours later with a cat half ON that pillow. Hence the feeling of suffocating.

Weekend. I see it. It’s full, but I see it. I won’t have to get up at 6:30 and be competent enough to teach about the kinetic energy of atoms. Unfortunately, today I DO have to do those things.

I finished the drawing. And I started numbering on Wednesday night…I also realized I didn’t take a picture of the whole thing. Whoops.

I only numbered the first 135 pieces Wednesday night…I had to go to bed. So I could get up at 6:30 and explain states of matter. That turtle is three states of matter…solid, liquid, and gas.

Last night, I had a quilt meeting on Zoom, so I finished numbering.

So it has 1329 pieces (assuming I didn’t miss any, which I probably did)…which isn’t too bad. I figured more than 1200 and less than 1500, so that was right on. It took a long time to number though…it’s complicated to figure out where pieces are going and where to number next.

Two and a half hours of numbering to be exact. That’s long. Also I was on Zoom, so that didn’t help. Probably that means I misnumbered somewhere and I’ll be screwed later. Also, it does not bode well for how fast tracing those same crazy pieces will go. Ah well. Luckily I don’t really care how long it takes as long as it ends at some point.

I had about 21 minutes before bedtime when I finished. OK, 21 minutes is pretty exact. So I started one of the applique stories pieces that’s been sitting on the light table for about a year.

Needs work. I’ll get there.

Ah at least it is Friday, yeah? Start tracing tonight? Also grades are due in 4 days. That. Ugh. Surface Design Association conference this weekend, though. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend some of it online and not just watch it all recorded (hopeful, ever hopeful). Anyway. Yeah. Probably first need to get this whole cup of tea in me and then another. Then maybe my eyes will open.

As I Was Falling Asleep…

Proof I wasn’t ready to go back to school? What am I talking about? We’re always braindead on the weekends. I spent Friday night doing almost nothing but reading; Saturday, we hiked and I drew; Sunday, I panicked a little about school and did some grading and recorded a video, but I still have to post everything and check the calendar and finish up contracts for this week. I tested negative on Friday, but we’re pretty sure we had a positive case in the classroom on Thursday. They don’t even tell us anymore. Just assume? I’m hoping the omicron thing peaks soon so we can go back to whatever version of normal we were on in this iteration. Here’s one crazy thing in my head…don’t get tested in the morning on a lab day, because if they pull you out for testing positive, who the hell is gonna cover your labs? Some poor resource teacher who doesn’t have a clue? The superintendent? Yeah. Well, they are sending people out from the district office to cover our classes. Doesn’t mean they know what they’re doing.

Anyway, stay healthy, stay sane. And for MLK, let’s work on voting rights and white people.

The drawing is progressing, although I had to take a break last night, because I couldn’t figure out what to do with the next section, and I know I had an idea right as I was falling asleep, but I don’t remember what it was. It’s OK. It will come back. It’s in my brain somewhere.

On Saturday night, I managed all this…

Inked the rest of the arms and added a few creatures, then penciled in some animals below…and then moved half of them again and redrew most of the others because it was just kind of random placement and size and didn’t work at all, which is how I end up with freakishly tiny pieces.

Ah well. So yeah, moved and shrunk the tortoise, moved the bunny to the other side, redrew the bobcat because it was too fluffy and too diagonal.

The bunny was too big too. It’s still too big really, but I’m not sure I could go smaller. It will work.

The center part is the section I’m flailing on…

It’s OK. Whatever my brain had going will come back by tonight. So there’s just this bit and the sky to do, and that’s it. Then numbering all those pieces and into the tracing. Sounds lovely.

Nova is not sure about all that.

So I’m also doing the Molli Sparkles Cut It Up challenge, which is just some piecing stuff, cutting into fabrics that need love and that might be hard to cut into. I don’t usually have a problem cutting into fabrics, but I do have some that never get used because their details make them hard to use in an art quilt like the ones I make. So I’m trying to use those. So far, most of the fabrics I’ve cut into have never been used. Success! I did this block a few weeks ago…

And then the directions of the curves were bugging me. I thought if I pulled two of them off and switched them, then it wouldn’t look like each side was going the same way? I don’t know if you can even see that. My brain can’t UNSEE it. Anyway, I took one triangle off and tried holding it up to the other sides and there is no way to make this work with the triangles I have. I even did some fancy drawing to check…

Yup. That’s technological wizardry there. Anyway, I could recut triangles, or I could just accept this, because it will be in a quilt full of wildness and it won’t even matter. It’s a good thing I came to this conclusion, because the next step was making a bunch of flying geese, which I don’t think I’ve ever made before, but I didn’t work very hard at directional fabrics and I’m OK with what I have so far.

Oh honey, those aren’t very directional…

THERE we go. I have three more of these to make and I’m totally OK with how it’s going. Why do I do silly piecing and strange challenges when I have so much else going on? The very left brain activity of piecing helps my right brain relax a little and then I can focus on the other stuff, like what to draw in the belly space. Plus it’s something I can control. Well, obviously, not completely, because I can’t figure the directional stuff out, but let it the fuck go. I’m good. We’ll see how far I go with it.

I took my sewing stuff to school to fix a kid’s stuffed animal.

He didn’t seem as appreciative as I would have thought? Ah well. Whatever. Weird skills for a weird job.

Saturday’s hike included an exploratory bit where we tried to find another loop in this park…

But the little section to get down to the other road is apparently private. In the middle of nowhere. So we turned back.

More noticing of the things. It’s not spring yet.

Hey guys. What’s up?

Always being watched.

Saturday dinner drawing…

Not sure what was happening with the hands.

OK, so there’s a to-do list, like always. Some of it’s art-related, a lot is work-related, and there’s a bit of Go-for-a-Walk-related. So I’ll start with packing a quilt to be shipped and work out from there. Hopefully the missing idea from falling asleep will come back and maybe I’ll finish the drawing tonight. We’ll see. It’s nice to have the day off, either way. It’s also nice that the neighbors are quiet (for now).

Good Goals

Hey, so I survived the first day with kids back. I didn’t have as many absent as I thought I would, until the last period (9 out of 27), and I’d seen some of them at school earlier. I remember my mom telling me when I was a kid that I wasn’t THAT sick, as she shoved me lovingly out the door to go to school. I probably did that to my own kids too, because who was going to watch them if they were sick? I was at work, their dad was at work, it was a pain to get a sub, all that stuff. Certainly I sent one kid to the nurse yesterday who didn’t look well, but I know some of them fake that stuff (not this kid) and some are just anxious as shit to be at school (I’m with ya, girl). I don’t want to BE sick. I don’t want to get someone sick. One of the many anxiety-creating mantras that have been in most of our heads for the last two years.

I only had 3 pandemic contracts for kids at the end of the day…we’ll see where we’re at by the end of today. Actually, it’s a week from now I’m thinking about…we’ll see where we’re at then. I’m trying to be really zen about all of it, just get the work done, you know kids will be out, this is supposed to peak by the end of the month, grades are due, it’ll all be fine, everything is fine. And then I cried on the way home from work yesterday. It’s not just work; there’s a lot of crazy going on and work is just part of it, and I’m tired (too many things disturbed my sleep on Monday night/Tuesday morning). Crying is a sign I need to read my book more, exercise more, draw more. SLEEP more. Ha. So what did I do? I finished grading the stressful assignment so it was done done done. I stitched a little. And I drew.

I have a pencil outline of the general shape, and there’s a hawk under the notebook, which just has lists of animals and plants from a variety of deserts. I need to make another earth mother. It’s where my head needs to be right now. I do love the last quilt…it’s all bound and sleeved and ready to be cleaned up for the photographer…

But the topic is stressful to see and feel over and over again, and I need some peace for the next one. Plus it took a long time to make that quilt, probably longer than it should have, because so much other stuff got in the way. I started drawing it in early October and didn’t finish until this week. And that’s it. I didn’t make any smaller quilts in between as filler. Effect of the day job, yeah? And the copyediting.

So my goal is to make this one faster, although it’s a similar size…maybe slightly smaller. And to stay sane and healthy. Good goals.

Pretty Damn Relevant…

Teacher, going back to school after Winter Break:

“Why is it so DARK out?”

“Can I unsubscribe from my district’s weekly motivating emails? Can I unsubscribe from ALL of my district’s emails?”

“I haven’t finished my BOOK.”

Now add Omicron to that mix. Yeah. Well, at least we don’t have kids today…it’s just us and our mushy brains that were panicking all weekend about how to prep for a ton of kids out and probably not having a prep period because teachers will be out and avoiding getting sick even with masks and vaccinations. Lots of us thinking all those things. There’s a pro to the getting up early…only one.

That’s it. The sky.

The quilt is almost done…

On Friday, I finished quilting, then kamikazed to the quilt store, which still closes at 3 PM and isn’t open on Sundays at all, so it’s a challenge to get there. Luckily, I wasn’t back to work yet, so I made it with 20 minutes until closing and the perfect binding leapt out of the shelves and into my arms, it was so excited to come home with me and be part of an anti-anti-abortion quilt.

On Saturday, I cleaned the floor and then went on a depressing hike, depressing due to so many things, but it was outside and a hike, and then I came home and trimmed this beast.

See? Depressing hike. OK, the land itself was not depressing. Sigh.

Then later that night, with a little wine in me, I sewed all the binding on by machine and started the hand stitching. I know some people do it all by machine or do a facing, and that’s fine…I like the meditation of the hand stitching and the binding acts as a frame to my often really busy quilts. Gives the eye somewhere to stop.

The binding is done and I’m onto the sleeves. Emailing the photographer today. That sleeve fabric is ancient…I used to have a lot of it and now I don’t.

I did start drawing the next quilt. I knew this week was gonna be hard, going back to school, so before it started, I wanted a drawing that had been started as well. This next quilt drew itself in my head about a month ago. I made a quick sketch with some notes (gee, Nida, it would be cool to see that, why yes it would. Oh well. I don’t have a photo of it. Maybe later.) and then did some research, because it needed some, and wrote down a million things. Really. A million. I could do this one from my head, but it would be better if I added in some real stuff. Or an approximation of real stuff. I started with a rough sketch of where the body was going, though…

Just one this time. I think. Hmmm. I may rethink that.

Other stupid shit I’ve been doing to try to keep from thinking about going back to school: I joined Molli Sparkles Cut It Up Quiltathon. What that really means is that I pieced a block while I was on my quilt guild’s Zoom on Saturday.

I need to rip out two of the triangles and make them go the other way. I think. It’s like an optical illusion nightmare in some ways. I like the block though. Only making one!

I also started going through the black fabric drawers (there are 4 big ones and two smaller ones)…

I’m still going through my fabric to put together some donation bags/boxes for some groups. But last year, at QuiltCon, I took a boro-style sashiko-kind-of scarf class, cut the backing, and promptly did nothing with it. Because school and time and life. But I knew I wanted to do black to white, so I started cutting swatches for that. I’m not sure about the spider. Might creep me out to have it on there. You look down and see a spider? Yeah. We’ll see.

And last, but not least, reading the last book of The Expanse series…well that’s WAY BETTER than the inspirational shit my district sent me this morning.

Pretty damn relevant, y’all. Yeah. OK. 2022. I’m here. I’m not ready, but I’m here. Gonna do the best I can.

My Apologies for the Stuff…

It is the last Friday of Winter Break. All hail the chaos ahead. I’m sifting through my plans for next week (especially art) and trying to adjust for possibly having up to 40% of my kids out. OK. With progress report grades due a week and a half later. I gave my art kids this coming week to finish the two projects that should have been done by Winter Break, because they weren’t going to be done. And now? They may still not be done. Gotta move on, y’all…gotta move on. But I will look at what’s on the calendar and see if I can shift any digital stuff to this week. I hate this year. Science is fine…I did this whole unit digitally last year, so I have the 23 videos of the elements already. It’s totally doable. Minor issue that I don’t have a table of contents yet…I’m hoping that solidifies on Monday. Ha! Yeah right.

SOME YEAR IN THE FUTURE school will be normal-ish again. It’s not this year, that’s for sure.

So I was hiking yesterday, out in the pristine (mostly) wilderness of the Cuyamacas, beautiful day…

No really, it was beautiful. A little warm at times, only saw four other people on the trail.

And I got a phone call. I thought we were out of range…certainly there wasn’t very much cell service. I didn’t answer, although it told me who it thought it was, and it was an art person, couldn’t remember which art place though, gallery, museum, whatever. You know how your phone tries to guess things sometimes? Well it guessed someone I’d talked to before.

In retrospect, I wish I’d answered, but oh well. No voice mail left, but when we got into town for our requisite post-hike snack and drink, I checked email…

That’s Dyar Springs by the way…our destination. Well, honestly, we did a big loop and the destination wasn’t really the point. Six miles though of out in the foresty/meadowy bits.

I like this hike…I’ve done it a few times before, but it’s been a while. We saw almost no wildlife on the hike, but were checking out footprints in the mud…

IDK. You tell me…

So possibly some wildlife in the area…although we saw these while leaving…

Crossing the road of course…instead of out in nature, where we’d been.

ANYWAY, the email was to tell me Womanscape had sold at Quilts=Art=Quilts…

Wow. Did not expect that. I cried. Sigh. It’s been a rough year financially and I’ve been really stressed about some stuff that needs to happen, paying off college, trimming some big, dangerous, tend to drop shit trees, buying food over the summer. It’s why I took on the copyediting job over Winter Break, to pull in some extra cash. So this was a big deal. Also it’s a really cool, complicated, political quilt and I love that someone loved it enough to buy it. Plus this is a venue that has shown a lot of my work, so I feel good that they are benefiting from the sale as well, especially during the pandemic, when so many places are losing money and/or shutting down. We just got news that the Escondido opening is not happening. The show is still going on…just no super spreader event. That’s a good thing. Plus it was going to be a Thursday night and trying to get there after teaching is a pain.

Anyway. Thanks to the buyer. This piece has been in a bunch of shows and won an award and it’s a piece I really love. Enjoy.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to finish this other complicated beast…

I spent about 2 hours yesterday evening blasting music and quilting, and almost got done…

There’s a little bit of outlining left and then the borders, and then she’s good for binding…which is good, because my favorite quilt shop still has limited hours, so Saturdays are really the only day I can go during the school year. It’s today or tomorrow! I don’t think I have anything big enough to bind this thing. I might. I will look first.

While I quilt, Kitten likes to sit behind me and stick her claws in my ass.

Not a fan.

Simba got combed the other night…

He spends the time blissed out or trying to bite me.

The winter sun is hard to find these days…but just find the animals and it’s probably there…

Nova is a weirdo.

I did this drawing on Wednesday night…

I think that’s number 16? I’m not sure, honestly. I’ve missed a few nights…like last night, I didn’t draw because the Man wasn’t here, so I graded stuff (yeah, that’s still happening unfortunately) and then quilted.

While I was quilting, I was looking at these stacking drawers behind my machine…there’s a bunch of thread in there that I don’t really like, but I save it for when the girlchild comes home and needs me to hem something that’s a color besides white, black, or gray. But also, as I was looking at it last night, there’s a bunch of bobbins (and bobbin holders too) in there.

Shit, I don’t even think I have that machine any more. Like why am I keeping bobbins that don’t work in the current machine? You are probably like me, in that you have drawers or boxes full of stuff that you haven’t looked at or touched in years (seriously, many many years) and they all need cleaning out. I could do that right now, or I could quilt. I guess you know how THAT argument goes in my head, every single time. Sorry kids. I love you, but I also love making art. My apologies for the stuff.

My Days Are Off…

I keep thinking my days are off. Isn’t today Thursday? It feels like I’ve done three days of school (I haven’t). Yesterday had a very Wednesday feel to it…I was convinced I had prep period at the end of the day (I didn’t). My entire prep was eaten up by pandemic contract kids anyway, so whatever. Why give me a prep when I can’t actually prep anything? Or grade anything? Today will be all the late assignments and redoes, and then hopefully I can get my head around one of last week’s assignments. I’d really like to go into break with very little to grade…that is actually impossible…my fault for assigning work. I’ve got two major art assignments plus a science packet and a major academic grade. Yeah. Ugh.

My Winter Break is full of a lot of work, y’all…but hopefully also full of this quilt…which will probably be a 2022 finish. I finished ironing the bubble together on Monday night…

Although I still don’t know where two of these three pieces belong…

I had already recut the R. Typos though…in an anti-abortionist’s sign? Makes sense.

The rest of the quilt rolled up on teflon sheets. It might sound like I don’t respect anti-abortionists (I just typed that anti-abortionshits accidentally). Sigh. I don’t. Because so many of them preach and then don’t follow it. I spend all day asking kids, “Who are YOU in charge of?”…and they sigh and answer “MYSELF”. And then this shit. Get out of my uterus.

You personally can make a decision about abortion for yourself. You should be having conversations with sexual partners before having sex (we actually teach this) about what y’all choose to do if it happens. Shit happens. Women should be able to have sex AND choices. Men do.

Then last night, I pieced the background and ironed the whole thing down. That took an hour and 42 minutes.

And so many of the details are hard to see in this photo. Part of that is the stitching that needs to happen, but also, honestly, like many of my pieces, you need to be up close to see most of it. So stitch down is next, probably 10-15 hours of that, then sandwich and pinbaste, an hour, then quilt for 15 hours or so, then about 6 hours of binding and sleeves. So 37 more hours? In two weeks? Probably not. Not with holidays and a copyediting job and a bunch of science planning that needs to happen. We’ll see. Plus grades.

In other school news, I got this email and laughed (and almost cried)…

That’s a shit ton of videos, and after they sent that, I made two more.

Our school party was Monday afternoon…this is my co-teacher who is awesome sauce and helps keep me sane. I can’t imagine doing all this alone.

She is more sequins than I am…although those tassels are pretty fancy for me.

Yesterday, we got an inch and a half of rain during the day…and I had duty before and after school.

‘Twas damp.

They kept reaching a paw out and touching, very gently, the other cat. And then there was running.

The man is still out and about…Zion…

Beautiful, eh? Plus a flash flood last night that put him in his car overnight…but waking up to this…

He’s OK…his tent is wet, but hopefully will dry out before tonight. More hiking today, I would say…and then we’ll see when he gets home.

It’s been quiet here without him. Lots of quilt stuff and school stuff and reading for me. Plus trying to do all the things. The boychild is cooking tonight, hallelujah. He gets home really late on Mondays and Tuesdays. Anyway…I have to be at school for “an inspirational message” (can you see my eyes roll from here?), then survive the day, do some exercise (I did that last night too…what a good thing!), and get stitching. Three days of school left. I can do that.

Ditching School

I took a whopping two days off school since COVID started. Getting a sub for what I teach was difficult…sub plans for what I teach felt like writing a novel, then rewriting it because it was too long. It’s a tough call: how much do I need a break vs how much work is it to TAKE the break? A common teacher issue made worse by the sub shortage and kids who didn’t do normal school last year so sometimes learning is a challenge. But I had an art retreat coming up that I went to last year (without taking any time off) and I was determined to take a day. ONE day.

Whatever happened at school is fine. I got one kid email about kids deleting stuff…and they did. They were being dumbasses about it on Thursday with me. I’ll just torture them with it on Monday. It’ll be fine. Next week is short anyway for Veterans Day, and I can get them through what I need to. Zen and chill.

So where am I? Twentynine Palms, right outside of Joshua Tree National Park. We drove a back way to get up here, and it was delightful…no traffic, nice views. Then we came in the southern entrance of Joshua Tree and enjoyed the drive through, going on a couple of short hikes (mid to high 80s here still…)

There were too many people in some places, but the longer hike lost them all…

And it was outside, not teaching, didn’t have to be anywhere. Although I checked email when I had service.

Sometimes people are very hardass about disconnecting and not looking at their phones on vacation, and I just do what makes me feel comfortable. Sometimes my anxiety means I need to check email. Or school stuff. So I do it. One of my students had emailed me about the chaos in her class. No worries, kid, I got this.

We checked into our AirBnb, the same one we stayed in last year, ate dinner outside at a local place, met Kyle and tried his special sauce, shook hands with him (weird feeling that), then I headed over to my friend’s place for a fireside conversation about the future of our art group, which has grown in size, but not volunteers…unfortunately.

Dinner drawing. This morning, we’re up early so the man can hike and I can draw in a space with other artists for a while. Not sure what the rest of the day will bring, but I’m ok with that. I have two books on my iPad, three different sketchbooks, caffeine, and goldfish snacks. What more do I really need? Plus got news that one of my pieces will be at some art show in Torrance next October, which is a new venue for me…always cool.

All in all, sometimes ditching school is what teachers need to do. My district spouts self care constantly and then hands us more work to do and won’t give us a cost-of-living raise. So more hours for less pay? Eh. You don’t get buy-in that way. Anyway…drawing soon, if my brain lets me.

Forgot a Title…Must Be Friday…

Hey. Friday. You’re here finally. Thank you for coming. Can I get you something? A cup of tea (because we’re all exhausted here)? A donut (because it’s been a rough week)? Maybe just a hug (wait, no, are you vaccinated?)? It has been a trying week in science…hopefully next week will be a little easier (fewer lab materials to fuck with). I still have trays of sand in my room trying to dry out, ironic on a week when it was almost 100 degrees out. It’s OK…today I have to tape a bunch of containers so they don’t fall apart in class and remind myself to buy new ones for next year, and then keep kids from fighting over dice, but also follow the game the way they’re supposed to, plus deal with an aide who keeps taking her break in the middle of a lab (ugh, really?) and then doesn’t talk to me about it (oh honey, please). I wonder though…I don’t get a break during the day? It’s because I make the big bucks, right? I don’t need to pee ever apparently because of how much I get paid. Yah, thanks to my co-teacher for coming down during her prep and watching my art kids so I could pee before I burst. Sigh.

Being back in person is nice because the hands-on stuff is way easier in person…but the behaviors of kids who didn’t have the opportunity to misbehave in person for 18 months is trying. Plus the hours of lesson planning and pandemic contracts for kids who are out and grading because kids are figuring out that grades are a real thing. I’m going to be grading all day tomorrow to catch up. Maybe Sunday too, although that’s when I usually make all the posts for the week. We’ll see how that goes. I did take a break last night for about 2 hours to stitch on Zoom with friends, and managed to finish the binding and sleeves on the newest quilt…

She’s going to the photographer this weekend, hopefully to be seen in a venue near you soon. I haven’t figured the hours taken to make her yet, but I’m sure it’s a lot.

Then I ate dinner and worked until almost 10:30, making a doc and posts for next week. I got tested for COVID again too. Although there have been no known positive cases in my class this week (yet…still have today to get through), the man has symptoms (with two negative tests) and his positive exposure was more exposed than mine usually are. My kids mostly wear their masks and I always wear mine. So he might not be playing in a show tonight…better to be safe than sorry these days.

We are doing Back-to-School Night, but with one parent per family. No kids. Sounds exhausting.

Also this is so so true…

Some things never change.

So for quilting, I have a small Patreon reward quilt that needs a binding on it, then I have to finish two small community blocks for my quilt guild, and then the machine goes back to Mom, hopefully Saturday or Sunday. And I draw the next quilt…after I finish embroidering the SJSA block and send it off. I don’t know what the next deadlines are on my list, but I’m leaning toward another women’s rights quilt. It’s largely drawn in my head…just need to get it out on paper. But first? Work. Be efficient. Get progress report grades done. Try to relax a little this weekend (not sure when or how) and maybe finish my book…reading has not been happening enough and it sucks. Next week should be more chill…hopefully.

Quilted!

I did pretty well in the last few days…finished quilting the big monster and the little late one. Got a new loaner computer that doesn’t randomly shut down and is significantly faster…interesting that they said about the first pile of shit, “This is the only loaner we have,” and then a much better one surfaced when that one proved to be unreliable. It’s good. I was about to call the superintendent. It sucks that all my downloads are on the other one…I forgot about that. Plus my stickies. Sigh. Those don’t save to a cloud…they save to the device. We are so spoiled these days. I did photograph the old stickies, then remade them on the first loaner, and am too paranoid to remake them on the second loaner because maybe that’s what killed the other two. I know, crazy. Superstitious!

I started quilting Friday night and put three hours in before bed…

With help. Damn, honey, that’s my chair. Yes, she’s talking back.

Saturday, I did some school stuff in the morning and then sat down at the machine around 1:30 PM.

I got up a bunch of times to stretch, pee, make tea, run around a bit, but basically staying there for the next 6 1/2 hours.

The Man had a show, and I had nothing better to do (well, don’t tell the day job that…I have a shit ton of grading and progress reports are due in a week).

So after about 9 hours of quilting in 24 hours, I was done.

I trimmed her last night and found some binding fabric…

That was not an easy process. I shopped in the stash, but I needed more than half a yard, and that’s what I usually buy. I thought a green would work, and it probably would have, if I’d had enough of the right one, so I ended up with a blue.

I also quilted the Patreon reward piece. I’ll get it trimmed and bound tonight, hopefully, plus get the binding and sleeves on the other one, then piece my quilt guild blocks, and then I can get the machine back to my mom and plan the next quilt. It’s big. Dedicated to Texas and rich white men and their penises. Sigh. Stupid people trying to monitor uteri. Can’t wear a mask, but can point a finger at a woman who is only half of the issue…and has a damn good reason. So irritated with this country at the moment.

Anyway. Lots of work needs to happen today. We’ll see how it goes. I wish I had a personal laptop I could use to grade while the loaner plays today’s video…then the next three days are all high-maintenance labs. But then home to get these quilts done. Good thing.