Three Wishes, Revisited

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Last Tuesday, I saw the Writer’s Workshop prompts for this week. Several of them spoke to me but I somehow didn’t give myself the time to actually write on them. Today, I’m finally back on the blog and I’m choosing the prompt in which you’re granted three wishes. I did a post on this topic already in 2020. Let’s see how things have changed over the years. What would I wish for now?

1. Unlimited door-to-door transportation. I listed ParaTransit access as a wish in 2020, but now that I’m actually using it for things other than getting to my wife, I realize that it’s not that having unlimited kilometers would solve my problems getting to places. I’d also need the driver to actually drop me off at the place I want to go to. Transportation, after all, is one of the reasons I don’t go to cerebral palsy meetings as often as I’d like, because they’re often organized at restaurants, which taxis can’t reach.

2. My ideal room/apartment within a care facility. In 2020, I wanted to be closer to my wife, but if I have my transportation desires covered anyway, that’s no longer a necessity. My ideal place wouldn’t be much larger than my current room, but it would have a private bathroom and its own kitchen, in which I could prepare my own food with assistance. It would also not be as close to communal areas as my current room is, because well one of my main problems right now is overload from all the sounds coming from the living room.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t list more care hours as a wish in 2020, being that I didn’t have my one-on-one at the time. I do now and of course I wish for it to stay the same.

3. Improved physical and mental health. Don’t we all wish for optimal health? I listed it in 2020 too, as my first wish in fact. Since then, my physical health has improved in some ways and declined in others. For example, I’ve lost significant amounts of weight that I indeed needed to lose and as a result, no longer have high blood pressure. I can also walk for longer. On the other hand, my tremors have gotten significantly worse and I believe my cognitive functioning has declined a bit too.

My mental health, I think, is better than it was in early 2020. I hope it improves more though.

Now that I compare my wishes to the ones I listed in 2020, I see an interesting trend, in that despite better quality of life, my wishes are still largely the same. No, that’s not entirely true: they’re bolder, in fact. I wonder what this means.

Meaningful Activities #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! No Weekend Coffee Share (at least, Natalie isn’t hosting) this week again. I love Anne’s Word of the Week linky for summarizing my week too. Maybe when Natalie hosts her coffee share again, I’ll do a combination of the two. That is, if I can figure out a word or phrase to sum up my week. This week’s phrase is “meaningful activities”.

This week was truly a good one overall. I’ll start with my spontaneous baking activity on Saturday. My staff and I had gone on a walk, but we didn’t want to stare at the wall for the rest of my long activity time slot, so she proposed we do a baking activity. I proposed to make caramel blondies, for which I’d bought the ingredients a few weeks ago already to use with another staff, who however wouldn’t say when we could make them. The blondies were extremely filling but good. Next time, I’m going to cut down on sugar a bit and add some white chocolate on top. I served the blondies to my fellow residents in the evening. One of them asked for days after that, when she learned that I had some left over, for more “Astrid cookies”.


On Monday, my staff and I went to the institution townhouse for coffee. We didn’t have our wallets with us, so we couldn’t buy any of the treats they offered (the coffee is free). However, one of the people behind the counter offered us a brownie that wasn’t good enough to be sold to share. My staff had only a small piece and I had most of it. It was delicious! I had planned to eat the last of the blondies that day, but had two and besides, I was completely stuffed already. I decided to offer them to the two fellow residents who aren’t at the day center during the day either.

On Tuesday, the same staff was supporting me in the afternoon again and, of course, we reasoned we had to go back to the townhouse with our wallets to buy something this time. We didn’t fancy another brownie, but we did have a look at some of the handmade items on sale. My staff bought some tea and I bought a bag of rocky road chocolates. No photo in the townhouse, but I did take an interesting photo of the bag on my nightstand.

Then on Wednesday, like I shared that day already, I crafted a polymer clay dice for a staff who was leaving. Today, I also have been claying, because one of the staff who’s been here forever but with whom I’ve never done a clay project, wanted to learn. It felt good being able to do this activity even though it was in the morning and I was a little cranky.

On Thursday, the staff and I rode the side-by-side bike to Twello to buy some things. I bought raisins, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and corn waffles. We also needed a new mixing bowl, since I’d found out earlier that the one we used to have had a large tear in it. The staff offered to pay for it with the home’s debit card, which sounded reasonable, since it was the home’s bowl that tore. Not that I have a mixing bowl, but well.

Yesterday saw another trip to Twello to go to the market. When we were at the townhouse on Tuesday, one of the institution managers was telling us that he’s going to campaign for the upcoming local election at the market on Friday. I didn’t see him at the market, but I did get to talk to two other parties’ campaigners, both of who gave me some seeds to plant. I’m having to think on where to plant them, as my little yard has no flowerbeds.

Overall, this week was truly filled with meaningful activities. Since my new day schedule will (hopefully) take effect on April 1 and I’ll then be having two weekly cooking or baking activities, I’ve been looking at things to make then too. My wife inspired me to look into vegetarian dinners. Not that I’m a vegetarian or ever plan to be, given that meal delivery service meals suck even more without the meat than they do when it’s included. However, when I prepare the meals myself, I’d love to look at ways of adding flavor without meat or poultry. The idea is that usually I won’t have to cook for the entire home, so I can experiment without considering my fellow residents’ preferences.

A Good Mood

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this rainy Wednesday. I just found Esther’s writing prompt for this week, which is “mood”. Since I’m in a pretty good mood right now, it feels appropriate to write about it.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with my support coordinator and the behavior specialist who’s filling in while my home’s regular one is on maternity leave. As regular readers of my blog might know, we’re in the process of designing a new, activity-based day schedule for me. Initially, the draft didn’t appeal to me, because for one thing I’d wanted it to include time for me to have a cup of tea in the living room later in the evening. As those who’ve followed me for a long while will know, I introduced this cup of tea last summer and it helped me through a dark period. Of course, I’ve mentioned more than once that if a cup of tea is the only thing to lift my mood during a day or even week, that’s not really all that good. I mean, yes, it signifies that I’m not majorly depressed, but it isn’t particularly a sign of good quality of life.

My support coordinator yesterday told the behavior specialist about my daily positives and negatives, which I’ve been sending out to her and my assigned staff on a weekly basis. She mentioned that my positives usually include activities that have meaning for me, such as crafting, cooking, baking or the like. My negatives usually involve situations in which the staff don’t adequately support me based on my needs of that moment, such as when they place too much responsibility on me.

Yesterday, I for the first time in a while had a day in which I didn’t see any negatives. When I wrote in the Gratitude app in the evening, I even rated my mood as “good”. Not “great”, but I don’t expect to feel great. I usually rate my daily moods as “okay” at best.

I listed several positives yesterday too. One was my having made another batch of homemade granola. This takes only about half an hour total, but it significantly lifts my mood to make it.

Similarly, on Monday, we had twenty minutes left of my long activity time slot in the afternoon after having gone on a walk and having had coffee at the institution townhouse. My staff initially proposed we play a dice game, but I suggested we try making a simple bracelet. My staff questioned whether we’d have enough time to finish this, but I challenged her by saying we could at least try. Usually, I’m the one suffering from inertia because I fear we cannot finish an activity within my allocated time slot. That’s one reason I proposed doing a more activity-based day schedule, of course including approximate times for the activities. Anyway, guess what? We finished the bracelet on time!

Today, if nothing major happens to diminish my mood, I’ll also have a day with no negatives. This morning, I started off by feeling a bit stuck by fear of there not being time for an activity. Thankfully, I pulled myself through it and guess what? I made not just the one thing out of polymer clay I’d wanted to make, a rolling dice for a staff who’s leaving and with whom I used to play dice all the time. I also started on a project for a staff who’s just become a father. Of course, since the dice had to be painted, I didn’t finish it right then, but I did in the afternoon, just on time for the staff’s goodbye.

My support coordinator is definitely right that meaningful activities are what help me get in a good mood. Isn’t that normal though?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 6, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s 7:30PM as I start typing this, so I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day and will take a break from writing this post at around 8PM to have my evening fizzy drink. Actually, Dubbelfrisss, which I generally have, isn’t very fizzy, being that it is only slightly carbonated. That’s a good thing, since I can’t stand actual fizzy drinks. Anyway, let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s been incredibly warm all week with daytime highs above 15°C each day. Today we even had a daytime high of 18°C. It’s been sunny for most of the week too. I know, climate change and all and we’re probably getting summertime temps above 30°C, but for now I love this weather.

If we were having coffee, I’d also proudly announce that I broke my exercise record on my Apple Watch again. Yesterday, I got in 190 exercise minutes, both by walking and by biking to Deventer.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I rode the side-by-side bike to Deventer twice this week, both times looking for new clothes. On Tuesday, I bought a few jeans and a blouse. Yesterday, I initially wanted to buy a blouse and a shirt, but didn’t end up buying those when I found out they were rather light-colored. So is one of the jeans I bought on Tuesday, so now I’m afraid I’ve stained it beyond cleaning already. This once happened with a pair of off white pants I bought with a staff several years ago and my wife said wise staff won’t let me wear light-colored clothes because of the risk of me spilling coffee over them. I told the staff I went clothes shopping this yesterday and she said I could put a napkin on my lap to prevent this. The thing is, I only need to forget this once for clothes to be ruined by coffee stains. I’m now unsure as to whether I was wise even having gone clothes shopping with her.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I’ve been playing around with AI a bit. Last Saturday, when I shared the Warmies unicorn soft toy on here, I tried to take several more pictures, but none were better than the one I’d posted. Then I decided to ask CoPilot to edit the image to make the unicorn stand out more. I don’t know whether the original picture was recognizable as a unicorn, but I loved how CoPilot recreated it.

For reference, here’s the original photo I took.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I finally saw my new, activity-based day schedule, to be taking effect on April 1. To be honest, it’s a bit disappointing, in that my assigned staff just added the activities I’d proposed to it and that’s it. How this could take months of “thinking” to take effect, I don’t know. On top of that, the new schedule will take effect on the same day the home will start having a new staffing schedule too. My support coordinator told me there’s no shortening of hours, but at an important time for me, there is. You see, when I proposed my activity-based day schedule, I’d added my daily cup of tea at around 9PM into it, both to make the schedule more aligned with reality and because that cup of tea truly helps me make it through the night without support. Unfortunately, it’s not in my new day schedule and staffing will be cut at 9PM too. I for clarity’s sake don’t need one-on-one attention then, but it does help when staff keep an eye on me. My support coordinator, who told me about the staffing changes and new day schedule, said I can’t expect everyone else to be in bed by 8:30PM because I want my cup of tea and there’s not enough staff to keep in touch with me and help the others to bed at the same time. No, I can’t, but it’s not me who cut those hours. Several staff have told me I’ll have to wait and see how things go and no-one is prohibiting me from having a cup of tea, but then why can’t it be in my day schedule?

Book Review: My Brother’s Secret by Maggie Hartley

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t touched the blog or WordPress in general for that matter much in a few days. I’m still struggling a little, but thankfully have been quite active both physically and mentally lately. One of those ways of staying active has been reading. Last week, Maggie Hartley’s latest foster care memoir came out and I immediately downloaded it off Apple Books (I never pre-order eBooks). I finished reading it this afternoon. Here’s my review.

Book Description

‘They made me do it, it wasn’t my fault!’
When three brothers come to live with Maggie, she knows that it’s going to be challenging. They are all already struggling with rejection after their dad abandoned them, their mum having died several years before.

While four-year-old Billy is a delight, eleven-year-old Keegan is quiet and withdrawn, and teenager Cooper is a whirlwind of destruction. His behaviour at school is disruptive and Maggie struggles to get through to him, especially when he’s in danger of being expelled.

But when a shocking discovery turns everything on its head, Maggie begins to realise that what she believed to be true is completely wrong. Danger is lurking, but is it too late for Maggie to help?

From Britain’s best-loved foster carer, a new and emotional true story of bonds, brothers and family.

My Review

Before I’d well and truly gotten into this book, I read in a Facebook group for foster care and related memoirs that this book was a slow burner. I can assure you this is true, but I can also say that it needs to be. Through the slow pace, I really got to know the characters.

Usually, foster care memoirs are a little on the predictable side at least for me, given that I’ve read many of them and know the drill quite well. This book, however, was less predictable than Maggie Hartley’s other books. Though I did see the twists coming, there still was enough surprise in them for my liking. I actually hadn’t expected many details that were in the twists.

I did find the characters quite well-developed. I don’t know how well a foster carer can get to know a child in just a few months, so I don’t know how much of this is Maggie’s writing style and how much is indeed based on what actually happened. I did get to like all characters, though I still have mixed feelings about the Dad. Unlike some of the other foster care memoirists, Maggie Hartley doesn’t seem to have a page online with updates on the kids. As a result, this is all we have to deal with and the ending is quite open. I’m still undecided as to whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. It however certainly kept me thinking long after I’d finished the book.

Linking up with A Good Book & a Cup of Tea.