Survival Mode

It happens to all of us. We get to a point with our jobs that we just hunker down and do the things, come home, feed the things, do the things, sleep, get up, do it all again. I’m there. So there. I finally slept last night after three nights of anxiety brain being an asshole. That doesn’t help. I question my reactions to things…am I overreacting or are people being assholes? This is especially hard when you teach middle school…I worry so much about the kids being OK, especially when we teach sex ed. The questions written anonymously on cards. I do my best with the sexist misogyny that shows up in 12-year-old boys, I worry about the kids who write questions about not telling their parents stuff about them like forever. I worry about the quiet ones, the bullies, the overly loud and obnoxious ones, the ones who have changed a lot over the year, the angry ones. The ones who never get it. The ones who don’t care. I worry about asking for what we teachers need, worry that other adults will see that as bitchy. But then it’s what we need. Sigh. It’s just that time of year. TEN DAYS. Ten days of getting grades done, teaching pregnancy and STDs and HIV, giving reward ceremonies, field trips, hoping the kids turn in late work (but also hoping they don’t, because then I’ll have to grade it), hoping there aren’t any more teachers out with no subs (I need my prep period!), hoping next year isn’t this bad, but suspecting some parts of it will be rough.

That stuff is true. Under-supported as well. Managed by people who haven’t been in a classroom, haven’t taught, don’t know what we do. And dammit, the phone rings nonstop some days. That shit.

It’s Friday. Bless me, it’s Friday. Today I teach pregnancy, the first part of it. Hopefully I get some stuff graded (ha!). Hopefully I get my prep period. This afternoon, I have a short massage (just neck and shoulders; can’t afford the full one) and chiropractor. Hopefully that will help with this week’s headaches. Then a busy weekend with lots of quilt/art meetings. And hopefully I will finally finish tracing this beast. MY LORD…it’s taking for-freakin-ever.

Because I’m only getting an hour and a bit a night…

14 hours in. I’m in the 800s. Probably 250 to go? I don’t even know anymore. Oh! I lied. I made it to piece 913 last night. There were 1064 pieces before I started adding stuff, and I already traced the stuff I added. Holy shit. So about 150 to go. I can do that tonight. I can. I’m not cooking (I’ve cooked so many nights this week…it’s exhausting. I need a casserole or something for next week.). Then cut them out. I can do that. Sigh. Giant Ass Sigh. I love making art too…just wish I had more time for it.

The Man is still out there; I think this is from the day before yesterday.

Not sure why I screenshot these…they all look the same. But it helps me in my head somehow. He’s having some health and soreness issues, so is looking at a day off trail. He can’t afford staying anywhere nice, but anything is nicer than the trail sometimes. Plus resupply…it’s taking him a while to get acclimated to elevation and hiking nonstop again. It’s good to do hard things…but it’s also hard. We miss him…the cats are very needy at the moment. But we are surviving.

OK. I do have to leave the house. Can’t just stay here and trace Wonder Under and not think about grades. Need another cup of tea and then to get a bunch of stuff done today so it won’t follow me home. It always follows me home. Peace.

Dropped Off…

Hey. It’s the third to last week of school. There are 12 days left. I persuade myself I can do 12 days until the alarm goes off in the morning, and then I wonder DEEPLY about my choice of profession and the pandemic and how few social skills these kids have. Teaching sex ed is usually a pretty easy end of the year, but this year…man…so many inappropriate behaviors. It’s exhausting. I’ve been wearing a mic for weeks, trying to save my voice and it’s still crap by the time I get through the day. Sore throat, rough. Ugh. Most days, I’m not even really sure what day it actually is. I forgot (again) about my before-school duty yesterday because Tuesday? After a weekend? Yeah, no brain power. I remembered after school because I looked at my calendar and actually READ it. I have four places, maybe five that remind me of things, and I still forget.

The pro is that I graded two full assignments in the car on the way up to Ridgecrest. I have three real assignments left to grade. I just need to power through, and then I can decide which of these silly worksheets we do that I actually care about. Oh yeah, and then 16 projects for the kids whose parents opted them out. That’ll take me a bit. Just a bit. They’re trying to hand them in now, and I skim through, thinking (stupidly), “did you read the instructions?”. My high-level kids are still working on them. The lower kids are “WE’RE DONE!” My ass you are. Go back. Anyway. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. That’s a pro.

So Sunday, we drove through the endless, windy, dusty desert to get to Ridgecrest.

It’s seriously a drive I have done way too many times, with at least a few in my near future. Tired of it. But the Man drove up because he knew I had to drive back. So that was nice.

Hotel room was OK, not huge, weird bathroom configuration, but was remodeled relatively recently. Can’t really recommend Ridgecrest for anything. It’s hot and dry and dusty and food choices are mostly fast and furious. We watched two movies, both not very memorable. I stitched and drew.

And read a little. Finished a book…it was short…

That is the last of the flower types. I finished one and a half of them…only three and a half to go. I could have stitched on the road from Ridgecrest to Kennedy Meadows, but mentally couldn’t. Plus at some point it was mountain road, so that’s not a thing for me. Look Straight Out the Window. That’s me. But I’m close to done on this.

At Kennedy Meadows, the Man tried to buy this year’s bandana, but she wouldn’t sell him one (strange excuse about not having very many…weird sales concept there), he saw a friend (and got a bandana from him instead) who worked where he worked for a couple weeks, and then we drove to the campground, where a PCTA person lectured about snow and bears. For a really long time. My plan was to hike out with him for a little way, and then head back all the way home. It was a good plan.

Expect skinnier the next time you see him…well at least with me.

It was warmish and elevation (6500′) was definitely a factor in breathing. Going from sea level up in one day is problematic.

Officially in the Sierras…

We hiked about 2 miles to the bridge over the river and he refilled his water. The plus to not being in the desert section is that there is plenty of water.

And that’s where we said goodbye…for at least 3, probably 4 weeks. Hopefully will meet him somewhere.

It’s never easy sending him off…

I worry about him. I stress about having to do all the things at home. It’s not fun dealing with kid behaviors all day and coming home to no one to talk to. The boychild is here half the time. The cats are demanding. And I hate having to cook all the time. It’s hard to communicate with the Man…sometimes his messages overlap with mine (there’s no cell service; he’s using his Garmin) or he’s messaging all day while I’m teaching, and then when I have time to message back, he’s going to sleep (it’s still daylight, y’all). So it’s hard. But he wants to finish it and I hope he can. I know his knee was painful the first day, better the second day, but elevation is pretty crazy and it’s all up for the next four weeks. With an occasional down. Plus snow and passes and all that stuff.

It is beautiful though. Blue skies, trees, new wildflowers…

Well, some are new. We have these in San Diego too.

From the campground, I drove all the way home…about 5 1/2 hours total with two pee stops. I hate that drive. Really do. Ugh.

I didn’t do much of anything Monday night except eat dinner (thanks to the boychild), make lunches for the week, and make sure I was ready to go. Last night, I finally found the energy to trace some Wonder Under, but I’d realized that I had all this bad shit in the outer part of the quilt, and COVID wasn’t lurking in there. So I had to draw that damn thing in…again…

Almost 1100 pieces now. Then I traced for a while (after exercise, making dinner, deciding not to enter a show, eating dinner, grading one class worth of one assignment, and doing all the cat things, oh yeah, and watering everything)…

So only a whopping 40 minutes in the end. Hopefully more tonight. Getting close to the end. Ready to just sit on the couch and cut shit out. Also Nova would like me to do that so she can shed all over me and knead my belly. Luna massages my shoulders for me (with her claws and all her weight pushing in)…trying to figure out how to get her to do that one spot on my back that hurts. She does not take direction well though.

OK. Gotta go. Shit. It’s late. Ugh. Puberty today and something else. Can’t remember. Ah yes. Menstruation and sperm production. Sounds like a day.

Sunday?

Hey. I’m writing on a Sunday. WTH. It’s OK…I have a 3-day weekend and I will not be home tomorrow morning…I’ll be dropping the Man off on the PCT, hiking a little way with him, and then driving home so I can teach puberty on Tuesday. Like you do. Because I’m trying to be responsible and not take days off when there are zero substitute teachers. That and the Man’s permit is for tomorrow and once I drop him off, it’s not like I want to hang out in Kennedy Meadows or Ridgecrest (apologies if you are from either place). So kamikaze back home it will be.

Yesterday, I did all the things…graded three assignments (two more to do in the car on the way up), shopped for next week’s groceries, got gas in the car, did my laundry, watered all the plants, prepped the school assignments for next week, and made the bullet journal pages for next week. Finished a book that made me cry. OK, maybe life made me cry, but the book was there with me. It’s OK…the second book in the series is sitting on my iPad waiting for me to cry to it as well. HELLO EMOTIONS.

In totally awesome news, Hold On sold this week…going to Seattle, where maybe I can see it in situ someday.

I started this piece in January 2020, and then finished it after my school sent me home for the quarantine. It was strange to finish something about nuclear missiles and the wildfires in Australia and climate change while the world was falling apart. I think every quilt since then (almost) has had a COVID virion in it. Because that’s still a thing.

Anyway, now I can pay my mortgage over the summer. Always a plus.

I also traced more Wonder Under on the new piece on Saturday night…

I’m in the 700s, so about 300 pieces to go…maybe two nights? Depending on the nights. I’ve been tracing for 10 1/2 hours so far. Not super fast. Fast is 100 pieces an hour. When I’m tired, I don’t trace fast. Reality check there. So maybe by Wednesday night, I’ll be cutting up Wonder Under. I could take it with me to Ridgecrest, but it’s a pain to pack up…so I think I’ll wait. It’s not really worth it for one night of cutting things up.

On Friday night, I went to see the Man’s band play…haven’t done that for a really long time.

It was nice to be back for the music and dancing (the Man is on the far left…I did not excel at photography after working all week). Well, except for the sky.

It was nice.

I also took lots of pictures of Kitten this weekend.

Because she was cute.

Well, mostly.

Right now, she’s in my face, stepping on the keyboard, headbutting me while I type. Less cute.

OK. Gotta pack up the last stuff, make a cup of tea, and get in the car to drive a long boring way. Then hang out in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, get up early, then find the trail, hike for a while, hike back, letting the Man continue for as long as his body will let him (hopefully the whole rest of the trail), drive home, and make lunches for the week. Yeah. It’s not going to necessarily be fun or easy, but it might help me with the goodbye part. I wasn’t really prepared for him to be gone until October, but some money appeared for him, so he’s going for it. May his body oblige.

I’ll be back here, holding down the fort, making art, reading books, and petting furry beasts.

Time Is Wibbly Wobbly…

OMG how is it still May. Wait. How did May go so fast? I’m not sure which makes more sense. Fast month, didn’t get anything done, but it needs to go faster because I need school to be over. State testing is over (yay!) What a supreme waste of time…really, the State needs to write questions that actually match the standards for these tests to make sense. And then make sure we feed the kids and that they could sleep the night before because they weren’t babysitting little siblings. And then the State needs to realize that not everyone knows what a putting green is. Like maybe some nonwhite non-old people could write the tests? Maybe? Just saying. But it’s done!

Meanwhile, my principal is running fast and furious with plans for next year, mixing up teams, moving people around. My team is good…because we work together and do our jobs. Which makes my job much easier. It will be an interesting year. Meanwhile, this summer, I need to study space shit and force and motion. Space shit the most, because if I had it in school, it was in middle school, and that was approximately 72 light years ago. How long is a light year anyway? It’s OK…I know the reference doesn’t make sense. Time. Distance. Ugh.

Meanwhile, I have three books loaded on my iPad and I want to read all of them. Now.

Yesterday was the day we made kids draw their reproductive parts. It’s a fun day for me. Today we teach the real parts (not the made-up shit they think is important…literally NOBODY…ok ONE KID drew parts on the inside for boys). Then puberty. It’s a relief to be teaching this. It’s like second nature, I’ve taught it so many times. It’s still killing my voice…I had a sore throat yesterday, and I’m like, is it wearing the mask (has given me a sore throat before), is it the cold half my team has that will kick my voice’s ass, or is the COVID that another part of the team has? Or is it just talking a lot? It’s gone today, so that’s a good sign.

Meanwhile. Back at the ranch. I’m tracing Wonder Under for days now. This is just some random picture of Wonder Under because I kind of forgot to take pictures yesterday.

On Wednesday night, I added these guys…

Because people are still shooting up kids at school.

I hit the halfway mark last night. I probably won’t get a lot traced today…going to watch the Man in a show before he leaves for who-knows-how-long. Ugh. Not thinking about that. Just keep making.

I also had a stitching Zoom and am still doing a thousand backstitches on the pink flowers.

After that, I will do about 160 French knots and another 52 or so cast-on bullion stitches. And then it will be done. A million years after I started.

Time is doing some weird shit in my head right now. I’m feeling very wibbly wobbly.

Speaking of wibbly wobbly, Simba had a foxtail removed from his ear yesterday…

Note drool and half-closed eyes. Poor drugged-out puppy. He is fine this morning apparently. Expensive, but fine. Note: there are no foxtails at my house…

Kitten asleep during my stitching meeting.

I didn’t do any schoolwork after school yesterday. I came home and ignored all of it. I may wish later that I did not do that (I am extremely behind in grading), but whatever.

The boychild is in there somewhere. Training for CalFire this summer.

I’d give you a hint but he doesn’t like his picture on here, so just know he’s one of those. He will also be gone a lot in the next 5 months. It’s just gonna be me, the cats, that dopey dog, and…um…well that’s it.

OK, running late (don’t know why), gotta go to school and function normally. Whatever that means.

Peace All. Peace and Love.

The society is sick and the leadership has not been courageous enough to do something more radical about stopping this train. –Gustavo Garcia-Siller, archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Antonio.

It’s not often that I quote an archbishop here. There’s a lot more quotes, even though I stopped looking at social media and the news fairly quickly last night. With only 16 days left in my school year, I don’t have the mental strength to read about little kids dying because guns are legal. I came home and went straight to the gym, where I exercised and read my book set in a fantastical world (where unfortunately guns also exist, but so do demons and the fae, so it seems less real). I came home and requested no news. Ate dinner, graded some stuff, tried to think light, end-of-school-year thoughts, traced for a bit, and went to bed.

This morning, I face the last state test for my kids, the math performance task (never easy), but also probably some conversation about the shooting in Texas. Straight up, I’m on the verge of tears about half the time already from just pure exhaustion and other stuff. I need to get through the test, get through the meetings (only 2 today), go exercise (again), cook dinner, repeat. I don’t have much faith in my government to do anything about this. I straight up don’t have much faith in my government at all…women’s rights, human rights, immigration law, gun control, climate change…yeah. I can’t make another gun control quilt, y’all. The last one was so hard. This after I and another teacher had a conversation with a kid who was making a gun with her fingers and shooting herself in the head. Granted, that might have been a response to math testing yesterday. I can understand that feeling.

Ugh.

Well I’m still tracing, even though I didn’t get much done last night. The night before, I did a bunch…

I started earlier. I refused to grade that night. Because I stayed late at school? Graded then.

Tracing is never very exciting in photos. But I’m sitting there constantly trying to fit in as many pieces as possible in the empty spaces. It’s a weird puzzle thing…kind of crazy, because Wonder Under is relatively cheap (although I buy it by the bolt), but my grandma saved everything (Depression-era baggage) and my mom and I have similar tendencies. “We might need that”…and certainly, I never buy rubber bands. I haven’t bought paper clips in years, not since I was a full-time book editor and kept mailing them away from me, never to return. Twist ties? Save those. Plastic bags? Totally try to never take one from a store, but if I end up with one, I save it. Yeah. Grandma used to save the tinfoil. I don’t do that. Maybe I should though.

Had to bust two kids yesterday for stealing glue from my classroom. Sigh. Materials costs come out of our pockets, you dingbats. WTF. That was depressing and that was before I heard about the shooting. I really do need a break. Not coming soon enough. And this weekend, I send the man off on the PCT again. So that’s stressful. I dream of reading my book and not worrying about anything.

Last night, I didn’t get much time in. I’m on piece 373. Tracing the cat. The legs and torso (minus the portal) are done. It’s going fairly fast, mostly because I’m ignoring a lot of school at the moment. At some point, I will need to not do that. I’m not sure when that is.

I have a parent meeting this morning about a kid who we worry about academically. I have a science meeting later to figure out WTF we’re doing next year. I wish I had better answers to that. In between, I need to get 27 kids through a math task and then hopefully keep them quiet for the remainder of the time we have to stay locked up in the room. Good luck with that. And meanwhile hope that more kids don’t die, more boys who shouldn’t have guns can’t buy them, more boys don’t try to kill their grandmothers before shooting littles. I might have to add to this drawing tonight. Yeah. Might need to do that. Peace all. Peace and love. Especially to the families in Texas.

They Just Keep Coming…

Sheesh. Another Monday. It’s like they just keep coming, one after the other. I couldn’t find the shirt I wanted to wear. I have some tweaked muscle in my right hip. My right hand is sore…from tracing things, I guess. Muscles I use and then don’t use and then they complain about it. Not sure what the hip is about…probably some exercise I don’t even remember that got it just there.

So Monday…this Monday is all weird. My schedule is all whacked for today. Things I normally don’t do on a Monday are happening today. State testing again this week, but math. That’s always a challenge. Math is harder for a lot of kids. I personally think math is pretty easy, because you know there’s an answer. You just have to figure it out. It’s not like you have to engage the reading comprehension part if you’re not quite awake. The creative part.

Speaking of that creative part, I wrote an article on Saturday morning. Hopefully it’s decent enough. Who knows. I don’t remember what I wrote. I’ll let you know when it publishes.

Is my brain wandering all over the place? Yes, yes it is. I was awakened last night around 12:49 AM (pretty specific actually) by a screech sounding somewhat like a child’s cry of pain. Probably an owl…but not a sound I’d heard from them before. It wasn’t coming from the owl box, but it was a terrifying noise. Woke me and the cat right up. I don’t think anyone else did more than stir in their sleep. Weird. Really incredibly weird.

OK, so in the I’m Making Stuff world, I finished the drawing on Thursday night…

No wait, I did everything but the last bit of the sky. I knew I wanted something, but not a lot, and I wasn’t sure of what, so I went to bed Thursday night and posted on Instagram that the sky needed something. I already had some ideas in mind, and I wasn’t asking for help, but you know how the internet is…a lot of people wanted to help. So I got a bunch of suggestions, mostly to leave it empty (nah…) for the eye to rest (double nah) and I drew what I had been bouncing around in my head already. Amusing though. I don’t do critique groups either. I trust what’s in my head, and although I realize that people are not wrong about eyes resting and/or whatever might come up in a group critique, I just don’t work that way. In fact, it irritates me. Enough that I have to talk myself out of never posting pictures again (don’t worry…it keeps me accountable to do so…so I will continue.). If you put your work out there, people will comment and that’s OK. Not sure where that interior response comes from (probably a couple of art teachers in the past).

And then I numbered the pieces, although I missed the sun.

So I guess it’s 1065 pieces…

Not too bad. I tried to keep it simpler. I know it doesn’t look that way to the viewer, but I know what I meant.

Saturday night, I started tracing, although I didn’t get very far…

But last night, I made it to piece 232. So not bad. Probably got another 8 hours of tracing to do. It’s very meditative. Calming. A good place to be right now.

Saturday afternoon, we did an almost normal pre-COVID thing and went to two exhibits, one the California Fibers’ show at Visions Art Museum, where two of my pieces are hanging.

That’s Hold On in its first exhibit. I started this before COVID and finished it in quarantine.

And this is All Stacked Up with Linda Anderson’s piece Perceptions of Life…

The show is up through July 3.

Then we headed to the Oceanside Museum of Art to see James Watts’ exhibit there. I love his stuff. It’s fun, it’s deep, it’s so touchable…

You should go see it. Totally.

I spent a little time stitching on this…so close to done.

Finished all of the type 5 flowers and moved on to type 6…

The backstitching is easy but will take forever because of all the petals. Nothing quick about this border…I’ve been working on it for over a year.

Nova likes to lie on whatever is on top of my drawing…

I cover it so she won’t nibble on it, as she has done in the past…

That cat is a weirdo.

OK. So tracing all week. Math testing for two long days. A bunch of meetings, although today’s was canceled. Sex ed this week includes Yes Means Yes, anatomy, and puberty. All good. Easy peasy. Stuff I know. What a relief. Although there was an issue with one class that is heavy on boys…entitled boys…boys who really don’t get it…sigh. We’ll see how today goes when I introduce the law that doesn’t let them be entitled…well, you know, even that law doesn’t work right. But at least it tries. Tired. I’m still tired. We’re getting close to the end though. Close to the end of a very long, very tiring year. May next year be better.

Let the Day Surprise Me…

Oh my. Yesterday felt like a Friday without the relief of it. I’m a little frightened of today, but am willing to let the day surprise me. I’m lucky to have a 3-day weekend here, especially since I still haven’t caught up with all the work from two weeks ago. I’ve found out that the way you tame boisterous and loud 6th graders is by handing them a glue bottle (it’s weirdly fascinating how quiet they get…before they start doing other stupid things…unfortunately it does not last long). I’m mostly done with adults at the moment…I have some I like, and some can just fuck off. I need some quiet time with my plants, my book, my fabric, on a trail, eating ice cream. OK that last one is in response to our almost-summer temperatures this week. Dry hot windy dry yeah. Hair loves it. Eyes love it. Head loves it. That’s sarcasm.

So I finished sorting all the Wonder Under…usually takes about an hour…sometimes more, sometimes less.

Basically I lay out one box for every 100 pieces and then stand there and sort all the little fuckers. It’s not fun but it makes the next part easier. From here, I will sort each box of 100s one at a time and iron them down. The drawing helps me figure out what’s what…unless I forget to number one…

It’s OK. I know it’s a lizard leg. I just have to figure out which lizard. I think this quilt has two or three of them. It should be obvious when I start ironing.

To iron, I need to clean up my studio. Sometimes this is quick and easy. Sometimes I have made a huge mess of it. Guess which time it is? Ah yes. The mess. Mostly because I’m doing some weirdo quilt-along thing where I use up stash on blocks I normally wouldn’t make. I had some half cut out but then didn’t get any further (hello Day Job), so on Wednesday night, I picked some fabrics for the third part of the blocks, and then rejected them last night, but I did get the rest of the chaos cut out.

It’s highly possible that this is too much chaos for one block, but there’s only one way to find out. That’s 6 blocks laid out by the way, in case you’re having a small heart attack. Well, continue to have it because they will all be in the same quilt top. Need something for the bed. Want to see it from a distance. It’ll be fine.

After that, I went after the piles on the floor from the last quilt and from winning my guild’s fat quarter game…

Sorted them all by colors and then started putting them away. I didn’t finish. It got late fast. Well, I did go hang out with friends and do some stitching in the evening. Finally got the pekinese stitch done on the fourth set of flowers.

The dark blue ones are what I’m on…so there’s three more stitches on each of those, and then two more sets of flowers to finish. I will never finish. That’s what it feels like anyway. I’m sure it will happen sometime in 2022.

I did rescue a stuck cat at one point last night…

She randomly gets her claws stuck fairly often…the other one does too occasionally, but she was more in sleep mode.

So tonight, hopefully I will finish clean up and then start ironing for this quilt. I might piece a few of those crazy blocks first, but I suspect it’s better to do that NOT at the end of a long school week. I’m already exhausted from all the meetings (literally ALL the meetings were this week and I still have one more) and not enough sleep. Plus frustrating students and more frustrating adults. I could do without all that.

Luckily the house (and TV) are mine this weekend. Although honestly I will probably be in here, in the stash zone, for most of the free time. I do still need to grade three thousand things and plan for another thousand, but the book calls, exercise calls (it’s been a shitty week for that too), and hopefully the weather will calm the fuck down so hiking isn’t horrendous. Ironically, as everyone else in my household is hiking this weekend without me. Ah well. Alone time with the cats. And the fabric.

No Chill…

Well I’m still in the part of this quilt that looks boring…all the photos look almost the same. Here’s Monday night…

Needed to finish that piece above the boxes plus another yard.

And here’s last night, with all of it done…

I mean, I can see the difference. The bin is definitely full. There’s definitely not another yard to cut out. That’s 9 hours of work there. Another hour and a half tonight of sorting pieces, and then…Then I need to clean my office so I can iron these to fabric…the cleaning part might kick my ass. It’s a disaster in here. And I’m in the middle of sorting through my fabrics, so I don’t really want to put stuff away if it hasn’t been halved, which is how I’m handling sorting through my fabrics. Whatever. We’ll see how I feel tonight. I had to be up early for a parent meeting this morning, plus union meeting after work. Yesterday was a slog getting kids through stuff they didn’t want to do (it wasn’t a video game or texting their friends, plus I apparently give THE MOST WORK of any of their teachers…sigh).

But ironing will happen soon! Lots of colors and things in my head. I’m looking forward to that.

The finger is improving. I did end up going to urgent care, where they confirmed it was infected, but didn’t remove the nail (woo hoo!)…so I’m on antibiotics and regular hot soaks, unfortunately just of the finger and not the whole body.

I got the photos back of the new quilt and finally named it. I had a name and it was right before I fell asleep and I didn’t document it anywhere, so no one knows what it was, but I finally settled on My Body. My Choice.

In my head, it’s been Fuck Texas all this time, but it’s really fuck the politicians and busybodies who think they have a right to decide for everyone.

I don’t have any chill about this topic.

I can’t have a calm, intelligent discussion with anyone about it.

I just need those people to fuck right out of my country.

So there’s that. I might feel differently in the future. I’m debating signing up for one of the SAQA Lightning Talks for the upcoming conference. It’s hard, though, because I don’t want to deal with the maskholes arguing their rights and there are issues with just arguing women’s rights…there are plenty of non-men out there who need rights. So I’m mulling it over.

We’ll see. Anger is one thing; being persuasive or even just informative is another.

Then there was this…

I love when people who don’t actually know how to teach tell us how to do something that is time-wasting and unsustainable and doesn’t even make sense. You don’t want me to change instruction when your kids NEED something different? Are you fucking stupid? Plus are they giving teachers time to do this? Because I’m lucky to be about 10 days ahead on my planning right now…usually it’s less than a week. Politicians are idiots.

OK. Work: Meeting plus teach plus grade plus pull my hair out and panic over previous bits plus another meeting. But then sorting and cleaning. I can do all those things.

Magically Get Better…

I’m currently trying to type with a swollen pointer finger covered in a bandaid and Neosporin to try to counteract the weirdo infection under my nail. Don’t even ask how I did it. It involved sourdough starter though. Yeah. You figure it out. Trying to avoid urgent care…can’t get doctor’s appointments any more.

It’s Monday again. I realized there was a bunch of stuff I should have done to get ready for teaching art this week, so it will all have to be done during a short prep period today. Ought to be interesting. We’ll see if I can pull it off. Our staff meeting has been turned into a required 1-hour attendance at the staff-student soccer game after school. While I appreciate the disappearance of a staff meeting, I’m so buried in work that I don’t like the idea of just standing around for an hour and not getting anything done. Much as I love my principal, I’ve got a shit-ton of work to do and I need all the minutes at school so I don’t have to do as many at home. Which SUCKS. By the way. Hello school districts. Get a clue.

Saturday, I did manage to get up to the California Center for the Arts to see the California Fibers show…

It’s a great space and we fill it well. Here’s my corner of the exhibit…

Looks good! When we were leaving, we were mobbed by a group of fans, which was fun albeit a little terrifying in the beginning. They had good questions and were appreciative, which is nice.

Afterwards, we headed out to Daley Ranch for a hike…

It’s going to be warmer this week…we could definitely tell…

Four miles in the bag…dinner out afterward…

It had been a few weeks. He’ll be gone this coming weekend, backpacking on the PCT (short trip) and I’ll be gone the following weekend for QuiltCon.

I’m still cutting pieces out…this is Friday night…

I think I did most of 2 yards…then Saturday night…

Was almost another 2 yards…and last night, just 1 more…

I’m pretty sure there’s only 2 left to do. So another couple of nights? Maybe? I can’t always do one in an hour.

I did some other things, but only briefly…

Got one more flower to go around with the incredibly time-consuming Pekinese stitch…

There are always animals requiring attention…

That one wanted me to move all the cutting paraphernalia off my lap. I gave her a leg.

So yeah, prep a bunch of art stuff with a damaged swollen finger (nice), hope it gets better by the end of the day, sit through 4 soccer games or so, then hopefully DON’T go to Urgent Care, but home to cook and cut more things out. That’s the plan. And then hopefully sleep much better because I won’t have a throbbing finger all night. Ha! I just know that Urgent Care will mean sharp pointy things and I don’t want that. I just want it to magically get better. As do we all!

Things Are Going to Be Fine…

Ugh. I came in the office, spilled a bunch of tea (real tea), and realized how many things are on the to-do list in the piles of paper and fabric in here (fabric less pressing, ha ha ha, that might be what they need, but they don’t always get to hit high priority unfortunately). And then the grading is currently overwhelming me…I spent some time on it yesterday and some things are just hard for me to get my brain around. I think we need to rewrite it so I can handle it? I don’t know. I don’t really have the brainpower to figure it out…so I’m two academic assignments behind in grading (many more effort scores behind), and we’re giving another one today. Hear me screaming? Yeah. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. I just need to hunker down and do it.

Wednesday night, I traced until it was bedtime and all I had left to do was the bird…

A hawk, to be specific.

I was tired last night, so I didn’t stitch on anything post dinner, and I actually flailed on the couch for a bit scrolling through pictures of other people’s art before I could get my ass off the couch and up to trace that damn bird. Finished! Eight yards (approximately) of Wonder Under, 1379 pieces, 20 hours and 38 minutes of tracing…

You can see that some have all the big swoopy sky pieces on them and some have a bunch of tiny pieces. That one on the right, second one down, I didn’t need all of it, so that’s the one I cut out before I went to bed (late…oops)…

It doesn’t look like much…

It never does. Expect a week of this. I think. Slow moving process here. I’m not actually sure I can finish this quilt in time for the deadline. It seems a long way out, but I know my copyediting project is coming back in early March and I have two trips lined up for Spring Break, because I’m extra like that. So who knows? Plus I’m currently feeling all that school pressure of having to get shit done.

Speaking of, time to go to work. I think I’m supposed to get donuts on the way for one of my classes. I should. IDK if I feel like it. Sigh. Things are going to be fine. It is Friday.