The COVID Chronicles, #1: The Two Red Lines on the Reddest Day

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday was February 22, 2022. In the European way of writing the date, it was a palindrome: 22-02-2022. Not only that, but we won’t get any more twos (or the same numbers at all, for that matter) in a date in our lifetime. The number two is red in my synesthetic perception. How ironic that, on this day, I got the two red lines on my COVID test. Oh well, I got the PCR test, not the self-administered lateral flow test, so no red lines at all, but you get the idea. Yes, you read that right: I’m positive for COVID now.

I had the PCR test at around 11AM. Before then, I was feeling mostly fine. Well, I wasn’t feeling 100%, but I hadn’t since Thursday and my two lateral flow tests had been negative. I trusted those, sort of. Then, I started having teary eyes, but both the staff and I attributed that to the test. I still had a headache, but no more severe than I’d had since Thursday.

By mid-afternoon, I was having trouble not sniffing a lot, but was still in denial. After all, the thought of my staff having to wear PPE, my inability to be in close physical contact and my need for five more days in self-isolation triggered me.

By 4PM, my assigned home staff came on. She had had COVID a week ago and we started joking that she wanted me in the positive camp. By this time, I was truly experiencing significant sniffiness, so if it wasn’t COVID, it certainly was a bad case of the common cold. I also had a bad headache and what I jokingly called COVID brain, ie. an inability to find words (I just had trouble finding the word “find”), etc. I think it’s an actual thing though.

The evening staff came by my room at 9:15PM, but I was too busy to notice she was wearing PPE. I finished what I was doing and turned to face her. She told me calmly that, sadly, I have COVID.

I didn’t sleep much at all last night despite taking paracetamol before bedtime. In fact, I awoke at 3:15AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. Despite this, I’m not feeling very fatigued as of yet. As such, I consider myself really lucky that I seem to be having a mild case of the virus.

An Interesting Nightmare

Posted on by Astrid

I had an interesting nightmare last night. It wasn’t even really a nightmare in the traditional sense of the word. I mean, no violence or monsters were involved. Then again, most of my nightmares don’t involve that kind of scenario.

In my dream, the last client to contract COVID in our care home, came into my room and went straight to my bed while I was lying in it. I tried to crawl to one end to keep my distance, because of course getting out of bed would mean getting stuck touching her. I eventually managed to press the call button, but no-one came. Finally, this client left, but I was utterly distressed and tried to press the call button again, but to no avail. I then went out of my room and to the living room, even though I’d decided to stay in my room while more than half of my fellow clients are positive for COVID. Then, one of the care assistants, a woman I’ve only met briefly once or twice, came to my room to have breakfast with me (apparently it was morning), but I asked for the morning staff. The care assistant explained that the staff was busy and she was having breakfast with me instead. Then I woke up.

The nightmarish aspect of the dream was, in part, the fact that a client with COVID came into my room and my bed. This to me signifies how scared I am of contracting the virus, even though I keep saying there’s no surefire way to prevent it anyway and I’m not scared of getting very ill. I am, however, quite honestly, pretty scared of the consequences of room-based self-isolation should I be positive. I mean, I’m now basically in room-based self-isolation too, but my staff don’t have to wear PPE other than surgical masks and they can still be within a five-feet distance. I’m not sure about holding my hand or holding me in an embrace, as I’ve been cautious and haven’t asked, but I know from the times I had to self-isolate with suspected COVID last year and in 2020 that those are big no-nos should I be positive. At least, my staff wouldn’t even get within a five-feet distance even while wearing PPE then.

Another aspect that was nightmarish to me, was the fact that the unfamiliar care assistant ended up helping me rather than my trusted staff. This to me signifies how I’m experiencing attachment to this staff, and she wasn’t even my assigned home support worker or another of my favorite staff. I guess this counts as a win!

Lastly, a nightmare aspect was the fact that the care assistant told me that the staff was busy. I am forever frustrated with staff being overworked and busy and at the same time, I’m trying to accommodate them as much as I can. For example, yesterday the staff (same one who was supposed to come in my dream) forgot to come by my room at 3:15PM when she had finished handover. At 3:45, fifteen minutes before my one-on-one time would start, I’d had enough and pressed the call button. I was really frustrated, thinking that I’d be left to my own resources now that over half of the clients have COVID. That would make sense, rationally speaking, since I’m not sick or whatever. Not that the other clients are very sick, but oh well. As it turned out, the staff had forgotten to show up because she hardly ever works late shifts. This, plus my nightmare, does show how easily I think that I’m being abandoned.

Sharing this post with Scott’s Daily Prompt from last Saturday on the topic of nightmares.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 19, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this gloomy Saturday evening. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I’m right between my dinner and my evening coffee and I cannot offer you a drink other than water right now, as my staff is busy and I don’t want to leave my room. I’ll get to that bit later. So, can I get you a drink of water? Otherwise you’ll have to wait until my staff returns. Anyway, let’s have a chat.

If we were having coffee (or water, in this case), I’d share that we’re quarantining right now, as four or five of my fellow clients are positive for COVID. Four are confirmed and the fifth one can’t be tested but is treated as having COVID too. I took a lateral flow test right after dinner this evening and so far I’m still negative, as are the four other clients supported by the same staff as me outside of my one-on-one hours.

This is the reason the staff are busy, with the staff who care for the COVID-positive clients having to wear PPE and the other staff having to remain out of these clients’ way. It is all rather chaotic.

If we were having coffee, I’d share some of my new clay creations with you too. Like I think I said yesterday, I finally created a cactus on Monday evening.

Polymer Clay Cactus

Then on Wednesday, I created my second-ever polymer clay cane. This one I did using a heart-shaped cutter for the image. I managed to do the reducing all by myself! Then I had my staff cut it into slices, which we then made into beads.

I also created several possible charms to go with these beads. One is a heart which I do kind of like. The other was a unicorn, but I threw that one away. I now only need to make more beads, because, even though I have more than just the four beads shown in the picture above, I don’t have enough for a necklace.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, this afternoon, I have been experimenting with photo editing and meme making again. I didn’t have any success, of course. I mean, I found a photo editing app called Snapseed, which is relatively accessible with VoiceOver, but the one thing I wanted to do, ie. add text to an image, was not. That is, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to enter the text I wanted to add onto the image.

The result of all my experimenting is that now I have eight apps in my Photography folder on my iPhone rather than the four I used to have. And those four already seemed excessive, being that, besides the camera and default photos app, I only use one out of the two image recognition apps I have. Oh well.

If we were having coffee, I’d share about my nurse practitioner’s appointment on Thursday. I am so thankful we were still allowed to leave the home back then, because the appt was really productive. With respect to my new medication, the pregabalin, my nurse practitioner recommended I wait and see another two weeks before concluding it’s ineffective for my anxiety. We discussed my anxiety in a little more depth and also for the first time in a long while went into my diagnosis. He actually said he believes my diagnosis is DID (dissociative identity disorder) or at least some variation of it (ie. other specified dissociative disorder). I quickly talked over it saying it doesn’t really matter, as I know firstly he can’t diagnose me (but then again the psychiatrist can) and secondly I still haven’t had the extensive assessment required for a DID diagnosis in most places here in the Netherlands. That being said, it felt so good to be validated like this! My nurse practitioner also finally will make room for us to discuss my flashbacks at a later appt. He said the reason he didn’t go into it right then was the limited time left in our appt, but he’d definitely like to discuss it with me. That feels kind of weird, but in a good way.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’m so glad the storms are finally over. Last Wednesday night, I hardly slept at all due to the high winds. Thankfully, last night and the night before that were better. My husband’s and my house did suffer some damage to the roof though. Hopefully insurance will be able to cover the cost of getting it repaired.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 6, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this rainy, windy Sunday afternoon. I’m really regretting having started the landing page for #Write28Days rather than just having linked up some archive of the tag or something, as today I’m already a day behind and it looks weird to add posts to my landing page again now. Okay, maybe that’s just my autistic brain acting up. Anyway, this afternoon I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. If I feel so inclined, I’m going to add another post on my #Write28Days topic tonight, but again I won’t promise I will.

I’ve just had my afternoon coffee. I’m supposed to have a serving of fruit with that. Since the supermarket delivered 5kg of pears yesterday, the staff badly wanted me to eat a pear. Thing is, I’m not a fan. Besides, it’s not my problem either the supermarket got the order wrong or my staff mistyped it in the system. They should have been five pears, not 5kg. Anyway, I chose a banana, but if you all would like a pear (or two) with your coffee, tea or soft drink, we’ve got loads! Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share some more details than I did yesterday about my psychiatrist’s appointment on Tuesday. First, we decided to decrease my topiramate (Topamax) dose again to 25mg morning and 25mg evening, because the other 25mg I was taking in the evening was only giving me side effects and no positive effects. We also discussed my fear of letting go of my sense of control particularly in the evening and at night when getting ready for sleep. This means that traditional anti-anxiety medications or sleeping pills are pretty much out of the question for me, since they’d cause me to get drowsy and hence by definition lose a bit of control. Then, I’d fight the effect of those pills and get even more anxious. The psychiatrist instead prescribed me pregabalin (Lyrica). This, like topiramate, is originally an anticonvulsant, but it also works for anxiety. I would be starting with one 75mg tablet on Saturday early evening (around 5PM, when we have dinner here).

The psychiatrist also recommended that my nurse practitioner talk to the mental health agency’s psychologist to see if she can offer me ideas for coping with the anxiety. My nurse practitioner is also going to discuss this with my care facility’s behavior specialist.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, indeed, I started on my decreased topiramate dosage on Tuesday right away. I slept great my first night and originally thought maybe this was the solution after all. It wasn’t to be though, as the next day I was right back to being sleepless and anxious.

Then yesterday I was anxiously awaiting starting my pregabalin at 5PM only to find out first that the staff thought it was put in the med system for 8PM. Then, once they took a closer look, they found out the pharmacy had put it in there for 8AM and the morning staff had indeed given it to me. I’d apparently taken it without noticing. No side effects so far, but this really is quite stupid, as there’s a reason I should be taking it early in the evening. I E-mailed my nurse practitioner, who will hopefully get back to me tomorrow. By the way, I also noticed I got a capsule rather than a tablet. The dosage is right, thankfully.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, yesterday, I decided to order soft pastels to use with my polymer clay. They should be getting here any moment, as thanks to my Select membership with Bol.com, I can have stuff delivered for free any day of the week.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I asked about sealing my polymer clay creations if I’d used acrylic paint or soft pastels on them. I particularly commented that I don’t want to use resin for this, as it’s rather risky with the UV or fumes of the two-component epoxy. Thankfully, I was reassured that sealing isn’t really necessary and, if it is, I can use other products than resin, such as floorboard protector or liquid clay.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that, due to the high winds, my husband didn’t visit today. He didn’t want to risk driving on the highway in his small Daihatsu Cuore, particularly near Lobith, where they’d issued a weather warning. Better luck next week!

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 30, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m extremely late joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare this week. I already had all my coffee for the weekend, in fact, so the title of my blog post is rather off, but oh well. The linky’s still open for another nine hours, so I’m going to take advantage of it and participate. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start by sharing that the weather is slightly better than it was last week. It’s warmed up a bit, at least. That being said, we’re supposed to get rain all of next week, so I’m probably still not going out much.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that today is my father-in-law’s 65th birthday. Retirement age is now 67 here I believe, so it’s not significant in that sense. At least, my father-in-law is keeping his dentistry practice until he’s 67. My husband did buy him a beer and I sent him a text, but that’s as far as birthday celebrations go, I think.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been creating some quite interesting polymer clay things lately. One is a flower fairy, another a kawaii pig pendant and another a daisy. That daisy didn’t turn out as good as I’d like, but my husband did say he liked the fairy. I haven’t baked any of the things yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d use the rest of my post to whine about how my anxiety is still through the roof. I hardly slept at all Friday night. Then yesterday, I had an okay day until in the evening a fellow client started screeching. I tried to get the staff’s attention but they wouldn’t react until I grabbed the other client by the arm, then only told me that said client, who is non-speaking, couldn’t help her behavior. I’ve been feeling extremely unsettled and unsafe in my current care home ever since. I am all the more triggered because staff keep repeating that I’ll likely feel unsafe in any other place. They probably say it to mean every other place has its drawbacks too, but I take it to mean that my anxiety is my problem and I’m the one who needs to change so I just need to suck it up and stop complaining.

I’ve also been thinking about how I had fewer crises when living with my husband than now that I live in the care facility. Isn’t this telling? I mean, doesn’t this mean that I should get a kick in the butt and go back to living semi-independently? Granted, I had far fewer moments of joy too, but I’m not sure that matters if I was less dependent back then. Isn’t the goal independence, after all? Eek, that scares me, and that in turn should be quite telling, right? I’m probably just one giant mess of a dependent, manipulative, attention-seeking monster.

Okay, if we were having coffee, I’d end on a positive note and say I had a delicious tuna wrap today when going to the Subway drive-through for lunch with my husband. I also had one half of a Bueno candy bar, as my husband had bought it at the supermarket. I originally wanted to refuse as it isn’t on my food plan, but the dietitian had said exceptions are okay.

How have you been?

Share Four Somethings (January 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Can you believe it’s almost the end of January already? I can’t wait for this month to be over with, honestly. February can be depressing too, but not as depressing as January. At least then the weather may start to warm up a little. Let’s hope! Anyway, today I’m joining Share Four Somethings. I think I joined this link-up once before, but am hoping to make it a regular habit now that it’s a new format. Here goes.

Something Loved

Essential oils. Yay, my three new oils arrived today! Though I haven’t tried them out yet, I will certainly be doing so soon. One, lemon, isn’t really new, but I’d had to throw out the old bottle because it’d gone past its shelf life. This really should be a motivator to use my essential oils more often. The other two, spearmint and sweet marjoram, I haven’t used before.

Something Gleaned

Honestly, I had to Google the definition of “glean”, so I could say I gleaned the meaning of the word. I guess my English isn’t as good as I’d like to say it is.

Seriously though, I have been reading the Bible everyday since January 1. While 24 days isn’t my longest streak ever by far, I do find that the more I study God’s Word, the more I learn. My most recent realization came from the story about the Bible passage I mentioned yesterday. The pastor sharing the story about the passage said that “favor” in Psalms 30:5 could also be translated as “grace”. This, until then, I’d always seen as a decidedly New Testamental term. Then again, I now am beginning to see that the Bible isn’t really strictly divided between OT and NT, but it’s all one story leading to Jesus. To those of my readers who’ve been believers for longer than I have been, this may seem obvious. To me, it’s a big eye-opener.

Something Braved

Well, as regular readers of my blog will know, this month was quite hard. I’ve been dealing with a lot of anxiety and PTSD symptoms. Even though one of my medications, topiramate, which specifically works to combat trauma-related symptoms, was upped earlier this month, I’m not yet noticing the change. On the contrary, in fact, it looks like I’m doing a little worse. That is, I might be noticing a slight positive change over the past few days, but it’s so early on that it’s hard to know for sure and I’m not sure whether the change is positive compared to how I did on my old dosage too. I thankfully will have an extra appointment with my nurse practitioner on Thursday to discuss how things are going.

Something Achieved

Two somethings here, is that okay? First, I have been writing more frequently and more widely than I did before. I am really proud of myself for this, as it is actually one of only a few ways in which I’m still staying active lately. Due to my anxiety, after all, I’m struggling to try new things such as crafting or even to go for a walk. However, I do try out new writing techniques and that’s something at least.

The other achievement is my diet. I started on a healthier eating plan with the help of a dietitian early in the month. Not with the aim of losing weight, although it would be great if I could lose the 1.5kg I need to lose to no longer be obese. My main goal is to experience less inner conflict about eating, as I have a history of eating disorder symptoms. So far, I’m sticking to it pretty well. More importantly, the one day when I couldn’t fully stick to the plan, because we had Chinese takeout, I didn’t resort to eating disorder behaviors. That’s quite an accomplishment!

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 21, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this late Friday evening. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare, even though it’s a bit late for coffee here. I am going to grab a glass of water and some fruit in a bit, so if you’d like a soft drink or a glass of water too, you can have one. Let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d moan about the cold weather some more. Boy, do I hate winter! Several staff have been trying to coax me into going on walks because it was supposed to be sunny and nice outside. Then I’d invariably reply: “It’s 3°C outside too, brrr.” Usually, the air would become cloudier soon enough and we’d get rain.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, probably due to my lack of exercise, I didn’t lose weight over the past week even though I stuck to my healthy food plan pretty well. That is, I didn’t feel as though I was just eating carrots and lettuce all week, so maybe I accidentally sneaked in some extras I shouldn’t have had. For example, I am allowed 225ml of yogurt or 200ml of quark with some muesli for breakfast. On Wednesday, my staff poured half the 500ml can of quark into my bowl. Now quark contains only about 50 calories per 100ml, so that didn’t really make a huge difference on its own. However, given that I or my staff may’ve made other such slightly less healthy food choices over the week and I also hardly got my butt off the chair, this combined caused me to maintain. At least I didn’t gain any weight either.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I went to the dentist on Wednesday. Thankfully, other than slightly inflamed gums, everything was fine. I was pretty sure I’d be diagnosed with gum disease and have to be seen by the oral hygienist. Apparently not so. I was sent on my way with instructions for better teeth-brushing and flossing and an appt with the prevention assistant in February.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I texted with my sister this evening. I can’t remember whether I shared before that she’s pregnant again. She’s expecting another girl in May. So far, all seems to be going as it should be. My (other) niece (other than the bump, I mean) is doing okay too. I mentioned in August that she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. After surgery in September and a cast for several months, she’s now doing pretty well again.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that my husband is off work with the flu. He tested negative for COVID, but thankfully he wasn’t so crazy as to go back into work as soon as he got the negative test result. Back in early 2020, before COVID was known outside of China, he did go to work as a truck driver while sick with the flu. I am glad he doesn’t have COVID, of course, but regardless I’m hoping he’ll feel better soon.

How have you been?

Moaning About My Meds

Posted on by Astrid

It’s 8:30PM and I’m probably going to bed before 10PM tonight. Since upping my topiramate (Topamax) a week ago, I’ve been more sleepy earlier at night and consequently going to bed sometimes by as early as 9PM or even earlier. Unfortunately, the quality of my sleep doesn’t seem to be better.

Last night, I had a horrible dream in which my staff were chattering among themselves and all the while I was trying to get their attention because I was anxious, but to no avail. That’s how I’ve been feeling ever since upping my medication: I am still anxious, but too drowsy to react to it. In fact, I’m not even 100% sure my experience last night was completely in my dreams, because, when I awoke, I couldn’t get to the level of alertness necessary to press the call button.

I don’t really mind the drowsiness as much. Or the tingling in my fingers and toes, which I’ve started to experience since increasing my topiramate dosage too. But the medication does have to work for my hypervigilance. And hypervigilance is not just an outer reactivity, or is it?

My assigned home staff did say yesterday that she judges from the staff’s reporting that I’m calmer, because I come calling out for help less at the times I’m not having my one-on-one. That comment triggered me intensely, because it made me think I’m supposed to take my topiramate so that I don’t ask for help outside of my assigned support hours. I’m reminded of my psychiatrist’s comment about meds as a “chemical nurse” again, something I now don’t see as quite as validating a statement.

This evening, I did E-mail my nurse practitioner my concerns. Of course, the topiramate’s positive effects might still need time to kick in, but if they don’t, I’d rather go back to my old dose. Which, of course, means we will need to find me a different PRN medication or something for when I go into crisis. It also means we’ll need to postpone my aripiprazole (Abilify) taper. Honestly though, I don’t really care about those.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 14, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Friday afternoon. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had a glass of water and am going to have another one in half an hour or so. Maybe I’m going to ask for a Senseo or treat myself to a Dubbelfrisss, my favorite soft drink. I’m afraid we don’t have the diet variety though. Can I pour you a drink? Let’s have a cup of something and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d share that it’s not as cold as it was last week, but it’s still too cold for my liking. Daytime temps rose to about 7°C most of this week. I did go on one longer walk yesterday, to the supermarket to buy a card for my father. He’ll celebrate his 73rd birthday tomorrow. We also bought some veggies. Oh, and a croissant, because I felt like treating myself. I had just one for lunch instead of bread though. I just looked up how many calories are in one croissant and that’s about as much as in two slices of bread without toppings. Of course, bread contains less fat and sugar and more fiber, but so what?

If we were having coffee, I would go on to share about my dietitian’s appt this morning. It went pretty well. She didn’t admonish me for not wanting to lose the 13kg I need to lose to be at a healthy BMI. I do want to lose the 1.5kg I need to lose to no longer be obese though. More importantly, I want to eat relatively healthily and hopefully quiet the inner conflict about food.

The dietitian gave me some recommendations for healthy meal choices for breakfast and lunch. For example, she said I can have salad for lunch with croutons and a little chicken, tuna or salmon (that last one I don’t really like) occasionally rather than bread. I do need to make sure the staff take care of portion sizes, of course, because I’m pretty sure they’d otherwise throw the entire can of tuna into my salad. For breakfast, I am still allowed yoghurt with muesli, just not the crunchy kind. And thankfully, the muesli doesn’t need to be plain, it can include nuts or raisins or the like.

I did share my disappointment with her at only having lost 0.5kg over the past week when I stepped on the scale yesterday. The dietitian said that this is a pretty great result though.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you I got my benefits payment slip last Monday and am grateful to report I will still get enough money that I can still spend some on fun things like polymer clay supplies or the like. I don’t know whether I shared this in my coffee share posts before, but my long-term care copay will automatically be withheld from my benefits. The copay is income-dependent and, because I’m married, my husband’s income is counted too. Then again, because I’m married, I do get to pay the so-called “low” copay because the government does take into account the responsibility I have for contributing to his household expenses too.

The copay is calculated based on our combined income from two years back, so 2020 for this year. Because my husband earned more money in 2020 than in 2019 and had a lot of tax deductibles in 2019, I was expecting a higher copay by at least €100 a month, but fearing it might be as much as €200 a month. Then again, I was hoping my benefits would also be raised a little. Long story short, my net income was cut by €82 a month. That’s a lot. I realize some people won’t be able to handle this, particularly people on benefits. I am so intensely grateful that I am relatively well off.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 7, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Friday of January, 2022. Today, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’m right between my dinner and my evening coffee, but if you’d like a drink, I’m sure my staff can make you a Senseo or a cup of tea, pour you a glass of juice or offer you a soft drink. Let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start off by saying that the weather is all over the place right now. Sometimes, it’s raining or even snowing, while at other times, the sun is shining. It’s too cold for a walk though, so I’ve stayed indoors all day and most of the week. Last night, despite the heating being on and all windows being closed, I was feeling quite cold. Okay, I can feel cold in the middle of summer sometimes. That’s just me, I guess.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share about my new food plan. Like I shared before, my hope is to get to a healthier, less stress-inducing diet this year. The dietitian got back to my staff on Tuesday with a healthy food plan. It’s a standard basic food plan I’m sure, as for instance it allowed for an artificial sweetener in my coffee even though I’ve been drinking my coffee black for years.

I have been trying to stick to the food plan ever since. On Wednesday, I did have my crunchy muesli for breakfast, because my staff had already prepared it. Oh, I said this was something I wasn’t willing to give up, but I’m trying after all. Yesterday and today, I had two slices of bread with jam on them.

So far, it’s going okay, but I do find that I’m struggling to eat a variety of foods, as out of the healthy food choices, I only like a few things. Today, as an alternative to the bread with jam for lunch, I tried a toasted cheese and bell pepper sandwich. After all, the dietitian said that toasted sandwiches are a healthy choice as long as you don’t load them with more than one slice of cheese, ham or the like. You can, however, add veggies to taste.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, speaking of the food plan, I do look forward to getting chips this evening. I am so happy I am still allowed these on weekends.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I haven’t been too inspired on the crafty front lately. On Wednesday though, I did create a polymer clay dolphin charm. I used the Fimo soft color blue ice quartz for the body of the dolphin, white for its belly and black for its eyes.

Polymer Clay Dolphin Charm

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that I did do a fair bit of reading lately. I started the latest Maggie Hartley foster care memoir, which came out as an eBook yesterday, right then. I’m now at 54% already. It doesn’t look like I’m going to finish any of the other books still on my currently-reading shelf on Goodreads though, but that’s okay.

How have you been?