Back to It…

The week we get off at Thanksgiving has never been a relaxing vacation for me. Whether I stay home and do the whole deal here, or go to Seattle for four days, or what we used to do, which was go to Lake Arrowhead and hang out at my parents’ cabin…it was never relaxing. It was hectic, full of crazy errands and grading before, during, and after. Sometimes I’d manage to quilt or stitch down or cut out a bunch of pieces, but mostly it was tense chaos. And I’m not even the one who usually cooks. I support the cooks by cutting stuff up or whatever. This year, I barely did anything (thanks to my cousin and all HER hard work).

Last week did not break that trend. I did not shop on Black Friday or even Small-Whatever Saturday, mostly because money’s pretty tight right now. Property taxes are due next week and I need to be able to pay them and a credit card bill. Deep breaths. Then I will think about Christmas. I did hang out for a while on Saturday because I needed to do just that. Not grade more papers like I did Friday off the plane. Sunday was the inevitable catch-up day. Five stores later, I think I had got there. Although there are at least two more errands I need to do this week…I lied, three. Maybe more. And then I came home and worked until about 10:30 PM. I did make dinner in there somewhere. My SIL’s convinced I’m eating all this hidden sugar in my diet. She’s wrong. I know where all of it is. I mostly cook from scratch. Seriously, on a good day, I eat fairly healthy. I made kofta balls from scratch, put in lettuce wraps with a cucumber/yogurt sauce and a bit of brown rice. I do OK some days. And there’s leftovers.

I’m not ready to go back to school though. Then again, we never are…teachers. I’m sure the kids aren’t ready either, but they have it pretty easy. I have all the lesson plans done. I’m hammering grammar starting this week. I’m tired of reading their work with no spaces after punctuation, no first word capitalized, the word “I” never capitalized, starting every sentence with “And,” never putting in periods. The computer age may be upon us, but my students aren’t prepared. The English teacher is coming along for the ride. If I have to read all that stuff online, then they better be improving their practice. Meanest science teacher ever! Yeah whatever.

Meanwhile though, and I feel good about this, I finished cutting out the Wonder Under (finally!) for Bathtub 5, which got totally sidelined by the holiday.

It only took about 4 1/2 hours to do it, but I just didn’t have the time before I left for Seattle. I was determined to finish it last night, so I stopped grading tests (because that was kind of depressing anyway), and finished this instead. Tonight I can sort them and maybe start picking fabrics. Except I’m not sure if I have a background big enough. I’m pretty sure I do, plus I’m supposed to be at the local quilt store tomorrow after school to deliver one of the sold quilts, so I can manage that then. I’m hoping (moneywise) that there is something here big enough. I will need some blues and whites though. I think. There’s some really big white pieces in this quilt, and big is always an issue for me.

But the next part is the fun part…the fabric-choosing part. I’m going to need to clean more of this space up to manage that though. Damn. Forgot about all that. Sigh. So maybe NOT picking fabrics tonight. We’ll see.

By the way, if you’re interested in one of the smaller quilts (cats, birds, hearts), I suggest you tell me soon, because I’m going to put them all up on Etsy sometime this week, and I’ll have to raise prices to do that. Under Recent Work, Catching Cancer 2, Owl 2.0, Cats 1, 2, 5-7, and Heart in Hands 1 and 2 are all available. Also, Birds 7, 11, and 13 are also available…see below.

Bird 8: Purple Bird, 18.25“ w x 14.5“ h, $205.

Bird 11: Dove 2, 10“ w x 8“ h, $100 (no binding, no sleeve, hangs on rings).

Bird 13: Diving Bird 2, 10“ w x 8“ h, $100 (no binding, no sleeve, hangs on rings).

Just contact me on the website or in the comments. Shipping is included in the ones I did this year, unless it’s going international. The birds will need to have shipping added. I include hanging hardware. Think of the holidays…

Yet Another Unproductive Day…

in which I actually still got shit done.

I wish I could say that today was amazingly productive. It wasn’t. Well, I got stuff done, but not enough of it. It’s never enough. My bag is mostly packed. I think there’s a cat in it, but hopefully she’ll jump out before tomorrow morning. I might have enough warm clothes. I might not. I hear Seattle has stores. And my brother has extra clothes. I shipped a quilt out that needed to go to its new home. I went to the gym and the chiropractor, both good choices. I returned my library book. I transferred money to pay for college so it will be there when I get back and before the bills are due. I cut out a little Wonder Under…

Not a lot. I’m almost done with the second sheet, and I think there are 2 1/2 more sheets. I think. I could check that. Right now. One moment.

I was wrong. There are only 1 1/2 more sheets. So I’ve done a little less than half. I so wanted to be done with this step by now and picking fabrics, but no. School kicks my butt. I did laundry. I ran the dishwasher. I photographed the trees on the property line between my neighbor and I…just in case. I am that paranoid.

Here’s that “dead” tree. See all those bunches at the ends of the branches? Know what those are? New green leaves…because Southern Californian trees never really know when it’s winter, because it was in the 90s last weekend.

Poor confused beast. Does it need some trimming? Sure. It does. And this would even be the best time of year for it…although it might be a little chilly at night. That said, I still don’t have the money.

Looking back at the last few quilts, this new one should take about 80 hours total. I need to have it ready to iron together by the time Winter Break starts, so that’s about 20-25 hours of work…in basically three weeks. That’s not too bad. I think I can do that, even though it’s the holiday season. And there’s three weeks of school in the middle of that. No problem. As long as I don’t get sick and nothing else breaks, I will be fine. Plus I have to finish clearing out the boychild’s room so he can actually sleep in there. And draw the next quilt, because the timeline on it is pretty short. I’m actually hoping to draw that sometime in the next four days. It could happen. And I have to make a baby quilt…preferably before the baby comes. Although that’s always a crapshoot. My goal is to do that over break. Too. Yeah. I know. Too much.

But really, I need to go to bed right now, because I’m supposed to be up really early. Ugh. The part of travel I don’t like…the traveling part. But hopefully the rest will go fine…and I’ll have some unproductive days that are full of family stuff and food and freezing cold weather. Or reading books. And drawing. That would be OK.

Vacation Rant…

Late today. Ya know why? Cuz it’s vacation. That’s why. Hallelujah, because even though I still will have to work almost every day over break, at least I can do it in my pajamas on my couch (OK, well, not every day, because I’m going to my brother’s house and I don’t know where I will be grading there. I just know I will be grading.). I think every goddamned idiot and politician (oh wait, those might be an intersecting group) who thinks teachers are overpaid, money-grubbing child-haters should come teach in my class the week before a holiday. By themselves. On the same bathroom schedule we get. And then go home and grade all the shit we grade. Yeah. That. Fuckers. I think half my team (or more) hit borderline exhaustion by the end of day Wednesday. And we got up and taught for two more days.

I worked corporate. This does not fucking compare. At all. My job is physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually exhausting. I haven’t been a teacher all my life. I have many years of experience outside of education. I’ve worked in the corporate world as support staff AND as a professional, and I’ve also been self-employed. This job kicks your butt.

So I deserve this week AWAY from the classroom. Don’t kid yourself that I won’t still be working. I will. Some manage to not work all break, and I know that’s what I need, but I can’t afford it right now. I’m aiming for that for Winter Break. But that means busting my butt a little right now.

Moving on. I got up this morning when I wanted to. Well, after Kitten woke me up to inform me of the imminent rabbit invasion. I calmed her down, explaining that a single rabbit was not going to take down our kingdom. And then went back to sleep, trying to make up a few of the missing 2 hours a night from the last three months of teaching (that’s 140 hours short right now…gonna take me a while to catch up).

I finished tracing Wonder Under on Bathtub 5 this morning…

As you can see, it’s all piled up, ready to be cut out, except for the cat butt on the sheets. If you have cats, you know they must inhabit all of your projects. I eventually got her off of them, but she swiped her claws at me, so I gave up on trying to cover the light table again. Eventually she’ll go take a nap and I can clean up after her.

Both cats desperately need more attention apparently than I am giving them…

Both of them stalking me. It’s too bad they don’t really like each other. They used to be OK, but not after Babygirl. Oh well.

As you can see, it is a beautiful day in sunny Southern California. It’s supposed to hit 90 degrees. So I’m heading for Seattle and snow, and kind of panicking about clothes and shoes, but whatever. I’ll take a big sweatshirt and complain a lot to my sister-in-law, and she’ll give me shit for having thin blood. Damn straight. I live in So Cal for a reason.

So artwise, this week might be a bit of a wash. I need to go to school tomorrow to finish grading all the cell models that were turned in. I’m hoping to finish cutting out all the Wonder Under by tomorrow night. Then last night, while trying to fall asleep, I half-dreamed moving all the drawers around in my office so that the colors I use more would be more accessible. Luckily, I recently replaced all of them, so it would be pretty easy to just pull drawers and move them. But I’m not progressing quickly on the rest of the clean up. Because I’m never bloody home! Or I’m grading. Or I’m exhausted. So I didn’t leave much time around the house this week to get shit done. Oh well. I’m looking forward to hanging with my lovely family! OK, my crazy family. So I’ll probably get some drawing in up there. Although, my big sketchbook doesn’t fit in my luggage. I’m thinking of a trip to Michael’s to get a medium-sized one. I have a lot that are 9×12″ and the one I draw most of my quilts in is 14×17″. So something a little bigger. I think. And smaller than the big one. If I can find a coupon. Found one. Love the internet. Really, I do. I also ordered a small keyboard for my iPad so I can type up some stuff on the plane. Can’t use the work computer for that. I may have a bit too much tech. It’s possible. But it makes some things so much easier and faster. Unfortunately, there is no tech at the moment that can help me get the studio straightened up. It’s just gotta be me.

I have to say one thing about the refugee situation. I honestly think many Americans have lost their humanity, that they are so backwater in their NIMBY attitude, in their fear of everything government, the military, and politics have brought down on us, that they cannot even see the fear and hardship in the eyes of the adults that are coming over from Syria or wherever, but if they can look in the eyes of these refugee children and still be assholes, then I don’t want to live in the same country as they do. My America is not those people. I hate what we project to the rest of the world sometimes, and this is one of those times. These are the kids I teach. You hear their stories, you see how small some of them are from not enough good food, and you know the shit they survived, and for anyone to think these people are terrorists…hell, I live in East County San Diego…we have some big fat white terrorists brewing right here, some true crazies. We grow our own. And they call themselves Christian. Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush say they think we should only take the Christian refugees. What the fuck? I don’t care what your religion is…don’t use it as an excuse to turn away people who are starving, terrified, and scared to death. We take them in, we take care of them, we teach them, we help them. That’s what America is supposed to be about…hell, that’s what being human is supposed to be about. If you don’t believe that, then there is something seriously wrong with you. I’d like to think the students I have hear me talking about acceptance, about not hurting each other, about the biology of ALL humans, and they will grow up with that in their heads and hearts, not the hate rhetoric that I hear every day on the news. My Muslim students don’t hate like some of the Christians I’ve heard from do. They just want to be safe and warm and be able to learn without bombs falling on their schools.

That’s my rant. I’ve spent too many days listening to this shit and shaking my head at the crazy. You don’t like it? Don’t read my blog. Easy.

OK. Now I can be on vacation.

Let’s Think Good Thoughts…

Hallelujah. The righteous day has arrived. The day before a week off, not really a vacation because there are 10 tons of stuff to be graded, but at least I don’t have to get up early and go to school and manage crazy. Well. Wait a minute. I’m going to my brother’s house and he has three kids and yeah. I’m still gonna have to do all that except go to school. I did ask if I could go to school with the middle schooler. And then thought better of it. I’d just be depressed after that (private school…they probably have money for stuff).

I’m still feeling like I got run over recently, but I’m hoping a few decent nights’ sleep will help. I can’t be sick right now. That’s not fair.

I gave a test yesterday. Here’s how I know I’ve mellowed out as a teacher: I sat there and watched a girl cheat off another kid. She kept eyeing his paper and hers, and I sat there and watched instead of going over there and doing something about it, and then texted my upstairs duo, because I know there are two different versions of the test and she was sitting next to someone with the other version. Yup. I do that shit. Sure enough, she has all the same answers he does, which means every single one of hers was wrong. I’m boggled. And then I was grading these stories I had them write, and I get to this one kid and I’m reading and thinking “He didn’t even write a story; this is just telling me the process of replication.” and I realize there’s no way in hell this kid wrote anything about 5′ and 3′ in replication, because I don’t even teach that. So I pick one of the more complicated sentences in there and I Google it. Pops right up. The pros and cons of technology.

I’m just amazed by how stupid the kids must think we are. Which is why they were telling the cheating story upstairs so that my next two periods coming in already knew it. What’s funny about that is I caught two more kids doing it, same deal. One, I’m thinking, hell, why would you cheat off of HIM? He doesn’t do any work…he’s gonna fail. And the other one, hey good choice kid, she’ll probably get an A, BUT SHE HAS A DIFFERENT TEST THAN YOU, YOU DINGBAT. Were you not listening? Sigh.

At least I have a sense of humor, right?

I had quilt class (which was really just me and Susan bitching about crazy kids and parents and administrators and crap about schools) and finished this one…

Heart in Hands 2, 11” w x 14 ½” h, $215

It has more pieces than the other one (fingers and all). So that’s all the small ones done. I’ve sold a few and may just put the others on Etsy to see if that moves the rest of them.

I cut some pieces out at quilt class and then came home and moved fabric around, trying to get the boychild’s room cleared and the studio back in working order still, especially since I need to be picking out fabric for the new quilt fairly soon…although probably not before I leave for my brother’s house. That was the plan anyway. Oh well. I try. I don’t always succeed.

I didn’t cut out a lot yet…not even one full sheet (a yard or so of Wonder Under)…

I have two sheets with empty spaces where I’m still tracing smaller pieces, but I had to get a fourth one out for the aorta…

It went across the entire torso, so I didn’t have room for it on the others. I have one arm, the head, and the torso left to trace. I wanted to be done last night, but was too tired to finish up. I have about 180 pieces left to trace. Maybe tonight? Probably not tonight. Maybe tomorrow morning. Ugh. No, I need to go to the gym tomorrow morning. We’ll see.

I wish I could spend my whole vacation on art and relaxing and drawing and hanging out, but grading will be a significant part of it. My fault as always, but it is the fact of this job that grading is never done.

OK, let’s think good thoughts about the achy headachey spacey thing I’m feeling, that it’s just exhaustion and not illness. And good thoughts about finishing the tracing soon and maybe finding time to draw in the next week, just because drawing is fun and nice and I like it.

Let’s just think good thoughts because vacation is 7 hours and 42 minutes away.

Sleep. Apparently for the Weak…

I stay up too late. You might have noticed. Sometimes it’s because I’m trying to finish something. Or because I’m not tired. Or because I just don’t feel like going to sleep. I’m really mature that way. I was trying to finish stuff last night. I gave up on grading because the Google Classroom app was crashing with every single doc I reviewed and it was driving me bonkers. I sent them feedback (I’m sure they’re tired of me). It showed a log of all the crashes though, so I felt pretty damn justified. They’ll probably come back and tell me the iPad mini is too old and I need a new one. Sigh. Nope. Not yet.

I did finish another cat last night…Cat 7…

She’s 12″ square, just like her brother? Sister? Same price, $175.

So that’s the cats done…on to the hearts in hands. She’s the reason I stayed up so late. I thought it wouldn’t take long to do a small binding and sleeve, but it takes longer than I think most times. Oh well. Sleep…it’s for the weak, right? I don’t really believe that. I really wasn’t tired either though.

Before I did that though, I started tracing the Wonder Under for the next Bathtub quilt. This is number 5. Yes, I skipped 1, 3, and 4. Whatever.

I figured it would take about 8 hours to trace this, but I was pretty damn efficient last night.

I did 225 pieces in an hour and 45 minutes. That means hopefully it will take less time, but we’ll have to see.

The owl that I made as a small quilt is in this piece, so I had to trace him all over again. Above is what 225 pieces traced looks like. Not much, eh? Well, yes, and that’s because so many of them are bloody tiny, but that’s a whole ‘nother issue.

I have about 100 cell models and projects showing up today, if you don’t count all the crazy that went on in my school email last night. Now I know who stayed up all night because they left it to the last minute. I guess 18 days isn’t enough warning for this group. So I have to be there a bit early so I can open up the door and let all the kids with projects in. Wanna guess how many don’t put their names on them? And then how many didn’t even read instructions? Yeah. Sigh. Some days I wonder why I torture myself so.

On the Couch…

It all started on the couch…well, it’s still on the couch honestly. But Wednesday morning, after I found out my procedure would be Thursday and might knock me out of commission for a week or more, I had a goal. I didn’t REACH that goal, but I tried. I’m still on the couch today…been home since about noon yesterday. I tire easily. I’m in some pain, not a lot, but the meds are also making me tired…especially the Benadryl to counteract whatever I was allergic to in the hospital.

So Wednesday, I finished trimming all the Wonder Under, taking about ten hours total…

It doesn’t look like much, does it? Then I found a plastic bin for each 100 pieces, not an easy feat at the moment…

A lot of them were being used for other things. Kitten was after a bug in one of the bins, but the Wonder Under was also intriguing.

Then she sat right up against the first three bins, pissy that I was taking up space on her light table.

It took about an hour and 40 minutes to sort all the pieces out…

Then I headed to my office and hung up the drawing, and put away some of the fabrics that were piled up in that room (which really needs a serious deep clean…something I was supposed to do this summer)…

I started by putting the first 100 out in order and then began the ironing…

And got a whopping 35 minutes in.

Before I realized I had to be up in like 4 1/2 hours to go to the hospital. Yeah, so that’s where I didn’t meet my goal. I wanted a huge pile of stuff ironed so I could sit here, on the couch, and cut little pieces out. I guess I could do that, but it wouldn’t take very long. I think there’s only about 30 pieces ironed.

What I need now is enough energy to stand and iron fabrics to Wonder Under pieces. And that’s not happening today. In fact, I’m sitting here with my computer on my lap and my eyes are drooping again. Sigh. So I don’t know if I’m getting that burst of energy today.

I’ve been sitting on the couch and watching stuff saved on Tivo and stuff on Netflix, and then I’m sewing some wool bits to other wool bits, nothing fancy, just basic. Because I can’t deal with anything beyond that. Last night, I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour, but then didn’t fall asleep until after 4:30 AM. At some point, I finally got up and read a book. An entire book. The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud…

I like the idea of this book, but had some issues with the story. I’m not sure it needed to be as long as it was (and it’s 400 pages long)

I think I need another nap. I don’t WANT another nap. I WANT to be making art.

Note: I put the computer down because my eyes were drooping…it’s now 2 hours later, so I guess I really needed to sleep. I’m hoping tomorrow is better. I know recovery takes time.

Damn Demanding Art Brain

Imagine my eyes wide open like this…

Yup. It’s been 24 hours or so of that. I might have slept a bit, but crazy nightmares of mud and blood and car accidents and disturbing imagery (I know, crazy, when you look at my drawings, but they have to come from SOMEWHERE, right?). And I think, what the hell were you doing last night? I went to an art opening (4th one in the same number of days?) and then I came home and ate dinner quietly by myself and watched four episodes of Elementary (um. Kathy. Sherlock is a bit creepy.) and cut out a shitload of Wonder Under.

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The container on the left has all the stuff that’s cut out. The pile on the right is all that’s left.

It was 1 AM and I wasn’t in the mood to spend another 45 minutes cutting that out. I was tired.

It’s still not cut out though and that was my plan for today: cut it out, sort it, and start ironing. But it’s 4:30 already and I haven’t even touched it. Why? Well hell. I’m having a surgical procedure tomorrow, just found out the timing today, so I’ve been running around like a crazy person labeling a quilt, driving to Home Depot for the slats for the quilt, cutting those, dehairing said quilt, boxing it up, driving it to someone who will deliver it for me, because now I can’t, and then the grocery store on the way home. I think I also made stuff for lunches for the next few days, so if I have an appetite when I get home, there’s some stuff I can eat. Because I have teenagers, and although they are both capable of cooking and cleaning and even fetching, they are also not always here or reliable or even sane. Boychild did fetch my library book for me.

It’s OK. Don’t panic. It’s not major surgery. I’m not even having stitches. It’s just the uterus and it needs some persuading to stop misbehaving, and because of that, I get to have flu symptoms for like a week. Or more. Because I have time for that shit right now. It’s OK. I do have time for it, because otherwise, I’m going to need to buy stock in a tampon company. But I don’t have time for it. I’m assuming the worst on recovery, and trying to prepare for it. So I still want to finish the Wonder Under, sort it, and start ironing tonight, even though I have to be at the hospital tomorrow at holy shit in the morning. I have 8 hours before I have to go to sleep. I can sleep ALL DAY tomorrow. Maybe I should just stay up all night. See those eyeballs up there? Yup. That would be a bad plan.

Anyway. With all that in mind, I’m a little overly stressed and a tad worried, because nobody likes to be put under and have drugs pumped into them and to lie in a hospital gown. Those damn things are freakishly uncomfortable, and just when you finally fall asleep, some loud nurse comes in and turns on all the lights and pulls the blankets off of you, scaring you half to death, just to check your incision. Yeah. Things I try to avoid.

So art…in a minute. First I want to talk about the three openings on Saturday. The first one was at Visions, a collectors’ exhibit. It’s worth seeing. I wasn’t overwhelmed, but it has some nice work in it. I’m not allowed to take pictures there. The second one was fun, but a little crazy…

The Frida Kahlo Group Art Show at the La Bodega Gallery in Barrio Logan. There were a million people there by the time we got down there, many of them dressed as Frida (somewhat disturbing). Some of the art was a bit TOO derivative, but much of it was an interesting take on people’s idea of Kahlo or her art. Artists’ names are on the tags below. Sometimes I try to link to websites for artists, but I will never get this posted this week if I try to do that.

So people kept posing this young Frida lookalike under the paintings, and she kept moving under the green one (one of my favorites), but then someone would move her back to the blue one…

And here’s the green one. Maybe we should have let her stay there.

Then a tiny room off to the side had David Van Gough in there…and I couldn’t possibly get any good pictures of his stuff, because it was hella crowded in there. But you can go see it here.

Outside? This awesome photo opportunity. Seriously cool.

After that, we went to a pop-up gallery with work by Spenser Little and Jaclyn Rose, both with amazing pieces. Then the night finished with a good burger and some wine, and you can’t argue with that. I still have a hike to post and some Wonder Under to manage. There was a side trip (while you weren’t looking) through a bunch of financial and copyright shit that I have now banished or managed or scared off. So I can get on with what I’ve wanted to do since I was awakened this morning by bad nightmares and cat breath. Damn demanding art brain.

Full-Funnel Conversion

First of all, no, I didn’t fall off the face of the Earth. I have 95 pictures on my camera to prove I’ve been out in the world Doing Shit. Never at home long enough to actually type a blog post. There are some pros and cons to that of course. First of all, I don’t have time right now to deal with all 95 photos. But I’ll get there. I’m sure.

Second of all, LinkedIn is convinced that I want a job…and it’s not that I don’t need work and money and all that, but it’s possible that I have Too Many jobs at the moment, hence stress levels akin to the beginning of school…but LI keeps suggesting the weirdest jobs. Post title: apparently I may be qualified to be a full-funnel conversion rate optimization specialist. Hmn. Boychild and I Googled that shit and we’re pretty sure I don’t know how to do that. Full-Funnel (cake) I can handle…the rest? Not so much.

So Saturday night was three art openings and a damn good burger. More about the openings later (can’t deal with that many photos right now). Sunday was a friend arriving from parts north. We hung out in her hotel room for a while and talked, because this was her view…

And it included over an inch of rain…

In fact, while sitting there, I think that entire inch of rain had drenched me between grocery store and car and then car and house and then house and car and then car and hotel room. Or something. Think I missed a step. But still warm and humid out. Dudes…this is why I don’t live in Florida.

But while sitting there, I started cutting out Wonder Under. Because my life is such that at the moment I cannot just sit anywhere. I have to be working. And that’s OK. Most of the time.

Once we left there for my parents, where there were lots of people and girlchild cooked, and I did manage to sit through dinner without cutting stuff out, I got really tired. Something about not sleeping well or long enough for two many nights in a row. So I went home and took a 20-minute nap. I do actually set the timer on my phone to wake me up. And that and a significant dose of tea woke me back up long enough to finish tracing the damn thing. First I had to readjust this sweetheart…

Um. Kitten. Excuse me. Sweetie, I need to move you. It’s really hard to move them when they look this adorable.

But I did. Because I wanted to be done. I had about 400 pieces and at first thought that was too many to get done, because it was late already…apparently I traced that night for 3 hours and 10 minutes. Yeah. So I got it done.

I had already trimmed one yard at the hotel and my parents’ house, so there were 6 1/2 yards total…

Laid out on the floor. It took 21 1/2 hours to trace the whole quilt. There are about 1852 pieces (more than that, but not a lot more…yes, I always miss some). So it wasn’t super easy to trace apparently. Last year’s big quilt took about 18 minutes longer to trace and it had 100 fewer pieces. I don’t know what that means. It also took me 12 days to trace and this one only took 6 days. That’s the difference between being in school and being on vacation.

Then yesterday, I had brunch with my friend before she left…then headed over to my quilt class, where I continued cutting…

And then hiked 5 miles with the kids (more on that later), ate dinner (do you need to know more about that? After hikes? It’s pizza. Delivery. Hallelujah.), and kept cutting for almost 5 hours yesterday (finished Wandering Pines and am still not sure it hasn’t jumped the shark in the first season, if that’s possible). I’m at almost 7 hours total, and there are 2 1/2 yards left to trim. I could do that today. Today is actually pretty wide open (except the girlchild needs stuff and I have money crap I’m trying to manage and I need to do a ton of writing today and I have an opening to go to tonight and I didn’t do all the grocery shopping Sunday because I ran out of time to plan and I wasn’t sure when my procedure would be scheduled and I’m still waiting on that).

Wow. Deep breaths Kathryn. But if I can get all these trimmed today and sorted (which will probably take an hour or more), then I can start picking fabrics. Fuck. Wait. I don’t have a background fabric. Add to list. Must go to fabric store (oh my) today. And I need a big piece. This thing is 60″ square pretty much. Need 4 yards. OK. So that’s on my list for today as well. Girlchild can handle that errand mushed in with her need for a suitcase, right? That’s what I thought.

Someone’s in the shower and it’s not me. Did I mention I have a leaky sprinkler issue on the deck? Tried turning the whole mess off last night, but it didn’t stop water dripping. Not sure what’s up.

My lord. I need an assistant. AND a house cleaner. I’ve been watching the show Humans and reading a book about AI, and maybe, if humans weren’t so creepy about how they would USE AIs, this would be really incredibly helpful to me. Seriously.

On With Life…

This morning, at around 6 AM, a mere 5 hours after I found my bed, the dog woke me…crying, whining, scratching at the bed, trying to burrow under the bed itself. Why? Thunder. She’s developed an intense fear of thunder, and we aren’t sure why, but it woke most of us up this morning. The thunder stopped hours ago, and she’s still scared and hiding. She refuses to go out and pee. And I’ve been up since 6 AM basically, so I kinda feel braindead. What’s new, you ask? Exactly. She’s lying so close to my chair that I can’t move.

I only have about 78 things to do in the next three days. I should be totally blowing off sleep to get all that done. This is not the most relaxing summer vacation I’ve ever had. That’s unfortunate. I should work on that.

I’m still tracing Wonder Under…

Some days, it feels like I will be tracing forever, but I think I hit a place last night where I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m at 1450 pieces, with only about 400 to go. That’s a day. Maybe 4 hours. I have the torso, one arm, and the head of the smaller figure, and then I’m done.

Kitten is absolutely no help. She was lying on the couch, but STILL lying on the drawing and pulling it towards her as she cleaned herself.

Nice. Well, I’ll be done tracing soon, and then she can lie all over the light table to her heart’s content. (But mommy, there will be nothing to lie ON.) Sigh.

I actually didn’t do much tracing yesterday, only about two hours. I spent the afternoon re-learning how to crochet and then cutting out Wonder Under for the smaller quilts I have on my list. I didn’t start tracing until well after dinner.

I’m over 18 hours in though. It hasn’t felt like that…

I did finally force myself to stop around 12:30 last night. Some part of me just wants to bully through, stay up all night, get it done, because I’m pretty booked the next three days, but realistically, not sleeping at my age is not a good plan. I already have enough issues with staying asleep, although I was doing fine last night, until the dog and the thunder.

Can I take a nap today? I did take all the Wonder Under that was traced with me to quilt meeting yesterday, but then the crochet thing happened (girlchild wants a hat and her birthday is coming)…I’ve gone completely through my stash of rubberbands saved from when we used to get newspapers (I quit those years ago), so am forced to tie things up with ribbons now. I have tons of those. I keep a bunch looped over a clothes hanger in my office, for when I need to tie things up…

But I haven’t actually started cutting them out.

Deadlines are piling up. My proposal for a collaborative art thang was accepted, so I will be working on that in August, opening on September 12, but I don’t even know what THAT is yet, due to the collaborative part of it. Then I have to do a surgical procedure thing on the lovely fibroid-filled uterus that will leave me feeling out of it and tired for up to 10 days (I don’t have time for that shit)…if they can schedule it far enough in advance of school…which they say they can. But that would then be happening in the next week or so.

I think, OK, this big quilt ALSO needs to be done by about September 20. And I’m booking at the moment, moving uberfast, but that will change. Things I can do while sitting on the couch: cutting stuff out (good). So if the procedure is early next week, I’m still cutting out Wonder Under. OK. Or if it’s early the following week, maybe I will have made it to the ironing stage and I’ll have more stuff to cut out. I suspect picking out and ironing fabrics will be problematic if I feel like shit. Standing for hours doesn’t sound like it will be an option. So the timing is not great.

So I’m all stressed out about making art. Oh well. It’s because I’m pushing myself and challenging myself with new types of projects, and that’s good, and it’s just unfortunate that all this other crap has to happen at the same time.

Plus I really REALLY need to meditate every day. Seriously. Did it in the MRI machine…it was rhythmic. Nice. Can’t have one of those at home though. Gonna have to just do it on the couch.

Enough writing. On with life.

Wading in Wonder Under

I have 12 hours and 12 minutes into the tracing. I’m at piece 1138, which is the hair of the larger figure. All I have left to do of her is the hair and all the crazy stuff hiding in her hair. Then I can move on to the smaller figure.

Turns out there’s actually 1852 pieces (not 1825…not dyslexic) and I missed some, as always, so there are actually MORE than that. Whatever.

I washed the batting yesterday, left it in the bathtub. The kids said something this morning about not being able to take showers. Turns out I totally forgot it was in there. They thought about telling me, decided I must be doing it on purpose (Ha! My momhood is complete! Even my crazy makes sense to them!). When I explained to them this morning that this was Menopause Brain, similar to Pregnancy Brain but possibly permanent, girlchild yelled down the hallway, “Don’t blame your stupidity on your hormones!”

And there we are. The wonder that is my household.

Seriously, I traced for about 5 1/2 hours yesterday in the long run, AND made a new dinner recipe, AND left the batting in the bathtub overnight. Which reminds me…need to go drain that fucker.

Kitten harassed me all 5+ hours by sitting ON the drawing and ON the Wonder Under…

Calli was almost underfoot, but not quite…(see how big the drawing is…)

And then Kitten stared at me balefully from the couch, where she slept because Mommy wouldn’t let her on the light table.

Meanest mommy ever. But I got a lot done…

Sometimes I want to just quit, but it’s easier to stop at the end of some section, and I crazily started the bird with 100 pieces in it at about midnight…so you know how that went.

Up too late, yet again. Thing is, I had to be up early this morning, because I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything after 9 AM. I can’t understand the logic of telling a diabetic NOT to eat, and then having her drive all over San Diego County for an MRI and a totally different place for the doctor. Hopefully I’ll have time to eat in between. I will totally be drinking an entire bottle of water, because I’m already dehydrated, and I drank two full bottles of water last night and this morning. Let’s hope they don’t need to take any blood, because they won’t get into my veins.

It’s OK…the uterus is just full of things that are benign but annoying and causing problems. I gave it permission to STOP being annoying, you know, like you give dying people permission to just Let Go? But my uterus is more stubborn than that. It’s convinced releasing eggs is what it should be doing right now, whether I like it or not. Hence stupid doctors’ appointments and procedures and tests and annoyances.

Anyway. So there will be lots of driving and dehydration and doctor’s waiting rooms today. Not fun. I’m going to trace some more before I go, though, and then pray for caffeine. I am more than halfway through the tracing…which is interesting, because we are officially halfway through summer break too, I think…although I personally start thinking of school officially on August 1, and this summer has been filled with school batting at my brain consistently, via email and text and signing up for classes, because everything is changing again. This will be the fourth website I’ve had to do for school, wait, no, I did a Google Sites one too, so that’s five. I’m not sure what was wrong with the last one, but now we get to learn a new one. Whatever. I’m sure it will be the most awesomest EVER, but if Google Classroom let us do a few more things, then I wouldn’t NEED another one. Wait. Google Classroom is number 5, so this is 6. Bloody hell. If I didn’t have to keep redoing things every time someone changed their minds about what was the coolest (and the cheapest), I might get more of my summer.

Rant over. Tracing will begin.