Make a List…Another One…

Yup. Totally writing late today. Just woke up running and didn’t stop until right now. Tomorrow’s to-do list is equally nuts. I made it to ceramics Monday? I did one layer of skin color…

I ran out of the two brown colors (and forgot to do one hand obviously). I went to the clay supply place Tuesday and they only had one of the two browns…so I had to order them. I’m not going to finish the underglazing before I leave unfortunately.

The skin needs two more layers and then I can do all the bones and flowers and everything. So that will all happen when I come back. I’m going to go in tomorrow and pull the neck (which is a separate thing) and put it in my damp box so it doesn’t dry out too much. Also leave a note about the stuff that needs to be fired.

Quiltwise, I started quilting on Monday…

And I did more yesterday during the day…

I’ve only got a little more than 3 hours in. Last night, I spent over 2 hours cleaning, ironing, and packing 6 quilts for the Master Glitch show opening in Oceanside on August 15. I delivered those today, hallelujah, finally got into a show (OK, it was kind of guaranteed, but I’ll take it)…in case you think I always get it…uh uh, I don’t. I go through dry periods and the rejections pile up and I take deep breaths and enter more shows. That’s where I’m at right now.

ANYWAY, I want to get this quilted before we leave, or at least mostly quilted. I might need to buy the binding fabric tomorrow, because when I get back in August, I can’t go to the quilt store until Saturday, and it’s already pretty booked up. Tight deadlines. So I’ll be quilting tonight and tomorrow for a while at least. I might be halfway through the outlining…and there isn’t honestly a lot of solid background, so I don’t expect it to take forever, but tomorrow is kind of crazy.

Here’s the Open Studio announcement for my residency!

Excited about that. Although I guess I will have to have something to put on the walls then. Ha! I drove back from acupuncture today with all the things in my head that I needed to remember to pack. Clothing is in a pile on my bag. Not sure it will fit and I’m missing a few things. Last-minute laundry tomorrow night.

It’s been super warm here…and Simba was feeling it last night.

Poor crazy dude. Honestly, I think they won’t miss me when I’m gone…where am I supposed to sleep anyway?

Foot of the bed, obviously. Bowie eventually moved, but put his claws in my foot at some point during the night.

Little psycho.

I got this ad from somewhere…

They’re wool. Seriously? I’m allergic. I would die. Obviously they’re in my head though. I am packing light. Maybe. Maybe not.

By the way, the World Cup semifinal today between England and Argentina was all decided between my getting in the car and arriving at school (I had to copy some stuff for August). And Hegseth doing testosterone testing? I’m so confused by this guy. So confused. But if he’s overdosing on the stuff, it would explain a lot. Here’s where we are right now…

I am appreciating the lack of work thought in my head (OK, yes, I did copy something today, but it’s because I didn’t have time the day I left and it’s been bugging me, and I’ve learned that when things bug my mind like that, the best thing to do is find a way to make it go away. Now it’s gone. Poof!). But I have lettuce anxiety and voting anxiety and ICE anxiety. And anxiety about reproductive rights. And women and children and LGTBQIA in general…and POC. All of those. But you know what? I no longer have daylight savings’ anxiety?

Oh wait, I do. I don’t know if we are falling back in fall or not, and if we’re not, it’s apparently going to be dark until 9 in the morning. Or something. I’m not sure. I’ll let you know in November what that really looks like.

OK. Gotta go quilt or pack something or IDK what. Make a list for tomorrow. I’ve charged everything that needs charging. I’ve figured out what cord goes with each thing that charges, but I still have extra cords. Always. I think the Man just bought us something else that needs charging too. I’ll let you know. Next time I post, I should be in a car somewhere. The boychild will be here dealing with animals and watering for a bit, and then the ex. Then I’ll be making art. Hopefully lots of it.

It’s a Lot…

I’m totally off on writing. Also on days. I have a vague sense of the week, but that’s what we aim for during summer…not knowing the day and the date because teachers have to know those things. That said, am I recovered yet from the school year? Hell no. I’m still short on sleep. I’m still not convinced school won’t start again next week. I’m not relaxed yet. I have a hard time at night not grabbing the computer to grade something (there’s nothing to grade, brain…you can stop now.). It’s only a week since school got out though, and it usually takes at least two for me to relax. Today, I am stuck at home without a car…it’s getting a tuneup for the trip to Oregon…and honestly, it feels good. I CAN’T go run errands. I’ve got no way to leave. Tomorrow might be an issue; I’m supposed to go to a pool party thing and I don’t have a car for that. I’ll figure it out. Or Lyft. Whichever seems easier. But no car is somehow freeing? Weirdly so.

Artwise, I’m almost done with ironing. So close. Could have stayed up late last night to finish, but had to be up early to take the car in. Need to make sure I get enough sleep. This was Tuesday night…

The piles look the same, really. Last night, I had about 100 pieces left, for real this time…

It’s felt like I’ve only had 100 pieces left many times. I did want to be done by last night…just didn’t happen. As soon as I finish writing this, I’ll finish ironing. It’s another hour or so. Three pink hands and the things they’re holding. That’s it.

I did start trimming yesterday during a Zoom meeting. No photo of that. Hoping to be done with the trimming early to mid next week, then iron it together, stitch it down…I don’t think I can finish this before I go and there’s limited time when I get back. I’m going for the deadline but don’t think I’ll make it. I have other stuff I need to do. I’ve been painting deck railings. I had to redo one of the ones from Winter Break…it bubbled. It rained when I originally painted it. The others are fine, but this one was cranky. The back railing also needs painting. It’s been washed, sanded, and has one coat of primer on it. I can only paint when it’s cool, so late evening, and the sun isn’t on the railings, still late evening. And then I need to let it dry. I also need to do the fascia on the back of the house, which is complicated by a thin deck back there…up and down the ladder. Then the rest of the deck wall, again, only when the sun is not shining on it. Complicated. Lots of yard work, lots of housework, plus trying to figure out all I need for this trip and getting it done. The car is one part of that.

I made it to ceramics yesterday finally. I was going Tuesday, but I had my first acupuncture appointment for my foot and it ran long. And there was traffic. And I was running up against the Tuesday night ceramics classes, so I went yesterday instead. Finished the sgraffito underglazing and can now go on to the rest of the piece.

I have more of that brown color for the body.

I was trying to keep it simple.

I don’t actually do simple well. I was going to go in tomorrow morning, but with no car, that’s not happening, so it will have to be next week. Multiple days in a row, I think. This thing needs to go in the kiln before I leave. I hope.

I’ve been doing some Spargo stuff. There are 16 flowers in the border of Homegrown, and they’ve been appliqued for a while. I did start stitching on them, but I’m going to be doing this for at least a year, I think.

This one is close to done. It’s the first one. Like I said, gonna be here for a while. It’s relaxing though. Better than grading. Much better.

One of the barn owls is still around. I hear her in the tree outside my office at night. I talk to her.

She leaves me feathers and pellets. I’ve collected quite a few skulls and bones at this point.

This is what cats do all day.

The fourth one is in the cat bed on the dresser. So hard to be a cat. Honestly, the dog is asleep somewhere too.

So many stories coming out about people not being able to have life- or uterus-saving procedures because of this stupidity.

People without medical degrees need to stay out of these decisions.

This is where I’m at right now.

I have the man for the moon stuff. He’ll be out on the deck at night, banging on the window so I’ll come out and look at yet another moon. Yup. That’s a moon. That said, I’m staring at the ground and picking up owl vomitous. So we do well together. Most of the time. I am definitely a different person when school is fully out of session, when I don’t even have to worry about what I’m teaching when I come back. My co-teacher claims she’s changing shit. I can’t deal with that right now. Neither can she, at the moment, but on August 1, when she starts thinking about it, I’ll be in the middle of my residency, fully out of school mode. Good times.

OK. Today. Trapped in the house. Where there are books and food and fabric and QUIET (it’s quiet here, so weirdly satisfying), no kids yelling, no construction hammers or mowers or blowers going. Just birds. And the dog occasionally barking (it is trash day). Even the squirrels are napping right now. Time to make some art. Whatever that looks like. Sure I’ll also be painting house things later and probably mopping floors and maybe washing bedding. Washing rugs definitely. And I have a book due in 5 days and another book I need to finish for Monday’s book club. And my weekend is FULL, so I’ll need to manage that today and tomorrow. It’s all good. I’m getting there, towards recovery. Really what teachers need in the summer…time to eat and pee when we need/want to, time that’s our own, a weekend without stress, no planning, no copying, no grading, just time to zone out. Because we spend 10 months a year on overwhelming time. And it’s a lot.

Last Day Number 24

Today is it, y’all…the last day of school. It’s promotion! The end of this school year has taken so long to get here, it’s crazy. Yesterday, I was at school for 11 hours…standing or walking for most of it. I got home and iced both knees and the left heel and took pain meds when I went to bed. Both hands were fucked up from squeezing the water spray bottle at kids (it was hot out, and we had to line up and walk three times in promotion practice). Somehow I am not sunburnt, although I am probably dehydrated. I’m definitely exhausted. Today should be easier…do promotion, ONCE (not three times), then finish cleaning up the classroom (mostly, this is done), officially check out, and then go to the end-of-year party. Return home, collapse. Tomorrow, do 17 million things because I thought flying to SF to see the girlchild on Friday made sense when I originally planned it (it does; mostly). Yeah. Crazy. And in between all that, I manage to make art. Somehow.

I ironed Monday night…

I think that was the sunflower on the arm…and some other stuff. Last night, I did the heart…and some other stuff.

I have 2/3rds of the 700s ironed to fabric, but also about half of the 800s. So I’m calling it at 800? More than halfway, I think, but holy hell, this is taking a long time. I think I thought I’d be done before I left for SF. That’s not happening. Ah well. And it’s a short, busy trip, so taking stuff to trim is probably a mistake. These are hard to travel with. I’ve done it, but only when I would be staying in one place for a while. So it’ll wait until I get back.

I also made it to ceramics Monday and did some underglazing of the sgraffito arm.

I’m not done. I had done over an hour and needed to get home to cook dinner.

It isn’t dry on the neck and chin here…hard to deal with glazing vertically and NOT having it drip.

I’m using tiny needle-tipped squeeze bottles, so honestly, it’s the ability of my hands to continue squeezing that is sometimes the problem. I don’t think I’m going to get back there before I go to SF? I don’t know when if I am…maybe Thursday night? If I’m not dead on my feet after 17 doctors’ appointments, Zooms, and phone calls. We’ll see. Plus pilates.

Yesterday, back from 11 hours at school, icing one knee. They tolerate each other.

This is not a friendship unfortunately. There will be slapping, claws, or snapping. Or someone leaves. I think they both left, actually.

I actually am having issues with this, due to a lack of other sewing supply stores in San Diego…

I need some stuff for my daughter and I’m not sure where to get it. I hate having to order online for stuff that should be easy to find locally. That USED to be easy to find locally.

And this…

When I don’t create, I start to get a little wiggy. So I make things. Every day pretty much. It works.

OK. Ugh. I need to find a lunch to take with me, find a spare set of shoes for later, get to school and remind myself how to pronounce all those kids’ names…correctly (don’t panic!). Then sit in the sun for a couple of hours. Oh wait, find the nicer sun hat before I go. I’ve got this. I’d tell you how many years but I’m not sure I can count right now…this is my 24th end of school year, but my first year was only half a year. So my 24th anniversary of teaching will be in January 2027. Long time. Only my fourth (?) promotion…I was always a 7th-grade teacher until after COVID. It’s always a relief going into summer, even as I’m planning for August so I won’t be panicked when I get back. It’s all good. The things will all happen. It’ll be fine.

Tell the Eye to Behave…

We’re in the last three days of school, kind of a chaotic mess of promotion practices and leftover class time with nothing real to do plus turning in computers and signing shirts and double award ceremonies. It’s a lot of being outside in the heat and managing hot kids and water and bathroom breaks, but still figuring out how to do the whole promotion lineup and process. Our AP who was helping to manage it just went out on maternity leave, which was not a surprise to those of us who know how this shit works, but apparently some people in charge were confused. I expect a lot of chaos, sweat, and bitchiness over the next few days until everyone is done with the promotion and checking out of our classrooms. I spent most of the weekend in semi-recovery, not really, because we’re not done yet, but I only had one school thing I had to do. Well, then two. And three. Because things. I think I lose my prep period every day this week, which only means, when do I pee and when do I eat? Always an issue.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to manage all the summer prep stuff both for school in August and for my trip, copying stuff for the new school year, organizing my meds before I go, all that fun stuff. My brain is a little explody.

Artwise, I got a lot of ironing done this weekend, about 6-7 hours…here’s Friday night…

Then Saturday, I spent a few hours during the day ironing and then picking fabrics for the main figure in this quilt…

That’s all the flesh tones laid out…from the 300s to the 800s. I pulled pieces from all of those bins, so I have no clue how much is ironed and how much I still have to go. Then I ironed all those pieces down Saturday night…

And then last night, I did another 90 minutes…

So the 300s are done and the 400s are about 2/3s done and the 500s? I’m not sure about the 500s…I think there’s only a few of them left? But a lot of the 600s need to be ironed…there’s a bunch of decorative stuff on the figure, plus the heart, that are all 600s…and some more of that in the 700s. So basically it’s chaos right now and I might have 5 or 600 pieces ironed down, but I’m not really sure. Give me a couple of evenings to iron and I’ll be better.

I finally made it to ceramics on Friday after school and started underglazing the sgraffito section.

A bunch of my underglazes are dried out and so I was trying to reconstitute them and do this at the same time.

It’s remarkably challenging to do this around an arm.

Hoping to be back there this afternoon. But my right eye is twitching, so that’s fun. And it’s hot, although when I went on Friday, the A/C was on. Here’s hoping it is today too. Bringing a lighter shirt and shoes just in case. The weekend was a series of texts about how many outfits we’d need each day to get through all the outdoor sweatiness at school. Award ceremony in the afternoon after being outside on and off all day? Pack the deodorant as well. So only three days, but three stressful days. I can do that. The Man was like, why don’t you already have a plan for this week? You’ve done it before…because it changes every year, man, that’s why. They don’t ever do it the same, so every year, we’re confused and discombobulated, and this year’s management is not helping.

A friend of mine visited the Grants Pass Museum of Art, where Stitchpunk is currently residing…here’s my piece Woman 2.0.

It’ll be there until the end of July; the Man and I plan to visit it on the way up to my residency.

She looks happy in that space. I’ve had work in this museum before, but it’s been a while.

The cats have been hot too.

Hi Luna.

OK. Promotion lineup, short version, where I explain the alphabet and their LAST names (they still think first names are the most important parts). Then IDK what for IDK how many periods (movie probably) until after lunch, when they turn in their Chromebooks. We have zero instructions for this and it’s happening today. Fun times. This is why the eye is twitching. We may or may not come back to that class period? Unknown. Then 6th period, definitely finishing Scorch Trials (movie), which is fine, because today is the last day I see 6th period. I think the last day I saw 1st period was Thursday? Not sure. It’s all nuts. No real staff meeting, which is weird…usually we have a little prep for next year, but whatever. I’m not in charge. Then ceramics and sweating and cooking and sweating some more and NOT GRADING ANYTHING BECAUSE I’M DONE (even though some kid just turned something in yesterday, ha ha ha). Then more ironing. In the heat. Because that makes sense. It’s good. Almost done. Almost there. Deep breaths. Tell the eye to behave.

Too Much Uncertainty

Eleven days. Everyone I run into assumes we are done with school (because everybody else is). We’re not! When I say, nope, still doing the things, they’re like, “Well, you’re out this week, right?”. NOPE. Not even next week. Although next week is the last of the teaching parts. After that it’s just promotion/end-of-year chaos. Grades. Fun stuff. Cleaning my classroom, and for me, trying to get ready for the beginning of the year, since I’ll miss out on two of the prep days. It’s not nothing getting through these days. Kids are done too. Tempers are high, emotions are frazzled, and that’s just the adults. I even have a teacher who assumes I’m doing nothing, that the student we share can skip my class, my academic class, to come hang out. Problematic. This kid isn’t promoting. He needs to be in class. On time. I think we fixed that issue, but sheesh.

Anyway. Getting there. Getting there with the art stuff too. I cut out borders for another dye painting the other night…haven’t sewn them on yet, but getting there. Getting there with the trimming of Wonder Under pieces too, despite Scribble’s need to be on my lap while I do it.

I cut out the rest of a yard on Monday night…and then most of a yard last night…

She is not helping. She bats at the pieces if they’re too interesting. Left bin had to increase in size to accommodate all 1400+ pieces. Between the bins is the rest of the yard…I didn’t stay up for another 30 minutes to do that because I had to be up early this morning for a meeting that has all of a sudden become more interesting by what I saw on the agenda at 9:30 last night. The right bin is all the trash, which I keep until everything is ironed to fabric, because sometimes I drop a piece into the wrong bin.

Then Scribble, who most definitely is not a kitten any more, is on my lap. Notice how I match my socks to my outfit.

My foot? Yesterday was sore again. This morning, woke up and it’s fine. I have a 7:30 AM (shoot me now) appointment tomorrow morning with the podiatrist for him to yell at me, give me a list of shoes and exercises, and hopefully we solve this by going on summer break. Or not. I don’t know what set it off.

This is really what Scribble wants when she sits on me.

The Man said she just started rubbing up against his legs and asking him for pets, which is good, because I’m going to be gone a long time in July/August, and she’ll need to get love from someone.

I also finally made it back to ceramics yesterday. Limping and on crutches is no way to try to move this beast from my shelf to the table and back. In case you’re wondering how I design for clay, I don’t. I am driving over to the studio and my brain says, “What’s going on that other arm? I don’t know. What about this? Eh. What about that? Meh. What about doing sgraffito on it? Oh yeah, let’s do that.”.

So I underglazed the arm to be sgraffitoed (hoping it’s not too dry) and did some more on the fabric.

I suspect the heart that will go on there is ready for the bisque kiln, but I figured I’d give it another week just to be sure. It’s pretty thick. I don’t want it to explode. I did poke a hole into the center. I really need this bisque fired before I leave for almost a month. So that’s a goal. I also wish I had built the hands better, but there were issues with timing and their getting too hard, so this is what we have. I’ll be back there maybe Friday? Simba needs to have his teeth cleaned; I don’t know the pickup time. So that might be a no. We’ll see.

Gubernatorial election in California? Sigh. I’m so disappointed with how government and politics are (not) working these days. Seems that may continue. Too much uncertainty.

Today, I am finishing up a gravity/mass demo in class that involves a hula hoop, lycra, and a bunch of marbles, plus kids trying to orbit with said marbles. We’ll see if I get them all back. Then black holes/stars, which I don’t know enough about and wish I did. But first, weird meeting in the AM. And pilates at night. And trying to get as much grading done as possible (so close!). And cutting more stuff out, probably with Scribble on my lap (pros and cons to that).

Focus on the Owls…

Midweek. Testing week. Warm week. Lots is going on. Science state testing. Science department interviews. Juggling doc appointments. Trying to fit everything in. Crazy to even try, right?

OK, I underglazed the heart for the ceramic sculpture I’m working on.

I still need to finish decorating the arms and then underglaze the torso, then get started on the head. There’s still nowhere to dry the torso, which is part of my problem. I might need to finish it before starting the head. Problematic. I have a neck sitting on the torso and am trying to keep it from drying out.

Meanwhile, I’m tracing the newest quilt…

It’s going well except for the part where Scribble tries to dive under it or sit on it and tore the drawing in three places.

Last night, I seemed to be able to persuade her to stare at geckos and attack her brother instead. Hopeful. Made it into the 200s last night. I’m going to be here for a while…1200 more pieces, to be exact. Also I’ve found at least 5 pieces so far that weren’t numbered, so I’m thriving. Really.

So I’m working on that every night, thank goodness, because it’s meditative and I need that.

The owls babies are all out and flying around the neighborhood, although there seems to be one that is always on the box. But I think there are three now. So check these videos out.

Definitely three…just don’t know if one is mom. I don’t think so.

Apparently they go to bed at about 5:30 AM.

So cool. Anyway, I have to run a short union meeting this morning. We have state science testing. The kids leave early. We get to go out to lunch, and then grade, and then interview. I have pilates. And more grading. And then tracing. It’s going OK, but I feel like I don’t get anything else done but that. So I might have to water some things and plant some seeds and weed a little. Also, I’m not sure the boychild is coming home today. Don’t tell the dog. Fires abound. It’s only May. Not enough rain. Focus on the owls, though. They’re pretty cool. I like to think I’m helping the barn owl population in my area. Which helps limit the gopher/rat population. Also good.

At Least It’s Friday…

Today is the shutdown. I’m with you in spirit, but as a public middle-school teacher in a Title I school, I’m going to be at school with my students. Also, Friday subs are the hardest to get for anyone, and we’re doing a lab, so I would have had to make up some filler assignment, because you don’t leave a lab with a sub unless you want no materials at the end of the day. And a friend is performing tonight, opening night, and we’re not blowing that off either. Need to support teachers in their life-affirming activities, like dance and art. But do we need to hit them where it hurts? Yes. Absolutely. Target sent me yet another “we’ll cancel your Target card” letter (the third so far, each with a 2-month deadline, which I ignore). I’m just avoiding them, Amazon as much as I can, anything else that seems dodgy or billionairy. Not a word, I know. But there are small, independently owned businesses going under right now due to tariffs and people just not having as much money (um, the grocery bill is still bad, y’all…it’s not great here), and it’s not OK that the tariffs are singling them out. Just trying to get art quilts to shows here from out of the country or vice versa has gotten so much more complicated.

Sigh. Things aren’t changing in the right direction fast enough.

In quilt news, the ironing is going well…

Well, as long as you don’t mind a kitten climbing on it (I do)…

She also tried to run off with the safety pins, so those are closed up again. I keep this door closed most of the time right now, because I don’t really trust her in here. It’s chaos and thread and pins and tiny pieces and not very cat friendly.

So that was Wednesday’s progress…looks slower because it’s a lot of smaller pieces.

And here’s last night’s progress…

I’m in the low 300s at this point…the body parts are next and that’s complicated. I have a thing tonight so odds are I won’t be ironing until tomorrow, but I’m hoping to spend a few hours tomorrow. The deadline looms.

I also went to ceramics last night and put the last two colors on the bowl, underglaze anyway.

I also did the fingernails and filled in the mouth areas.

That looks better.

Right now, it’s drying so I can put it in the bisque fire. I’ll clear glaze the outside and then find some shiny glaze for the inside. Realistically, I can never make anything in clay to sell…this already has over 10 hours in and it’s not done. It’s a good thing I’m not doing it for the money.

There’s competition some nights for my lap.

Simba was hesitant, but submitted that belly rubs made it OK. Scribble is unsure…

Really unsure.

The crazy shit that comes out of the government’s mouth is sometimes mind-boggling.

That and Kyle Rittenhouse and that crazy fucking couple with the guns. Like it’s a different story every time. And some people are excusing it every time. I’m hoping the reps start to stand up and yell more, prosecute, fire people, refuse to pass bills, demand for change, quite honestly, get that dumbass tested publicly, transparently, because no way he’s competent to be president right now. That said, neither is Couch Vance. I’d love to hear some of the conversations he and his wife of color have about some of the shit he says.

I read this and went, huh. Yeah. Ugh.

And then I read this one.

OMG yes. I guess that’s too much to ask? Certainly it doesn’t make as much money for the already rich.

Sigh. All I do is sigh and try to hide in books these days. Can’t hide unfortunately. My co-teacher and I had a short discussion of what to do if ICE shows up at school if we’re on duty (grab all the kids and throw them behind the gates). We can’t call our local police; they’ve been told by the mayor to support ICE, to help them. Fuck that. You’re not dragging middle-school kids out of here. Or their parents. Not OK. We are not OK.

Today. We’re doing a lab about light, mostly UV to start, just an exploration. Then duty (no ICE hopefully) and going to watch a friend dance with a bunch of people, then probably home to sleep honestly. It’ll be late. Then art tomorrow, and a hike, to try to get this blood sugar under control. It’s still whack and I still don’t know why. Sigh. SIGH. At least it’s Friday and more art time is near. I can do that.

That Matters…

Yes, I’m writing late today. I took the morning off to attend an art-related Zoom that is usually difficult for me to go to, due to that lovely day job, but the kids are walking to the high school today in the morning anyway, so I’m not missing a lot of instructional time; I’ll be back to give a test to my afternoon kids, which totally thrills them, let me tell you. So I slept in (a little bit, because let’s be honest, my body thinks I should be up at 6:30 all the time and so it just wakes up and I don’t fall back to sleep easily). I’ll shower in a bit. I might put a second coat of paint on the deck wall (I was working on the deck and plants last night in the dusk light and it was not easy, but it needs to get done and it’s always dark when I get home these days). I’m definitely inputting grades…yes, taking time off from work and still working is what teachers do; why do you ask? And hopefully I can start grading that other academic assignment…I’ll be coming home from work and doing that for sure. Unfortunately.

Luckily, there is progress on the quilt front. It took 11 1/2 hours to trim all the pieces…

And then I sorted them the same night…

Scribble was not particularly helpful in this process. As you might imagine…although she eventually chilled out and just watched.

Nova was chilling on the couch.

Then last night, I started ironing the whole thing together.

I did almost 100 pieces in an hour. Pretty soon, it will all be small pieces and progress will look much slower. I’m not expecting to be done quickly, but I’m hoping to get some big chunks of weekend time in the next few weeks. I need it all ironed together and to a background by February 15, then finished ASAP. Ha! OK. Doing it.

I also made it in to work on the bowl…mostly underglazing at this point.

I think I have two more colors I want to put on there, but also, I wish I had painted inside the mouth. I might just do a tongue and not worry about the background, but it looks weird now, so not the best decision I’ve made this week.

Also probably not the worst, y’all. And it’s only Wednesday; there’s still time for worse decisions. I am liking the bowl though. It’s fun.

I’m finishing up teaching digital and analog signals this week, and found this mix tape in the box of cassettes I brought to school.

Yup, my brother made that.

Trying to explain to these digital kids that you made a tape to share your music with your friends or a relative and it was like a gift, and how you thought about them when you made it, and then when you listened to it, you thought about the person who made it for you. They don’t get it. Sad. But things have changed. They share TikTok videos and memes. Maybe it’s the same?

Yesterday, I left school quickly and came home to work on the deck in daylight. I have part of the house wall that really needs paint, and I wanted to do that before I started pushing plants back up against the wall. So I did a little sanding and one coat of paint last night, as the sky turned into this.

My eucalyptus tress still look sad. Hopefully they’ll be fluffier by summer. I have too much of a view of my back and lower neighbors’ yards at the moment. I could do without that. But the sky was nice. I moved three plant shelves back toward the railing, but also realized I don’t remember where everything goes. I’m sure it will be fine (she says). I’ve moved a few anyway that needed room or to dangle. Some things need some major pruning or replanting, so that’s a different issue.

I’m thinking about using this when we teach natural selection…but then the kids will think it’s a choice.

Honestly, I don’t know how much natural selection we’re going to get to this year, thanks to the school board fucking up our schedule. So frustrated with this year. I can’t even look at the calendar for April without stressing. My blood sugar has been super reactive this week. Not sure what changed except everyone around me is sick and I’ve definitely been fighting something off since Saturday, but I’m not sick…and my blood sugar is an asshole. Things that normally don’t shoot my blood sugar high…well, they are. So it’s just gonna be high this week I guess. Sigh. I have pilates today; hopefully that will help. I don’t feel more stressed than last week, so who knows what else it could be. Random shit…brought to you by my body.

Discombobulated is one of my favorite words.

I never considered what bobulated would be.

I try to do this every day.

It helps.

This thought also helps; but it’s also depressing.

Economic shutdown Friday. I can’t skip school; it’s not fair to the kids. There aren’t enough subs. I already have plans for Friday night to support a friend; the money was already spent, though. We are going out after, but I’m pretty sure it’s an independent place. Not a Cohn-owned monstrosity. I’ve got my eyes open for what’s happening Saturday. One rep emailed back. I don’t actually need to hear from them. I need to see them vote and start yelling. Get Noem out. Get out of Minnesota. Get out of everywhere. No ICE.

This is boggling.

So unsustainable. Then again, our need for money and power always is unsustainable.

This is an issue.

And frustrating, because they think we don’t think too. SCIENCE! I didn’t even post the measles graph for 2025. Measles cases went from like 238 in 2024 to over 2000 cases in 2025. Thanks RFK for being an ignorant dickhead.

Imma leave you with a sleepy kitten.

She’s a good baby.

OK, I need to shower, set up some stuff for school, get on a Zoom, maybe paint a wall, grade some stuff, input some grades, then go to school and give a test, go to Pilates, come home, grade some more after reading some of my book, and then iron. Busy day. Even “taking time off” (whatever that means). But art is in there and that matters.

No Peace…

Hey. Weird week again. I don’t know what day it is. I think that starts in mid-December and continues until my first full week…which technically is next week. Maybe then I’ll feel less discombobulated. Or not. It’s not like this year has started out stable and balanced. I just had another art deadline moved up last night, by a month. I have nothing for that show at the moment, due to some subject restrictions. I might not enter. I might not be able to. I have a couple of ideas that could happen relatively quickly, but I need to finish this one first.

I’ll be trimming all week…here’s Monday’s progress…

And here’s what I had to deal with…

Every stage is new for her, so she has to explore it.

Which is sometimes problematic.

Last night’s progress started like this…

And eventually turned into this…

Which meant I could do this…

I see progress, but it’s slow. I was grading stuff last night and in an art zoom, on top of all of it, so trimming was only an hour. I also worked on this last night…

I’m going to add a bunch more colors around the spirals (or as spirals?). The black is like a base for it. Yes, this bowl already has 7 1/2 hours in it. Seriously unaffordable. I mean, I love working on it, so it’s OK, but seriously never making money at ceramics. It was nice to be there though, just glazing and carving. And I bought more clay for the next artsy piece, which has been in my head for a month now.

OK. Today. Teaching geese and canaries (sound waves). Bunch of kids will be in and out for high school meetings. Yesterday, there were probably 15 phone calls pulling kids in the last three periods of the day. While I’m trying to teach. Fucking irritating. They gave up on calling me at some point (I couldn’t hear the phone through the oscillators and piano keyboards) and sent a kid with a note. WAY BETTER Y’ALL. So many interruptions to the job. I finished my grades (mostly) last night, a week early, because the principals decided to change the dates and no one told the teachers. Fuckers. It’s fine. I can’t do them this weekend anyway. I have three art meetings. It was four, but I wasn’t going to that one anyway. Too far. Too much other stuff I need to do right now. I do have pilates after school though and then this is the one night this week when I don’t have something on Zoom or in person (thank goodness). So I will sit quietly, read my book (that goes back to the library on Saturday), consider Greenland as its own free country, send good strong independent thoughts to Minnesota, and hope for world peace. I’ve been watching Homeland lately and it’s really not the best for a sense of peace. I do realize it…but am also sort of OK with living in that discomfort at the moment. Because a huge chunk of our country is living in similar discomfort. Sigh. Why do we treat people like this? It’s all money and feeling safe and power, but there’s no empathy in it. And I can’t live in a world without empathy.

Drippy Icicle Lights…

I know, I know, it’s late. I had stuff to do this morning. I made wontons. I took a shower. Really that’s it. Oh, I talked to the girlchild. That was nice. So no, I didn’t blog this morning. Honestly, I love a 3-day weekend, but I’m not sure what the hell I do with the extra time. The bathrooms and floors still aren’t clean, I didn’t finish grading stuff, I didn’t finish inputting grades, I certainly didn’t finish putting everything back on the deck. My to-do list is still a shitshow. My green pants still aren’t wearable. This is crucial. I hope to fix this tonight. And the grades inputting. Maybe…no, I’m not doing a floor…c’mon, it’s almost 5 PM and I have a 6:30 Zoom? OK, maybe a floor or a shower. We’ll see.

Meanwhile. MLK. I watched a couple of excerpts of his speeches…man that man could talk…so beautifully. Made me tear up…especially in light of Minnesota…and Greenland…and Norway…and Venezuela…and another ICE killing. So did I do right by MLK today? Probably not. But I did talk to the plants I was moving about how the new pot would support them better than the old one. More about that later.

In the quilt realm, I did OK though. Friday night, I managed over 2 hours of ironing (I stayed up late).

I got the fleshy bits ironed down. Scribble was still not helpful.

She’s a sweetheart actually. After ironing the fleshy bits, here’s all the stuff that goes ON the fleshy bits…eyes and hearts and veins and lungs and trees.

OK, trees is weird, I know, but there was also ivy and a snake.

Saturday was my deck/ironing day (no school!), so I ironed for over 4 hours and got most of it done…all of it except the sun and the owl.

Sunday, it took another hour and a half to finish the ironing…156 different fabrics.

All in a bin…

So I can spend the next few days (few???) cutting all the pieces out. Usually that’s faster than picking fabrics…less brain power, less thinking. So now I’m hoping to be done with the cutting out by Saturday? That might be ambitious. The Man has a show Friday night that I’ll be at, and I have a meeting Saturday afternoon, and two meetings Sunday. But maybe if I hope to be ironing it all together by next week…because I need an ironed-together quilt top by February 15, but if I could get closer to done before that, it would be awesome. I will not be done by February 15, just to be clear, but I will definitely be ironed together by then. Total ironing to fabric time? 15 hours and 17 minutes. Longer than normal. Lots of little decisions to make.

I also did some underglazing on the bowl on Friday after school.

Clay is SLOW. I mean, I guess my version of quiltmaking is too. So there’s that.

I hiked Saturday afternoon…3 miles.

It was delightful.

The weather has been strangely warm. But nice. Spring is in the air…yes, it’s January, but it’s also Southern California, so the weeds are proliferating and the yard is a jungle and I could do yardwork every day for 8 hours and never catch up.

Speaking of yardwork, so the boychild and I replaced the deck railings, which were disintegrating. We replaced one of the railing posts too. So I had to move all the plants away from the railings. It’s been on my list for over a year to go through all the plants and repot things that were falling over or out of control, and to just generally clean up the space. But as I do that, I find more things to do. That space under the window…there used to be a planter that hung from the wall, and I don’t remember if we installed it or if it was here when we moved, and I don’t know why two of the slats are missing. I do know it all needs painting. So I pulled everything away and washed it down, and tomorrow, when it’s dry, I’m going to paint it.

Before I move the plants up against it. If I were really good, I’d replace those slats, but IDK what wood that is and it sounds more like hard work, considering the planter is going right up in front of it. So that’s a delay.

Here’s the long view toward that area…

All those planters were up against the railing before, but a lot of them need help. That plant in the front is leggy as hell. I’ve trimmed it before and it does well, so I’m going to do that again.

So basically, in two days. all I got done and set up was this small section of the deck…

Which is all the Man and the dog care about, so that’s fine. I’ll do the rest as I can. Or I’ll get tired of it and move it all back without cleaning it all up. We’ll see which Kathy wins out. I do like plants, but I run out of time.

This was funny…this is Instagram.

Almost 12 years, y’all…I didn’t know Insta had been around that long, but I guess it makes sense. They suggested I add a reel a week. A reel of what? Me talking to my plants? Scribble biting my hand? Yeah. Maybe.

Now for the screenshots that talked to me in the last three days…this one, for sure.

Although maybe I am a very hungry caterpillar. Hard to say.

W.T.F. I am boggled. Fuck the EPA.

Sigh. Why do people think this is OK? How do you live in this world and be OK with this? I guess it’s OK when it’s not you and your family being affected by it? Except they all are. Now we all are.

I could totally get behind this (I am actually part Danish)…

But this thing worries me…

I just looked up my insulin and it’s from Malaysia/India…which explains the emails when I had an issue with one of the pens. But I don’t wish death on the other insulin users, and I don’t want to worry about shortages for insulin users. Plus didn’t that orange fuckup tell us the meds would be 150% cheaper? Waiting on that too.

More people need to think about how this works…

Ecosystems include humans, even when we’re stupid and think science doesn’t matter.

I love this too…

I hope it goes away before it destroys the environment…although it may already be too late.

OK, well I go back to school tomorrow…teaching geese and canaries (sound waves and wave energy), then digital and analog signals. Spent some time with that today. Wrote a rubric that I remembered about at 2 AM. Thank you, school brain. Spent some time today finding a bunch of analog and digital things to show students (records, old video cameras, old cameras, cassette tapes in big wooden boxes). Fun times. Tonight, my local guild has a Zoom with Jane Sassaman, which sounds lovely. My book is due to the library Saturday and it’s for book club on Monday (a week from now). I’ll finish it; it’s good too. I have three Zooms this week (it’s a lot) and who-knows-what-else for school that hasn’t come to the light of day yet. Deep breaths. My neighbor above me still has their drippy icicle Christmas lights up and I’m not mad about it. It’s very relaxing to watch.