Here In My Car I Feel Safest At All*

I’m pretty sure I chatted with a computer last night. I needed to figure out why the Featured Image thing wasn’t working for WordPress any more, so I finally went into Help and Troubleshooting and What the Fuck to Do When Things That Used to Work No Longer Work, and I was chatting…well, I talked (typed) and then it went silent for a long time and then I said (typed) Hello and it said OK, yes, I’m still looking into it but I don’t think it was a human. To its credit, it did find out why it wasn’t working…my THEME had expired (does this happen?) and no longer supported Featured Image, so it then suggested new themes. I guess that’s a useful tech thing, unlike Autocorrect on the iPhone, which thinks I talk about ducks way more than I EVER talk about ducks.

So the theme has changed. I haven’t tried all the things yet. It pretty much just dropped everything I had (except the header, which I don’t have, because I didn’t make it) into the new theme and made it fit. Hopefully it works. If not, the computer wants me to come back and chat again. (It didn’t give me a name. Those chat things always tell you their name. So it was a computer.)

Last night was full of anxious animals and lots of rain and thunder for a short period of time. I don’t know if that jacket helps, but the boychild puts them on the dogs anyway.

I had a quilt meeting last night, but I waited about ten minutes, because getting into a big metal box of a car while a thunderstorm goes overhead is a little nerve-wracking. The plan was to make bees wax food wraps. I have some already, so I didn’t bring a lot (unlike some)…

It certainly wasn’t hard to do…

There’s about a million websites that will show you how.

We measured nothing, by the way.

Different than our usual night…but kind of cool on a rainy Thursday after a long day at work.

I also worked a bit on this. Trying to get that horned thing sewn down. Not crucial. Just relaxing.

Straight up, the rest of the day/evening was not so relaxing, so I needed what I could get. I also stress-baked. And freaked out about next week, not being able to eat nuts or seeds or popcorn or vegetable skins. Colonoscopy prep sucks. I can eat lots of white foods. Eh.

My quilt teacher made these cute little knitted bags for soap slivers, so you can use them up. Very cool.

I did trace Wonder Under eventually, for about 30 whole minutes. I finished the 60 pieces or so of things that are attached to Figure 2. Tonight, I can start on Figure 3. I also need to grade things. Lots of things. Blah.

I forgot to photograph last night, and the windows are all foggy, but there was a beautiful sunrise this morning.

My light table has a good view…behind it.

OK, weird day at school with professional development that isn’t actually professional development. Whatever. I might be able to get some work done. If I’m lucky. But I have to remember to grab all the stuff in my classroom that I’ll need in order to do it. Rolling my eyes at this.

One more week and then a break. I totally need it.

*Gary Numan, Cars

In My Life I’ve Loved Them All *

So that plan I had to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night? Somehow, the 45 minutes between 11:15 PM, when it was too early to go to bed, and midnight, when I should have already been in bed, did not register in my brain. I kept tracing, time kept ticking, and I went to bed late again. Because I had to take both dogs out (in the wet…) and close everything up, turn the lights out, take insulin, brush my teeth, reset my alarm even earlier this morning (earlier meeting), and then it’s well past midnight and I can’t fall asleep, because the to-do list is knocking on my brain. I did grade PART of an assignment last night, only part…if I’d done the whole thing, I wouldn’t have had time to trace anything. Earlier in the evening, I was prepping stuff for next week, creating worksheets from scratch (aargh, so time-consuming) and sending them to print shop and trying to figure out the warmup for next week…because however many meetings I have this week (7), I have a similar number next week, and they’re all longer. I don’t want to go into Winter Break with a huge pile of work to do. Although I won’t have a choice, I think.

So I know I need to spend SOME time making art every night, no matter how tired I feel, because it makes me feel somewhat less stressed and like there’s something in life besides trying to manage my job. I went to bed with the face of the one kid who completely shut down in class yesterday, because I don’t know what his issue was, but I couldn’t get him to work, and usually he’ll at least try, but no, not even with a pencil (and I think he kept my Think Pretty Thoughts pencil, dammit).

Today is a new day. They always are, aren’t they? More rain here…not sure we need it all in two days, but hey, it’s water, right? So I didn’t trace for long, and it’s not very exciting to look at unless you’re me…Figure 2 does have bigger pieces than Figure 1 (logical…the person is bigger too)…

And I tried to limit (ha!) the detail as the pieces got bigger. Otherwise, this thing would easily have gone over 2000 pieces. I do need to actually finish it.

I’m on the third yard of Wonder Under. The one on the right is mostly full, the middle one is almost all full, and one I’ve barely started.

I traced for about an hour and a half. I’m in the mid-400s. I finished all of Figure 2, but not all the stuff that’s touching her (tree, bird, vine). I have a meeting tonight, but I’ll still trace afterwards. I want to finish grading the assignment I was working on yesterday at some point today, but maybe I can get that done in class today. This unit has been really bad for giving us time to work on stuff in class. I spent most of yesterday showing kids how the plate boundary that goes through Iceland works. I still have a bunch of kids who think that earthquakes make tectonic plates move (you can blame the shitty simulation for being vague about that). Things that are logical to adults are rarely as logical for kids.

Anyway. It’s survival mode until Winter Break. If I can get them through the next week and have them turn in the unit, we’re leaving this curriculum behind and going back to hands-on, creative, variety, and interest. Plus some down time for teacher. Less of my having to tell them things and more of their figuring it out. They learn better that way anyway. I’m looking forward to that. It’s amazing how much HOW I teach affects my mood.

*The Beatles, In My Life

But Not a Word I Heard Could I Relate*

I have this calendar announcement that pops up once a month that is obviously from an ancient online calendar that I can’t access to delete the announcement. It’s Untitled. It has no announcement except that it is Untitled. So every month, I close it or snooze it, depending on how I’m feeling, and wonder if the month I die, that untitled announcement will still pop up, and if the month after I die, what will happen with that announcement. Will it still pop up somewhere? I mean, it’s gotta be years old and who knows where it’s hiding, but I can’t find it and so it will never ever go away for good.

That’s kind of how all of life seems right now. Laughs hysterically. Too many things to do, as always. I need stuff done for school that I have to get copied for next week…like 3 different worksheets or assignments or something. I need all the stuff prepped for at least the first week of January, so they can get copied in time. I have been backwards planning and the first 8 days back are still blank. Blank is nice. Blank will be good. It’s because I can’t possibly fit all the things I should be teaching into that space, so I have to figure out how to logically place all the things they absolutely need to get through the rest of the units I know we’re teaching, and my brain is just not engaging with that yet, because it’s still panicking about next week. And with multiple meetings each day, I’m not catching up.

Here’s an example of how I cope:

Yes. I’m at the gym. On an elliptical. Grading the last two questions of the assessment they did Monday. I finished! I’m excited about that actually. On my phone, I had the rubric, so if I wasn’t sure what score a kid should get, I could quick look at it again. While listening to Linkin Park. So there.

But I got to the gym late (tutoring after school) and so then I ate dinner late and started doing other stuff late, and then because everything was late, I stayed up too late, and now I’m feeling that.

I already called my online pharmacy (they called yesterday, but they keep East Coast hours). They’ve discontinued the little stabby things I use in my diabetes kit, so I need a new device for the new stabby things, which are just like the old ones, but of course, a slightly different size and design that won’t work in the new device. Assholes. Diabetes is expensive and complicated and annoying.

I have to admit to lolling on the couch for 15 minutes before I started tracing. Kitten came by and was trying to figure out how to sit on this, but the drawing is huge and she was nervous about finding the table underneath.

Also, no one can sit on the couch while I’m doing this (not true…I have my ways).

She finally settled for this position. In case you were wondering, yes…yes, she IS sitting on the edge of the drawing so I can’t move it.

Because she is a cat.

This stage is never very photogenic. It’s just days and days of this. I find it meditative, but that’s me.

I’m watching Killing Eve (thanks to whomever suggested it…it finally popped up somewhere I could watch it for free). It seems appropriate to my holiday, last-two-weeks-before-break-middle-school-teacher-mode brain. This week is going…it’s managed. Next week will be crazy time. I should get all my shopping and wrapping done this week, if I’m smart. HA! Not smart.

Anyway, I have 4 hours into the tracing and I’m at 330 or so. I’m on the 2nd figure…I’ve finished one arm, most of the other, and the torso up until whatever arm is covering it. So head and neck and shoulders left on this one, plus the stuff that’s touching it. I have a ton of stuff after school today (including negotiating a new tester for the pokey stabby things?), but the goal is to be tracing sometime late tonight, plus going to bed a little earlier than last night? That would be a good plan. I really wasn’t watching the clock last night. My bad.

*Led Zeppelin, Kashmir

Another Page in Your Diary*

I fell asleep last night trying to organize today’s school assignment in my head, trying to figure out who gets what and how, and how I will manage the different groups, and whether I’ll have enough copies, and whether they’ll come in time, and holy crap, even sleep is not sacrosanct. I guess I should know that by now. And I still don’t have it all figured out in my head this morning…but I know what I need to do if I can’t get it all done. It will work out somehow.

I’m looking forward to teaching stuff I have more control over…notionally. Not stuff where I’m trying to do the same thing an online system does, but without the online supports. January. It’s coming. What’s also coming? Rainy times. Not the end of times (although it may feel that way after another inch and a half of rain in drought-struck California…Rainy Times.

(did someone forget a word?). Speaking of droughty California, I came home yesterday to a neighbor who had a raging bonfire in their backyard, smoke barreling off into the sky, sparks flying up. So first of all, where are you from that you don’t know better than that in fire territory? Plus pollution? And laws? A nice little firepit when we’re not in fire season is fine…a bonfire that reaches to your neighbor’s second story? Dumbassery. Yes, I called the sheriff, who put me on to the fire department. I hope they fined their asses. Seriously stupid. Lots of wood around here and it just takes one spark. People don’t think.

Two meetings after school yesterday. I drew through the first one. It’s random stuff.

No logic at all to it.

Then I came home and numbered the rest of the heads. Not bad, actually…

I didn’t hit 2000. That’s good. A nice big solid piece to work on during the holidays. It’ll be my first 2019 finish, knock on wood.

After dinner, while finishing up the last episode of Castle Rock, I worked on sewing wooly bits down.

October blocks? I think.

And then I started tracing. I worked for a couple of hours, I think. I’m in the 100s, around 175, I think. The first figure is almost done. She needs a head and a tea cup or something.

She’s the tiniest one in there. Fussy little finger bits. I’m going to be doing this for a while…it’s very meditative, so I’m OK with that. I might be done sometime next week…although there are some bitchy meeting days next week. I think there are three days with 2-hour meetings. UGH.

This is what about 175 pieces looks like.

Not much. That’s about a yard of Wonder Under.

And that’s a sleepy puppy.

And a sleepy eyeball of a cat…

Tonight I’m hoping to add the gym to the mix, so maybe not as much tracing. We’ll see.

*Yazoo, Nobody’s Diary

Anchored Down in Anchorage*

Have you noticed that mornings are darker? Yes, winter, and yes, daylight savings time is coming (or NOT daylight savings time…I’m never really sure when we are in REAL time and when we are in FAKE time or what any of that means). So it’s harder for me to wake up in the dark and it’s harder to not trip over the dogs on the stroll down the hallway to the place where all the pet foods are (I have a train of furry beasts in the morning). It’s not a stroll…they are rushing toward the food bowls as if it’s the end of the world…except for Calli, who stops to scratch. Her skin is awful right now. Lots of medicated baths.

Sometimes (because I live in Southern California) I have to stop and think explicitly about what season it is. Although I’ve started wearing a sweater to school every morning, so it’s not early Fall or late Spring. I know, shut up. I got that. I like my weather mostly.

Yesterday afternoon was delightful for walking. The poison oak knows it is Fall…all of a sudden, it’s changing color rapidly. There’s poison oak in my newest quilt.

It was sunny in the morning, but the afternoon was lovely and cloudy and a bit chill, but not really. There’s wind out here.

I always wish I knew more about the rocks and formations around my home. Strange rock outcroppings abound.

We went all the way out to the water bridge. It’s old. It’s protected.

It’s somewhat dangerous looking. The mountain lion signs are still up.

The dogs got tired. Really, that’s the purpose…plus me getting exercise. Perhaps getting out into nature.

Calli was certainly tired out.

I ate. I graded. And then I traced the last 170 or so pieces.

Grading seems a never-ending thing. I’m getting close to caught up, if I ignore the major unit being turned in on Thursday, plus a comic strip, and then another project due the following Monday. Because I’m crazy. But we were smart enough not to assign any additional homework for two weeks. Because then we’d have to grade it.

I finished tracing just before midnight (I started late). It took almost 12 hours and ended up being about 5 yards of Wonder Under.

Usually it takes me an hour to cut out one yard…so that’s the next two or three nights, I think. Depending on other stuff. So ironing to fabric by the weekend? It means I need to go buy background fabric. Or look at what’s in my stash and see if there’s enough of anything that will work.

On to the next phase of this one. Getting close to the fun phase. It’s not that tracing Wonder Under isn’t fun…it’s meditative trying to fit all the pieces in while tracing. But sometimes it’s boring or tiring, depending on how much standing I’ve been doing. Progress is good though. I need to finish this one in a little over a month, which I can easily do, except there’s some traveling in there too…so that’s a constraint. Anyway…it’s going to be an awesome quilt even if I don’t finish it within the deadline. So there’s that.

*Michelle Shocked, Anchorage

Let Me Enfold You*

I’m excited! The 2019 official Spring Break vacation is booked! We’ll even have no showers for a couple of days! Oh boy! I like showers. I do. Especially when hiking and camping. But I’ll live. It’s Utah this time…we tried to stay in one place a bit longer than last time, although last time, there were a couple of campsites that I was glad I didn’t have to stay there more than one night. Anyway. It’s done…although the tent caterpillars in Zion are keeping us out of the campsites there, and you can’t book Bryce in advance, so we’ll only actually be IN one of the National Parks to camp. It’s OK. We will survive. Looking forward to lots of rock and probably freezing my ass off at night. It’s a good thing I’m bringing my own personal space heater.

I also booked the girlchild home for Winter Break, which is nice. Now I just need to get my parents to answer email so I can book her graduation trip. I have no idea what full name my mom has on her drivers’ license. Can’t book a flight without that. Like does she have her real middle name that she never uses? Or her maiden name as her middle name? Or what? I don’t know. I never changed my name when I was married, so I don’t know what people do. Honestly it’s a practice I’ve never really understood, so there’s that.

Anyway, trip progress was made. That’s all that matters.

What did I do all weekend? I did go to see the Visions opening at the Visions Art Museum. There were some interesting pieces in the show. I always recommend it. I also graded a bunch of stuff and traced a lot of Wonder Under, like 6 hours’ worth or so. All good.

But what it looks like HERE is a lot of piles of Wonder Under…which is not very exciting for YOU, but it is for ME. This was Saturday night…I had almost 4 yards traced…

Piles of done yardage…

Three dogs refusing to be photographed. Or to lie in the same place…

More yardage on Sunday!

I’m done with the main figure…I’m doing the water contrails or whatever you wanna call them.

I’m in the second to last of them, around piece 820…so another 170 pieces to go.

I seriously considered doing those last night, but the clock (and my teacher brain) told me no. Fun stuff. So now you know what I’ll be doing tonight.

OK, this song was on what I was binge-watching yesterday…and I remembered how much I loved it when I was young…

So now you get to listen to it.

*This Mortal Coil, Song to the Siren

Three-Dog Late Afternoon

Weekends are for catching up on sleep. For catching up on errands, although I did a pretty good job of that on Thursday. For catching up on grades, unfortunately. And hopefully for a little free time and relaxation. I’m going to see the Visions exhibit this evening…looking forward to that.

But before that, I gotta wake up. Ugh. My head.

I walked the dogs again on Friday…by myself this time…

I took them over three miles, trying to tire them out. It worked. Tired me out too…but then I’d already had a long walking day at work. The kids played a rock cycle game and I always have a few who need me to walk them through it. It went well otherwise though. My legs were dead by the time I got to the dog-walking part of the day, but it was good for all of us.

After dinner, I eventually persuaded my legs to stand up again. I didn’t trace for long, because I didn’t realize how late it was…but I’m in the 300s now. I wanted to be much further along, as always. So tracing is on my list for today as well. A nice big fat chunk of it please.

I sat for a bit…Satchemo love…and Simba putting up with the cat.

Who knows whether he likes it. He always looks nervous. That cat has sharp pointy bits.

Anyway. Art tonight, by other people, hopefully making my own as well. Same for tomorrow. I’ll never get caught up with grading anyway.

Happy birthday to my dad, who is hopefully still in Spain (if he’s not, I don’t know where he is)…he’ll be home soon, and then his dog will be at HIS house, making all the caterwauling noises that she makes. Plus walking the dogs will be easier.

Exciting Piles of Wonder Under in My Future

‘Tis early. My brain is fog. Or oatmeal. Not sure which. Oatmeal is stickier. So that.

Yesterday’s lab was much mellower than the previous two days. Maybe that’s because I’d done it before? Or because it was more like direct instruction instead of their reading instructions. Reading is always an issue for us…so many language learners.

Calli had to go to the vet yesterday, more pee issues, but at some point, the boy decided the little one needed some exercise. There’s playing that happens when Katie’s not here, but Katie has toy issues and Calli has jealousy issues, so we hide all the toys while Katie visits…which sucks for Simba.

He likes toys.

Calli isn’t allowed to play because she’s a bully. She gets sticks thrown for her outside. Katie doesn’t actually fetch anything…she just tries to herd everyone who is fetching. It’s a pack of dogs…not just two.

After dinner, I didn’t do any grading. I figure I will do a bunch today. I took the day off to sit in a waiting room hopefully for not too long. But it means I’ll have some wait time there and here at home, so I can get a chunk of grading done.

So I started tracing pretty early last night. I was starting to think I was totally OK on time with this, but then realized I’m going to Boston and I don’t know what’s happening with Thanksgiving. So I panicked.

I traced for about 3 1/2 hours and got two yards mostly filled…and another one started.

I’m only in the mid 200s though. They were fussy pieces to trace. So I’m a quarter of the way through and it took about 3 1/2 hours. So another 10+ to go? I’ll do some tonight (maybe today? Although right now, a nap sounds lovely) and some tomorrow night, but that won’t get me done. We’ll see.

Anyway, gotta get out of here. Exciting piles of Wonder Under in my future.

Try to Catch the Deluge in a Paper Cup*

This Friday arrived just in time, although I’m pretty sure I was supposed to get some more shit done yesterday and just blew it off. There’s always tonight…maybe. I did finally get the tracing done last night…whatever exhaustion I felt Tuesday night has strangely gotten better. I could look at my daily step count and maybe account it to that. Seriously, Nida, sit down once in a while. The graph of steps related to evening exhaustion is very telling. Wait until next week…I have a school-related meeting/activity after school every day next week. At least two days, I won’t be home until after 6. It looks exhausting. I better rest up this weekend. And occasionally sit down next week.

That’s amusing really…I have quilts to deliver, an art show, grading, gaming tonight, who knows what else. And I have to get to school early today to discuss moving a kid out of one period into another, because otherwise WWIII is gonna start in there. Not something I’m a fan of…trying to explain to a 12-year-old boy why “pussy” is offensive. No, he didn’t get it. I ramped down the feminist rant. Although I did call a kid on the whole “girls are bossy” shit. No sweetie. We’re just confident and you’re not doing anything, so she’s getting your ass on task. High five the girl off to the side and then explain that yelling at him probably isn’t the most effective way to get him to work. She’ll be someone’s boss some day…a GOOD boss. Me? I check my speech so much more than I used to do when I was younger. Which is good.

So I had my stitching meeting last night…and it took me an hour and a half (about) just to chain stitch around those damn rhinos. One and a half rhinos. With rayon thread. Pissy rayon thread. Such annoying thread…

I’ll be doing more of that at gaming tonight. I left the stitch book at home by accident, so I had to read through the instructions until I could find something I could do from memory. Chain stitch it is. Not Palestrina…haven’t done a million of them yet. I can do bullions from memory. I can’t do woven picot from memory…couldn’t remember what side to start on…top or bottom. Plus I didn’t know how many spokes, because it was the instructions from March again. DAMN. I don’t carry the whole notebook of instructions around with me, so that’s annoying.

Then I came home and I was still awake (miraculous), so I started tracing. I didn’t have a ton left, maybe 150 pieces. The dogs were gone with the boychild, so Kitten came out to clean her nether regions on my light table…

She spends a lot of time whacking her tail at me for disturbing her while this happens. I traced the head and the crazy hair and the tree with all its leaves and the cat and the bird…it didn’t take long…maybe a couple of hours?

There’s less than 3 yards of Wonder Under…and it took about 5 hours and 40 minutes to trace all 578 or so pieces (there’s more because I doubled up on about 5 pieces…but not a lot more).

So now I’m ready to cut them out. I might be able to handle that tonight. Well, the start of it. So I’m a little behind my plan. It’ll be fine. I’m not really expecting to get much done on it this weekend, but cutting it out shouldn’t take more than about 4 hours…so maybe I’ll be ironing by Monday or Tuesday night? I’ll have to think about what I want for the background…I don’t want to buy more fabric, if I can help it. Let me rephrase that. I’d love to buy more fabric…always…but I shouldn’t need to for this part. And I really shouldn’t. The house may be taken over by fabric some day if I don’t watch it.

This is a special portrait of Kitten and her frustrating gecko friend…frustrating in that Kitten is inside and gecko is outside, so much batting and banging of the window occurred.

There’s a gecko (is it the same one?) on this window most nights. It’s like cat TV. Now I really wanna know if its the same one or not. Need to catch it and mark it so I can tell. Yeah. That’s happening.

OK, off to work, more walking around in circles to manage kid work and behavior, plus all the other good teacher stuff that we do. And then a weekend. Looking forward to that, even though it will include grading 140 warmups and another 140 essays. Trying not to think about that part…

*Crowded House, Don’t Dream It’s Over

Might Have Known What You Would Find*

There was a quote in my head last night when I went to bed from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the movie, which I watched last night…possibly for the second time or maybe not, while I was packing up quilts). I wrote it down somewhere. It wasn’t the whale or the petunias who said it…definitely it was Marvin. Now I can’t find it. Perhaps I wrote it down in my sleep and dreamed the whole thing?

I got home yesterday and the plumber showed up to deal with the water pressure thingie and some other doodad wasn’t attached right (who knows who the hell did that) and all of a sudden, the place was jumping and water was flowing down the driveway quite boisterously but eventually everything got back in place and people could flush toilets again. Very important. Plus the boychild cooked dinner, which is always a wondrous thing. Somewhere, if I were smart and/or organized, I would keep track of all these random contraptions that get installed and then go bad with no warning. I need a house that thinks a lot harder than me. Or remembers stuff, because I can’t.

I have 4 quilts that have to be delivered Saturday so they can be installed next week up in Orange County. One needed a label, two needed slats and hardware, they all needed ironing and dehairing, plus I needed to figure out how to pack them up. None of that sounds like fun, because honestly, it isn’t. I have been putting it off. I forced myself to deal with most of it last night. I now have two rolls that need to be put in boxes…

And then I need to write (or find) statements, but otherwise, they’re ready to go. So that’s good. It took a while though.

Before that, during the dinner TV hour, which is more like 43 minutes, I was working on these. I think there’s about 15 more of the dark orange balls to go.

So that’s 5 or 6 nights of embellishing, but not the next 4 nights, because I won’t be home for any of those. Impressive, eh?

Puppy helped. He’s three today, so no longer a puppy.

As you can see, turning 3 is exhausting.

So it wasn’t until 10:30 PM that I was ready to trace. Ugh. This was supposed to be faster. Oh well. Life does what it does. I got another hour in…

I am still filling up the second yard. I’m at piece 437, which is the neck. So I have the head, the tree, and the cat/bird…otherwise known as about 250 pieces. I have a meeting tonight, but maybe I’ll be able to trace afterwards. Gaming tomorrow, another maybe after…at some point, I am not as tired after school. I can’t remember when that is…October? Maybe. The weekend is getting busy too. But I’ll get there. Not as fast as my brain wants me to, but I will.

*The Church, Under the Milky Way