Rainbows and Pirates and Rain, Oh My!

First of all, although this image was amazing enough for me to show it to the teens I was feeding…

The photos that had me in and out of tears all night were all those couple photos posted by my friends, same sex and different. It’s funny. I have absolutely no desire to be married, but hearing about their plans and their joy was wonderful. All my love to them…may they do it better than I did. I’m glad they now have a choice. Sometimes the world does stuff that makes sense.

Yesterday, I was determined to get shit done. No really. Drove to Home Depot and bought wood for the living room book shelves, so I can get the books off the floor and art on the walls and finish that shit from last year’s remodel. Now I just need boychild to drive them over to dad’s and cut them and then sand and stain and find some way to hang them, because I didn’t like anything in Home Depot. Or it was too expensive. I just want it fucking done.

I had an extra teenager for a Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-watching festival for quite a few hours, but I did not let that run me out of my living room, because I needed the light table. I asked permission to stay and it was granted. Mostly because I admitted that Johnny Depp was hot. Well. He is.

I had a request for a commission of the breast in a quilt I made last year, but it needed to be redrawn, so I made a run to Fed Ex to copy some stuff after I went to Home Depot. Then I redrew it, moving the top hand and getting rid of some of the chaos behind it. Then I traced it onto Wonder Under.

I had some cats I had drawn to make as smaller quilts…but they are all curled up. I vetoed a couple others that were similar.

The one on the bottom left will be more complicated (and expensive) than the other two.

Then I had the simpler version of the heart/hands I did for FFAC, a standing cat, and another owl from one of the bathtub drawings.

So I think I will start with those and see how they do. Oh here. I found the new breast drawing…

For those who don’t know where this came from, I had a series of mammograms regarding a shadow in one breast, so I had to go in multiple times over a yearlong period. It was kind of scary at one point when they called me at school to tell me about a followup appointment when my doctor hadn’t had time to check in with me, but it’s all good now. I just have dense breasts. So they make weird shadows. And whatever is in there, it’s been the same size and shape for a good long time, so we’re back to squishing once a year and watching it. Hallelujah. Alien boob.

Anyway, I also finished cutting out the Wonder Under for the next piece I’m working on and for the breast piece. And then I sorted the WU for the larger quilt…

It only has about 560 pieces in it, and it’s not particularly large, so hopefully it will go quickly. By that time, I’d had enough of Depp and pirates, so I had moved into my office, where the iron and the fabric live. Plus then I got to watch more Star Trek and stop listening to squealing girls. Who are adults really…one is 18 and the other will be 18 in August. They asked permission to marry (jokingly) and I said no…they’re too young. I don’t care about the rest.

Then I got on the floor at about 11:30 last night (Pirates still going on!) and found the fleshtones I wanted to use for the two overlapping figures.

Along with some brighter pinks for lips and nipples. I wanted to start picking fabrics last night, but once I got the first 100 pieces of Wonder Under laid out, it was 12:30. So I stopped. But I got a lot done yesterday, so I felt OK. Now I’m writing this and on hold with my car insurance company, which doesn’t realize I’m firing it. Whatever. All these things I need to do before I leave today for Los Angeles. Looking forward to the opening. But also a bit apprehensive. That part of town has some significant memories for me and I’m nervous to be going up there. Stupid that a place can do that to us, but our brain remembers things like landmarks and smells and certain phrases, and those things can set us off…and my brain has been a mess the last two days.

I finished reading this…

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini…it was good…about a high-school kid fighting depression. It was a bit simplistic in how he solves the issue, but I liked his explanation of tentacles and anchors. Based on Vizzini’s real-life experience on a psych floor in a hospital.

OK. One insurance company fired. Waiting on a callback from the other one. Then off to the Big City.

Omigod. Is that rain? It’s rain people. Rain. The world is a wonderful place.

Sycamore Canyon (aka Brush in My Underpants)

I finished a quilt last night, finished the binding. I’ve been calling it Bathtub 2 because it’s the second drawing I did of the apparent bathtub series. Even though I don’t think Bathtub 1 will ever be a finished quilt. But when I was getting ready to measure it this morning, it named itself…finally.

This is In Deep. Yeah, there will be official pictures taken eventually…like when I get the other one done that’s supposed to be finished in July. It’s cheaper to do two photos at once. Money is tight.

Then I cut out Wonder Under for a while…I think this one is actually going to be pretty quick.

It better be. I don’t have much time. I was watching Helix while cutting. Still trying to figure out what the freak is happening in the second season. I should pay closer attention. Or not.

I have a list of tasks today, but mostly want to finish the Wonder Under and start picking fabrics, since I’m going to lose most of tomorrow to driving to LA for the Diverted Destruction 8 opening at The Loft at Liz’s.

The opening reception is tomorrow night from 7-10 PM. The exhibit is open through September 5, 453 S. La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90036.

So yesterday we hiked in the middle of the day. Kinda crazy, although today it would have been awesome, because NOW there are clouds everywhere dammit. So I’m sunburnt even though I put sunscreen on twice. Bastard sun.

We went out to Sycamore Canyon…it’s been on my list for a while, but never got out there or it was too hot or it closes too early. There were lots of people there…

As you can see (that is my car). Very busy on a Thursday.

It was warm…we analyzed this sign and saw no evidence of anyone but us and the park ranger, who apparently lives on the property.

This is on the ridgeline trail, looking back at the lonely car in the parking lot.

Most of the ridge trail was very rocky, to the point that having poles going up and down the hills would have been helpful. You can see part of the trail going up the hill to the left.

This is looking down towards the valley we might eventually get to…it was warm, over 90 degrees by the time we got back to the car.

Boychild found this on the trail.

There were many signs of the Cedar Fire that came through here in 2003…the lower plants have come back, but a lot of tree damage.

Well, honestly, not a lot of trees at all. There was this crazy chainsaw bug that annoyed the crap out of us.

The trail continues (kids had ditched me by now).

Evidence of the fire at one of the trail intersections…

Here we headed down into the valley.

It wasn’t a super-steep descent…but again, poles would have been helpful because of all the rocks on the trail.

Down there, you can see where we’re headed…into that valley.

The area has a lot of colorful rocks.

And a very very dry river bed…

We found this sign amusing. I don’t think I could have gotten to 5 mph even if I started running downhill (obviously for the bikers).

We got down into the valley and told girlchild there was a windmill, and she took off skipping. She likes destination hikes.

But not poison oak. Not a lot of it (too dry up top), but down in the riverbed area, definitely saw it.

The random, creepy-sounding windmill…it creaks really scarily.

The meadow of the valley…

The original Goodan ranch house built in the 1930s…

Burnt in 2003…

Sad to see…but this is desert…we forget as we water everything that it’s supposed to burn…

Apparently we were on a special trail (it did not feel special)…

OK. Julie. I know you’re reading. What the hell are these? Wells? We saw about 6 or 7 of them, all different heights, with elevation on them and some codes. These two were making clanking sounds, like chains were in there banging around. Girlchild actually said “hello” like there was something alive in there…

What? We never saw evidence of this…but this was the start of the service road that climbed back up to the car. Because when you go down? You have to go back up.

It was not as bad of a climb as the other direction would have been (notice no rocks), but it was a mile long and HOT.

Another one of those weird concrete baby bunkers…

The kids got way ahead of me…well, the girlchild waited for me at one point. I don’t do heat well…

Looking back at the valley…

And again…as we climb higher…

Up the hill…on the top, is my car. Really. I know it’s there.

From the top. One thing you can say…even the desert view…it’s beautiful.

Gorgeous summer blue sky and mountains across the whole horizon. I don’t think I could live somewhere else.

That said, we’re sticking to night hikes if it’s warm from here on out…until? I don’t know, maybe October (both kids will be gone then). The hike only took about 2 hours, although the heat made it feel like longer. It’s about 4 miles with a 600-foot descent, apparently. Not sure if I believe that. The trail info is here. Oh NOW I look at the map and find that the last section is called Cardiac Hill. Nice. Oh, and there’s a porta-potty at the trailhead off State Route 67. Me? I peed off the trail behind the bush. There’s also a nice bathroom down in the valley near the ranger house. For future reference…you don’t have to have pieces of brush in your underwear like I do.

Yeah. You wonder why you don’t have as much fun as I do (sunburn, brushy underpants, and recovering from heat exhaustion)…

Do I Sit on the Egg?

I hiked this morning with the kids, so no early post. I don’t even have the energy to post about the hike yet…I’ll get to it tomorrow, I think. It was hot, too hot really. Out in desert world, chaparral, the sun beats mercilessly down on you out there. There was an ocean breeze that wandered in through most of it, but when it didn’t, then it felt like dying. So yeah. We’ve decided no more day hikes this summer unless it gets down into the 70s or we’re at the beach. We’ll stick to evenings I think.

Yesterday was a chaotic day. I had to go to two different doctors, and the comparison between my blood pressure between Doctor 1 and Doctor 2 was noticeable. Then again, I already knew what Doctor 1 would say and Doctor 2 was the one I’ve been waiting for since late March, the “What Do We Do with My Uterus?” doctor, plus I went to school in between the two. I guess we have a partial answer for the uterus question. We go to two more appointments, one with yet another doctor. And maybe then I will stop bleeding every two weeks. Sigh. She was good, though…she answered every single question I had, asked me a bunch of questions, and then we (together) came up with the best option for me. What a concept. She admitted her NP didn’t know what she was talking about. OK, she wouldn’t outright say that, but yeah.

Moving on. Guess there are more uterus drawings in my future. I still haven’t made it to the copy place (or the pet food place, which worries Kitten no end…she saw me use the last can today). It’s on my list for today, but today is running out (I’m supposed to be going to an art meeting tonight and presenting about blog writing: Step 1: blather. Step 2: ramble. Step 3: post some pictures. I got this.). This morning I lost 45 minutes to college financial aid again, as the service where you upload all your documents continues to do a half-assed job. I will get better at this. They are trying to scare me off actually applying for financial aid. They will not succeed.

Grandma made girlchild a graduation quilt…

This is not a great picture of it. I will have to take another one.

Then I finished tracing Wonder Under last night…

I think it took about 5 1/2 hours total. I was fast. The pieces were small. I dreamed I might cut them all out this afternoon, but that is before the hysterical laughter took over.

Kitten doesn’t laugh. She just sleeps.

The ducks in the back yard left me a gift…

I don’t know whether I’m supposed to eat it or sit on it. I left it there. My students wanted me to get a classroom duck and name it Spaghetti. Maybe this is it (I’m not doing a great job of raising it at the moment…I don’t even know how long it’s been out there.). Apparently they will lay eggs over a number of days and then sit on them. But with a dog in the yard? Not sure that’s gonna happen. I’ll wait and see if more eggs show up. Because I need ducklings? Do not answer that.

Still sewing bindings onto the other piece. Trying to decide what task to take with me tonight. What can I get done? Cutting out Wonder Under or finishing the binding? I could do either. I suspect the WU is not a good choice. There might be a fan there, because it’s hot. But I might not have enough binding for two hours. AARGH. And you wonder how I get so much done. I’m taking both. Really. I am.

And right now, I’m taking my post-hike dehydrated headache to the pet food store. And maybe the fan store. I’d like a nap. Yeah. What the hell am I supposed to do about the egg? Shaking my head. I am not a good duck parent.

Swallowed by Details…

Meditation. Lots of it. School issues. Kid issues. Insurance issues (everything costs too much and all the bills are due during the only time of year when I don’t get a paycheck.). College issues. Too many little tiny fussy details and it’s HOT here. Brain turns to mush.

All I want to do is make art and everything else keeps getting in the way. Today will be that, over and over again. Even school…I have to go to school today. That’s just wrong.

So yesterday, I traced a lot, like over 3 hours of tracing…

Kitten was absolutely no help at all. When she’d try to lie on the paper or the Wonder Under, the plus of the light table is that the glass is really slippery, so I’d just slide her over, out of my way. And sometimes she’d stand right back up and plop right back down. Bitch. No really. I love my cat. And yes, the glass is cool. I use LEDs so there’s no heat off that sucker, or I’d be dying right now of heat exhaustion. You can’t see the fan pointed at me. Actually, for some part of the time, girlchild had the fan and I was sweating. Sigh. Need another fan. I did break the one in the studio, so it’s on my list.

It was nicer to trace at night. Nice and cool. View of my neighbor’s drone over the driveway (I’m hoping he doesn’t have a camera on that thing…because I flashed it last night).

I’m getting closer to done. I think I just have the head to do…maybe one arm. I quit when I was too tired to stand any more.

Then I decided I wanted to finish watching the season finale of Orphan Black, so I sewed bindings for a while…

I got about halfway around before I was really tired. Then I went to bed and didn’t sleep. I don’t really know why. Too many of those details racing around in my head, bumping into each other. Time really gets away from me sometimes. I have a huge long list of things to do today, and so many of them are just BLAH. And I keep fighting the kids over the damn dishes. Seriously. It’s Not Mine, put your shit away. And jobs and their anxiety and stress, which doesn’t help with mine.

I should wake up and meditate. And then I should do it again right before bed.

But I don’t have time! Amusing that.

I am trying to straighten up the house and organize it and get rid of stuff too…although I tossed a bunch of papers yesterday and then had to make more to try and get all these insurance quotes straightened out. Waiting on one more, and then I can toss the whole pile.

But I finally hung the last three year’s of SAQA auction purchases…

They’ve had hanging slats for about a year now I think…the one on the right is one of my older pieces, pre-divorce, believe it or not (so fucking ancient). It’s one of my favorite pieces…Caught in the Headlights (2002). And yes, my kitchen is a disaster. I’m working on it.

Here’s Lorie McKown’s My Three Sisters II, Susan Lenz’s Death of Desire, and Helen Conway’s Transition: Brick Lane II.

I have 4 others in my bedroom, so that’s 7 years of donations to the cause. I don’t make auction quilts (they’re way too small and always due in the last trimester of school, not a good time for me), I don’t have hours to donate, and I don’t have a ton of money, but I do try to buy a small one of these every year. Last year was going to be a no-buy-year for me, and then I sold a bunch of the bird quilts and made enough to be able to breathe last summer.

Same with this Jette Clover piece, Interjection 1, purchased as part of the FFAC 100 artists donation to cancer…I donated one and bought one.

This year…this year, none of that is on the table. Deep breaths. Sighs as well.

Today? Doctor’s appointments, school shit, lots of details (apparently that cat up there on the light table? She wants food. Demanding beast.). Hopefully some more tracing will get slotted in there, so I can get that part of the project over with and move on to the next piece. I’m also trying to get my freelance copyediting business up and running, and to exercise in there as well and maybe even sleep more than 5 hours a night. Really. I feel like I should be able to sleep on vacation! Stupid brain.

Make art, support artists, buy art. Meditate regularly. Don’t get swallowed by details…

Two Peaks, Some Art, and Two Books…

No matter how much screaming and arguing seems to be happening here, we have now managed a second “family” hike. This time, they ditched me (it’s OK…I’m out of shape…and they waited at the tops of mountains, which is all I asked) and walked and talked together. I’m OK with that…

We hiked up the back way to Cowles Mountain with the million people who always do that (there actually weren’t that many last night)…

Where they beat me up by 10 minutes, but missed the rattlesnake (I didn’t stop to take a picture of it)…but then girlchild spotted a California Horned Toad (not a toad at all)…

They’re so adorable and so hard to photograph. This is on the trail past Cowles down to Pyles Peak, because we don’t do easy. We climb mountains. OK. Not big mountains…there’s a view of Cowles looking back from the saddle between the two peaks. You can see the trail we’ll have to take back UP.

Sometimes I don’t think through the suffering part of these until I’m doing them.

I’m amazed that with little rain and drought conditions, there are still flowers everywhere…

This is from the base of Pyles…with Cowles in the far distance.

And looking up at the “peak.” It’s kind of a lame peak…more of a rounded thing. But you do have to climb to get up there. Trust me.

We saw maybe 5 other people on this part of the trail…here’s the top, overlooking most of San Diego County…

We tried to time it so we would hit sunset when we got back to Cowles, so hopefully we wouldn’t need to use the headlamps. The marine layer always makes for interesting pictures into the distance.

And Cowles to the south…

Another interesting flower…

I was behind the kidlets again (they walk fast…youth plus lack of injury), so the sun started setting as I was heading back up that long trail.

Looking back towards Pyles…

Beautiful sky…

Definitely worth the pain…

When we got back to Cowles, we actually ran into someone I knew, so she came back with us. We pulled the headlamps out for the last 10 minutes (we’re blind old ladies…the kids were fine) and had a great conversation about life, art, and hiking.

I’m smart about these hikes…I made dinner (casserole) and stuck it in the fridge so it needed about 20 minutes when we got home…just long enough for a shower to wash off the worst of the sweat. Of course, then it takes me an hour to get my butt off the couch. Ah, old age. And a good workout. There’s conflicting reports on the mileage. I call it 6 miles, but it might have been more.

I eventually got up. It took a lot of willpower. I haven’t finished sewing the binding on yet, but girlchild was going to bed, and I wanted to watch Elementary, which has to be on the television in the living room…so I started tracing the next one. My ex-Cousin-in-Law (I think that’s what she is) requested a cat with a heart, so I drew an extra piece for her…

Very anatomically correct, of course. And I kept going, although standing was exhausting.

Kitten was no help (as usual). I managed about 100 of the 500+ pieces, and then I looked at the clock…

It’s a good thing it’s vacation…that was a late night. I’m feeling it this morning, because I didn’t sleep well. Trash trucks and birds chirping and sunlight and cats hurdling me and dogs whining. Ugh. I don’t do mornings well.

I finished three books in the last week…I need to write a separate post about one of them, but the other two…Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie…

which I read for book club, but then didn’t make it to the meeting (grades were due). This is actually a common occurrence for me. I don’t mind, but in this case, really wanted to discuss the whole confusing gender thing in the book. I didn’t think it added to the story at all, and although I finished the book and gave it an average rating, I don’t want to read the rest of the series because of the gender confusion. It was never really explained satisfactorily and just annoyed me. I don’t mind gender commentary. Just explain it before I’m 150 pages into the book.

The second book was recommended by a friend, The Story of Owen by E.K. Johnston…

This one I liked…a current-day dragon-slayer. This is a YA novel, but I think easily reads as an adult novel. I love the connection to historical stuff and the environment. Definitely a good retelling of the dragon story. I’m reading the sequel to this one.

Yes, summer is about reading and hiking and art. Surely there’s other shit I need to do (and I will), but I’m still in recovery mode.

SIT. DRAW. DO.

Whoa. OK. Hello Saturday morning. There were all these things I was getting done and it just seemed to propagate more have-to’s. That’s just wrong. Every time I turn around, there’s another one bopping me in the face. This time of year, with graduation and end of school and college demands from two different schools and this thing and that thing. Crap. I need to send a quick email before I forget again.

OK, done. My brain is on overload. That said, I spent the last two nights speaking to almost no one (well, except via text) and last night, I went 6 hours speaking to nothing human except the pizza guy (it was Friday, I was tired. I think I’ve talked to my car guy more in the last two days than to anyone I care about. OK. I care about my car guy. He’s nice.). My brain gets a little weird with all that incommunicado shit, so it’s now trying to balance all that lonely with the girlchild currently singing some song like she’s trying out for American Idol. But then she’s leaving again. My lord. Maybe I should have more children (fuck no).

OK, with all that in mind, know that I worked for about 12 hours yesterday, grading for more than 4 hours last night. Because I’m fucking nuts, that’s why. I just sat myself in front of the telly with a DVD of Elementary, another version of Sherlock, recommended by the boychild. The boychild, by the way, has been trying to get my website banned in totalitarian countries…

There’s Afghanistan. He said he could access it and then they decided I’m violating their shit. Whatever, Afghanistan. Hell, I probably violate the laws and regulations of half the Southern United States as well. I’m not bothered.

So after grading until I wanted to crawl into a cockroach-infested concrete box (watching too much weird TV), I gave up and did other stuff. I sorted all the Wonder Under for the first bathtub quilt, which is actually Bathtub 2, because I like to be confusing like that.

Not a lot of pieces. Really. It only took like 20 minutes to sort them. So then I went to the newly cleared (but not totally clean, please don’t hold your breath on that one) studio and started picking fabrics.

I didn’t get very far. I was tired. It was late.

By then, everyone was back in touch with me, via phone and in person, although I think girlchild only said three words to me, “Where’s my dog?”. Um. You mean that big Golden Retriever thing that’s been following you around, whining, since you walked in the door?

Yeah. Whatever. Not a great mood. Went to bed with a book and a cup of tea and woke up to a Kitten hurdling my head (her code for “I have to Poop Now.”) and a mood. So blasting Rufus Wainwright right now is probably not the best choice. I have a shitload of stuff to do, but I don’t feel like doing any of it. It’s all too complicated. I just want to have a reasonable amount of human connection (and there’s nothing about teaching pre-teen/teenagers that fits that bill, sorry) and time to make art. And whatever. A clean house. Ha! I am still listening to music way too loud for an old person.

Maybe drawing should be on my list. And Motrin. Yes, I realize I’ve been dealing with a lot of headaches lately. The weather systems locally have been a little crazy lately, which doesn’t help. And my foot still hurts, so I’m not getting regular exercise. OK. Getting off this thing. I’m feeling like I need to DO. DO is better than SIT. Unless SIT includes DRAW. And maybe wine.

Rainy Days…

So it was (still is) a rainy day in San Diego, which is good (we need the water), and it makes me want to stay home and not do anything, so when I got home from school yesterday, after doing afterschool duty standing in the rain (fun stuff…at least I remembered my jacket and the kids cleared out really fast), I decided I needed to clean up the studio. Slash office. Because really this is just a tiny room with a bastardized closet, the former owner being an artist and needing shelves just like a fabric artist would need. And I used to be a freelance book editor and everything ran out of here, piles of book manuscripts on the floor everywhere, files galore. Even then, I had fabric in here though, not as much as I have now, because I started editing in 1996, the year the boychild was born, and my first real art quilt, documented, was made in 1999. I made art quilts before that…I just was learning how and didn’t keep track of dates. I was still screenprinting up until then and for a time after, and I had a studio space downtown until right before the boychild was born, and that was a nice big space compared to this, being a room maybe 8×10′? The studio was more like 600 square feet…something like that. Now I have this tiny room with a sliding glass door that is completely blocked by my sewing table. Nice view though.

Then when I stopped editing, I was going to school online, so there were notebooks full of articles off the web, because I don’t really like reading on a computer, although now I read on the iPad, no problem. And when I started teaching, the file cabinet was now full of teacher materials, an entire bookshelf (there are 4 in here) is just teacher materials, books mostly. Somewhere around 1990 is when I started collecting fabric, when I started making quilts, although not very artistic in the beginning, just learning the process. I’d always been drawn to them and I had been taught to sew fairly young, so it wasn’t much of a jump to start making quilts. I didn’t finish most of the early ones as actual quilts. My first big quilt top is still in the hope chest in my bedroom. I don’t hold out much hope for finishing it. Not sure I care much about finishing it!

My fabric stash definitely has outgrown this room. I have fancy fabrics for crazy quilting in bins under my bed, where they never see the light of day, because I haven’t done any CQ in ages, and the cotton stash is pretty amazing too, although I do try to keep it all in here. When I’m working on a quilt, after I’ve ironed all the Wonder Under to fabric, I keep all those fabrics in separate bins until that quilt is finished, in case I’m missing a piece when I go to iron it together. It makes it easier to find the missing fabric if I don’t have to sort through ALL the bins of that color. So I had all the fabrics from the Earth Mother quilt in three bins, there were two additional bins of fabric from Mariah’s stash, well, and then a third one with all her blues (she had a lot of blues), and then I had a trash bag full of fabric from Sandi’s stash…and all of it needed to be put away.

So that’s what I did…

Aerial views of piles of fabric by color. I had three piles of blues and three piles of greens and two piles of browns and two piles of purples.

And then on top of that, I had stuff pulled out of almost every drawer from when I was looking for fabrics, because I had never straightened that up either. So between texting two different people, a phone conversation with my SIL while she was watching one kid play baseball, talking to my car guy and then my dad because I have his car until car guy figures out what’s wrong NOW, a conversation with my ex about school and money and dramachild and the dog being scared of gophers when he came to get the dog because the girlchild didn’t feel like coming back here after watching softball because I am that evil, and heating up leftovers for dinner, I also put all that shit away. Well. Not true. I have 10 blue fabrics I haven’t found a home for yet, mostly because I’m really running out of room in my current storage. And because I gave up. Sigh. OK. Not something to complain about. What’s funny is that the current quilt has some pieces in it that are really huge, and I might need to buy fabric. NOOOOOO. My goal is to not buy any except maybe binding. I have a large piece I can use for the background and I always have stuff I can use for the backing…but the binding is an important part and usually I need more than a half yard, and half yards are all I normally buy.

Anyway, I’m glad I did all that cleaning (and there is a ton more to do…but I have all summer), because last night I also finished cutting out all the Wonder Under for the first of the bathtub quilts…

It took me a bit over an hour and a half last night to do that last piece…it had a lot of skinny tree pieces in it. Make that two episodes of Orphan Black. I sorted and cleaned the studio to Deep Space Nine. I get tired of all the quiet, although before that, I was being yelled at, so I guess there’s a fine line in the middle where I’d like to exist and can’t. So it took about 4 1/2 hours total to cut all the pieces out. My plan is to sort them tonight into bins and hopefully start ironing to fabric, although if I were a very good girl, I would grade papers. Well, I would grade assignments online. And then papers…which next year, might be all online. And it will be another quiet lonely night, because girlchild is out and about. Boychild is coming home Tuesday though, so I will have company on some of the nights when she is out gallivanting around for the next three months. At least it will give me an excuse to cook something besides leftovers again.

So on to the next stage again, a more exciting stage, and maybe the mess in here was just weighing me down, or maybe state testing is messing with my head, but it’s been a very long week. I’m so tired right now, I’m wondering how to find the energy to get in the car and fight the stupid traffic to school, which is only 2 1/2 miles away, but rain brings out the worst in people here in Southern California. Maybe if I get the rest of this tea into me, that will help. I want to draw. I want to curl up on the couch with a blankie and put the TV on and draw. Listening to the rain drip. And then take a nap.

Sigh. A personal day is not an option today, not with state testing. I bully through, like all good teachers do.

A Gopher Tale…

The dog (Calli) is staring intently out into the lower yard, worried-looking but not barking or crying. She looks at me when I slip out the back door, whining slightly and so excited that I’ve come out to see what she sees. I peer down into the weed-infested space (I really should do more yardwork. At midnight. On Sundays.) and see one of the 3-foot-tall weeds jiggling, like something is down there. I make the executive decision to walk down the deck on the back of the house. It will look right over that space, and then if it’s a skunk, I don’t have to meet it up close right before school. Calli follows me, thrilled that I know what’s worrying her. I get to right above the wiggling weed and peer down. There’s nothing there. Nothing’s even moving at the moment. I wait. Calli waits, whining quietly. The weed starts to move again, and there is a noise of teeth gnashing. I look more closely. The weed is not just moving; the entire plant is disappearing inside…a gopher hole. Oh. OK. That’s funny. I laugh. Damn dog is scared of gophers. I try to put her out later to pee, and she cries at me, protesting, scratching at the door, and then running back in, Golden Retriever vs Gopher a pure loss in her tiny little mind. I love this dog, but damn…she’s scared of gophers. So much for protection.

Girlchild says it’s because she’s afraid SHE’LL disappear like that. Huh. Silly dog.

So I had tons of crap to deal with yesterday, but I was damn efficient and tried to keep irritation levels at a minimum, hard to do when having to give yet another state-mandated survey on top of state-mandated testing, none of which works the way it’s supposed to work. Our theory now is that the adaptive testing actually refuses to accept wrong answers at some point until students go back and try to fix some of their bad answers. That can’t be true. That doesn’t even make sense…but I have to admit, despite the fact that I’m a teacher, I don’t understand how these newfangled tests are working.

Then I finally made it home for girlchild’s dinner-making extravaganza (chicken salad) and some quiet time (not…prom-dress worries with SVU in the background) on the couch, trying to grade some more (I really want to be caught up. It may never happen. Ever.) until I gave up and started cutting Wonder Under, because I remembered my mistake of the night before. Make Art Dummy!

The thing is…photos of cut-out Wonder Under aren’t very exciting…

(trash on the right)…not even to me. Although that box is almost full.

Here’s all I have left to cut…

Now THAT’S exciting. Just one piece left. That’s one evening maybe. There are a lot of little pieces, yes, but there’s also some big whopping pieces in there. (Big pieces take less time to cut out.). I’ve done about 2 1/2 hours, so maybe another hour, hour and a half? I did one whole piece last night in less than an hour.

Now I can start to get excited about ironing to fabric. That’s way more fun. Color and stuff. Making artistic decisions and stuff. And stuff! But I do need to clean this space out first, get some shit out of here and straighten up all the fabrics, put all the stuff away from the last quilt. I still haven’t done that. Sigh. Damn. I hate dealing with that stuff. I can put the fabric away, pile it up by color and straighten up. When I finished the last batch of financial aid stuff, I put everything in labeled file folders, because I didn’t do that last year and it was chaos this year trying to figure out what went where and where everything was. But I still need a home for all that. I still learn from my mistakes. Good thing really. I make lots of them. But I’m a hoarder genetically, so even getting rid of the rest of the upholstery scraps from that recycled quilt causes me issues. What if I NEED them? Really? Seriously? I won’t be able to find them…that’s what if.

And I got a bunch of fabric from a mom I grew up around, the mom of some good friends. She’s not quilting or sewing any more, due to a series of strokes. I’m glad to take in her fabric…kinda makes me feel good thinking some of my stash comes from Sandi, but I have to put them all away too! I know. My problem. I’ll deal.

So I don’t remember where on FB I saw this, but this video about the nipple is good…I didn’t even know about the no-male-nipple laws. This is probably NSFW for most workplaces, which is also an issue, because if I were watching a video with topless males, there might be an issue, but with topless females, it’s always an issue. Go home and watch it.

It does seem like we need to Free the Nipple, people (without the comma, that’s an interesting sentence times two). Certainly looking at my art, it would be nice if people were a little less dramatic about nudity. A naked woman does not equal porn. Neither does a vulva nor a nipple.

Leaving you with that. It’s a good way to start the morning.

The Cutting of the Wonder Under

Mothers Day: the only day of the year children will try to feed you and clean up for you. Well, apparently the girlchild last did those two tasks at Christmas, but I’m fairly sure I helped. She did good. Food was wonderful…we will miss her when she leaves. I just don’t pay close enough attention when I cook to do it well. I’m always trying to escape the kitchen to my studio.

I did a couple of drawings this weekend while watching the end of True Detective, which was good. At some point, I couldn’t draw because I was concentrating too hard on the show…always an issue.

But before that, there was this…

Which I actually want to do over…and this…

Which might be OK.

And the other 15 drawings are still roaming around in my head, creating havoc with my ability to remember how or when to do anything (or maybe that’s menopause…hard to say).

And then at night, after dinner and cleanup and exercise, I finally got around to this…

The very titillating Cutting of the Wonder Under.

Stay tuned for many pictures of piles of paper cut out with fusible web on one side. Très exciting.

State testing starts today, so I have to be at school early, because I have duty and I have to get my room set up and all my stuff located. I’m completely unprepared, unfortunately. My brain? Mush. Dammit.

This Mood

So many things achieved. I hate when my mood doesn’t reflect what I’ve gotten done…some of that is moody hormones, unfortunately, but some of it is getting bogged down by other crap that just won’t leave me alone. The little stuff is really getting to me at the moment. Need to dump that mentality. Must be getting to the end of the school year.

My two quilts are going to the photographer today…I dehaired and ironed them this morning, got up a little early to make sure I had enough time. Probably won’t finish writing this before I have to go, but that’s OK. I graded papers last night too. Girlchild and I were going to go to this art and music thing, but it was canceled for the rain (yes. we had rain. a miracle.), so she went off to dinner with friends, while I watched the series finale of Sons of Anarchy. Sheesh. Well, it’s done anyway. I think it’s hard to end a series well (Sopranos for example, not as an example of ending well). At least they got to make a decision about how to end it, instead of just not being renewed.

So I finished tracing the Wonder Under on Bathtub 2 last night…

And no, Kitten wasn’t helping. She mostly sat around on the papers I needed and then rolled around presenting her belly for petting. Then attacked. It’s nice when she comes out though.

It took almost 8 hours to trace this quilt, which is more than I would have guessed, but there are some whopping big and complicated pieces in the bathtub and water that took more than a minute or two to trace. I usually figure about 100 pieces an hour. Tracing big pieces takes longer than small.

The next step is to cut them all out and then move on to the ironing. I need to clean up the studio first though. There’s some stuff in there that’s been there so long, I don’t know what it is. Time to get it out of the way. Summer cleaning is how teachers think. We don’t Spring Clean. There’s no time. Summer is when our brains like to get rid of stuff and reorganize and move stuff around.

So that’s on the list. Even starting now, I think. I can’t iron fabrics for the next quilt without some major cleaning in here.

I’ve had some conversations about smaller quilts I can make for sale this summer. I don’t want to do all cats, but I will do some. I’m thinking of a different owl and maybe a raven…and possibly one like the cancer donation quilt I did with the hands and the heart, but simpler. So I’m finalizing all that in my head and figuring out how to fit in at least three major quilts between now and the end of September. Ha! Wow. Crazy much?

Honestly, though, I’m kind of looking forward to putting some sort of plan together for summer work on quilts. It helps school feel less crazy. It helps quiet nights at home seem less lonely. It helps with the frustration of my job. It helps temper the teenaged mutant attitudinal beast who is currently on my couch, bitching about everything I say or do (walking away, my sweet. I love you, but I’m not in the mood). I’m crying at the drop of a hat these days, stupid hormones. Fuck. Going to draw today. Seriously. They’re whirring about in my head, causing strife and stress and nausea (oh wait, those are the hormones, right?). My photographer gave me some really positive comments about the quilts I dropped off…not that I didn’t like them, but I keep having this discussion about pretty versus significant. I prefer the latter. Most people like the former. I have to find the happy place between them for the stuff that sells easily and then keep making the big stinky stuff to keep me sane. Like sanity is my strong point! Whatever.

This mood. Sheeit. Dammit brain, I finished all this stuff. Would you back off for a bit? Sigh. We can engineer bridges, put humans in space for months on end, we know how to replace a lens in an eyeball without stitches, but we can’t find an acceptable treatment for menopausal crap? This world we live in. Don’t tell me it’s equal. It’s not.