Crafting Lately: A Polymer Clay Hedgehog for My Staff

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today is my assigned staff’s last shift at my home. This afternoon, we did a little handover between her and my new assigned staff and I put the new assigned staff’s work E-mail address in my phone. You see, I used to E-mail my old assigned staff quite regularly and the staff at least are hoping that I can build up some trust in the new one if I can E-mail her too. I’m not sure what I think of this.

Like I mentioned before, my old assigned staff has a pet hedgehog. As a leave-taking present, I made her one out of polymer clay.

I had already created a polymer clay hedgehog from a tutorial before, so I knew roughly how to go about it. However, with this one, I wanted its snout to be a different color from its body. This meant blending together the body and snout without distorting either too much. My staff’s pet hedgehog is a four-toed hedgehog, which has a white or slightly creamy belly. I used Fimo Soft white for its body and Fimo Soft in the color Sahara for its snout.

I then added its ears, which were slightly pointed on my original hedgehog but I’d since figured out that at least my staff’s hedgehog has round ears. I chose Sahara for those again. For its eyes, I chose black. I think my black is Fimo Professional, which is usually too hard to condition for my liking especially when it’s older. That doesn’t really matter though, since I only use it for small details like eyes.

Adding the hedgehog’s spikes was difficult the last time, but easier now. I created very thin, cone-like spikes and then added them to the hedgehog’s body. With my last hedgehog, they kept falling off when I added more, but with this one, I was more lucky. My staff’s pet hedgehog has spikes in two colors, so I alternated between Chocolate and Sahara.

I decided to bake the hedgehog for 90 minutes, because I wanted to make sure it got thoroughly cured. After all, I hadn’t used anything such as tinfoil on the inside of the hedgehog, so it was a relatively thick sculpture. After baking, I painted the little white dots in the hedgehog’s eyes. I usually do this to make the eyes of my creatues appear more expressive.

I gave my staff the hedgehog last Sunday and she immediately recognized Willow, her pet, in it. She especially loved the way I’d done its eyes. She says she’s placed Fimo Willow on flesh-and-bones Willow’s cage. I feel very honored about that.

A Courageous Choice

Posted on by Astrid

I was a shy, withdrawn teen who was loyal to my parents even though they didn’t have my best interest in mind. I mean, if they’d had their way, I’d have gone to university and lived on my own straight out of high school in 2005, even though I could barely take care of myself. That had been their attitude towards raising “responsible” children ever since I was a little girl: if I couldn’t – or in their opinion was too strong-willed to – learn a skill as a child, I’d learn it as an adult by myself. Or not. In any case, there was no safety net.

Though I do indeed feel that children benefit from learning by doing themselves, this was not how it worked in my family. I don’t blame my parents for not having the patience to teach me self-care skills, given that I got frustrated very easily, but I do hold them responsible for not having accepted the help they could have gotten. Though it might not have led to me becoming as independent as they’d want me to be, my current situation is about as far from that goal as can be. Then again, my parents hold me responsible for that. And I, in a sense, do too.

I was reminded of this situation when I read a journaling prompt that asked me to reflect on a courageous choice I made as a teen that’s still helping me today. I immediately thought of the choice to go into blindness training rather than straight to university once I’d graduated high school. Though this decision itself did not by far lead to the self-awareness I needed to try to get into long-term care, it was my first step into the care system. And, of course, as my parents predicted, I never fully got out.

Back in June of 2005, when I accepted the blindness training center psychologist’s offer to put me on the waiting list for the basic training program, I still had my head deep in the sand about my lack of independence skills. The psychologist did not. He suggested I go to a training home after finishing the program. He probably knew that, like many young people blind from birth, and especially those from families like mine who value academics over life skills, I wouldn’t be ready to move into independent living after a four-month, basic program. I wasn’t. I never would be. Till this day, I’m not sure whether this is my blindness or my autism or my mild cerebral palsy or what. I believe strongly that, with multiple disabilities, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Thankfully, the authorities approving my long-term care funding, eventually agreed.

Things That Made Me Smile (July 11, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t been blogging all weekend, because I didn’t feel inspired. I’m still struggling with the fact that my assigned staff is leaving. However, today I wanted to put a positive spin onto it and end our contact with good memories. You see, today she had her last one-on-one shift with me. Despite it of course being bittersweet, the day itself was so good I actually think it deserves a mention on Trent’s #WeeklySmile.

We started the day at 10:15 with two strong cups of coffee. This staff is one of the coffee drinkers among my staff and so she usually brings the full coffee pot to me rather than just pouring me a single cup. My morning cup had been rather weak, so I’m so grateful I was able to have two cups of strong, black coffee. (My soon-to-be former assigned staff drinks her coffee with milk, something I kept forgetting.)

After this, we went for a walk. I initially decided not to put on my jacket, but it was just a bit too chilly for my liking, so my staff ran back up the stairs to grab it for me.

After that, I had lunch. I didn’t indulge in anything special this time, as yesterday for her leave-taking party for the entire home the staff had already treated us all to French fries and snacks.

After she’d had her afternoon break, my staff and I drove to a playground in the village she lives in that we’ve been to before to jump on the trampoline. A few little kids were playing on the trampoline when I arrived, but they were thankfully happy to go play on the other playground equipment and let me jump on the trampoline for a while. I jumped for about ten minutes, but by then my feet hurt like crazy. My inner child parts had the greatest fun!

Then we drove by the supermarket, because I had to get dinner for this evening, as I’d skipped my meal delivery service meal for today. Apparently, they’d had nothing on the menu that I liked. I also got blueberries, stroopwafel cookies and licorice.

Then it was time for two more cups of strong coffee. I chatted some with my staff until it was time for her to go to write up her notes and be there for any other clients who might come home from the day center early at 3PM. She returned briefly at 3:30, as usual, to say goodbye. She said that even though this was her last one-on-one shift with me and Thursday will be her final shift working at my care facility, she’s sure to see me again. I hope she’s right. In any case, she’s after some thought decided to give me her E-mail address. This makes me feel much better about our goodbye than I’d been feeling last Friday, because it means I can still stay in touch with her when I feel like it.

Overall, the day was positive and I didn’t even cry when she left. I might on Thursday, but we’ll see.

When I Was Twenty

Posted on by Astrid

When I was twenty, I lived at the independence training home for disabled young adults in my parents’ city. I had had one particular assigned staff member for the first year that I lived there, but due to my challenging behavior, she refused to be my assigned staff any longer. I was fine with this, because I couldn’t get along with her anyway. Instead, the team coordinator became my assigned staff.

Over the next six months, we developed quite a strong bond. I started to feel like I could be myself with her. That was rather unusual, as I’d never felt like I could be myself with any outside person at all. I started to show her bits of my inner world, started to be vulnerable with her.

Then she went on vacation. When she came back, she informed me she could no longer be my assigned staff. I don’t remember her reasoning, but it was related to both her workload and our relationship.

I think back often to this staff now that my assigned staff at the care facility is leaving. It feels as though she’s rejecting me, just like the other one rejected me. After all, shortly after that staff could no longer be my assigned staff, I had to leave the training home.

I have been flooded with memories from when I was twenty again. I try to remember I’m 36 now, but attachment loss is still as difficult as it ever was.

In truth, I should have learned my lesson back then when I was still young: care staff are not there to stay. Don’t be vulnerable with them.

This post was written for Five Minute Friday, for which the prompt this week is “twenty”.

Thankful Thursday (July 7, 2022): Flowers

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m still feeling rather sad, a bit depressed even, today. I try to tell myself it’s okay. I’d even say it’s normal. I mean, attachment loss sucks.

This is not the post for me to whine about that though. I don’t want to. Rather, I’m going to try to find something I can be grateful for. I’m therefore joining Thankful Thursday.

Today, I felt rather unmotivated, but pushed myself to leave the home anyway to go for a walk. I took my phone with me. It was a cloudy day, so the right weather for taking photos. Somewhere in the neighborhood, we came across what my staff said are some kind of hydrangeas. There were pink and white ones. I actually got to touch them, which was cool.


I still want to learn to do some photo editing with help from my staff. On one of these, the staff did some cropping within the Photos app, but I do have other editing tools too. In any case, being able to photograph these flowers and appreciate their beauty by touch too, is truly something I’m grateful for today.

Because today I share a flower photo (or two), I’m linking this post to Cee’s Flower of the Day too.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (July 6, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling quite a bit over the past couple of days, which is why I haven’t been blogging. Today, I thought I’d write again, but I want to keep it relatively light-hearted, so am going with a contribution to the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. July 6th is National Fried Chicken Day…are you a fan? Do you make your own or have a favorite place to buy from? Do you own chickens? If not chicken what’s your favorite fried food?
Ah, this question immediately brightens my mood! I love love love fried chicken. My favorite fast food place to get it is a local one called Kipzaak (which translates to “Chicken booth”). My favorite restaurant to get “real” non-fast food fried chicken is about a 30-minute drive from Raalte in Rouveen. You can eat as much fried chicken as you want there for a special price.

I don’t own chickens myself, but a client in the care home next to mine does. They have their cage next to the day center.

2. What’s something you’re too chicken to try?
Rollercoaster rides. And basically any theme park activities beyond the merry-go-round.

3. When did you last find yourself running around like a “chicken with its head cut off”?
I’m not 100% sure what this saying means. If it means being chaotic in one’s daily life, this usually happens to me when I’m deciding to craft something in an impulse, but I can’t come up with an example right now. If it refers to general disorganization, probably yesterday. I was very much in a daze at the time.

4. Something you’ve done recently that makes you think “I’m no spring chicken”?
Oh wait, I’m not? 🤣 I’m 36, but often I forgot that this isn’t all that young anymore. I guess mostly my physical fitness reminds me.

5. “Winner winner chicken dinner”…tell us about something good that’s happened in your life lately.
Oh, this is going to be really hard, as I just had the toughest few days in a long while. This situation though led to quite an intense heart-to-heart between my husband and me, and this was the good thing. I really hope that my marriage is going to be stronger than ever.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Just to clarify, no, there was no relationship crisis that preceded the above. The situation that’s caused me to have one of the tougher weeks I’ve had in a while, has to do with my staff: my assigned home staff is leaving at the end of next week. I had quite a strong attachment to her, maybe unhealthily so. I am really hoping I can feel secure enough to share my most vulnerable side with my husband from now on, since I’ve pretty much decided I’m not going to show it to any of the other staff. After all, for all of them I’m also merely work.

Confronting My Dependent Shadow Side

Posted on by Astrid

This afternoon, I downloaded a small collection of shadow work-based journaling prompts. One of them is to write about the time I felt most offended by someone. What did that person say or do? And more important, what was my reaction? I am encouraged to focus mostly on the emotions involved rather than the mere facts.

The first thing that came to mind, was my former psychologist diagnosing me with dependent personality disorder. This, though, didn’t really offend me: it scared me. After all, she claimed not just that I was being passive and clingy, as people with DPD often are, but that I was misusing care. I, obviously, disagreed and feared losing my care because of her diagnosis. This, indeed, did happen about six months later.

The moment I felt most offended though, was the moment in June of last year when my husband said he thought I might have DPD. He may’ve forgotten that this was the exact diagnosis my psychologist had given me in order to kick me out of the psych hospital, since he did not propose I move back in with him. His reasoning was, however, the fact that, even with one-on-one support for most of the day, I still struggle.

I felt intensely triggered and scared again, but also angry. However, I wasn’t necessarily angry with him, but with my own dependent side. After all, maybe, just maybe, he is right indeed.

Deep down, I do know it is crazy to want – to feel I need – one-on-one attention all of the time. I don’t even want it, truthfully. Right now, I’m very content being by myself. But then again, why do I feel so anxious some of the time when my staff leave? Why can’t I make simple choices? Why do I need my husband to take responsibility for any major parts of my life? These are telltale DPD criteria!

I am not even scared of the diagnosis itself. Diagnoses are just labels. But I am scared of losing the care I have now, like I did in 2017. And then the little voice, my independent part, is telling me that I coped just fine. I mean, I know I took two overdoses of medication during my first six months of living with my husband, but wasn’t that just manipulation?

Couldn’t I have a much better, much richer life if I unlearned this intense fear of needing to fend for myself? Yes, yes, yes, I could! But does unlearning this fear mean being given a kick in the behind and being forced to live with my husband again? Maybe there are steps in between. Like, today I poured myself a glass of fruit-infused water, spilling a little over myself, but I did it anyway. I felt intense anxiety, because I knew my staff noticed and maybe she’s going to expect me to always be able to do this independently. Then again, so what? Then the worst thing that could happen is I can’t get fruit-infused water if this staff is working my shift and I don’t feel like pouring it myself. Is that so bad after all? And just to say, the staff didn’t even tell me to pour the drink myself. I just noticed the bottle was in front of me and I decided to try to do it. I could’ve asked her to pour the water for me, in which case she’d likely have done so. She is a staff who generally encourages independence, which sets off my demand avoidance. However, the fact that I not only did something independently I wouldn’t normally have done, but took the initiative rather than being encouraged (read: pushed), gave me a confidence boost.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 2, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Saturday of July. Wow, can you believe the first half of the year is over with already? I certainly can’t. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I just had my afternoon coffee, but the other residents are probably still having theirs. Let’s have a coffee and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start out by asking how you are. How’s your weather? Ours has been mixed. Right now, it’s about 23°C and partly cloudy, but we’ve had daytime temps as high as 29°C and as low as 19°C and a mix of sun and rain and thunderstorms.

If we were having coffee, I would share that this week was a mixed bag. I’ve been struggling quite a bit with all the new staff being introduced to me over the week. Now I hear you say what my staff have been saying too: isn’t that better than temp workers? Yes, it is and, thankfully, I didn’t have any temping staff all week. However, on some days, I had two staff introduced to me in a day and this generally meant at least one of them was orienting to my one-on-one shift. This means they’re with me literally all the time and this means I have two staff with me all the time, who are sometimes chatting among themselves about their kids or whatever (sometimes under the guise of the new staff telling me about themself). That cost me a lot of energy. By the middle of the week, I had thankfully been able to get it through to the staff that I don’t like this.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been struggling a bit with the discrepancy between my emotional development and my intelligence again. I have been reading up on emotional development as it relates to people with developmental disabilities and, though the theory makes perfect sense to me, this does actually create intense turmoil inside of me. This specifically relates to the situation in which staff confront me with my challenging behavior, trying to let me know it’s unacceptable. I am not even always rationally able to see their point, for example when it relates to the temp workers and new staff, but even when I am, it is sheer impossible for me to grasp it emotionally.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, on Monday, some evangelicals were handing out flowers near my neighborhood supermarket. As a progressive Christian, I agreed with a lot but not all of what the woman doing the evangelizing to me said, but I didn’t feel like challenging her. After she started challenging my staff’s Catholic beliefs and all of us noticed the conversation became awkward, I accepted the flowers and moved on. I do feel that this, odd as it may seem, came at the right time, being that it was my birthday and I’d just had a really hard appt with my nurse practitioner. At least yesterday, the flowers still looked quite good.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you I’ve been very crafty lately. The creations I shared yesterday, I had finished late last week. This week, I’ve been experimenting with the plunger cutters I got from the new student staff on Wednesday, as well as with my extruder. I didn’t actually create anything using the extruder yet and I might’ve broken it already after all. Today, I did create a sort of Earth charm. I originally wanted to do the continents much like they are on the real planet, but that didn’t work out.

How have you been?

Crafting Lately: Polymer Clay Kawaii Sun, Cloud and Star

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been quite creatively inspired. Today, I want to show you all some of my sky-themed polymer clay creations. Here goes.

Polymer Clay Kawaii Sun

The first one is a sun. I did its “body” using Fimo Soft in the color Lemon. I started by creating a ball, then flattening it into a dome shape.

For its rays, I used Fimo Soft in the color Tangerine. I created short snakes that I flattened on one end and turned pointy on the other to form the beam. This was not how the person doing the tutorial I followed, did it, but I felt this is how it worked for me. I then attached the rays to the body. I decided to turn them slightly upward, as I liked that better than a completely flat sun. Once I’d baked my sun, I found out that at least one of the rays is bent upwards a little too much.

Then I created eyes and a mouth out of black Fimo (I think it’s Fimo Professional, but not 100% sure). I still struggle to get my eyes to be equal size, as you’ll see in the picture of the cloud below. Finally, I used an orange chalk pastel to color “cheeks” on the sun. I didn’t like pink for the sun, because I wanted to give it a little sunset-style look.

Polymer Clay Kawaii Cloud

The next thing I created was a cloud. I struggled a little with its indents or curves and, to be honest, I like this one least out of the three creations. I did this one using Fimo Kids in the color Glitter White. I again added a black mouth and eyes (you can probably tell its left eye is larger than its right eye). This time, I added light pink chalk pastel for its cheeks. I had originally wanted to go for a blue overall dusting, but my staff said pink cheeks looked better.

Polymer Clay Kawaii Star

Finally, the star! This was the one that took me the most practice. I shaped the entire thing using my fingers out of a ball of clay, in my case Fimo Effect in the color Pastel Vanilla. I can’t explain how I did it, but Creative Rachy on YouTube has the tutorial. I again added a black mouth and eyes and pink cheeks (a darker shade than for the cloud).

I cured each of my creations on my oven-safe workmat, because I was scared of damaging the back if I’d bake directly on the tile. The back didn’t turn out as well as I’d like to, but you don’t see this when not holding the things in your hand anyway.

Because I’d used chalk pastels on each of these creations, I had to glaze them in order to protect the chalk pastel. I used Cernit varnish in matt for this. I did two coats on each of these things and then popped my creations in the oven again to harden the glaze.

I really love these little projects. Each of them was relatively easy. I am still looking to improve my craft, of course.

Linking up with Fabulous Friday.