I SUCK

Drawing I is a mistake. I'm horrible. I suck. I really, really suck. The only thing I'm geting out of the class is humiliation. I actually started crying in class yesterday. The experience will help me remember how my students feel when they can't complete an assignment.

I am honestly the worst 'artist' in the class. A few people would argue with me, but at least they're drawing realistically, while I still use childlike symbols for things like noses. Noses seem especially difficult for some reason.

We'll Hold TWO Funerals

On Monday I lined up substitutes, left work early, and drove to the Parent's house to go to the funeral. Oddly no one was at home. I pulled out my cell and after a few phone calls discovered the funeral was on Tuesday. Grrr. I left L. at work a message saying if my Mom kept this up we would have to hold TWO funerals. At least I was able to teach my evening class after all -- it was their first class, and I really didn't want to miss it.

I'm not teaching on Tuesday this month, so things went much more smoothly on the actual funeral day. My sisters, their husbands, and their children all met us at the Parent's and drove to the funeral home. It was packed. All the aunts, their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren were there. I didn't care for all the kibitzing, but then again I have a hard time letting bygones be bygones. I couldn't bring myself to hug either one of my aunts, although I did hug a few cousins. The cousins said lots of nice things about how Mom and Dad influenced their lives. I'm happy Mom and Dad got to hear all the love the cousins still have for them.

The funeral itself was uplifting. I know that's a strange word to use for a funeral, but it really was. The beautiful coatless weather, the respectful audience, and the sense of peace and relief we all have made the experience a positive rememberance. MawMaw would have loved all the flowers and the white flower-embellished casket. The children were very well-behaved, even the toddlers.

There were two small flies in the ointment. The person who gave the service mispronounced my grandmother's last name. The other was a statement made during the ceremony, the kind of Christian Holier-Than-Thou statement that gets my pagan temper fired up. The preacher said that people who weren't Christian spent their last minutes in terror because they didn't believe in a Christian afterlife. Where did this guy get his religious training? Does he think other religions DON'T have afterlives built into their beliefs? How ignorant. I tried not to let the remarks upset me because (after all) the woman he was giving the ceremony for would have believed every word he said. My brother-in-law and I just rolled eyes at each other, and made fun of the speech later.

Struck Dumb

I want to write, but I'm not sure what to say. My grandmother, the one I quit having anything to do with, died this weekend. I'm feeling guilty because I'm not all hat upset, and also because I didn't stick by her when it was clearly her mental instability manifesting itself. Instead I quit seeing her, when I might have been able to help somehow.

I remember when she had to stay with us after injuring her hip. Mom went out of her way to keep MawMaw comfortable, and to feed her. Mom even cooked dinner every night, which was something of an event as they usually eat out every other night. MawMaw told Dad that she was being mistreated, and how horrible it was that Dad had to work all day and then come home and cook dinner for everyone! She just didn't realize what was going on around her. She even slapped Mom and accused Mom of stealing her clothing.

Instead of ignoring the bad and focusing on MawMaw's well-being I turned away, and refused to have anything to do with her. She went into a decline when she was moved into a nursing home, eventually becoming so catatonic she failed to recognize Dad.

Now she's gone.

I hope she's happier, and at peace. I hope she can see what a wonderfully devoted son she has, and how hard all of this was for him. Dad is not a saint by any means, but he certainly demonstrated saint-like patience and devotion where she was concerned.

The funeral is tomorrow afternoon. It's going to be a simple graveside service, with nice cold weather, so I bought some black socks to wear with my suit.

I hope my aunts don't show up. They had less to do with MawMaw than I did, and they've been nothing but hateful and petty. They're awful people. They'll probably show up in force, with all the nieces and nephews, and go on and ON as if they were at her bedside when she died. "Tacky" doesn't even begin to describe them. All they want is her money. Not that there's any of it left, after the nursing home and the bad housing market.

(later)

Went to Drawing I on Saturday. I was planning on attending incognito and enjoying my non-teacher status, but when I walked in the classroom door I saw one of my students standing in the room. I had to 'fess up during introductions and admit I taught at NLC.

I think the class will be interesting. We did the old "draw your hand" exercise, and mine came out looking pale and whispy like it always does. I was OK with the entire exercise until the instructor poked his head into the room and told us to shade the picture. That simple statement made me all uptight. I can still remember Mr. Riley in high school shaking his head over my value studies. I never could make the shading look convincing. I sat at a table with a group of people who could shade beautifully, and create these masterful scribbles that started off black and progressed to white smoothly and mysteriously; lovely, patient, and natural. Mine always looked like scribbling, and always fell short of the mark.

When we hung our studies on the wall I felt even worse. I always forget how lightly I hold a pencil. I'll start with what I consider a bold line, but eventually when I want to add barely-there details I have to write lighter, and lighter, and lighter, until the pencil is almost hovering over the page. When we looked at all the studies together mine looked like it was trying to recede into the page. It felt very tentative to me. I didn't like it, but one girl in the class said it was her favorite.

Our supply list was two pages long. I went to Hobby Lobby to purchase all the supplies, but they didn't have anything so I went online and purchased $306 worth from Dick Blick. There are a few things I couldn't figure out, and neither could my artist sisters.

I'm trying to get all the online classes ready for next week so I can draw for a little before I go to sleep.

Working Towards a Goal

Today I signed up for Drawing I at Brookhaven. I'm very excited about it -- one of my students took the course last year, and she really enjoyed how the teacher took drawings into the computer lab to re-work them digitally. When I tried getting in yesterday the class was full, but someone dropped so today there was a single open space. Luck is with me!

I'm not going to tell anyone I'm taking this. It's going to be my own personal guilty pleasure. I can't wait.

This weekend I'll have to uncover all my art supplies. I know I have a set of pencils somewhere, so all I'll need to purchase is a sketch pad.

"First Day" Looming

The first day of the new semester is only a few days away. And (as usual) I'm not ready. I have four adjunct calendars to finish, plus my own calendars. I also really wanted to clean out my office. I might come up on Sunday and do that, just so it's finished. Monday is MKL day, so I'm planning on working on my desk journal that day, to re-commit myself to my dream. I might also see a movie, since it's the only free day I'll have for several weeks.

My teaching schedule is all MWF, which is nice. I can go to estate sales on Thursday and find furniture.

Right this second I'm sitting at phone bank, which is d-u-l-l. I've only had three calls so far. Of course, I don't have the "hot seat," where the bulk of the calls hit. Lucky me. I'm blogging because I can't think of anything else to do. I don't have a thing to write about.

One new thing I'm considering -- I need to make a better to-do list, and I'm thinking about building it online after all, and assigning my student assistants to do anything on the bottom half of the list that they feel competent doing. I need a new assistant, though. Drew wasn't very helpful.

I have calendars on the brain!!! I bought a new Rollabind binder to hold my life in, and now I need to get it loaded with all the silly little forms I've filled out. I've made sheets for just about everything in the world, so I can hopefully

Also need to buy candy to toss to students during Q&A sessions. I can't believe how much that relaxes a class.

My home is still there. I haven't done anything to it.

Gods, this is dull. The next team is due in fifteen minutes. I hope they show up on time!

Unexpected Paint

Very busy, highly expensive weekend so far. Dad wanted to purchase something I found in a closet, so I suggested he earn it instead by installing my new cabinets. He didn’t seem interested, so Mom suggested he pay me then I hire someone to do the work. That sounded like a perfect idea, so I sorta pre-hired C. and her husband for a future unspecified weekend. Events got out of hand, as they usually do with my family, and suddenly Mom, Dad, C, and husband R all wanted to work on Saturday. I probably could have turned C. down, but I have a suspicion she and her husband need money, and I have a little to give them right now, so I thought everything would work out in the long run.

I had a long list of things to do, aside from installing the cabinets. Hardly any of it was accomplished. Dad came over with a very specific non-legible agenda in mind, and started moving all my furniture around, even though it was pretty much out of the way. When he’s like this we can’t really reason with him, so we spent about an hour and a half cleaning and moving furniture that didn’t need to be moved. I couldn’t get him to focus on what I wanted accomplished.

When he finally slowed enough to listen he proceeded to 'exasperate' me out of installing the cabinets (which I can’t do by myself) by the following reasoning:

I need to make the study a useable room since I’m activly using the room, as opposed to the studio which is not seeing any use. (Of course it isn’t seeing any use because it doesn’t have any COUNTERS, but Dad just didn’t hear what I was saying!)

So the #1 thing on my to-do list (get another useable room via counter tops) was phostphoned. By that time I knew #2 on my list (take large strides towards another useable room via floor sanding) was also not possible due to fatherly logic, since I’m not activly using the bedroom, either. Obviously the study was the only room that would be getting any attention at all.


(Before Shot)


Sadly, the study didn’t really need that much attention. I needed the GFCIs installed and one file cabinet assembled, but that was it. So what else could we do in a practically empty room?

Paint, of course.

Dad didn’t want to paint (I’m still not sure what he wanted to do) but I didn’t want to get everything in place and then move the furniture again later in the semester when I finally found time to paint. If we were going to focus on the study, damn it, we were going to do it right.

So Mom and I ran to Home Depot where we picked up the countertops and spent an additional $148 in paint, painting supplies, and more GFCI outlets. While we were gone Dad, C. and R. prepped the walls. After lunch ($30 at Whataburger) we started painting while Dad assembled the file cabinet.


(Dad installing GFCIs)

I’m still exasperated. I’m not much of a DIY-er, but I can freaking paint. I didn’t need to spend good money hiring painters!! That’s what we spent the afternoon doing, though – rolling on paint I could have rolled on myself. Of course I never could have rolled so much paint so quickly. It isn’t a total loss (far from it) but it wasn’t what I had planned for, and wasn’t what I really needed.


(C, and R, and R, and (standing outside the door) R)

As everyone left I gave Dad the thing he wanted, and gave $120 to C and R.

Total expenses: appx. $468.

This, on top of buying a desk and two file cabinets. So far my total outlay for the study is about $1103. Not good. Not within budget by a long shot.

And I’m not finished yet – not with the paint, and not with the spending.

My original plan called for aqua paint on the large wall of the study/living room, with darker aqua window trim. The study itself would have a charcoal gray wall, and the trim would be the same dark aqua color as the living room. I had also planned to paint a chair-rail height swath of light grey along the bottom of the wall.

The aqua is absolutly breathtakingly georgeous. I also love the charcoal grey. My other two colors, the light grey and the darker aqua trim, just didn’t work as well as I had hoped. The chair rail thing was awful, so I rolled the light grey back to charcoal. The windows and other trim, suprisingly, looked great in the original white.


(After!)


(the light-grey chair-rail I re-painted)

I have a can of the original white in the garage. It isn’t useable, but at least I know the brand and color, so now it’s time to go track down paint. It’s 11:00 AM now, and hopefully by 4:00 I’ll have finished the area where my desk belongs; then spend the rest of the afternoon and evening getting my PC set up. The rest of the trim can wait a week or two. Monday is faculty return week, so all hell will break loose shortly. I won’t have enough energy to move, let alone paint.

(later)

The Kelly-Moore paint store was CLOSED. What kind of home improvement store is closed on the weekend?? At least I know where to NOT buy paint.

I took a shard of the paint to Home Depot and tried to match the color. My sample wasn’t large enough, so I had to eyeball it. The color I bought is brighter. I like it, but now I have to repaint all the woodwork instead of doing a few touch-ups. And I’m pretty bad at painting woodwork. It basically took me all damn day to deal with one window, and it isn’t really finished. (I can’t get the hardware off until I buy some metal paint stripper.)

Now, at 10:30 PM, I’ve given up. I see at least four areas on the blue wall that need touch-up, and the baseboard mouldings need to be painted. I would just replace the damn things, except R. grouted them in place when she put in the tile floor. (Maybe there’s a way to cut them off at tile level without injuring the drywall? Must ask Dad.) The charcoal paint needs touch-up, too. But I’ve had it, and I don’t want to stare at paint supplies all week, so I packed everything up.

After packing I moved my desk into place. I love the way the maple pops against the charcoal paint! What I’m not happy with is the arrangement of the furniture. It just feels wrong. Plus I’ve been talking to Mom on the phone, and she’s freaking out because I’m not putting a curtain on on a backyard-facing window. So now I have security on the brain, and I don’t want to place my computer gadgets on the file cabinets because someone standing in my back yard could see the gadgets.



Of course anyone standing in my back yard would be breaking into my home. There isn’t any other reason to be in the yard. So now the only thorny question is “If a criminally-inclined individual was standing in my yard, planning on breaking into my house, would the absence or presence of computer gadgets seen through a window encourage or deter this person?”

Maybe I should put a shoji screen behind my desk? It would still let in a lot of light while hiding my gadgets from view.

Gods, it’s bad enough that I have a paper lamp in the room – now I want a shoji screen??? I don’t think so. There has got to be a way to preserve my privacy, keep light in the room, and stay true to my design muse.

It’s too late to configure my electronics now – I have to be at school by 9:00 tomorrow, and I need as much sleep as possible! Tomorrow, though, I’m hoping to duck out early and come home so I can work on calendars for my class. And I can't work on calendars without configureing a PC

Furniture Meltdown

Easy to assemble my ass!!! The Harrington chair from Furniture at Work (one of the pieces I bought at Office Depot) is an absolute nightmare. I've been struggling with it for two days, trying not to tear the upholstery while forcing bolts into holes they really don't fit. The ONLY way to get anything to fit is to put the chair sideways on the floor, and since I don't have carpet it's getting all scratched up before I even take a seat. Highly disappointed.

I haven't taken my desk out of the box yet -- I might just return everything if this damn chair doesn't work.

I'm going back up to school tomorrow to work on about a million little things, and hopefully get my office organized before the semester starts. I want to be ready to roll when I 'officially' start work on Monday.

My diet is going so-so. I started using DietPower software again because it tracks nutrition, not just calories or fat. I've discovered again, as I discover every time I use the software, that I'm not getting enough of a bunch of stuff, including potassium, dietary fiber, sugar(!), calcium, iron, vitamin D . . . looks like it's time to invest in a good multivitamin again. How fun. I wish I wasn't so picky about them -- I want a one-a-day solution, not a "with every meal," but I want it to make up for all the dietary inadequacies possible. The best vitamin I found was a Whole Foods vitamin, but it was a FOUR-a-day solution. Yeah, right.

(8:17)

Damn it, I hate this chair. It's assembled, but it tilts forward. Just what I need, a chair that wants to pitch me out on contact. I'll have to tense my muscles just to stay in the fucker.

I'm starting to think the Office Depot guy ordered the wrong one. I remember the chair at the store being ugly but comfortable. This chair isn't all that ugly. And the chair at the store looked like it had a cushion sitting on top of it, but this one doesn't.

Great. Now I have to deal with a return, and they probably won't return it because the order shows one thing, even though I ordered another. Damn, I just checked their website. My chance of getting a refund are nil.

(11:30)

Grrr. This evening has gone from bad to worse. I decided to start assembling the desk, but the box was so heavy I had to open it in the hallway, and then carry all the pieces to the study for assembly. Worst of all, the desktop was so heavy I couldn't get it to budge. It's still in the entry.

Desperate for SOMETHING to go right, I decided to install the GFCI outlets I purchased months ago. I finally managed to get the power turned off correctly, and then unscrewed the face plate, only to find out that the outlet underneath doesn't have simple wires wrapped around screws, the way I expected. Instead it has little slots on the back. I called Dad and found out I shoud wiggle, pull, and twist to get the wires out of the outlet. Barring that I should cut the wire. Well, as I expected, wiggling didn't work. And after cutting the damn things I didn't have any bare wire to work with. And no, I don't own a wire stripper.

Off to Wal-Mart. I made it back, stripper in hand, and struggled to strip. As expected, I wasn't highly successul, but eventually the coating came off. The next step is to get the bare wire in a C shape, and then get the wire looped around the screw on the outlet. (Strippers and screws -- is this a man's vocabulary, or what?)

It's absolutly impossible to do. The wire just won't go where I need it to go. I've given up. This evening SUCKS! Let's hope I can get something accomplished at work tomorrow to make up for it.

New Year's GOALS

So much for my sanding. I’ve spent the entire day sleeping, and was only pulled out of bed about 45 minutes ago when I had a dream about someone breaking into the house that sent a surge of adrenelin through my body. I have a twnety-hour “sleep day” like this about once a month. I used to think it was a sign of depression, but now I’m not so sure. I’m not particularly depressed when they happen, so now I think my body is just telling me something, like maybe I’m about to come down with a cold. I’ve quit fighting sleep, and I let my body do what it wants.

8:35 PM

Had dinner with the Parents, who are back from picking Mom up in Sonora. Dad has agreed to come over Monday night and put together my new furniture.

Strongly considering ordering the $300+ cabinet that comes with the desk so I have a concealed place to stick the TV. I won’t order it, though, until I have a regular February paycheck in hand –and- have earned enough money through eBay or Half.com to pay for it. Maybe by then I’ll have found a cheaper solution. Office Depot did have some very cute wheeled bookcases for $84, maybe one of those would be better.

In a perfect world I’d have my leisure expenses pay for themselves from eBay or Half.com, but I’m not sure how much extra time I’ll be able to expend in that direction.