I retired from the Public Defender Dept. November 12, 2015 after 16 health destroying years.
Now, I'm a full time multi-media artist and writer on a new adventure. As an artist, I create with beads, fabric, fiber, and ceramic clay. Sometimes separately; sometimes in assorted combinations. You can find my on-line store at: www.debthumanart.com.
I’m not sure when this happened. Used to be, my quilts were pictorial. Now, they are emotional. Apparently, I haven’t been in a happy emotional place in more than four years. During those years, my quilts were about suicide, frustration with neurologists who refused to listen to me, isolation, depression and sexual assault.
Fury.
It’s hard to get everything in one photo. The quilt says: If you touch this without my permission, I will break your fucking arm.
Suicide.
Depression.
Isolation.
Mass shooting.
My quilts went from having beads, buttons, couched fancy threads to unadorned, stark quilts. The one exception is the quilt I made for human physiology.
Lots of beads and lots of whimsy on that quilt. The quilt is about my biology journey starting as an undergrad in 1977 and continuing during the last fall semester.
One happy quilt didn’t stave off a massive, all-encompassing depressive episode that left me so desperate, I considered electric shock treatments which I know are barbaric. During the last three years, my writing has become increasingly depressing. I write about suicide. I write impassioned pieces, which will never be shared while I’m alive, that are an attempt to calm the emotional roiling inside me. I write about the frustrations of having a mental illness in a world that still stigmatizes mental illness – an attitude that should have been dumped at the end of the Dark Ages.
Dark subjects started appearing in my work in 2007. I was going through hell at work – a hell caused by a lunatic supervisor who kept trying to force me to quit. Around that time, I started making dark ceramic art. Bowls with words written on them: I’m a nice person, why don’t they like me? If I stay small and quiet, maybe they won’t hit me. A ceramics classmate looked at the bowls, said they were pretty. Then she looked at what was written on the bowls. And walked away.
Self-portrait ceramic sculpture entitled: Fuck You, I’m Still Alive. Complete with bullet holes.
I tell people that art is a snapshot of a tiny piece of the artist at the time the art was created. Depression, isolation and suicide don’t seem to be tiny pieces of me. I knew that depression was a constant emotion while I was growing up. I didn’t realize, because I chose not to look, how overwhelming depression is now.
I tell people that I frequently don’t understand what I’m feeling until the feelings come out of my hands. When are those feelings going to be happy again? Or were those feelings never happy?
I’ve been working on the depression quilt. I’ve quilted the middle, but haven’t decided how to quilt the border. I thought about meandering, but I want something different from the middle. I want to show depression surrounded by no depression. I want something more open, but I haven’t figured out what. I designed this quilt while I was having an all-encompassing depression that would not go away.
My grandmother always had very little money. She sewed her clothes because when she was growing up, home sewing was far more economical than buying ready to wear. My grandmother was good at spelling and won every spelling bee. For one spelling bee, the prize was a length of pink gingham fabric. My grandmother took the fabric home. She spread out newspaper and drafted a pattern. She made a dress from the gingham, and entered the dress in the Erie County Fair. She won first prize – $3. At the time, that was a week’s wages for a woman.
She never threw away leftover fabric. Instead, she rolled the leftovers into a fat roll and tied the roll shut with a scrap of fabric. Ribbon was precious, and she never used a ribbon for fabric rolls. She used to save the cardboard that trim was wrapped around. The cardboard was used as a template for quilt pieces.
We’ve had rain in the desert and there’s enough humidity to trigger desert sage blooms. I played around with aperture. I did a bit with my macro lens as well.
No idea what I was trying to get here, but I like the effect.
I think there’s a drop of nectar at the end of the pistol.
I may try to design fabric with this one.
This isn’t an easy bush to photograph. If I get back far enough to shoot the entire bush, there’s an ugly background. If I use my macro lens, it’s hard to have a subject. The flowers are in bunches and, short of plucking a flower, there’s no way to get a single flower.
In other earth-shattering news…… I had an odd feeling that I needed to check the credit card statement. I check the statements before I pay the bill, but I rarely check the charges in the middle of the billing cycle. Turns out someone has been using my credit card to pay for meals, Starbucks, Lyft and who knows what else for the last month. Jim called the bank, our card was immediately cancelled, and they will send us new cards. Eventually. First, we were told that it would take 8-10 business days to get the cards. We objected to that and the cards, which we haven’t gotten, have been expedited. Meanwhile, Consumer Cellular billed my credit card for the regular monthly bill. I’ve been paying Consumer Cellular like this for about 2 years. Because this is a recurring charge, the bank allowed the charge.
I would dearly love to sit down with this thief after I’ve been off my meds for about a week. Bipolar disorder does come in handy from time to time.
To avoid having this misery happen again, I’m looking into VPN. There are several apps, and I’ve no idea how to tell what I need. Actually, I know what I need. I need to have a 12-year-old kid on retainer to help me with these technical things.
I’ve been manipulating photos and designing fabric.
First, start with a photo. This is part of the mat outside the sliding glass door.
Next, play around.
The editing program I use is PhotoScape X. Much of the program is free. For a one-time payment of $40, the entire program is unlocked.
Once I’m finished playing with the photo, I upload to Spoonflower and play around until I get a design that repeats in a pleasing way. I have to proof my designs before I can sell them, and I’m about ready to have another 42 designs proofed. After that, the designs go into my Spoonflower shop here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
Does anyone really know who they are? I certainly don’t. I am forever a woman. I am forever an attorney. I am forever a wife. I am forever an artist. I am forever a writer.
I never get to be all those things at once. It’s as if my life were pieces of a broken mirror. Each piece is both the whole and a part of the whole.
All of those pieces. None ever changes. None ever leaves.
Floating above all the broken bits of mirror is bipolar disorder. I am forever mentally ill. I can medicate my illness, but I will never be free of moods that have a mind of their own.
That’s the difference between me and the people who think they know what being mentally ill is like. I live with mental illness that will never go away. I will die being bipolar. I may die because of being bipolar. People who have bipolar disorder have a suicide rate 20 times that of the rest of the population.
I wonder. What precipitates the deepening depression that takes me down and down until I must fight the thought that were I dead, I’d never again have to deal with bipolar disorder crap. Sometimes, I’m lucky. The depression takes me down below suicidal. It’s safe there. I’d have to feel better to kill myself.
But what precipitates the depression? Is it a brain chemical composition that bypasses the need to survive and sends me soaring into mania or plunging into depression? Or is it the crap I endure at the mouths of those who both fear mental illness and have no clue what living with a mental illness is like. The subtle pulling away when I disclose being bipolar. The not at all subtle backing away when I disclose being bipolar. The people who exert a tremendous amount of energy in a futile attempt to shove me back into the mental illness closet. Don’t talk. Don’t disclose. Don’t upset my world with your brain. The jackass who told me he admires how I accept no shame for being bipolar.
Damn fucking straight I don’t accept shame.
The only difference between a mental illness and a broken leg is the location of the pain.
The jackass’s stupidity belongs to the jackass. Fear belongs to the ignorant. Shame belongs to the jackass. Shame belongs to everyone who doesn’t fight to kill the stigma of mental illness.
Shame doesn’t belong to me. Shame has never belonged to me. Shame will never belong to me.
You can be part of the problem. You can be part of the solution.
To be part of the solution, listen to me. See me. Accept me when I’m in med hell with a med that no longer works for me. Accept me when I’m going through the three-month long withdrawal that always comes after discontinuing an antidepressant that no longer works for me. Accept me when I’m going through the three-month long adjustment to a new med. Accept me when I’m soaring. Accept me when I’m plunging.
Being part of the problem is easy. Being part of the solution is hard.
Per the NIH, prior to the pandemic, 26% of the population of the United States had a diagnosed mental illness. During the pandemic, the estimate was 50% of the population had a mental illness.
Suddenly, people have this idea that they know about mental illness simply because they experienced depression and anxiety. They wear their depression and anxiety as if it were a merit badge.
I have this to say to them: You don’t know anything about mental illness.
Has your health insurer limited the amount of mental health care you can receive? Has your health insurer made the cost of an emergency room visit for a mental health crisis double the cost of an emergency room visit for a physical health crisis. Has your health insurer told you that you need prior authorization in order to go to the emergency room when you have a mental health crisis? Have you panicked after learning Medicare won’t pay anything until you spend $1500.00 out of pocket. And after the out-of-pocket limit has been reached, Medicare has strict limits on what Medicare pays for mental health treatment.
Have you spent days when you couldn’t stop crying and your meds weren’t working? Have you experienced an all-consuming, heavy, black depression? Have you had to go to work every day while you spent three months adjusting to your new meds which are working a whole lot better than your old meds? Have you planned out how, when and where you will kill yourself? Have you had a doctor say you show no sign of depression after you disclosed you want to kill yourself and you brought someone with you to the appointment because you might need someone to stop you from buying a box of bullets on the way home? Have you ever had to ask someone to hide your guns so you couldn’t shoot yourself in the heart?
Has your supervisor, insisted you go back into the closet and never again mention you have a mental illness? Has your supervisor told you that you’re crazy? Has your supervisor dared to tell you that he doesn’t like the medication you are on? Has your supervisor demanded you see a psychiatrist as a condition of your employment? Have you discovered upper management is having private meetings about how your mental health is effecting your employment without ever talking to you? And you accurately determined upper management was looking for a reason to fire you?
Has a psychiatrist ignored your concerns about the side effects of a medication and told you that you’re on a good medication? Has a psychiatrist told you, after you say that the dose of an antidepressant is working well, ignored you and doubled the dose of your medication? Have you tried to tell a psychiatrist that you haven’t slept in two months and the psychiatrist refused to listen to you?
Has anyone literally backed away from you after you disclose you have a mental illness?
Have you had to listen to well-educated professionals say that mentally ill people don’t come to court because they don’t know better? Or say that all the normal people should be let out of jail? Or say that the withdrawal hell that happens after coming off an antidepressant that isn’t working is just the depression coming back? Have you been laughed at by a room full of well-educated professionals after saying that lying on the floor while trying to make the walls stop moving and then dragging yourself to the restroom because you had to throw up isn’t depression?
Have you been told to just snap out of it? Or that your problems are all in your head?
Have you had two psychiatrists and four psychologists fail to diagnose bipolar disorder forcing you to live in mental health hell for 40 years? Have you had three school psychologists decide you were more trouble than you were worth and refuse to treat you?
Have you ever felt the need to tell someone you aren’t violent? Or that you aren’t broken? Or that while your brain works differently from theirs you are still normal?
All of that happened to me.
Until it happens to you, you don’t know anything about mental illness.
I’m having a rough day. There’s no particular reason for it; it’s just part of being bipolar. I have limited energy, but I seem to be manic. Bipolar disorder doesn’t have to make sense, but I have to live with bipolar disorder. Meds help dull the extremes, but they don’t cure bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is always with me. Sometimes just under the surface. Sometimes exploding through the surface.
Brady, the Australian labradoodle puppy I have, did something remarkable today. She could smell my distress and instinctively leaned up against me – something psychiatric service dogs are trained to do. Of course a couple hours later, she decorated the kitchen floor with poop and pee. It’s not easy being a puppy. Not easy being the puppy’s human, either.
Good thing Brady didn’t like the doggy wading pool Jim found in the garbage. The pool grew legs the other day. Now, there’s a security camera covering the back of the house.
The sciatica is still hanging around. I’m able to walk farther, but farther is a relative term. It means I can walk out the back door with Brady, so 10 feet to her potty spot, and then come back in the house. I need to exercise. Brady gets separation anxiety whenever I leave the kitchen. She’s not ready yet to have the run of the house so I have to keep her in the kitchen. I’m sure the healing process has stretched out because of how inactive I’ve been.
We seem to be surrounded by randy quail. So far, I’ve counted four batches of day-old baby quail. When I shoot quail, I have to do it through the sliding glass door. As long as the quail aren’t aware of me, they don’t run off. While I would have liked to have my 150-600mm lens on the camera, what was on the camera was my 18-400mm lens. Taking the time to change lenses would have meant missing the shots. I played around with cropping the shot when I was editing. The John Prine fuzz on the baby quail’s head cracks me up.
The original shot. While this is the quail version of Where’s Waldo, it’s easy to see how tiny day-old quail are.
The first crop. Quail are easier to find, but they look bigger than they are in real life.
The second crop. Almost there. There’s more detail, but the edit didn’t seem right.
The third crop.
My Spoonflower order is now about 40 miles away and I likely won’t get my package until Monday. Sigh. I really want to start making undies although my time in the sewing room is limited to when Jim is home. There are too many places in the sewing room where Brady can get into trouble. I’d go into the sewing room, which is off the kitchen, and close the door, but Brady has severe separation anxiety. I’m trying to help her with that, but I don’t seem to have made much progress.
Brady likes to hide out in the pet carrier in the kitchen. I think it’s because it’s dark inside the carrier and she feels safe in her den. She’s not fond of the crate we have for her. I decided to make the crate more den like. I took a sheet, crudely attached the sheet to the crate, and created a darkened den. I put Brady’s toys in her new den. She refuses to go inside the den.
I’ve been playing around with designs that might make interesting fabric. Here’s the latest:
Living with a puppy makes life interesting. Brady has to be by her humans. The sewing room needs to be deep cleaned, but I can’t do that if I’m the only one home. There are way too many places where Brady can hide and leave deposits. Plus, she has only two speeds: Mach III and asleep. Temperatures are hitting 99-104 this week. Brady doesn’t want to be outside when it’s this hot. I suppose if I wore a fur coat, I wouldn’t want to be outside either. Once she has all her shots, I want to get her groomed. I think she would be more comfortable if she has less hair.
Not being able to clean and use the sewing room means binding won’t be put on three quilts and a fourth won’t be quilted. I get spiritually constipated if I don’t make art. Making art without having enough room to make art requires creativity.
I have a sketch book that contains the drawings from a plant taxonomy class I took, reminders for what to put into the novel, and quilt sketches. I’m a multi-media artists, and my sketchbook reflects that.
These are from my plant taxonomy class. I thought they were something I’d never use again until I looked at them today. There are quilts in these.
These are the germination of quilts. Some have been used after some tweaking. Some might never be used.
Ideas for things to put into the novel I’m writing.
I’m still awaiting the arrival of the fabric I ordered from Spoonflower. I took five of my designs, ordered them in a 4-way stretch lycra, and the fabric will be turned into underwear.
I’m also awaiting an order from Nancy’s Notions. The order was placed May 31, and won’t be here until Friday, June 11. Because of the slow shipping, I probably won’t be ordering from Nancy’s Notions again. Pity – I used to love ordering from them.
I had ordered beads fromJL Dream Works https://www.etsy.com/shop/JLDreamWorks?ref=yr_purchases Great service, and the semi-precious gem beads are all good quality and great prices. It’s nice to have another reliable supplier for beads.
I’ve used up all my spoons, and It’s only 11:30 AM
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Spoons are a way of explaining energy or lack of energy. If energy is represented by 12 spoons, after all 12 spoons are used, there’s no energy left. No energy to walk around. No energy to cook. No energy to make art. No energy left for anything other than shuffling into the bedroom and taking a nap.
The sciatic problem is becoming less and less each day. With that comes the ability to walk more and more without my walker. That’s the problem. I feel better, so I walk without my walker longer than I should. That’s how I used up all my spoons this morning. The worst was me walking Brady and discovering I was out of spoons. I wasn’t near a door when the spoons were all used up. I leaned against the car, called to Jim to take Brady, then gingerly made my way into the house.
My feet hurt because they are swollen, they are swollen because I’m not active, I’m not active because I have no spoons left. This sucks.
I was hoping to get outside and photograph the yuccas blooming, but that’s no longer possible today because I have no spoons left. I’d have to push the walker up hill. Through sand. While trying to find a large enough distance between cacti that can accommodate the walker. All while trying to keep my camera from knocking against the walker. I’m missing spring.
I got down on the floor yesterday so I could photograph Brady on her level. I shot in RAW only because I had the camera set on RAW when I saw we had day-old baby quail and I wanted to be ready to photograph them. I set the camera to rapid burst. 92 photos, and some were even decent.
Jim is making dog treats from a recipe I found. Oat flour (or ground up oatmeal – which is what oat flour is), banana and peanut butter. They’re baking at the moment. Brady adores peanut butter.
I intended to shoot several necklaces so I could list the necklaces in my store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com. I shot just one necklace before my lower back started to hurt. I’m getting better, but I’m still having to push a walker to get around. Yesterday, I intended to do some cleaning in the sewing room so I’d have a larger space in which to work. I picked up something that was too heavy and I hurt my lower back. Having a neuropathy flare up rounds out the physical miseries.
I can’t photograph yucca blooms because I can’t push a walker uphill through sand. I can’t sew because I can’t remove the clutter from the room. I can’t walk Brady because I can’t walk far without my walker. Brady doesn’t understand why she can’t run and play if I’m holding her leash.
Brady is going through a growth spurt. Suddenly, her legs are too long for her body. She’s also faster than the speeding shutter.
My brain is dark. After my only ketamine treatment, my brain felt full and bright. Now, two and a half months later, my brain is dark again. So. Do I ask for another ketamine treatment? Do I ask to be a participant in a clinical trial for LSD or MDMA? Or do I just go forward and hope for the best? I don’t remember what happy feels like. I’ve been depressed for more than 60 years. Which is depressing. I’m not suicidal. I’m not happy. Right now, I feel like my life is all broken pieces. Pick up a piece, have pain, drop a piece.
Spoonflower had a sale, I had Spoon Dollars – commission on fabric designs that have been sold – and I needed underwear. Soon, five 1-yard pieces of fabric I designed will arrive at my door. Yes, I will post photos of the finished underwear. No, I will not be modeling the underwear. You’re welcome.
I suppose there was a time when I wasn’t mentally ill, but I have no memory of that time. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out where I am in relation to center. Above center is manic. Below center is depressed. Depression has levels. Depressed, suicidal, below suicidal where I’d have to feel better in order to kill myself.
I’ve been wanting a service dog. I searched the internet for service dogs. The one-size-fits-no one pre-trained service dogs aren’t trained for bipolar disorder. Eventually, someone took pity on me and recommended a trainer in Alamogordo (about an hour north of where I live). The trainer comes to your home and trains both you and the dog simultaneously. Brady’s puppy training starts tomorrow.
Once I found a trainer, I needed to find a dog. I tried looking in the local animal shelter. Every dog in there was 2 years old. Yeah, sure. Every dog was part pit bull. I’ve seen how vicious pit bulls can be and they aren’t appropriate for service dogs. Eventually, I decided on a labradoodle. The first labradoodles were bred to be a service dog for a woman who was visually impaired and whose husband was allergic to dogs. I contacted a breeder about three hours north of where I live. That breeder refused to sell a puppy to anyone who had never had a puppy. That’s like saying you can’t eat broccoli because you’ve never eaten broccoli. Eventually, I found a breeder near Pueblo, Colorado. Quite a few of her puppies have gone on to be service dogs.
This is Brady.
She is now 9 weeks old and we got her this past Saturday. It was a 9-hour drive home and I’m surprised how well behaved she was. I had gotten her a Snuggle Puppy and I made the heart beat. It’s supposed to mimic the mother’s heart.
For a few days, she was calm. That changed yesterday. She discovered her legs are made of springs. She decided to pee all over the kitchen floor. I can’t put down piddle pads because Brady thinks they are chew toys. Today, she seems more calm.
Jim brought home a tennis ball for her. She likes bounding and prancing after it as it bounces across the room.
Nap time.
At the moment, I have a sciatica attack down my left leg. It’s getting better, but I’m still pushing a walker around. Between the walker and a new puppy, I haven’t been able to do much creatively. Bleah.
I’ve no idea what I did, but I now have sciatica. Again. Bleah! And so I’m pushing around a walker and discovering how many places I can’t go in my home. The door to the walk-in closet is too narrow to accommodate my walker. So is the door to the pantry and the door to the guest bathroom. As long as I don’t want to eat or wear clothes, everything is wonderful.
I have missed about half the blooming season for claret cup cacti. The ocotillo are blooming and the blooms last only a few days. The red yucca are starting to bloom. Yesterday, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I grabbed my camera and pushed my walker out the front door. Shooting from a sitting position is interesting. There are 4 hours a day considered “golden hours.” Two hours after sunrise and two hours before sunset. Yes, that’s nice light. It’s important to know how to shoot is less than perfect light. Cloud cover. Fog. Middle of the day. That’s why I take advantage of the rare cloudy day and even rarer fog. Now, I’m learning how to shoot sitting down.
Red yucca buds and blooms.
Blooming ocotillo.
I need to make curtains for the bedroom, bathroom and laundry room. Before we moved to New Mexico, Jim worked for Gunlocke in New York’s Southern Tier. Gunlocke makes high end furniture. If a customer wanted furniture upholstered in something other than stock fabric, the leftover custom fabric is kept for a certain length of time and then put in the company store. Employees could buy fabric for $1 a yard. Some of the fabric Jim bought retailed for $70 a yard. That was 22 years ago. Before we moved, Jim bought as much upholstery fabric as possible. If it fit in the truck, he bought it. He’d buy fabric a couple times a week. I still have some of that fabric. We went through my upholstery fabric stash and I found some cream colored fabric for the bedroom and some teal fabric for the bathroom and laundry room. Why upholstery fabric? Because it’s necessary to block the sun in the summer or the house will be unbearably hot. Upholstery fabric means I can have fabric heavy enough to block the sun and I won’t have to make lining for the curtains.
I’ve developed an allergy to the laundry detergent I was using. Jim brought home a large container of Ecos. It’s a laundry detergent that doesn’t have coloring or scent. It’s a great choice if one has an allergy to laundry detergent. Now, I have to wash all of my clothes and all of the bedding. This wouldn’t be so bad if I could get a basket of laundry outside and hang clothes on the line. It’s tough to push a walker loaded with a laundry basket and almost as tough getting over the step by the sliding glass door. I’m washing, Jim is hanging.
Next, I noticed I’m having a rash where I was putting the electrodes for my TENS unit. The TENS unit is one of the ways I kill the pain from peripheral neuropathy. The rash is on the top of my foot which eliminates a number of places I could put the electrodes. I’m having a neuropathy flare up. Bleah.
I ordered proofs of designs from Spoonflower yesterday. After the proofs arrive, I’ll put 40+ fabric designs into my Spoonflower shop here https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman The fabric the proofs are on is used as the backing for quilts.
Yesterday, I played around with editing and came up with some fabric designs.
This is what happened when I played around with the red yucca flower photo above.
I love working with a positive and negative print. I need to play around more with that.
I detest Mother’s Day. I grew up in a house run by a violent, drunken narcissist and her violent drunken husband. My mother had four children she didn’t want and made sure we knew she didn’t want us. We used to go camping when I was a kid. As we would pull into a campground, we’d be asked if we have any pets. “No, just four rotten kids.” She thought she was funny. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Later, my narcissistic mother would tell my siblings if I were invited to the party, christening, First Communion, or other family functions, she wouldn’t come. My siblings, who have oatmeal where their backbones should be, always acquiesced.
Once, I made the mistake of asking my mother and the drunk to go with me to my psychologist. During my session, my mother told me, “No one likes you and you know that’s true.”
I cannot honor a mother who hated me.
I’ve never wanted children and I made sure I never got pregnant. I cringe when clerks and servers wish me a happy mother’s day. Why do these people assume I have children?
I cannot participate in a day where I’m constantly reminded I didn’t buy into the Feminine Mystique. The undercurrent of their wishes is that I’m somehow not normal.
I’ll spend tomorrow being grateful that my email box will no longer be filled with ads for mother’s day. I’ll be grateful that the ugly memories can be safely put away for another year. I’ll rejoice that I had the courage to swim upstream.
I don’t know what I did, but I woke up a week and a half ago in pain. I’ve done something to my left leg. I’ve seen my chiropractor three times and I’m working on trigger release points (to release the muscle) and seated exercise routines. I can’t stand without my walker for very long. I also can’t walk more than a few steps without my walker. When we had the house built, I thought having a whirlpool tub in the bathroom was decadent luxury. It didn’t take long to realize that tub wasn’t a luxury; it was a necessity. There’s a built in bench in the shower. When we had the house built, I thought that bench would allow me to shave my legs without doing the pelican dance. Now, sitting on that bench is the only way I can take a shower. I’d like to be working with a massage therapist, but we’ve still got restrictions here and the massage therapist I had been going to is temporarily closed. Temporary may morph into permanently closed. The pandemic has been rough on people who are self-employed.
Meanwhile….I pick up the puppy in three weeks. I need to be without pain when that happens.
Because I can’t walk without my walker and taking my walker for a walk in the desert isn’t practical, I’ve been working on abstract photos to be turned into fabric designs.
If this design goes into my Spoonflower shop, you’ll be able have matching yoga pants, sports bra and wallpaper.
I’m considering ordering fabric with the last two designs.
My bead order arrived and I’m working on necklaces. It ain’t called art therapy for nothing. One of the surest ways to relieve peripheral neuropathy is to make art.
I had fun using lots of Swarovski crystals for this one.
Mostly glass beads along with wooden beads and some agate.
Why are you seeing a gap between the last bead and the clasp? Two reasons. Although I use very strong stringing material, if there’s too much tension on the stringing material, it will snap. A little extra wire shows there’s no undue tension. The other reason is I have to get fingers and pliers between the clasp and the bead.
I got a call from the labradoodle breeder this week. I started picking last for this litter. The litter contains six females and two males. I want a female. I’ve talked with people who train police dogs to sniff out drugs, and was told that it’s easier to train a female and females tend to be calmer than males. This week, I learned I’m now picking fifth so there will absolutely be a female puppy when it’s my turn to pick. I’ve ordered books on training puppies and training service dogs. I will be working with a trainer, but he’s currently got a waiting list for puppy training. I will need to start housebreaking and training to walk on a leash immediately.
I had ordered a print of one of my designs and a collection of 42 of my designs from Spoonflower.
Ketamine Brain.
It will be a wall hanging when it’s finished. I still haven ‘t figured out how I want to quilt it. I had thought about using holographic gold thread or using a metallic thread. I’ve started the quilting on Depression, and I’ve got three quilts I need to make binding for. Designs that I print for my quilts are never put in my Spoonflower shop.
I refuse to waste fabric, so I use the design proofs for quilt backing.
I’ve been experimenting with assorted photography techniques. When photographing flowers, it’s best to get the camera on the level of the flower. That’s not always easy. There’s only so far down I can squat, and Jim has filled the yard with cacti. Someone on the Digital Photography School Facebook page suggested getting the camera, rather than me, down to the level of the flower and use live view to see how the composition looks. That’s what I did with our lone iris bloom. Jim dug up some of the rhizomes and planted then in assorted places in the yard.
Next, I experimented with photographing water droplets on leaves.
My store, Deb Thuman Art is here:.http://www.DebThumanArt.com If you want to see more than just a few of the items in my store, you need to click on “shop” at the top left of the home page.
Deb's Art 