The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 31, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Okay guys, it’s Wednesday again and this means it’s time to join Joyce for the Wednesday HodgePodge. This week, several of Joyce’s questions are related to Labor Day, which is, what, this coming Monday? Time certainly flies. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. Something you’ve labored over recently?
Nothing really. I don’t have any large projects I’m currently working on, even though I do need to start thinking about what to create for my husband in honor of our wedding anniversary on September 19. I’m in a crafting rut, honestly. I am, however, working hard on my physical fitness. Does that count?

2. How will you rest on Labor Day?
I probably won’t. It’s a regular Monday here in the Netherlands, so I do have my usual day activities. That being said, if I want to rest, I can do so every single day.

3. Margaret Mead is quoted as saying, “I learned the value of hard work by working hard.” Would you agree? Where and how did you learn the value of hard work?
I don’t think I agree. I worked quite hard in school and college, to the point of autistic burnout, but I wouldn’t necessarily say I value hard work all that much. If anything, by working this hard and subsequently suffering burnout, I learned the value of self-care and rest. Then again, I do realize I’m privileged in this respect, in that I got on disability benefits without any trouble as soon as I turned eighteen and sailed through every re-assessment without any difficulty too.

4. It’s National Eat Outside Day (August 31st). Will you? Do you enjoy dining “al fresco” or do you prefer indoor seating?
I had no idea it was eat outside day in the U.S. and it’s past my dinnertime now, so no, I didn’t. I don’t like eating outside anyway.

5. Somehow it’s the end of August. What was the best day of the month for you and tell us what made it so?
The best day of the month was probably the day my husband took me for a drive to Enkhuizen, 100km away, just for some fish. Either that or last Monday, the day I scored 200% on my Apple Watch’s Movement goal, 300% on my exercise goal (but somehow there’s no medal for that) and received reassuring news on my latest health scare. You see, over the weekend when I was in Lobith, my husband noted a large mole on my back and told me to see my doctor about it. Thankfully, it was nothing to worry about at this point and my staff suggested we keep the picture they took for reference should the mole change.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Today was the last shift for last year’s student staff here. She treated us to French fries and snacks, strawberry cake and she gave me two bars of chocolate. And not just any chocolate, they were stroopwafel chocolate bars. Stroopwafels are my favorite type of cookies, so this is truly awesome. I gifted her a handmade bracelet. She did joke that, since I have money to buy myself an Apple Watch, I should’ve bought her a new phone. After all, her old iPhone was in horrible condition and I’d been nagging her to buy a new one for months, which she finally did a few weeks ago (well, a refurbished one, which I personally would never do). I think she’s happy with the bracelet though.

First Week With My Apple Watch

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m not sure whether this post is going to be a tech post or a health post or both, as I want to write about my first impressions of using my Apple Watch. I’m putting it under the “Tech” category, but sharing some of my health stats just so it doesn’t get boring. Oh wait, maybe my health stats are boring too. Oh well.

I got my Apple Watch series 7 on Monday last week, but didn’t get to actually use it until Tuesday evening, because then I got its case and screen protector. I know many people don’t use anything to protect their Apple Watches, but I’m happy I got a sturdy case and a glass screen protector, because I’ve bumped my watch against a wall, chair or table too many times to count already.

I familiarized myself with the use of the Apple Watch with VoiceOver first by reading Apple’s own support page on the topic as well as listening to the relevant podcasts on AppleVis. It’s sad that the Apple Watch user guides on there are all podcasts and none are in text format, because I process information better through my Braille display. One thing both the Apple support site and AppleVis say, is that you need to swipe with two fingers rather than one in order to scroll. I have found this to be incorrect. Either that or I’m doing something wrong all along, but swiping with two fingers does something really weird for me.

I prefer to change most of my settings in my iPhone’s Watch app rather than on the Apple Watch itself, because I do find the screen of the Apple Watch a little hard to navigate. I have chosen the “California” clock face, which is really cool.

I also read most of my stats in the iPhone’s Health app rather than on the watch itself. The reason is the fact that, firstly, they are all in one place there and, secondly, the Health app is easier to navigate than the apps on my watch. I might need some getting used to with, for instance, the heartrate app on my watch.

Most people who have an Apple Watch or know about it, are probably familiar with the activity rings. I did know they exist prior to buying my watch, but didn’t know what they represent. Your Movement ring shows your calories burned during movement relative to your goal. My goal is set to 300, which is slightly higher than the Apple Watch suggested for me (based on the activity my iPhone had recorded, I guess) but still low. The Exercise ring shows your minutes doing exercise, which is any movement equivalent to or more intense than a brisk walk. My goal is set to 20 minutes. Your Standing ring shows the hours you’ve been standing upright and in some motion for at least one minute. My goal is set to 12. The Apple Watch can count steps, but does not display them on the screen unless you install a third-party app for that. It does send your step count to the iPhone’s Health app.

Each week, I believe, you get a report on how you did compared to your goal and a suggested new movement goal for the week. Yesterday, my suggested goal was the same as the one I’d set.

On Apple Watch series 7 (and some older models too, I believe), you can measure your cardio fitness level. This is done using an estimate of the maximum amount of oxygen your body can process during movement (VO2Max). This is estimated during each brisk walk or run outdoors. On Friday, I had my first estimated cardio fitness level result and my VO2max was 22.9. This is “low” or so the watch said and it doesn’t get lower than “low”. As it turned out, at 24, I’d cross the border to “below average”. I managed this once.

I do want to add here that I got in nearly three times as many exercise minutes compared to my goal three times this week. I also reached 200% of my movement goal yesterday, burning 600 active calories. I actually burned off over 2200 calories that day and I hadn’t even been on the elliptical. Yay me.

Early Memories of Physical Activity

Posted on by Astrid

A few months ago, I read on another blog about Carrie Underwood’s book Find Your Path: Honor Your Body, Fuel Your Soul, and Get Strong with the Fit52 Life. One of the aspects that immediately appealed to me in the book, are the journal prompts. Yes, duh, you know, I’m a sucker for journal prompts. However, Carrie Underwood’s journaling prompts are not just random one-liners, they’re deep questions. One of them is about early memories of physical activity. Today, I want to share my thoughts on this.

As a young child, I loved playing outside. I used to build sandcastles in the wooden sandpit my father had built, not even caring that the wood hadn’t been treated so it got moldy every once in a while. I remember telling you all the story of how my father used to call my Kindergarten friend, whose last name translates to Peat in English, “Kim Mud”.

When I got older, I loved learning to rollerskate. I remember joining an informal neighborhood rollerskating “club” led by the oldest of two girls who lived next door. She was my age and could rollerskate real good or so we all thought. I wasn’t nearly as good or even as good as my own younger sister, but who cared? I didn’t.

I got a large tricycle when I was about seven or eight because I couldn’t ride a bike due to my cerebral palsy. Not that I could safely ride a bike, given my visual impairment, but apparently the rehabilitation physician had no idea. I occasionally rode my tricycle, but preferred to walk around the neighborhood.

However, by age seven or eight, when I started to lose my vision, my physical activity level also started to decrease. I am pretty sure it’s more than just my vision though, but there’s no way to prove this as my parents stopped taking me to specialists around that age. I am considering asking my GP or the intellectual disability physician at the care facility for a referral back to rehabilitation medicine, because I want to learn to make the most use of the mobility I do have.

I did till my mid-teens love to sit on the swings. I’m not sure that counts, as it is a sedentary activity, but you do move your legs pushing yourself. I would go on the swings for hours on end. Now though, I get dizzy even going on the swings for five minutes at a time.

A thing I also did from toddlerhood until I moved out of my parental home at age nineteen, was this crawling-in-place movement while in bed. By the time I hit adolescence, my parents complained that I ruined the bed and made too much noise, but I continued to move in this way exactly until I moved to the independence training home. I could do this for hours on end too and I now realize it’s probably a form of autistic stimming.

Overall, I wasn’t physically active in most of the traditional ways. I wasn’t in sports as a child and P.E. was one of my least favorite classes. However, I can’t say I sat on my butt all the time. I didn’t even as an adolescent, though I probably was more sedentary then than I should have been.

How about you? Were you physically active as a child?

Joy in August

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. It’s the end of the month once again and this means I’m reflecting on my word of the year, which is “JOY”. I am linking up with the Word of the Year linky as well as with Lisa’s One Word linky.

The month of July was hard and it ended on an even more difficult note with a health scare. Did I even tell you all about it? Well, I had bloodwork done at the end of July as part of my annual health screening and, while most results came back normal, my EGFR, an indication of kidney function, did not. It’s supposed to be above 90 in healthy adults, had been 81 last year and my nurse practitioner back then had said that anything above 70 was still acceptable. Well, it was 68 this time around. I checked with my GP and he said this could be a one-off lower score, but I do need to be checked again, including a urine test, in a few months.

This health scare, as well as some other worries about my health, did decrease my joy over the month of August. However, I still tried to find moments of joy in the everyday. Like in July, I did sometimes seek joy in material things, for example when I bought a lot of polymer clay supplies a few weeks ago.

However, I also found joy in experiences, such as my and my husband’s trip to Enkhuizen last week and my trip to the town fair yesterday (even though I didn’t buy anything).

Earlier this week, I of course tried to find joy in another material thing by buying an Apple Watch. It’s pure delight seeing how I reach and even exceed my goals. That being said, I did have another health scare today, when the stupid thing told me my cardio fitness level is low. “Low” is the lowest score your Apple Watch will give you. My husband joked: “except for ‘dead’, but that’s not far off.” Great, huh? Thankfully, I do know I can to a degree increase my cardio fitness level by exercising. It is good to feel some sense of control.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 24, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m late today to write my contribution to the Wednesday HodgePodge. Joyce titles her post something about blueberry waffles, but I’m afraid I ate the last of my blueberries yesterday and I don’t have any waffles either. Oh well. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. August 24th is National Waffle Day…what’s something you’ve “waffled” on recently?
I’m not sure what to “waffle” means exactly – and to be honest had never heard of the word “waffle” as a verb before. Then again, according to my intro to linguistics professor at uni, every noun in English can be verbed. Anyway, according to a Google search, it seems to mean to blather on about something. Which I just did, I guess. A recent topic I’ve been blathering on about though has been my Apple Watch, which I finally ordered on Sunday and have been fully using as of today.

2. Do you like waffles? Make your own or ‘leggo my Eggo? Any favorite toppings or add-ins? Waffles or pancakes-which do you prefer?
I like good homemade or bakery waffles, but don’t really care for store-bought waffles. I prefer pancakes though. For toppings, both on pancakes and waffles, I love powdered sugar, summer fruit, raisins and/or nuts.

3. Do you have any momentos from this summer (or past summers)? What do you do with them?
I don’t think I do, but once again I’m not sure what momentos are. Are they like souvenirs? In that case, no. I almost got myself something on my and my husband’s day trip to Enkhuizen last Saturday.

4. One thing you’d like to do before summer ends?
Go to the town fair. It started today with a sensory-friendly fair experience with activities such as a merry-go-round etc. I’d like to see the market stalls though, which will be there from tomorrow until Saturday. There will also be some pretty good music or so I’ve heard, but I’m likely to go tomorrow morning, because the daytime temperature is supposed to climb to 33°C.

5. Life is too short to…
Worry about my health. Oh well, how I wish I could stop actually worrying about it. Thankfully, my Apple Watch gives me some sort of sense of control.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Of course, now it’s time to brag about surpassing all three of my activity goals on my Apple Watch today, ie. movement, standing and exercise. I had set my exercise goal lower than the Apple Watch proposed, but my movement goal higher. I’m absolutely loving being able to start workouts on my Apple Watch, something I could never do on my Fitbit because the touch screen is not accessible. I so far really love this new gadget.

Reading Wrap-Up (August 22, 2022) #IMWAYR

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been doing a lot of reading over the past week, so I thought I’d share a reading wrap-up once again. As usual, I’m joining It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? (#IMWAYR). Here goes.

What I’m Currently Reading

After I finished my last book on Saturday, I was thinking of starting a memoir. After looking through Bookshare’s biography and memoir category for a bit and reading the summaries of several books, I finally settled on All My Friends Are Invisible by Jonathan Joly. This is a memoir about the author’s life growing up surrounded by imaginary friends. I’m pretty sure that, further yet, the author could be diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, but so far this term hasn’t been mentioned.

Other than that, I picked up My Heart and Other Black holes by Jasmine Warga again. I’m not sure why I even want to finish it, other than to prove to myself that I can finish a book that doesn’t deserve at least a four-star rating. It’s so predictable. Maybe I’m hoping for some intriguing plot twist, but so far at 62%, no such luck.

What I Recently Finished Reading

I finished two books in the past week. One is Six Weeks to Live by Catherine McKenzie, which I reviewed on Tuesday. The other is a winter special in the Unicorn Magic series by Daisy Meadows called Snowstar and the Big Freeze. This chapter book was the perfect antidote to the hot weather. Or something like that. I honestly don’t know why I picked it in the middle of August, but I did and it was good.

What I Think I’ll Read Next

I once again have no idea. I’m a true mood reader, so whenever I finish a book, I grab whatever strikes my fancy next. That’s how I got to pick the Jonathan Joly memoir too. I mean, I literally hadn’t heard of it minutes before I started reading it. So yeah, I might read another chapter book on magical creatures, since I have several downloaded off Bookshare. However, I may also be in the mood for another thriller. Who knows? I currently don’t.

What have you been reading recently?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 20, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. Even though I was late having my last cup of coffee this evening, I’m even later writing this post, so sorry, no coffee left for you. We do have soft drinks though or you can have water or maybe I can make you a cup of tea. That being said, I’d advise against black tea, since it’s at least almost my bedtime by the time I finish this post. Oh wait, this is a worldwide gathering over virtual coffee or tea or whatever we like. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start out by asking how your weather is. Ours has been good all week, with temperatures rising to 30°C on Tuesday and in the mid to upper twenties (Celsius) during the rest of the week. Some days, it was too hot and especially humid for walking, but other days, it was just the right temperature.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’ve been busy thinking of what to create for the fellow resident who has his birthday next Thursday. After all, originally I intended on creating a canvas with polymer clay cookie cutter shapes of a car and the letters of his name on it, but the cutters for the letters won’t work with polymer clay, because the inside parts of some letters are much shallower than the outline. I thought about buying different cutters, but my husband came up with the idea of glitter stickers. They had them at Hema, a department store here, or so he thought. Not at the one we were at today, so I ended up buying regular letter stickers. Thing is, these are much smaller than I’d intended. Besides, I’m not sure stickers will stick onto painted canvas. I’m probably just making a card with those stickers and then doing the polymer clay car in some other way.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m quite discouraged where it comes to my possibly moving to another care home. I had a meeting with some people from the main institution for my care agency three weeks ago, but haven’t heard from them. Other than that, I found out yesterday that the only place the care consultant applied for me at is a senior citizens’ assisted living facility that happens to cater to the blind. In a way, I can see his point, in that my funding is based on blindness and, in this sense, an intellectual disability facility like my current one has to tweak stuff in order to accept me. That assisted living facility is probably the only place within an hour’s driving distance from Lobith that accepts blindness-based funding. Then again, other than them catering to the blind, I can see absolutely no reason why the place would be suitable. And honestly, them catering to the blind may in fact be a drawback, as it means I can’t use my blindness as an “excuse” to explain complicated difficulties of mine by, hence my needing to explain myself in detail. That really has caused me extreme problems of being overloaded in the past. I mean, it would be okay if the staff knew blindness and cerebral palsy and autism and emotional developmental dysfunction and all the issues that cause me to struggle greatly in real life, but as far as I’m concerned most of these don’t affect the elderly in particular.

If we were having coffee, I’d try to end on a positive note though by telling you I had a good time with my husband today. He was originally supposed to be here by 1PM, but got stuck in traffic and couldn’t be here till 2PM. He almost turned around, because we had a misunderstanding about it, but he eventually got here and then we drove to Enkhuizen. Enkhuizen is a town about 100km from Raalte, so halfway across the country. My husband wanted to have fish, but not here in the east, which was his excuse for driving there. Then we walked around the town center, going to Hema for those stickers I mentioned above. Then we drove back to Raalte, grabbing a McDonald’s on the way in Kampen. I had a Mexican style crispy chicken, which was huge and delicious but not overly spicy. We really want to be taking more day trips together.

How have you been?

My Favorite Color

Posted on by Astrid

A few days ago, or maybe it was even a few weeks, the daily prompt in my journaling app, Day One, was to write about your favorite color. I couldn’t think of what exactly to write at the time. Now, as I sit here and today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt stares at me, I just have to write.

Is my favorite color actually purple, you’d ask? Well, yes, it is one of my favorite colors and if I had to pick just one, it’d probably be this. I usually say I have multiple favorite colors, namely purple, blue and green. They all are represented in the six bottles of alcohol ink I ordered online earlier this week: three shades of blue, two shades of purple and a shade of greenish blue too.

Then again, with respect to clothes, I used to only wear black for many years. It was a statement, in my mind, but the statement never came across. I guess everyone thought it was just easier for me to match my clothing that way, being that I’m blind. And it was.

Now that I do wear colors, I have to say I don’t actually have anything purple in my wardrobe. I should really change that.

And I should get to crafting a purple unicorn ashtray for the male staff doing my one-on-one shifts once a week, who I overheard is leaving in October. Oh wait, he asked for a pink one. And polymer clay isn’t suitable for ashtrays anyway. But he’ll appreciate the humor.

Annoying Things Enneagram Type Fours Do and Say

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I badly want to write, but am feeling a bit melancholic and yet not interested in writing a long navel-gazing post. Instead, I am going to reflect on the annoying things enneagram type Fours say and do. I saw this video a couple of weeks ago on YouTube. Watch it too if you’d like.

1. Fours are prone to melancholy. Oh, wait, I just said that. It can indeed turn to melodrama if it lasts too long, with me crying for no apparent reason or dwelling on negativity forever.

2. Fours struggle with dissatisfaction in their lives. The YouTuber here says that in relationships this can particularly be an issue, because Fours keep looking for the ideal soulmate that probably just doesn’t exist. I have never looked beyond my husband for a better, more perfect partner. Maybe this means my husband already is my perfect soulmate. Still, I can relate to this thing, as I always look to improve my life by improving my external circumstances rather than myself.

3. Envy. Yes, so yes. I always envy people who live in better external circumstances than me. I don’t tend to show it outwardly towards the person I’m envious of, but it’s there nonetheless.

4. Manipulativeness. Well, uhm, yes. I just told my nurse practitioner on Monday about a recent situation in which I was acting confused, but it was probably manipulation. I will go a long way to maintain relationships.

5. Fours may disappear and go radio silent for days. This is the only one out of this list I cannot relate to. In fact, though I do really try to push some people away by running off or ignoring them, this rarely lasts longer than an hour or so.

6. Fours have a hard time being around overly happy people. Or just generally people who are happier than me, in my case. I can’t stand people trying to distract me when I’m down and I usually can’t stand overly cheery people at all. I blame sensory overload, but maybe that’s not entirely true.

7. Fours want to be seen as special or different. Well, duh! I always look for ways to stand out, be it positively or negatively (usually the latter, honestly). In this sense, my parents were probably right when they told my psychiatrist that I’d been looking for ways in which I was different (other than blindness) ever since childhood. Honestly, though I do see the annoying aspects of the other things listed above, I don’t even fully see how this one is annoying. Well, maybe it can be seen as us Fours putting ourselves above everyone else. I’m not sure.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 17, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge again. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. August is National Back To School Month…how does that make you feel? Share a back-to-school memory.
I don’t really feel much regarding back-to-school time, as I’m not in school anymore (it’s been 17 years since I graduated high school) and my nieces are too young to be in school. I’m so glad to be out of school though.

A back-to-school memory? My first day at the school for the blind I spent fourth till sixth grade at. We went to church to mark the beginning of the school year, as it was a Christian school. I found it all very strange, having never been to a church before, since my parents are atheists. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep during the service though.

2. Something you’ve learned in “the school of life”?
People who get paid to have any sort of relationship with you, won’t stick around for you, so you have no reason to stay for them either. Yes, I’m referring to my wish to transfer to another care facility here.

3. Three words to describe your current mood.
Unquiet, determined, sad.

4. A summer food you’ve eaten too much of/are tired of? A summer food you haven’t had enough of?
There isn’t any summer food I’m really tired of, though today I turned down another ice cream cone because I’d had three in the past week already. A summer food I haven’t had enough of? Summer fruit!

5. What small stuff do you sweat that you know you shouldn’t?
I tend to get very easily frustrated, so quite a lot, but lately I’ve also tried to solve small problems more rather than just not caring. An example are air bubbles in my clay. The reason that I do try to solve the problem now, is that I know how to (to an extent) rather than just having to wait for my pieces to be cured and then deciding whether they go in the trash or are just about good enough to be displayed. It’s a tricky balancing act of trying not to sweat the small stuff but also trying not to be careless.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Yesterday, we had daytime temperatures of 30°C. It isn’t expected to get this hot again anytime this year. My husband, not surprisingly, started the Christmas prep WhatsApp group with his family. He always does in mid-August. I, too, before we got to discuss this, started reading a winter-themed chapter book.