Hey Sunday. I have a shitload of work to do today for the day job. I can’t get my head around it yet though. I did none of it yesterday. I try to do that one day a week. Not work. It’s about all I CAN do. It means Sundays seem overwhelming for work because there’s so freakin’ much planning to do for the week. I got a chunk done Friday night after gaming, but nowhere near all of it. First we need to grocery shop and pet food shop and I don’t remember what else. A nice friend is picking up my quilts from the show that’s closing, so I don’t have to lose 90 minutes to that trip today. So nice. So appreciated.

I lost my mind on Friday. School became a snarling beast and I did not deal well. I’m still irritated by all of it, the presumption of the district that teachers are available outside of contract hours for mandatory trainings. Oh but we PAY you! I don’t fucking care. It’s a whopping $35. I’d rather have the daylight time to exercise or just NOT stare at a computer for some period of time. But no. Plus both my aides called out on Friday, so the one science class I had was an absolute clusterfuck where I could help no one. So frustrating. There are days when if they were both gone, I could still do what I was going to do…this was not one of them. I mean, we did it, but it was not effective. At all. Just frustrating. Plus some other similarly frustrating stuff. That’s when I know I’m at the overwhelmed end of the stress spectrum. I just wanted to unplug everything and make a pillow fort. I cried all through lunch and then my 6th graders helped me find some presence of mind to teach. And the planning I’d done the Sunday before helped. There’s little to no support for teachers right now, y’all, and those of us who aren’t in school don’t even really get the mental support of teachers around you. It’s a Survivor Island situation that I apparently don’t do well with. My left eye has been twitching on and off for over a week. I don’t usually get eye twitch until almost Spring Break, often not until May. Not a good sign.

Luckily, there is just this week and then I have a week off. And then three weeks, with three weeks off. And please don’t make me think of anything beyond then because I might cry again.

I met with my former team, hopefully to be my team again someday, after work on Friday for socially distanced drinks. It helped. Maybe. Talking to humans helps. I don’t do enough of it. Zooming with students doesn’t count. Staff meetings and parent-teacher conferences don’t count. Sigh.

Friday night, we gamed and I graded through it. I worked on school stuff until after 10 PM, and then pulled the drawing out again.

I added more details in the ground area before succumbing to sleep. I had some Luna love first…

While working, of course. This was during gaming. She’s a sweetie. I’ve needed lots of kitty love in the last few days.

I had to get up earlier than I wanted on Saturday to go hiking. The man has a plan. He wants to do all 5 hikes of the Coast to Crest Challenge. So the plan was to do two on Saturday (um, so I was betting we would only do one…I was right.). This is the West Vista Loop of the Santa Ysabel Preserve.

It’s 4.4 miles. I actually did this hike in July with two friends, except we did the long version, starting at the Nature Center and going up behind it, then catching the loop, coming down, and picking up a trail that takes you back to the Nature Center. That one is 5.6 miles, and I’d recommend it over the climb that starts this lollipop loop version. I’m not a fan of straight up fire roads, and that’s how this starts and ends.

It’s still flat…mostly…here.

There are great views of the valley…

There were some clumps of other people out on the trail…

But mostly it was people free.

When we were done with the all up, it was nice to be out and hiking around. By then, my legs had stopped pretending to be jello. I’m just tired these days.

We took the official photo so we can get the patch and whatever else they give us. The man is better at smiling than I am.

Plenty of beautiful trees and rocks to be seen. Plus cows.

We did get a late start, though, and the thought of doing another 6.6 miles was not something the Man was ready to do (it’s OK…we have plenty of days on which to hike). So that’ll be the next one.

We stopped and got a frozen pie as my reward (there are few things that will get me through the next four weeks of school. Pie is one of them.) and then stopped for a burger and a drink outside at our regular stopping place.

I took a nap after all that. I was just exhausted by not sleeping at night during the week and last weekend’s short sleeps. And then I didn’t eat dinner. But I got up and finished the drawing by obsessively adding things all over the place.

It was making me happy to do that.

And since it’s my art, I get to do what I want.

Unlike the rest of my life right now.

Where I have no control. Yes, I dropped a COVID virion in there. Hid it in the ground. Can’t completely ignore that shit. I did tell a man “Fuck You” nice and loud in the pie place because he wouldn’t back off 6 feet, and told me to “just turn around” when I asked him to move back, so I called him a dumbass and told him that’s why we were in Purple Tier now (further lockdown as of yesterday). His girlfriend/wife/female companion was embarrassed and was whispering at him to be quiet. Fucking idiots in my country.

I’ve managed 8 hours of artmaking in the last 7 days, mostly in the last three days, I think. The previous week? One hour. Same with the week before it. Fuck me. It took 6 hours and 15 minutes to do the full-size drawing of this. The original drawing was another 2 or 3 hours last weekend, that I didn’t track. I started the numbering, assuming I’d go over 1000 pieces.

I’m OK with that. Give me something I can do after school and lose my head in, and maybe school won’t hurt my head so badly.

I do not like my job at the moment. The periods when I’m working with kids more one on one or small group…those are fine, good even sometimes. The rest of it…I don’t like teaching like this, direct instruction, can’t see what they’re doing, feel like I’m useless most of the time, can’t ever catch up, district keeps asking for more, I have admin who don’t answer emails, I have almost zero connection to school and what’s going on there, and my current team is dead silent.

So I have this. Tracing Wonder Under next.

After that, I cuddled two cats on the couch…

And watched some bad TV.

This guy got the cats up and off the couch, so that’s when I went to bed.

I was up early this morning and reserved a campsite in Yosemite for my Spring Break. I don’t even know if anyone will be around to go with me, since the Man is hiking the PCT if it’s open. But I need to have something to look forward to. I went back to sleep after reserving it. I needed to sleep.

Today. Groceries. Work work work. Hopefully trace onto Wonder Under tonight. Survive this fucking stupid week. Take a week off. Sleep in. Hike. Do art. (I will have to grade shit and plan shit, but at least it won’t all be in one freakin’ day.) Survive to the next weekend. My work mind is not OK. But it will get it done, whatever IT is. I need a job. I need the money. I can’t retire yet. I’m lucky to have a job. I don’t have to like it to do it. Hopefully this week, I will do it better than last week.