Trust Yourself…

So this is my day off. I did sleep in. With a pillow over my head. Because some people not getting the day off, plus dogs and cat and trash trucks. Not really sleeping, but trying to make up for two relatively early mornings. When you wake up early and your brain goes into overdrive, panicking about all the shit you gotta get done. Yeah. That.

The crockpot is going in 7 minutes. I prepped it already. I showered. I need to…hang on…do laundry. OK. That was 4 minutes. I got the laundry, started it in the washer, filled the dog water bowl, and started the crockpot 3 minutes early. Because it’s stupid to get up again. I’m watching the leaves fall outside. Because it’s Fall. Except it’s supposed to be like 85 degrees tomorrow, so Fall. Yeah. In Southern California.

I’m waiting for my hair to dry, and then I need to go to the grocery store and the pet store, and I really really really need to finish grading. I graded yesterday for a few hours and finished a bunch of stuff, but there’s one really heinous thing I have to do today. And another one I might just toss. Hmm. Don’t tell. It’s just a homework assignment. Nobody’s grade will change because of it. Not just one assignment.

Anyway. Those things are all going through my head, plus the fact that no one in the house wants to deal with Friday’s dinner, least of all me, so I guess we just won’t eat. That’s what I did last night. Long story.

OK, the weekend. I taught a fiber class for the Mingei Museum. Not a lot of people, but it went well…here was the original setup with some background fabrics and some samples I had done already.

I had instructions, just in case. The plus with not many people is being able to work a little bit with everyone. This girl did an awesome solar system.

This guy was amazing.

He did that guy and then built him a mountain.

There were adults in the class (and honestly, I wasn’t expecting kids…)

But everyone brought some creativity.

I gave her a link to a stitch website…I hope she adds some.

I love that someone took this background fabric and ran with it.

Good eye for color.

Here was Julie’s…

It was nice of her to show up…she knows what she’s doing and has a stash, so she took it home and finished it…

Awesome!

I spent the rest of Saturday mostly braindead. I graded a little. We went out to dinner. And I traced until I was done.

Gradebooks. So red.

Oh yeah, I did some embroidery on this one at the class…

And I made this one as a sample…

It needs more stitching.

I love that I used all that Wonder Under for just one long skinny piece.

It took 10 hours to trace everything…

Here’s all 4 full yards and about another 1/3 of a yard…not huge.

Now I need to cut all those apart.

This week is probably a good one for that. I’ll be tired. I’m already tired.

There’s the pile. Kitten was very high energy in between naps.

I’m listening to a podcast about differentiation for students, but it’s super vague. Science is always hard for this. I can’t really differentiate labs easily, not and have them get the same learning.

Yeah. Sleeping hard. I’m jealous.

So Sunday, we had signed up for a food tour of North Park, one of my Christmas presents from last year to the man. It started in a beer and cheese shop…this beer name amused me.

Not enough to drink it. We had great cheese…

and then pretzels and cheese (with kombucha for me…)

Off to an Italian pizza place and a burger place…apparently I stopped taking photographs in between…oh wait, here’s the pizza place…

Good stuff.

There was a little talk of history.

We’ve been on a couple of these. They’re fun. Interesting.

It was just a coincidence that I had been to more than half of the places we went to (it wasn’t my Christmas gift…). There’s so many things wrong with this…

We came back and I didn’t eat dinner, because the timing of the 3 hours of eating constantly didn’t work with my body. Oh well. I think I ate cereal at midnight because my blood sugar was having issues…and it was low this morning. I suck at weekends and managing food.

OK, so I graded a lot last night and then cut one yard out, plus those other two small pieces.

I stayed up too late. All weekend. It’s quiet late at night.

I’m tired today. Really tired. I’ve been really tired for a couple of weeks. Maybe decades. Hmm. I’m looking forward to a week off from school. Ironically, I’ll have a major project to grade over that week, so I’ll be working. Oh well.

Today, I need to finish grading and run all those errands. I need to prep for the week, mentally at least. Too many meetings. I’m trying to fit in exercise regularly. I’d like to spend some time drawing and reading and maybe even sleeping. Not sure those are options. This is the rundown teacher going into the holidays. The podcast is ending well…”you are one teacher…trust yourself to know when enough is enough.”

Let’s Go Be NOT Irritated

Ten days of school until break. Less than ten until I NEED a break. I get Monday off, but I already know it will be full of grading. I’m so far behind. I did manage a few reassessments last night. I finally could get my head around them. My co-teacher showed me how to see the old comments. That was a revelation. I’m not sure why it wasn’t a revelation before, but hey…I don’t always click on all the little icons at the top to see what they do. I probably should do more of that. In my spare time. CLICK ON MORE THINGS. I’ll get there. I swear I will.

Yesterday was good (but short) on the planning side. The in-class with the counselor side? Oh fuck me. Serious chaos. Not a level of chaos I’ll do with 36 kids in the room. Not this crew. Anyway. It’s done (you have to do it again, two more times. Don’t think about that.). Today will be painful…for the kids and for me. Because they have to turn stuff in and that is like tearing off toenails for them. The kids with a pile of crap in their backpack that is all disorganized and crumpled…do I help them? Do I toss them into the fire? I did record a video with all the pages in order. You’d think they’d use that. I already know where my frustration levels will be by the end of the day. I’m putting my chill hop YouTube station on and maybe grading some stuff. I’m going to keep a big, slightly scary smile on my face all day. I’m going to nod knowingly and shake my head at appropriate times. I’m going to take deep breaths. I might wave at kids. I might grab the rolling chair and just hang out. I’m not going to take their crazy on myself.

Oh yeah. OK. I can do this. It’s a nice thought anyway. A goal. Something to aim for.

After school yesterday, I kamikazed across town to the Rose Gallery, on the campus of Francis Parker School, which is chi chi and bougie and oh-so-not like my school. Three friends of mine had art in this cool show, Words Imagined, where they picked words and then made art to go with it. I love these…

The artists are Peggy Wiedemann, Don Weeke, Polly Jacobs Giacchina, and Johanna Hansen.

Their work is all different and fascinating.

So many weird little things to see. It’s cool that it’s at a school and the kids will be interacting with the work.

Then I kamikazed (much slower due to rush-hour traffic) back home, ate some food, wrote some instructions for tomorrow’s class I’m guiding (not really teaching am I?), and went to my first ever full-length Pilates class. The pro is that I’m stronger than I think I am. The con is the core is not. It’s all good. I will get there.

Back home, dinner after 9 PM. Hmmm. Planning sucked there. Oh well. I did eat. And then I graded, and then I traced.

Kitten watches me with one partial eye…

Oh wait, somewhere in all that, in between the bits and pieces, I cleared a space for them to check my attic…

Here’s the resultant mess that I will have to deal with…

Sigh. Whatever.

Finally tracing. Fifty one minutes…

Yes, I went to bed late. I have one more person to trace and the center, and that’s it…plus the space cat. So that’s about 200 pieces. I could do it tonight, but suspect I will be panicking about grades and the class I’m not teaching tomorrow. Why did I sign up for this? New experiences. OK. Let’s go be NOT irritated. I can do this.

My Long-Lost Used to Be’s*

I don’t know why I agreed to teach a quilt class on Saturday. It’s drop in. How do you know how much stuff to bring? All of it? Assume 20 people are showing up? What if you run out of materials? How many copies do I make? Do I need another iron? Do I HAVE another iron? Seriously, I kill those things. What if I forget the scissors? I’m not even really sure what I’m teaching. WTF was I thinking? It’s funny, because I can manage 165 12-year-olds through 12 stations of chemistry labs and not freak out (well, there’s some stress there), but this sounds like the end of the world at the moment.

IT’LL BE FINE. It will. It has to be. I should get my shit together though. It’s all in my head. Some of it needs to be on paper, a good chunk needs to be organized and put into some sort of containers. I need to figure out how to get it to the classroom.

I think I need more time. Because I found out yesterday that I have to get access to my attic for a site review for installing solar. And my attic access is awful.

It’s above all that. Up there.

So all that has to come out, and then I have to take out the top shelf as well. It’s a bitch. All this when I need to do some prep for a fabric thing, which should be taking place in here as well. Tonight is when I’ll have to pull everything down. Tonight after an art opening and pilates. Uh huh. OK. Oh yeah. Wait. That’s a song.

You can see how my brain is working right now.

I need a list of things to bring to class. I need something to hand people with instructions or something. I need to organize everything.

I also need to finish grades. They’re due Tuesday. Ha. Ha. I did some of that yesterday…

This is not a picture of what I graded. It’s a picture of Kitten judging me for not petting her more while I was grading. And the essay regrades just give me a headache. So I’m listening to The Style Council and Paul Weller this morning. Tryna channel some 80s Brit pop in my soul. School today? I’m not teaching. I’m meeting and filling out some form, but mostly planning with my homie, and then I have to sit through two periods of a counselor teaching social-emotional learning with two of my better classes. That will be after my first two classes have burned down the building.

Yeah. Uh huh. OK. My ever-changing moods are mostly panic and anxiety and stress. Hence pilates. And the gym! I went there yesterday and finished one book and started another. I’m not reading enough at the moment. Or exercising enough. Or relaxing at all. Whoops!

The boychild and his dad (my ex) were recently in Boston to visit the girlchild…not sure when I can pull that off AND not freeze my feet off…but I got this photo out of the trip…

Art museum trip. Nothing’s changed. He always took them to the museums when they were little. This is one I didn’t go to when I was there. Anyway, so last night at 11:30 PM, I was leaving the airport’s cell phone lot to pick them up…so it was a late night and I didn’t get much done. To be specific, I traced this bird…

Yup. That’s it. Not quite as far as I wanted to be. Tonight might be more of the same. And I think dinner will be chips and hummus. Maybe a pear. In between school and art opening. Oh wait, this opening always has good food…but I can’t eat too much, because pilates. Let’s get that core taken care of…

This morning’s view of the table.

Slow progress. But it’s progress.

*Paul Weller, Uh Huh Oh Yeah

Pillow Fort?

My 52-year-old brain sometimes just wants to wander off and be 12 again. Not really 12, because then I’d have to get my mom to drive me places and I wouldn’t be able to drink, but I’d have more time to make art and read books and possibly even sleep and I’d stress out less about money and the to-do list and how to get people to get along and my job and who’s going to go buy more toilet paper (that last one? It’s me. I’m the one who’s going to go buy more toilet paper). I don’t want all the drama of middle-school existence. Ironic that, since I do have to deal with that every day, but at least it’s not ME who is in trouble or has to go to tutoring or didn’t finish their homework or whose friends are bugging her. Or worse.

This week is kicking my ass. It’s only Wednesday morning. UGH.

I did make scones last night for the next 8 breakfasts. That’s nice. They taste good. I had to go buy more butter to do it, because I didn’t realize we had so little in the fridge (my fault…should’ve checked on Sunday. I checked everything else), but for once, the store wasn’t crazy at 5 PM. So that was nice.

I graded nothing. Tutoring just takes everything out of me. I’m done with school when I get done with tutoring. I can’t. I just can’t. I walk in the door at home and I just need to pee and eat (oh body, you are a delight) and then sometimes I just want to cry because I still have to cook dinner and do other stuff and I am just done. It’s not just walking around…it’s being ON the whole day. I gave a makeup quiz during lunch too, so it was ON for too many hours. Way too many hours. Makes me want to build a pillow fort.

I made an animal fort instead…one at my feet…

Another one on the other foot…

The cat was behind me, then on the desk, then to the left.

Eventually I decided to trace. This is yard 3.

I got through most of the second to last figure. Not all the way. It was late, I was tired, my brain is just sucky right now.

Figure 3 needs the other arm and a head. Then I have one figure left and the stuff in the middle and a few things in the sky. I really should be doing some other things, but I don’t feel like it…grading for one. Sigh. I’ll get there. Today I will be trying to get kids to write an essay again. It’s not even really long…just 7 sentences. You’d think I was trying to torture them with they way they react. It’s exhausting.

Positive attitude ahead. I have some paper stuff I can work on. I can move from table to table and check in while working on the paper stuff. Maybe it will work. It works in my later classes…my morning classes are just a challenge. Tomorrow I don’t have to be in my morning classes…I should consider that a gift, I guess. We’ll see. (Comes back to room on fire…)

Meditating with Wonder Under

It’s Tuesday morning, in case you haven’t noticed. I made the big old lady dog come in here and lie next to me on the floor, because she’s in a mood, and when she’s in a mood, she hunts out paper things to eat and or tear apart. She especially likes pads of post-it notes, but anything will do: boxes, napkins, receipts, 20 dollar bills, books. You name it, she’s eaten it. She’s a little anxious because the boychild isn’t here, and she knows it. We got rid of the parents’ dog last night (they came back; nothing drastic), but the boychild is gone for another two days in dog brain. Well, the dog brain doesn’t know that. She just knows things are different and she doesn’t really like different. Neither does the little boy dog. I had to go chase him down in the backyard already this morning to get him to come back in. Fun stuff. Stuff I used to do every day. Stuff I will probably have to do again someday.

I know we gained an hour, but apparently I only gained the tired hour. Seriously, shouldn’t my body be happy I’m getting up later (well, no, because it’s not like I’m going to bed earlier…)? Daylight Savings time switches just mess with our brains, no matter which way they go.

Yesterday was hard work. Lots of waiting for kids to get their needs for attention out of the way. My first two classes are a challenge in that way. I stand a lot, arms crossed, eyebrows up, waiting. Eventually they settle down, like jumping beans who ran out of jump. But every time we transition, they do it again. It makes for a long couple of periods some days. Today is a lab, so it will be fine. Tomorrow is hard, so it will not. Acceptance. Mindful acceptance of chaos? Huh.

Anyway. My room is set up for the lab today, because everyone at school got to pick new furniture but us 4 science teachers. We’re good! They say. Whatever. Then I kamikazed over to the bank to figure out how to pay for solar…which is happening! I’m so excited. I finally found someone willing to design an affordable system that didn’t make me cut all my trees down. I love my trees. He was awesome. I’m hoping this is as cool as I’m feeling it is right now. I also refi’d my home loan for a shorter time period, so when I retire, I’ll be mostly paid off. I may have to refi again (god knows I’ve done it enough times) to remodel stuff, but for now, this is really cool and I’m really excited.

That did take up a chunk of the evening though. I packed a quilt to ship later this week, I tried to deal with some photos for some posts I have to do, and I graded absolutely nothing. After dinner, I actually did a tiny bit of applique…

Stuff I’ll never finish. Apparently.

Then I decided to trace stuff. Because why not?

I seriously wasn’t in the mood for anything else. It’s funny, though, because one of the reasons I stopped the previous night (well, it was late) is that I couldn’t find the next number on the drawing. Granted, I’m reading upside down and backwards, but it was seemingly invisible. Until yesterday. I’d traced the entire body, but not the head. Duh. Back to the neck, the head, the hair…then onto the next dividing space between bodies.

I’ve filled one yard and most of another yard…started a third yard, but barely.

I’m up to piece 443, which is dividing space between two bodies. I think I only have one body left? Maybe two. Yes, two. So I’m about halfway. Five and a half hours in…so a goodly chunk to go. Plus I really should be grading stuff. Ugh though. Will it make a difference? The reassessments…some of them will. The rest? I don’t know. We reviewed quizzes yesterday and they can retake today or tomorrow. Oh yeah, more shit to grade. If they improve, OK. OK. OK.

Sigh. Kitten, you feel me?

She’s like, momma, I got this. Let me just finish cleaning my armpit.

Another sighting of Bill! Bill! Bill! Hope he enjoys his travels.

You know what? I hope the real Bill gets to see it at some point. OK. Lab day. I might lose my mind in the first two classes. Hopefully not. Then tutoring. Exhausting. It’ll be fine. FINE I SAID. Looking forward to meditating with Wonder Under later.

It’s Light.

Pro: It was light when I got to get up. I woke up earlier. My brain was confused. So were the dogs. Plus the man gets up earlier than I do and that wakes me up. Con: I’m still tired. I sorta forgot about Daylight Savings and the time change because my phone did it for me. The clocks in here are still wrong. Whoops.

Saturday I talked to a solar guy…he’s the first one who didn’t say I needed to cut my trees down. He designed a system with the trees. A miracle. This might actually happen. I mean, I’ve grown this one from a tiny plant. It’s a volunteer. I love trees.

Yeah. I know. Trees can cause problems. So can people and I don’t cut them down. Well. Much.

There’s been a lot of dog sleeping going on here…

Lots of dogs too…

And lots of grading. It gets frustrating at times. Sometimes I feel like I’m just recording that they did stuff and I’m not even sure what they’re getting out of it…

Please don’t ask me what she meant by this. I really don’t know. Hopefully texture.

I don’t have any choice with quizzes and tests and projects. I have to grade them. This one amused me.

Physical change vs chemical reaction on scrambling eggs. Yeah. Sigh.

So my co-teacher and I keep searching for the solution to grades. I’m not a fan, but the kids don’t work without something to motivate them, although grades is not always a good motivator. I’m not willing to run a candy-based classroom.

Ah yes. More dogs…not my house, because that fluffy over-shedding one in the middle is not allowed on my couch.

That’s why she looks so guilty.

Meanwhile, Kitten has actually been playing.

She carried that purple mouse into the living room. Brought it right to me.

Good kitty. 6 hours of grading later. Ugh.

I did do art stuff…I went to another opening. This is in Hillcrest…

I think it’s time for another bathtub quilt. Not that my schedule fits that. Wait. A minute. Hmmm. I gots an idea.

I traced Wonder Under finally on Saturday night…see Kitten on her new perch? No fear.

Tracing is meditative. Not enough, because I’ve been grinding my teeth for a few weeks. But better than nothing. Working on that…took a pilates class for the first time yesterday. Gonna try three months. See how it goes.

Core strength would help. Plus my neck and back need it. Strangely, the only thing sore last night was my left foot. It’s better this morning.

I added a space cat to the quilt. I had a conversation with an artist’s spouse on Friday night about the cat in one of my quilts. And I realized this quilt didn’t have one. So I added one.

I guess I’m up to 872 pieces now. I traced again last night…I’m at piece 288. Not bad. I’m looking forward to some down time over Thanksgiving week to get a chunk of this done.

So far, my Thanksgiving plans include cooking my own turkey for December turkey sandwiches, getting my Real ID, going to pilates twice, going on at least one hike, and IDK what else. I guess I’ll figure that out.

Today is prep for a lab and a 2-hour staff meeting. Ugh. Well. OK. First I need to figure out what to do with all these dogs. Doing that now.

You Gotta Wear Those Shoes*

It’s Friday. I’m not sure where the week went. My weekend is looking a little crazy. Mostly because I didn’t do all the things during the week that I should have done. Typical. It’s OK. I’ll get caught up on the things that need doing. Delivering things here and there. Cutting stuff out. I think I can get it all done. Maybe. I really want to be ironing things together on this quilt, but I was tired last night (seriously, three meetings in one day, just 11 hours on campus or at the district office. It’s FINE.). I cut stuff out, but gave up early. I could have stayed up later, but I don’t think it would have been good for me today. I only have a little left to cut out though…

About half a yard. Maybe less. I have about 7 hours in so far…it MIGHT take an hour to finish…probably less. So that’s tonight…and then sort them. And then the fun part…cleaning my office so I have room to iron to fabrics. My second Patreon video might run a little late this month. If I start ironing tomorrow, I can probably put a video together early in the week. More importantly, can I hit my deadline? I think so.

Seriously though, I’m overwhelmed and buried by all the things. It’s going to get better. Soon. At the science curriculum pilot meeting last night, we decided to cut the pilot short…before we killed something. I think this is a good decision. It won’t solve all the issues we’re having this year…a lot of that is the kids…but it will help our sanity to teach the things that we know work and that make sense…because if I can’t understand what the question is asking in a 7th-grade curriculum, there’s a problem.

Weird things I do for science teaching. We need two buckets for next week. I have two, but they’re stickered. I did pull off the mostly inappropriate Jane’s Addiction sticker. Part of Greenpeace is still on there.

I figure they can survive Greenpeace. They’ve probably never even heard of it. Does Greenpeace show up on Fortnight? Because that’s the only way they’d know.

My two pieces have been hung in the That’s What She Said show that will open October 4th in Liberty Station (the one on the left)…

And the one on the back wall…

Interesting trio. This is the Martha Pace Swift Gallery in Liberty Station, just behind Solare (a restaurant). The openings will be from 5-8 PM every First Friday through January. So that’s 4 possible openings to come to. One of the things on my to-do list is to make the 4 Facebook events for those. It won’t take long…I just need to do it.

I really want to spend some time drawing this weekend. I’m hoping that happens. But first, off to school (no meetings today!). I think today involves 90 ice cubes and Dixie cups. Don’t even ask. It could be ugly. Or it could be interesting. Hoping for the latter. Really, it’s just water. It can’t be that bad. (Laughs hysterically because has been teaching middle school for 17 years and knows exactly how bad it might get.) I actually think the kids are starting to realize that their teachers aren’t kidding. I see improvement. I may feel differently tonight, but lately, it seems like they’re getting it. We’ll see (knock on wood).

*Patrick Sweany, Them Shoes

Hope Is a Wonderful Thing

Ah September. You have held off on horrible days of heat…just a few here and there. I actually needed a blanket last night. Have I mentioned that the hot flashes have wandered off? Knock on wood. Don’t let them come back (I know they will). But as always, school is kicking my butt and making me feel like I have to pack in NON-school stuff to keep me sane. Oh yeah, that’s why I make as much art as I do…otherwise, I’d go bonkers in this job. Yesterday was a slog…getting most of the kids to understand what I was talking about (this pilot curriculum sucks balls, to quote my co-teacher)…but also realizing that about 30% of them were totally and completely tuned out. Sigh. SIGH. Direct instruction. And the teacher who sent a kid down in the middle of that and wanted me to find papers? WTF? Like call first. Seriously. No. NO. I have a student who yells no all the time and I can totally bond with her over that. It might get her to stop too, because I think having something in common with me is her biggest fear. I don’t blame her.

Today they write me 7 whole sentences showing me they understand the standard. On the one hand, I’m kind of looking forward to finally seeing how they write. On the other hand. FUCK. It’s gonna hurt my brain. And depress me.

It’s OK. Sunny smile! I can’t grade them until after next Thursday. That’s the due date. I have a week!

But seriously, I’m so behind and confuzzled and overwhelmed and please don’t ask me to do anything else, but I have two meetings at the same time this morning and I don’t know how that is gonna work. At all. And a 2-hour meeting after school about this pilot curriculum. Really, I’d rather be throwing the Navy UFnotO videos up and having the kids write about that. Totally. Fuck the curriculum. Let’s talk about aliens!

I did go to book club, which was totally fun and interesting. We all loved the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, 4 novellas, and she’s coming out with a full novel in May next year (yay!). It was a good mental release to go hang out with a bunch of smart women and talk about the world and how to escape and books and movies. I really appreciate that group, even though the trek out to Point Loma is so freakin’ far.

I managed to cut stuff out for about 30 minutes before I went to bed.

I have about a yard and a half yet. I’m hoping I have the energy to finish tonight. Hope is a wonderful thing. It’s not hard. I was just really really tired.

Calli was making a really funny face, but stopped as soon as I took her picture.

Of course.

OK, off to the two overlapping meetings. We’ll see how that goes. Yesterday someone sent me a donut and I ate it. It was not a good day for food, that’s for sure, but my blood sugar has stayed OK. Mostly because no more hot flashes, eh? I wish my medical coverage thought sending a diabetic to an endocrinologist who actually knew what they were talking about was a good thing. Or even had a diabetes education program that was useful. They won’t answer email. I have to go SEE them. What kind of old-school world are they living in? Not mine. I need to be able to Skype them in the car on the way to the chiropractor. Anyway. Art tonight! I must!

I Woke Up with Rubrics in My Head

My brain. Alarm goes off, not mine. But I know I have to be up in half an hour, have to be up early for a meeting, so instead of slipping gently down the sleep cave and letting my body have that half hour, it goes into overdrive. Loudly. HERE’S ALL THE THINGS YOU NEED TO DO TODAY. NOW. Shut up brain. It’s OK. I need sleep more than I need reminders. NO YOU DON’T WAKE UP NOW WAKE UP. Fuck. So I was awake. I have three mornings in a row where I have to be up early. I don’t like early. It hurts. I seriously woke up with rubrics in my head. That’s just wrong. I even went to bed early, because I couldn’t get focused anyway last night, and I knew I had to be up early. I’m trying to take care of myself. My brain won’t let me.

We had our first local SAQA meeting yesterday…we are a small but creative group. I’m hoping it keeps going. We’ll see how it goes. You don’t have to be a SAQA member to come. You don’t even have to be an art quilter. I’m OK with fiber of any sort. It was a little painful to come home, have a snack, make more tea, and leave again, but it turned out OK in the end. Today I’ll do the same with book club, except have to drive all the way across town. It’s OK. I missed last month because of school exhaustion and I really liked the books this month, plus this is a different-brained group, which is nice.

The library where we met has this crazy mural…I didn’t get the artist’s name, but apparently she’s painted murals in all the East County libraries.

It’s very brightly colored.

I saw another picture of my quilt hanging in France.

This one is coming home next month, I think.

I did cut a bunch of stuff out at the meeting…made it through almost two yards of Wonder Under (although one only had big pieces on it).

I have two more yards to go. Tonight? After book club? I suspect it’ll be an hour of cutting if I’m lucky. Then I have another science meeting tomorrow after school, plus two meetings on top of each other before school, so that will be painful. I think I might be in the fabric choosing phase by Friday? Hopefully? Who knows.

So I have this wallet. It’s nice, has an applique of an owl on it. It’s very well made. I bought it really soon after my divorce, because I needed a new wallet, and I was out running errands, actually in a department store (this so rarely happens, I can’t even tell you), and I saw this wallet and fell in love with it, but it had no price on it. Post-divorce, for a good long time, I really had almost no money at all, but I figured, how expensive could it be? It’s just a wallet. So I go up to the checkout and hand it over. Really, I should have asked for the price, but I think then I wouldn’t have bought it. So she told me the total and my heart sort of stopped a bit, but then I handed over a credit card. It was $40. That was immense at that point in my life. I didn’t have a spare $40 for something I technically could live without. Surely there were much cheaper wallets out there. I bought it and felt crappy for doing it, because money was so tight. But honestly, I’ve enjoyed it all these years and it only started to really fall apart this year. So 16 years? Not bad for $40. But now I need a new one and I want another nice, artsy wallet that holds all my shit, but don’t know where to find one…that will last 16 years again. So that’s a thing.

Meanwhile, I’ve got some school stuff to do this morning. Last night, after the meeting, I had to make a worksheet and organize school stuff, so that didn’t help my brain, I’m sure. Better tonight? Maybe. I can try.

It’ll Be Pretty Chill…

Everyone slept better last night. Everyone peed when they were supposed to. Everyone laid down and stayed asleep, or at least were quiet about their issues and didn’t wake up mom. Well, there was definitely a cat playing with a catnip toy that I heard at one point (bat bat bat tiny bell ringing). Mom ears hear everything eventually.

We started school yesterday with no internet, no phones, random bells, which was fine, because we didn’t need the internet yesterday and keeping the front office from calling me is a plus. Like every period. Stahp. Please. So they couldn’t call us. Amusing. It was all fixed by 3rd period, though, so then it was like normal, which really just means there are a bunch of kids with tech issues that they didn’t solve and they think excuses them from work. And the front office keeps calling. I need to start making those tech phone calls. In my spare time. I don’t seem to have any of that. I did finish grading all those videos last night, which is a plus.

I made it home after a meeting and recording a couple of videos for class, and we walked the dogs. I look forward to these trips out into the semi wild. Plus exercise feels good. I’m sorry for you if that’s not the case. Even when it hurts, it feels good.

We watched a turkey vulture swooping around, looking for something dead.

It was really close at one point and quite large and beautiful. I’ve always been fascinated with birds. They end up in a lot of quilts. A turkey vulture is actually in the newest quilt.

There’s a coyote in this picture. See if you can find it.

It was closer when I first saw it. Interestingly, last year, on the same day, we also saw a coyote…but I think it was the other place we hike. I don’t think these guys noticed…

Although sometimes the little one refuses to go any further. I think that’s laziness more than coyote super-sense though.

The big girl is much recovered after a summer of iffy hips. She’s still iffy, but she’s moving pretty well for an 80-year-old.

So I have a piece in this exhibit…it’s a traveling exhibit, so it will be all over the place.

It’s cool that my piece is second from the left. Here’s the actual link so you can read about the quilts and exhibit. My quilt is about Bill Nye, because I teach middle school science and he’s done some good work about climate change.

I finished grading videos at 10:20 PM. Then I cut stuff out. I cut out one yard on Sunday night and two yards last night…

That’s four yards to go. Not bad. I have a SAQA stitch-in meeting tonight at the El Cajon Library from 6-8 PM (you don’t have to be a SAQA member to be there). I’m taking some of this with me. Maybe I can get done by Thursday. I did buy background fabric on Saturday…well, I bought 4 different options, because I couldn’t decide.

Gotta go to work now. Was gonna post Full Moon art pictures, but I don’t have time! I never have time. Oh yeah! I am teaching that workshop in November for sure. I’ll have to post that info too. It’ll be pretty chill. Shockingly. I spend all day teaching 12-year-olds how to sit up, get their heads off the desks, actually DO something, and even THINK, ah the torture. Handing out some fabric and explaining how to iron and stitch it should be easy. Ha. Well. Maybe.