Whoot Whoot Made the Local Rag!

Hello friends.

What's news? I am still plodding on. Still in pain. Still having great difficulty walking. Still housebound. The latter to the point that I can barely make it out into the garden now. I'm still waiting to be seen by the CMAT.  And I'm still taking large amounts of painkillers, which of course come with their own set of side effects. Despite this, I am still trying to be as positive as I possibly can and hope that once I do get seen they will be able to do something for me.

It seems that my cottage is now non-stop with various people coming to the door. Occupational therapists. Physiotherapists. Community Connectors. Quite a long list of people trying to help, but I doubt there's very much any of them can do for me until I can regain my mobility.  The irony is that this has nothing to do with the Parkinson's! 

In the mean time, I am still not sleeping well. At least I have the television in the same room as me. But do you have any idea of the drivel that is on during the night? And I'm sleeping in my arm chair. None of this can be doing me any good. But what is doing me good is my painting. Some days I don't feel like doing anything particular, so I turn to my colouring in books. Other days I use stamps to make images. Or sometimes I go into full on paint a proper picture mode.

I think I lost the plot with this first one. I made a small simple image using Hobby Art stamps. After I'd coloured it all in, there was a vast white space at the top of the page. Brusho, I said. So, Brusho it was. Except the brush show came out in a little bit too much of A rush and we have rather a bright, vibrant blue sky.  Maybe the mushrooms were psychedelic?  Joking I am.

This one is very finely detailed. It came from a book of postcards. Printed ready for colouring. Very, very fiddly work.

This one is another composite of several Hobby Art stamps.

Am I allowed to say that I am well chuffed with this next one? Well, even if I'm not allowed, I'm going to say it anyway. I'm well chuffed with this.

This Arum Lily was given to my father. So I inherited it in the garden. I took some photos of it a few years back {see below} and I have always wanted to paint pictures of flowers I have grown. So I went for it. It's watercolour.

Finally. This morning I was on the phone with a friend. And she said, oh, I saw your photograph in the Western Telegraph. I didn't know what she was talking about. Anyway, it turns out that's the Western Telegraph Camera Club page on Facebook. Of which I am a member chose one of my photographs as their top six of the year so far.  Can I say I'm chuffed again? I'm chuffed again.

Here's the link to the page where it can be seen. I hope it works for you wherever you are if you're trying to look at it.

Deb's picture

Until next time.

Stay safe, stay well.

Debbie. xo

Double Whammy

Hello, friends!

Well, it's certainly been a long time since I wrote anything, hasn't it?  Unfortunately, there isn't very much to say. The weather has been absolutely appalling. Okay, I'll admit it could have been worse. We haven't had the usual constantly high winds above 40 mile an hour. Most days have been in the 20s, which is enough with the odd few gales thrown in.

The fall I told you about back in February has seriously shaken my confidence. I am afraid now to go out. Between being very unsteady my feet, the sudden gusts of strong wind that we get, and the pain in my legs, I am frightened beyond of having another fall and becoming injured.

The pain and lack of mobility persists. Several hospital, physio, and doctor appointments later I have been told that whilst I do have arthritis and wear and tear, both of these are minor. Thankfully. However, this now leaves nerve damage as the possible cause of my pain and immobility, and I am now being referred to the CMAT team. Don't ask me what that is exactly, I believe it is a spinal injury unit. I have looked it up online, Clinical Muscularskeletal Assessment Testing.  Apparently they will order more tests and scans, then discuss my options.  I have no idea how long the waiting list is for this. 

I have bought a riser recliner for myself. My old chairs were getting very tatty. They were nearly 30 years old. I could only sit on them supported by many cushions, which is not good for my posture and not helping my pain in anyway at all.  I like it very much. It came from our local department store. It is a petite. I didn't know chairs came in petite, small, large and extra large. Did you?  It means that my legs and back are properly supported while I am sitting.  It was on sale for a very good price. And being disabled, I didn't have to pay the VAT on it, so I decided to treat myself to the matching little two seater sofa which is very nicely sized for my small living room.  It was also included on the sale.

In the mean time, my Parkinson's progresses, and it is starting to interfere with my day-to-day tasks.

The chap who comes to mow the lawn has already been once this year. Garden Waste Bin Collection has commenced, and somehow despite all my aches and pains and immobility, I have managed to put it down twice.  Meanwhile, I have applied to the local Council for what they call a doorstep collection for my rubbish bins. This means my bins will be collected from my front door, rather than me having to walk them all the way down to the collection point and risk falling.

I continue to enjoy doing my art. You must forgive me for that is all I really have to share for you today. Oh wait, I may have a few photos of flowers I took yesterday in the garden. Just a few spots of colour. Because as you can imagine, the garden is a bit of a mess now. That is an understatement!

The cards are all made using stamps from Hobby Art stamps.  I have a Tim Holtz stamp platform. It is an absolute Godsend for me now because it helps me to stamp images that with my tremors I could otherwise not create.

The church one is a single stamp. All the others are created using several stamps that I have put together to create my own unique images.

You can see from the several different images of the Robin wreath above how the Tim Holtz stamping platform helps me make identical images that I can then hand colour in differently.  It is a great tool for the crafter. It enables you to make perfectly crisp, clear stamped images. Time after time. And you can make repeat images. So it's really useful if you need to make things like invitations where continuity is important.

Well, that's about all I can manage for now. I'm so thankful I've got a dictaphone on this laptop. It might not be perfect, but it certainly has its uses.

Until next time.

Stay safe. Stay well.

Debbie. xo

Well Hello!

 Hello friends!

I hope you are all keeping well. Winter seems to have been longer than usual this year. I think there must have been at least 273 days in January. Yet already the year seems to be flying by as we have just a week or so left in February and tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday which can mean only one thing: pancake day! How do you eat yours? My favourites are to make large crepes lightly spread with a little butter, sprinkled with a little sugar, and drenched in either lemon or orange juice.

will you be giving up anything for Lent? I am contemplating giving up chocolate which will be a huge sacrifice for me as it is my one comfort.  I tried Veganuary in the hopes that giving up cheese I would lose weight but I actually gained 4 pounds it was not meant to be that way!

Since I last wrote here all the way back in December, before Christmas, I have had a very nasty arthritis flare up. For those of you who suffer from arthritis I don't have to tell you how debilitating this is for me. I am in constant pain and cannot get comfortable in any chair or bed in the house.

Consequently almost all my activity has been curtailed, even if the weather has been kind enough to get out for walking I am barely able to put one foot in front of the other at the moment. To compound matters, two days ago I had a nasty little fall. I have no idea how it happened one minute I was standing upright the next minute I was hugging the tarmac. Thankfully no damage done a couple of tiny cuts, a grazed knee and a very bruised ego. But it just goes to show how easy you can fall over nothing more than thin air.

Parkinson's disease means that it is very difficult to hold books, and a short while ago a very kind friend sent me this. It is a wooden book stand and I can put my tablet on it with the kindle app and I'm therefore able to read without having the book shaking in my hands all the time. It has transformed my reading and I am deeply grateful to her for sending such a thoughtful gift.

Thankfully I am still able to paint, so in December of last year I signed up to the Anna Mason online art school. I have access to all sorts of instruction connected to watercolour painting and pencil drawing and all for less than the cost of a decent bar of chocolate a week. I didn't start the courses straight away, however I have started them recently and this is my first attempt. I guess you could say it is my first official watercolour painting, having used watercolour paints but never in the style of watercolour painting always used as part of my mixed media art. it is a song thrush egg, and although I have had to improvise with the colours a little, I'm very pleased with the overall results.

I have tried doing the daffodil but I am not so happy with this one the first one is all wrong. I know you will all disagree with me but trust me on this it is very wrong. I do not have the right size brushes or the correct coloured paints consequently it is turned out poorly.

This is my second attempt at it. Again having the wrong colours and wrong sized brushes is not helping even though I'm taking a different approach. As soon as I can afford the outlay for the new brushes and paints I will give it a third go.

Another dear friend sent me an Amazon gift voucher, so I treated myself to a tin of Derwent Chromaflow pencils. So I've been playing with those as well. Here's the first portrait I did using them.

And here's a little field mouse I drew using the new Chromaflow

Using mixed media, I did a couple of mandalas.

And finally a little mixed media painting of cone flowers just for fun.

my friends, as I said I hope you are keeping well this winter.

Until next time

Stay safe stay well stay warm

Debbie xo

And That's A Wrap Advent Day 24

Hello friends!

Thank you for sticking with me for 24 consecutive days{with one small blip in the middle} and looking at the advent calendar. I hope you have enjoyed seeing it daily as much I have enjoyed sharing it. After today I probably won't be writing for a little while now, probably the next time I write will be in 10 days or so with the name of the winner of my little giveaway.

So here without further ado we have door number 24 and it is a door so I think we have found where the key belongs at last!  It is very well hidden indeed!

I spent many evenings through November making some simple Christmas cards. I like to make things, but making has become more important than ever now because it's a therapy for my hands and coordination, and although it doesn't eliminate the tremors, the more I can do to keep my brain connecting with whatever it is that makes the commands happen, hopefully the longer I can delay the progression of this horrible disease.   

I used a variety of materials that I had on hand including pre cut shapes, die cut shapes, embossing, and more with everything being hand coloured using mostly alcohol inks with some watercolour, and a few gel pens, and glossy accents. I enjoyed making them so much but I ended up not sending any so as most of them are generic to winter rather than to Christmas they may be going out as Happy Winter cards instead.

 

Well yesterday I became the recipient of one of those wonderful ”pay it forward” gestures. A delivery person came to the door and we were chatting about different things and I just happened to mention to him the difficulties we've been having in this area over eggs.  I thanked him for bringing my parcel up I wished him a happy Christmas and off he went.  a few minutes later there was a top at the door and I opened it and he was back holding out a dozen eggs for me! I offered to pay him and he said no, he'd bought the last box of eggs in the butchers shop, wished me a Merry Christmas and on he went! Needless to say I ended up in floods of tears absolutely choked with his kindness.

On that note of joy, I  wish you all 

A very Happy Christmas

and a

Happy Healthy New Year 2023.

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well, stay warm

Debbie xo