Try to Steal Your Mind’s Elation*

I’m so off task at the moment. I love having an extra day…it gives me the ability to BE off task. I worked last night on school and art. I will do more art today, but so far, I’ve put dinner in the slow cooker, cleaned the kitchen, partially cleaned the floors (more later?), talked to both kids (text) and my SIL (phone), and petted all the animals multiple times. I slept in too, although that was an animal management issue. Dozed might be a better word for it.

I spent 3 1/2 hours tracing last night. I got past halfway. Far past…good times. But first, I graded by watching 56 videos of 7th-graders explaining their ideas. With a blood-orange cider to assist in the process.

And I did two nights’ worth on the right side..some French knots and another stitch whose name I can’t remember.

At some point, I’ll put together a photo slide show of all of these over the year. Because that’s a good use of my time.

Then tracing…

I got all the way through Mindhunter’s first season, and then tried to finish Genius, which makes Einstein out to be an asshole, but a genius. Hence the name.

Yes, I did trace individual teeth. I can’t explain that. I just do it. The finger wrinkles (creases? are they wrinkles or creases? hard to say) are smaller, but I do them. There’s a lot of big pieces in this thing, so I don’t feel bad about it.

I just draw what needs to be drawn.

Puppy was cold…

Her sister, not so much. She’s such a sleeping freak.

I have a lot of these piled up to cut out in the next week.

I keep track of where I am on the tracing…just the number isn’t good enough…I need WHERE the number was. So you can see I got a ton done last night…

Only 300 or so pieces left to go. Another three hours probably. I can find that today…I think. I need to take these fluff balls out for a walk at some point…

And do some schoolwork. And more housework…and maybe eat some ice cream. Although that’s probably not necessary. Enter a couple of art exhibits…that too. But also just relax and enjoy a day home with nothing that is mind-bendingly crucial to do. That’s a joy in itself.

*Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication

And You Got to Take a Little Dirt to Keep What You Love*

The morning starts with Apple disabling my ID. That’s always nice. Perhaps later you can crash my computer again and then maybe delete all the grades I input on Monday. I’m not out of the woods yet…it’s still verifying my existence. I could be no one all day.

That might be nice for a while.

I traced for a good solid chunk of time last night, but I wasn’t particularly fast about it. First I finished my book for book club tonight. I read it in 3 days flat. It wasn’t that good unfortunately. Calli wanted to play instead of watch me read.

Simba was perfectly happy to sit on me while I read.

Yes! An actual book from the library.

Then I did some red-orange blanket stitch around the eye on the right.

I also sewed the hippo down on that other piece, and then I decided I could trace while we watched another difficult movie, but I had to fold the drawing so it didn’t cover the couch, since someone was sitting on it.

Sometimes it’s hard to pay attention to something on TV and trace, but I really don’t like just watching TV and not doing anything else. It’s very hard for me to do that.

I think I’m in yard 6 or something. There’s a lot of big pieces on here, so they take up more space. I traced a baby and then most of her torso, except for the heart. I’m in the mid 300s…no wait…400s. I think. Must be for me to take 3 hours to do it.

You can see how I try to fit the smaller pieces in the spaces between the bigger ones. I don’t like to waste Wonder Under…

Well I’ve spent all this time trying to clear my Apple ID and it’s still disabled. So I guess I get to call those assholes later…you know, between school, my union meeting, and book club. Laughing hysterically. Ain’t got no time for that.

Speaking of time, gotta book outta here early. Tonight? If I have the energy to stand for another hour or so, I’ll be tracing.

*Tonic, If You Could Only See

Can’t You Hear You Talk Too Loud?*

Sometimes I wonder why I try to get enough sleep, go to bed earlier to prep myself for the week or for early meetings. Because then I’ll be working and I’ll totally lose track of the time (like you’re supposed to) and then it’s almost 1 AM and I still need to go to work the next day. Whoops. Oh yeah. Two jobs, sometimes three…sigh. I did about 2 1/2 hours of tracing Wonder Under last night. AND made dinner from scratch. AND finished grades. Plus I had to go buy more Wonder Under after school. I should have gone over the weekend…if I’d thought about it…because it would have been on sale. Oh well. Life goes on. And it’s getting dark so early. Ugh.

I did two nights’ worth on this first…on the left side, fly stitches in purple and lazy daisies in pink…

Then after dinner, I started tracing. I got all the way up the landscape on the other side, and then started tracing body parts…

In this photo, you can see the dog sprawled on the other couch…because the paper from this is covering the couch in front of the light table. I finished tracing both arms up to the shoulders, all the hands, and the torso below them…

I’m up to the high 200s in numbers, with about 3 1/2 hours in total. Usually it’s about an hour per 100 pieces, but the stuff down below was pretty complicated to trace. So I’m figuring about 16 hours total. So with Friday as a holiday, maybe I’ll be done then. We’ll see. That’s my goal. I really want to get all the ironing done the week of Thanksgiving. But in my head, I keep deleting next week (seems a relatively good attitude). I wanna go straight into a week off.

Not happening. I have to deal with school next week.

So I keep forgetting I actually have more time than I thought. Finish tracing this week, then cut it all out next week, ready to iron going into the holiday week. Sounds good. Plus the copyediting that’s coming in that week. Gotta balance it all.

These guys. Man, Kitten looks pissed. Look at that face. To her credit, Satchemo is kinda socially inept. Sigh. The two of them will hopefully get along at some point.

I was still tracing when that happened. I said I would just be half an hour…it was more like over an hour, because I got into it and forgot to look up at a clock. I’m on the third yard of Wonder Under…big pieces do that.

Should be tracing time tonight, but I will have been on my feet all day, nonstop walk and talk, so we’ll see what level of energy I have after that.

This guy…barkarama…

This was after I closed the windows and doors that gave him access to whatever part of the house had an animal outside it…or maybe it was the helicopter that was circling out there after midnight. Probably he was just looking for a lap on which to sleep. I don’t have those when I’m standing and tracing all night. Poor baby.

*Caesars, Jerk It Out

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You*

Well progress has happened. I blew off school for most of yesterday…and did art instead. I also ran more errands and dealt with my increasingly disastrous shoe issue (they all die at once apparently), and I cooked stuff for lunches and visited the parental units, but mostly I made art all day because that’s what my head could do. Grades are due Tuesday, but I’m far enough along that I think I can easily finish tonight. That’s the plan anyway.

So I drew for about two hours…added some tools, a UFO, and a sun and comet…like you do. When I put the final version together, I think I’m going to move the comet down and away from the sun a bit…but I don’t need to worry about that now.

On the other side, a rocket and the moon…

I’m totally leaving the rocket there.

Above, I added more stuff and things…science, a pocket watch, the dollar we don’t get paid…

A screwdriver and more science stuff…

But the top wasn’t pulling together, so I added the banner…yes I was watching Einstein while doing this, and he’s kind of a dick toward women (then again, many were, right? Not excusing it…).

Then we went to the parentals for dinner and I saw this picture again. Well that’s amusing. We actually got the boychild to smile.

My parents won a family portrait, so we were all in it. It’s a little frightening.

While I was there, I sewed down the snake and started on the hippo.

Then we came back and I numbered the drawing. I was hoping for the 800s, but knew it was way too big for that (it’s about 60 x 70″)…but 1348 isn’t bad. Really…it’s not.

That’s totally doable. I’m really liking this one…

I already marked the salt as knots…French knots instead of fabric dots. Makes more sense. Although there are small pieces in this thing, I didn’t need to make more.

Because of Daylight Savings, I had what felt like an extra hour, so I kept going for a while and did about an hour of tracing…

I got one side of the landscape traced, into piece 82 or so. Then I went to bed early and couldn’t sleep. Too many things in my head for that. Sunday nights suck for teachers…it’s so hard to clear your brain of the week so you can get enough sleep to get through it.

Anyway, the plan is to finish tracing Wonder Under this week and get all of it cut out hopefully by Monday, so I can alternate copyediting with fabric-choosing. I have some Thanksgiving stuff I have to do, but I’m hoping to have a good chunk of the week to do what I need to get done…I don’t have endless amounts of time to make this quilt, so I need to be on task. As always. OK now to face the week…

*Rufus Wainwright, Hallelujah

I Ain’t Wasting No More Time*

I finished tracing Wonder Under. This is very exciting. OK. It’s not. Well. Last night was hard, because my feet were tired from standing and walking, and here I was, standing some more. So it was exciting to be done with that.

I thought the piece had just over 800 pieces, but it was closer to 900…

It’s lots of bigger pieces, so it took up a lot of Wonder Under, about 7 1/2 yards.

And over 11 hours of tracing. But it’s done…and now on to cutting it out. Let’s assume another 10 hours or so…usually it’s less than the tracing time, but these are bigger pieces, so they’ll take longer to cut out. I wanted to be ironing to fabric this weekend, but that would mean doing a couple of hours of cutting every night. It’s certainly possible…I can’t guarantee it. Although I won’t have to stand to do it, so that’s a plus. The transition from a summer of sitting whenever I like to standing all the time is somewhat traumatic to my feet. Perhaps I need new shoes? My podiatrist would say so. But he doesn’t pay my bills.

The weather here is a little weird…we got a brief spurt of rain (and thunder) yesterday in the middle of a heat wave.

It’s supposed to be really hot again today and tomorrow. At least it’s cooling down at night…although it takes my house a while to realize cooler weather.

Meanwhile, adjustments abound. On the left is Satchemo…on the right is Kitten. It’s an uneasy truce at the moment…

I feel sorry for all of them, but hopefully there will be just a few more days of drama and then they’ll all calm down.

Meanwhile, best thoughts to Texas…may the rain end soon. It doesn’t matter what we think about climate change at the moment…real live people and animals are trying to survive. Let’s take care of them and then figure out the science.

*The Strokes, Someday

Turn and Face the Strange*

Well that was an interesting weekend. Believe it or not, I don’t tell you everything I’m doing…and this weekend was the beginning of a significant change here, which has caused some stress and sleeplessness, but should be good in the long term. Once we get to the long term, that is. It has meant that I didn’t do any art for two whole days straight, which is like crazy for me, but I got back to Wonder Under meditation last night for a couple of hours. Yes, I wanted to be done tracing this weekend, but that didn’t happen. I probably will be tonight though, so that’s OK.

There’s 3 days done on here…although I’m not sure I can tell you what I did. I know I did a green straight stitch and then lazy daisy and fly stitch up on the top pieces of feather stitching. I think I did some fly stitching around the sheaf stitching and some French knots before that.

But I can’t be sure. Sometimes I just have to play catch up on this. I actually did two nights’ worth on Saturday evening and then sat out on the deck for the other one last night…the thing I kept saying I would do all summer and didn’t do. I guess now is the time to start watching the sky and the hummingbirds and the breeze in the trees.

Well. Today? Supposed to be 105 degrees, so less breeze and more ugh. It’s better than torrential rains, though (be safe and take good care, Texas).

I really do miss not doing this stuff on those days when I can’t…I had hoped to do some tracing on Saturday, but it turned into trying to fix a bunch of water issues and clean crap up…stuff that needed to happen, but it took up too much time for me to get to this. Last night though, I took my time back…

The thing is, I’m almost done. I got to somewhere in the 700s last night before I quit from exhaustion. Went to bed early again…which is good, because there was a lot of cat neediness at 1 AM and 4 AM.

This drawing has a lot of bigger pieces, because I wanted to make sure I could finish it, and they’re harder to fit into the random spaces on the Wonder Under. So I’ve used a lot of yardage, but there’s big empty spaces in there too. I’ll use them for something. I always do.

But today, I go back to work. Back to getting stuff done and organizing the teacher part of my life. I will hopefully get the last 100+ pieces traced tonight and start cutting them out. We’ll see how that goes.

I think I forgot to mention that All Stacked Up in My Head got into Quilts=Art=Quilts…

The opening is October 28 at the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn, NY. I won’t be there, but they will. Check it out. Report back.

Meanwhile, I’ll be here, making more. She’s got a lot of things on her mind…

*David Bowie, Changes

A Good Place to Be…

Well yesterday I managed to post my blog in the wrong place, but then fixed it. And then lost my keys. Or couldn’t find them. For long enough that I thought I might not make it to work. I “lost” my purse too, but since I knew I brought it out of the dentist with me, I assumed (correctly) that it was in the car. I did eventually find my keys and make it to work in 7 minutes flat (yikes…you can’t really be late when you’re a teacher), but it threw me for the rest of the day. Honestly, I don’t know where my keys are now either, but I usually drop them in the same two places every day, so they’re probably there. I hope. Unless the beginning-of-the-school-year brain did something crazy with them.

I’ve been misplacing a lot of things lately…too much chaos. That’s one of my goals for today at school: control the chaos. I have too many piles and pieces of paper. I need to get those organized and handled. What’s on the counter reflects into the brain. I’ve never been a particularly neat person, but generally I know where shit is. Organization doesn’t have to be neat by the way. I get nervous in houses and rooms that are totally and completely neat and minimalist and put away. Which is funny, because people generally clean up before you show up…but that’s not always who they really are. I can never get really truly clean and put away. I try. That’s all I can say. And no, I never volunteer my house for meetings. That would be crazy.

So I draw in class. We do cover pages for each unit and mine are generally a little crazy because I’m trying to get kids to think about what we’ll be studying and go outside the box. Plus I guess it’s another intro to their teacher. So this is Unit 1…

It’s basically the nature of science, how we explore and figure stuff out etc. The kids told me to put a student under the desk with stuff dripping on them…and then I added the wing mutation.

I always try to toss female scientists into the mix, so the girls get into their head that they can be a scientist. I tell them about my Physics teacher too, the one who basically thought girls couldn’t science and turned me off it.

Plus we’ve already done some days about safety in the lab, so it’s good to reiterate those things. I think it turned out pretty well.

I have to admit to not having a ton of energy when I get home right now. Girlchild reminds me that it will get better…that the first full week or two is really hard. Yup. It is. But if you think I’m always go go go…nah. I stop on the couch and barely move sometimes for like an hour or more before I find the energy to get up and do stuff. And then I get up, because just sitting on the couch is boring honestly.

So I forgot to do this the night before, so there are two night’s worth on here…

Stems and leaves on the roses…

And the sheaf stitch…totally forgot about that one.

That’s why I have so many stitch books…to remind me that stitches exist…brain extension.

So I started tracing around 9 or so and worked for almost 3 hours…

It’s really boring to just post pictures of what I traced. I think. Maybe you’re inordinately interested. I have I think 5 yards I’m working on right now…

I quit right before having to cut yard number 6…because there was a long piece that wouldn’t fit on the Wonder Under I already had cut. So I’m on piece 555 with about 7 hours into the tracing. More than halfway done…but no way am I gonna finish tonight. Maybe tomorrow? It depends. I’m already really tired and I have a show to go to tonight…so the odds of my being up early tomorrow are pretty low unfortunately. And I’m still trying to get on a good gym schedule, to make it routine again. It’s hard to do when you’re tired, but it’s important. So that’s tomorrow as well.

Anyway. I have plans for getting organized at school, maybe walking the dog this afternoon, since he’ll be on his own tonight, and finishing the tracing sometime this weekend (ha ha ha…because this weekend is kind of a mess for that). Hopefully I can get it all cut out next week and then start ironing over the 3-day weekend? That would be cool…sounds like a nice way to spend a long weekend. A breakfast out, maybe a walk somewhere with the dogs, and then some ironing. OK, I know that sounds weird to most people, but I really love the part where I’m picking out fabrics. It’s very relaxing and meditative. A good place to be…

I’m a Challenge to Your Balance*

I’m starting to get caught up with some stuff. That’s good. Nothing to check off the to-do list really. I admitted to the girlchild last night that I had just shoved some stuff in her room because it was more than I could handle…this as she’s showing me her dorm room…where she’s shoved everything into the corner. Yeah. So there we are. I’ll have to deal with it before she comes home in December, but I don’t need to be looking at it every day and stressing out about it. Maybe pick a day when I don’t come home after 6 PM because the dentist couldn’t make the filling fit. Sigh. My poor mouth.

I did clean some stuff yesterday, and then I tried to box up some of the older books and I couldn’t. My family is made up of bookaholics. I figure if I’m getting that much resistance to what I’m trying to do that there’s a reason for it. And maybe it’s not worth fighting it. I mean, cleaning the garage? Lots of resistance for that. Still needed to be done. But old Kipling and Stevenson books? They are not the problem. I don’t buy a lot of new books these days…mostly check them out from the library. So I’m trying not to add to the problem. I did actually get rid of some books. Like what do you do with the books that you tore apart for an art project? They’re missing pages? (I recycled them…but it took me a year to figure that out.)

Anyway. I try. That’s all I can say.

That’s what I said last night when I finally cooked my dinner at 8 PM or so. I forgot to do my daily stitching until almost midnight, and then I decided peeing the dogs and going to bed was more important. So it didn’t happen.

But I did trace stuff…not for a super long time, but you know, it just takes a little time every day to make art. I like it better if it’s at least an hour, but 30 minutes is good too. Just do it though.

All I’m doing at the moment is tracing Wonder Under…it pretty much looks the same to you guys every day…but I can tell the difference between tracing huge base pieces to tiny background stuff. I was wrong yesterday about being almost to tracing the head. I had to do the other arm and the three octopus tentacles coming off of it first…and that was a lot more pieces than you would think.

So I’m still on the female figure…I made it to her neck, finished that (also had more pieces than you would think). So tonight I can start with the chin.

Because I tried to keep this thing simple, it’s meant drawing fairly large pieces on Wonder Under. I have four yards out, because I keep needing a big section for a large piece, so I cut a new one and then try to fill in the old one with all the tiny pieces. At some point, I remind myself that this stuff only costs $3 a yard and I always buy it on sale. It’s not the end of the world if I throw some of it away. Although then the environmentally responsible part of me gets irritated with me. That part also doesn’t like disposable floss things (although it’s the only way I can floss parts of my mouth…gag reflex) or my new diabetes pokey thing (it’s really wasteful, with a new set of pieces each time I poke).

Then again, making art is almost always going to be somewhat environmentally troublesome. Unless you’re just using the stuff you found outside and you don’t disturb a living organism’s environment by making it. So. I try to reduce my impact, but I am not great at it.

I forgot these two art-related things. Catherine Segura of CAS Photography took this awesome picture of Sonya Sparks, owner of Sparks Gallery, and my quilt is on the wall. It even looks good in black and white…Segura specializes in tintype photography…so this is over a 10-second time period…Sparks sits still but my quilt is apparently moving. OK, not really. But a great photo…

And this was my staff meeting drawing earlier this week…

It’s got some environmental stuff going on right there…

*Natalie Merchant, Wonder

You’ve Got Everything Behind You but Yourself*

I don’t like this morning so far. (Think positive) No cats have thrown up yet. I don’t have to deal with homeroom for two hours today. My lunch is already made. Tea is a wonderful thing.

(Ignoring the increasingly overwhelmed feeling that emanates from school and my house. Also not quite ignoring that the girlchild is currently being evacuated due to a bomb threat. This world we live in. These people. I hate thinking the only solution is to lock them up and throw away the keys.)

I managed the second-to-last trip to dump stuff at the thrift shop yesterday. There’s just two or three more bags. This is good. The driveway almost looks normal, instead of like hoarder central, as it has all summer. I didn’t manage much else in the cleaning phase though. And as I walk around, there’s still a lot to be done. I miss the boychild…he made me do it. But coming home from school at the moment…I’m just so exhausted. And I still have to deal with food. Dealing with grades on top of that is going to make it ever so much more complicated.

I did some pale yellow straight stitches and French knots in the feather stitches at the top.

I should find a green and deal with those roses. Didn’t think about that last night. Wasn’t thinking about much of anything.

I did trace for a couple of hours…maybe not even that long. I made it to the 200s. The main female figure is done, torso anyway. Her neck and head are next…

I stopped there because I was tired. Puppy kept me up the night before. Last night, he was better…he is a sweet asshole. Sweet at times, asshole most of the time. Definitely a character.

That tail. So annoying. He gets stuff stuck in it and will snap at you if you try to comb it. But he’s adorable when he sleeps and plays. Until he bites.

Calli is not so adorable, just due to her size. But we still love her.

In light of my trip around the house…it seems that I should be cleaning things tonight. Although there’s that dental appointment too. And dinner. I have to cook dinner. Ugh. I honestly don’t know how to stop feeling so overwhelmed at the moment. Yesterday I totally missed some part of an email sent out, so I forgot the stuff the kids needed (I went back for it…it wasn’t the end of the world). And I wonder when that happens if it’s just me…I didn’t read that one line. So then I question my brain. A lot. I did go back and read a bunch of emails looking for one piece of information. It wasn’t there. So it’s not just me sometimes. Give myself a break. Then I had to rush to do textbook assignments for books that are totally irrelevant (sometimes laws and governments make us do really stupid stuff…and I get why, but surely there can be adjustments when there need to be, without waiting four years to figure it out). There’s too many things. I need fewer things being hurled at me. Eight AM meetings. Sigh. How am I supposed to eat at the right time? This year. Deep breaths. It will all mellow out in a little while.

Make lists. Cross things off. Prioritize. Ignore the stupid shit. Don’t worry so much. Go make some art.

Now you know why the house is never under control. That last one. Because when the others are said and done, the last one is what keeps me sane. Or some version of that.

*Max Frost, Suspended Animation

Crazy Thoughts Have Quick Wings*

Eclipses are cool y’all. That’s all I have to say about that.

NASA has way better pictures than I do…not surprisingly.

I’m realizing that I’m still adjusting to new eating times…blood sugar was wacky yesterday, but then I figured out that we have a different schedule on Mondays. Hence my body’s complete confusion by the end of the day. Working on it. Still. Forever.

I’m a little tired this morning. Sure, I went to bed late, but I do that a lot. Puppy wanted to bark at everything last night though, so I remember 1:53 AM and 3:21 AM and 5:38 AM. I think those were all coyote responses, but I’m not sure. Ugh. Still can’t keep my eyes open all the way. Blargh.

Tired the dogs out after school yesterday…apparently not enough for Simba. We did over three miles…

I love how the old seed pods are mixed with the new…castor bean plant. Freaky beast.

I did…um…oh yeah! the three roses on the bottom right. It’s a stitch called rambling rose, which consists of French knots and stem stitches. Very simple.

I was mostly horizontal with Simba. He liked me then.

Eventually I made it upright and cooked some dinner. On Mondays, that usually means reheating leftovers…because if I’m not getting back to the house until after 7 PM, it better be easy.

So I had enlarged this one just because I thought it should be a quilt. And I taped it just to get it done. It’s not huge.

Who knows when she’ll get made…I have a waiting list at this point.

Then I started tracing the newest piece. The pieces are bigger than what I usually do.

I was really trying to keep it simpler than some of my recent pieces. We’ll see how that goes. I only traced about 87 pieces in an hour. Not bad. Not spectacular. But because I don’t have a lot of grading when I get home at the moment, it means all I have to think about is art stuff. So as long as I can fight the tiredness, I can get some stuff done. That gets harder as the year goes on. That part always stresses me out. I’m trying to keep my head in a positive place about school…I wonder if admin realizes every crazy-ass thing they do, messing with the master schedule, assigning yet another thing to teachers to keep track of, making us do a 2-hour homeroom with lunch 45 minutes late. We absorb all of it, try to cope, adjust the peeing/eating schedules, take lots of deep breaths, and come home and walk three miles out in nature to clear our heads. Yeah. Well.

*Jem, Save Me