Gratitude List (April 23, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this sunny but windy Saturday afternoon. I’m writing a gratitude post once again. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful. Here are the things I’ve been grateful for lately.

1. I am grateful for some lovely colors I’ve been able to mix with the Fimo Professional true colors pack I got from my staff last week. I so far mixed a purplish red, a beautiful green and of course the sky blue I already may’ve posted about last week.

2. I am grateful for Chinese takeout food. We went to get Chinese food last Monday. Originally, I’d gotten a little upset about it, because the staff generally default to satay with noodles. However, I talked it over with my assigned staff and we decided to order chicken with pineapple and sweet and sour sauce too. One of my fellow clients was completely delighted.

3. I am grateful for a text conversation with my sister. She’s still doing well with her pregnancy (she’s nearly 37 weeks along), for which I’m grateful too.

4. I am grateful for the support from my staff. I’ve had a rough couple of days this week, but my staff pulled me through.

5. I am grateful I was able to go on the elliptical for the first time in a long while this week. I went on it for only five minutes or so, but that’s the way to get started.

6. I am grateful I am sometimes able to go for slightly longer walks than just a walk around the day center and for several walks during the day now too.

7. I am grateful I did better than expected at my physical therapy this week.

8. I am grateful my husband is supportive of me even when I’m struggling. I am grateful that my husband is trying to help me come up with solutions to the obstacles I face in life.

9. I am grateful I was able to show a temp staff worker and the intern my polymer clay collection yesterday.

10. I am grateful for soothing playlists of nature sounds and instrumental music on Spotify.

11. I am grateful for sunshine. Despite the fact that it’s chilly and windy, I like it that it’s quite sunny.

12. I am grateful that, despite Easter and all the “bad” food I had over the past couple of weeks, I’m still just plain overweight rather than obese. I am actually at the same weight I was two weeks ago. This is not an excuse to continue having “bad” treats, of course.

That was a better gratitude list than I expected. I initially struggled to get to ten and now I got to twelve, which should be another reason to be grateful, yay!

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (April 16, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this Saturday before Easter Sunday. I have no idea whether English-speaking people have a word for this Saturday. In Dutch, it’s called “silent Saturday”. I’m having a relatively good day. I thought I’d do a gratitude post once again. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for physical therapy. The physical therapist came by twice this week. Once for my back, which had been planned already. The second time, she came by for bad pain in my right calf. It had been going on for a few days, so really I could’ve told her the first time, but it wasn’t so bad then. Thankfully, after some massaging and a bit of exercising, the pain is almost completely gone now.

2. I am grateful for a good nurse practitioner’s appt on Monday. It was really validating.

3. I am grateful for some distractions from anxiety in the form of polymer clay color mixing. I created some really cool colors.

4. I am grateful my day activities staff ordered the true colors six-pack of Fimo Professional polymer clay, which includes a color mixing chart, as well as large packs of white, Indian red and brilliant blue Fimo Soft polymer clay. (With white, Indian red, brilliant blue and sunflower yellow, which I already had, you can create the colors from the recipes I bought.) The best part is, the day center actually pays for it!

5. I am grateful the Fimo Professional isn’t as crumbly as it was when I last used it. It was actually a bit on the soft side, but still useable.

6. I am grateful for a good Easter lunch yesterday (or should I say Good Friday lunch then?) at the day center.

7. I am grateful for sunshine today and most of the week. Only yesterday was a bit of a cold and cloudy day.

8. I am grateful my computer accepts USB sticks and external hard drives again for now. It for a long while would crash when I fed it a USB stick or hard drive through the USB port. Now, I was able to put both my external hard drive and a USB stick into the USB port without problems. Unfortunately, my wedding pictures aren’t on my external hard drive, like I’d hoped, but I was able to locate some old documents and transfer them into my OneDrive.

9. I am grateful for renewed energy. I decided to have a nap this afternoon and feel so refreshed.

10. I am grateful I won’t be kicked out of the care facility. I’m horribly scared of this again after some recent events, but my staff reassured me.

11. Bonus thankful: I am so grateful for Jesus! It is Easter tomorrow, so I can’t leave this post without mentioning Christ.

What are you grateful for?

Happiest When…: My Creativity-Related Happy List #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter H post in the #AtoZChallenge. Sorry for my being late to post. I am also a bit tired, because I had a rather intense day, so I may not elaborate as much as I normally would. For my letter H post, I once again looked to The Year of You for Creatives. One of the prompts asked us to complete the following sentence ten times: “I am happiest when I…” I decided to tweak it to: “I feel happiest when…” Of course, I am going to answer this with things related to my creativity. In my letter E post, I shared general things that give me joy about my creative work. Today, I am going to try to be more specific. I am going to try to list some things about my crafting as well as my writing. I am aiming for ten things, but if I can think of more, I won’t stop there.

1. I feel happiest when I am watching a YouTube video of a polymer clay tutorial that I think I’ll be able to follow. I have a few favorite YouTubers who provide good voiceover and/or easy-to-follow tutorials.

2. I feel happiest when I find I’m almost perfect at something after a lot of practice, such as doing the twisted mane of a unicorn.

3. I feel happiest when a difficult polymer clay project comes out of the oven better than expected.

4. I feel happiest when online window shopping for new supplies for my crafts, even if I don’t end up buying anything. I feel particularly happy when I find new shops. I recently discovered Etsy. Though I haven’t ordered physical products there because of shipping and possibly customs clearance costs, I did order some digital products there.

5. I feel happiest when I’ve decided on the perfect colors (whether they are based on a color mixing recipe or not) for a project.

6. I feel happiest when a color I’m mixing comes out of the pasta machine blending process exactly as it should.

7. I feel happiest when finally, after a lot of work, a polymer clay slab comes out of the pasta machine without air bubbles or other imperfections.

8. I feel happiest when I’ve been able to take a good photo mostly by myself rather than someone else basically snapping it for me.

9. I feel happiest when I get nice comments on Facebook when sharing my creative projects.

10. I feel happiest when I get a lot of nice comments on a blog post I’m also content about.

11. I feel happiest when showing my staff my new creations or ideas, be it my new folder of color mixing recipes, my latest polymer clay creation or a YouTube video I’d discovered and want to base a new project on.

12. I feel happiest when I can make someone else smile by giving them a handmade gift. Last Monday, I gave a fellow client at the day center a handmade necklace and matching bracelet. Granted, I’d created them a while ago and they weren’t my style, which is why I wanted to get rid of them, but she was over the moon about them.

What makes you feel happiest, creativity-related or otherwise?

Gratitude List (April 1, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I really want to write another blog post tonight. Specifically, I want to write a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful. Let me share those things I’ve been grateful for in the past week.

1. A good appt with the behavior specialist. Behavior specialists, actually, as the one I used to see was a temp and she was introducing me to the new one. We had a good talk.

2. The best Asian food ever gone even better. Read: spicier. Like I said last week, a staff was leaving, the same staff who got me the best Asian food ever a few weeks ago. As a goodbye present to me, she promised me another serving of the food. This time though, she got a “mildly spicy” version. Well, according to the Indonesian cooks, at least. It was amazing, but I did get a slight stomachache from it afterwards.

3. Inspiration to write again. I’m now on a six-day streak on my blog and have picked up writing in my diary app, Day One, too.

4. Great blog stats and engagement. Okay, I feel as though the majority of the page views I got on the day I got nearly 300 this past week, were probably bots, but oh well. I am also getting lots of engagement, which is awesome.

5. Paracetamol. I have been having some back pain lately, but thankfully, it responds well to paracetamol.

6. The new iOS version. It actually finally solved the major Braille-related bug that had been in existence for literally months.

7. My new headphones. I finally decided to order new noise canceling headphones and decided to go for the Bose QuietComfort 45 ones. At first, I was a little disappointed, because the manual said they could be used with an audio cable while on (so that I can use noise canceling). Apparently not. However, other than that and the fact that its spoken announcements are in English only, it’s quite good.

8. The fact that I’m still overweight rather than obese despite a lot of “cheat” meals and treats over the past week. In fact, I only gained 0.1kg.

9. The fact that it wasn’t raining or snowing when I went to the day center this afternoon (it had been snowing and raining a lot during the rest of the day). Plus the fact that, even though the daytime temperature didn’t get above 4°C today, it didn’t even feel all that cold thanks to my winter coat.

10. The fact that a fellow client made me laugh with his April Fools joke this evening. The staff did check whether I was okay with a little prank and I said I was. In the end, I didn’t really understand the prank, but we both laughed at the verbal joke about April Fools that went along with it.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (March 25, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s the last weekend of March. I didn’t realize it until I read it in this week’s Ten Things of Thankful. Yay, I’m joining in again with a gratitude post! Here goes.

1. I am grateful for daylight until nearly 7PM in the evening. Make that 8PM come this Sunday, as we’re entering daylight saving time. Yay!

2. I am grateful for a field of daisies near the day center. I am grateful I was able to take a few photos of them and I didn’t fall over when sitting on my knees to snap the pics.

Daisy

3. I am grateful I didn’t lose interest in polymer clay altogether. I made a unicorn again today and thoroughly enjoyed it. I also worked on another, larger polymer clay project yesterday.

4. I am grateful the weather permitted me to go outside without a jacket on several days this week.

5. I am grateful for a delicious microwave omelette on Wednesday. I didn’t use cooking oil or butter to microwave the egg, so according to the dietitian, it’s as healthy as a boild egg. I also added chopped onion and bell pepper.

Microwave Omelette

6. I am grateful for birdsong. I got awoken by a bird at 6AM several mornings this week. Though I wasn’t particularly thrilled about that, I do appreciate the sound of birds singing in general.

7. I am grateful it was pay day on Wednesday. I had a whole list of things I wanted to buy in my mind that I had told myself to wait for until pay day at least. So far, I’ve only ordered one thing off the list and that’s something I’ll need for a staff’s birthday next week. Sadly, I haven’t received it yet and have no way of tracking it down.

8. I am grateful I was able to get through a few intense days full of emotional, visual and bodily flashbacks thanks to the support of some trusted staff. I am grateful these few staff are still there and, though no-one can predict the future, they don’t intend on leaving.

9. I am grateful for my PRN quetiapine. It helped me calm down on Tuesday, when I was having a particularly rough evening.

10. I am grateful for my journaling app, Day One. I picked it up again and finally figured out how to use tags properly in it. I also transferred a template from Diarium, the other journaling app I’d been using. One of the good points of Diarium is that it has its templates available in other languages than English, but other than that, I think I prefer Day One after all. I am really hoping I can make journaling a habit again.

What have you been grateful for?

Things That Made Me Smile (March 14, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m joining the Weekly Smile today. I don’t promise this will be a weekly feature, of course, but the hashtag is #WeeklySmile. I could really use a bit of cheer today, so I’m going to share some little things that gave me joy lately. Hopefully writing about them will make me smile now too.

First up are flowers once again. Last Thursday as well as yesterday, I went for a walk and took some pictures of flowers I came across on my way. The below picture is of an anemone we came across yesterday. We initially called it a giant crocus, but I found out it’s an anemone by running the picture through some plant identification apps.

That’s my second little joy: I just love learning about all sorts of different plants and running my pictures through identification apps. I haven’t yet found the perfect plant identification app after having tried out several, but that’s okay.

Finally, a thing that’s been making me smile for days: discovering an app that will allow me (with some help) to make collages and mosaics with my photos. The app is called PhotoGrid and, though some parts of the app are free, I decided to try out the premium membership right away and didn’t cancel when my trial period (which admittedly is only three days) was over. The below collage, my staff and I made with most of the photos we’d taken while going for a walk on Thursday. I’m linking this post to Mosaic Monday. Hope I did it right.

One of my staff later suggested I use this collage as my cover photo on Facebook, so I did. I had never had a cover photo before.

It may seem weird that I, being blind, like photography. However, with the image description tools, including now the plant identification apps, on my phone, I think it’s a great way of getting acquainted with my surroundings.

Gratitude List (February 27, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I’m late posting a gratitude list this week, but better late than never, so here goes. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful.

1. I am grateful my seven fellow clients who had COVID, are all symptom-free now.

2. I am grateful the two others stayed negative.

3. I am grateful that, even though I’m not 100% symptom-free yet, I am not very sick with the virus either.

4. I am grateful for more licorice. A staff brought me some salmiac licorice this afternoon. I wouldn’t normally buy it for myself, but I did enjoy it this time.

5. I am grateful for raspberries. The same staff also brought me some of those. I am also grateful for other fruit, such as grapes and bananas.

6. I am grateful I have been able to indeed allow myself some much-needed rest over the weekend.

7. I am grateful I found an essential oil blend with sweet marjoram in it that I actually like. I’d used it in two other blends that I hated, but in both of those, I’d also used Roman chamomile. I don’t normally mind that – it’s not a favorite scent either, but it’s not disgusting -, but the combination was truly terrible.

8. I am grateful my music pillow still works after I got its cord stuck between the caster wheels of my chair. I was a bit scared I might damage my phone if I plugged the cord with possible invisible damage into it, but then I realized it isn’t connected to a power source.

9. I am grateful I didn’t gain any weight while snacking on lots of treats over the past couple of days. In fact, I lost about 0.5kg.

10. I am grateful for green tea. And for staff willing to bring me hot water early in the morning before my one-on-one comes on so that I can make the green tea. I do realize it costs them more time to put on their protective clothing etc., so I try not to request help outside of my assigned one-on-one support, but when I wake up at 7AM, it’s just too hard to wait till 8:30AM.

11. Bonus thankful: I am so intensely grateful to live in the Netherlands. I am not a political blogger and refuse to discuss world news really. Quite honestly, it scares me. However, I am so thankful that I live in a free and safe country.

What are you thankful for?

Gratitude List (February 18, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all again. I am feeling in the mood for a gratitude post. It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily feeling upbeat – not too downcast either, thankfully. Oh wait, I hadn’t started my gratitude list yet. I’m just inspired to write one. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I am grateful I’m negative for COVID so far. The virus finally reached my care home, as several clients tested positive yesterday. Thankfully though, my lateral flow test was negative yesterday and I’m not having symptoms suggestive of COVID at this point.

2. I am grateful for a great essential oil blend in my diffuser right now. I put lemon, tangerine, orange and spearmint in it and it smells truly delicious.

3. I am grateful for a good nurse practitioner’s appt yesterday. I was still allowed to leave the home yesterday to go to my appointment and it was really productive. My nurse practitioner validated my experience of dissociation and we were able to talk some about my anxiety too. We will discuss my flashbacks separately later.

4. I am grateful to be indoors. It’s storming outside and I’m so happy I don’t have to leave the home. Not that I’m allowed to now that the official positive PCR test results are in for my fellow clients, but oh well.

5. I am grateful for relatively cheap quark. I usually have that with my muesli for breakfast now, but yesterday used up the last few spoonfuls. However, a staff offered to buy new quark at her local supermarket. She got 1kg for €1,28. At the supermarket my care facility order from, they only have the 500g cans for €1,09. Not that I personally have to pay for my quark, but I don’t want the facility to have to pay €1,09 on a can I cannot even get three breakfasts out of.

6. I am grateful to have been able to be very crafty lately. I think I already mentioned creating the polymer clay narwhal last week. This week, I created another couple of things. Can you guess what this is supposed to be? About half my staff guessed it correctly and the others didn’t.

7. I am grateful for bananas, plums and grapes. Somehow, the staff had forgotten to order bananas last week, but thankfully, the care home next to mine was able to give us two on Wednesday. Yum! Then on my way home from my nurse practitioner’s appt yesterday, we stopped by the supermarket for some more fruit. We got plums and grapes. The plums were surprisingly sweet.

8. I am grateful for free audiobooks. Or one free audiobook, at least. I haven’t started listening to it yet, but the first book in one of Blake Pierce’s series is free even as an audiobook. I loved reading the first book in the Riley Paige Mystery series, even though I haven’t read any of his other books. This is the first installment in another series. Free stuff is always great and, now that iOS is giving me a headache working with my Braille display, I’d love to give audiobooks a try.

9. I am grateful for peach yogurt. It is the only type of fruit yogurt I really like and I’m so grateful we’ve been having it all week.

10. I am grateful to be alive. After writing my poem this afternoon, I’d just like to say this.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (February 12, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi again all. I want to post a gratitude list again. Actually, I sort of did one yesterday too by sharing the material things I’d loved. Then though, Ten Things of Thankful was not yet online (or rather, the wrong linky was). Since I like to link my posts up there, I waited till today to write my actual gratitude list. Oh wait, that makes me look spammy, I guess, but oh well. Let me share some things other than chalk pastels and tuna I’ve been grateful for.

1. Seeing my husband. I am in Lobith right now and am so grateful to be with my husband again. I couldn’t see him last week due to the storm and haven’t been in Lobith since Christmas, so it’s especially good.

2. Pizza. Oh, that’s a material thing, but who cares? We ordered Domino’s this evening and, despite the fact that their menu has shifted to include more vegan and gluten-free options and fewer regular pizzas, my pizza (spicy chicken meat lover’s with extra chicken) was delicious! I initially typed a long rant about how Domino’s has gone too far with their “healthy” trendiness by doing the vegan and GF (which I doubt is genuinely 100% GF) thing at the expense of meat lovers, but I deleted it. I’m just grateful they still had at least something spiced with chicken.

3. My husban’ds Valentine’s Day present for me. I got 2 sets of polymer clay: one with 12 25g blocks of Fimo soft and the other with 6 42g blocks Fimo kids. I haven’t used Fimo kids before, so have to determine whether it’s not too soft for my liking.

4. Decent sleep most nights. Either the pregabalin is starting to work (although I haven’t noticed an improvement in my anxiety level yet) or I am for another reason better able to sleep. I had only one bad night this past week.

5. Eggs. Until a few months ago, a former staff from my care home and her husband would give us a tray of eggs from their own chickens each week. Sadly, the husband died and the chickens had to leave their house, which meant no more eggs for us. However, usually, we now order eggs from the supermarket. I recently found out we now even have an electric, talking egg boiler. Well, I had a boiled egg on my bread this morning.

6. Sunshine. It’s cold outside. Okay, I say that all the time, but the temperatures dropped to below freezing point last night. However, it’s also been quite sunny out. I love looking out of my window to see the sunshine.

7. Longer daylight. This may be related to the last one, but not necessarily so. I love the fact that the days are getting longer. As my husband said, we’re heading towards summer! 🤣

8. Weight loss. I already mentioned this afternoon that I crossed the line from obese to just overweight this week. My dietitian says the Dutch Food Center doesn’t even say you really need to lose weight if you’re in this category.

9. My shoes having returned from the orthopedic shoemaker. Not the orthopedic footwear, mind you. That’s the never-ending story if you ask me. However, for now, I have useable shoes again.

10. My PC. I am so grateful my PC still works. My iPhone, after all, more or less stopped cooperating with my Braille display altogether with the latest iOS upgrade, which should actually have fixed the very problem it now seems to have made worse. Thankfully though, I have a functioning PC with the latest JAWS (my screen reader), on which I can do most things I want to do. I just tried accessing the WordPress.com app to check my notifications, but for some reason, that won’t work still. I’m just grateful I can write E-mails and blog posts on my PC.

What are you grateful for?

Lovin’ Lately (February 11, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this cold Friday evening. It’s near freezing point here, but it’s also been sunny out today. Today, I’m going to share some things I’ve loved lately. Here goes.

1. Chalk pastels. I really wanted to buy these at Action (the budget store) last week when going there with my staff, but they didn’t have them. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have been good quality either, so I eventually decided to buy a set of 36 chalk pastels off Bol.com. The below heart, I did with polymer clay and colored with red and purple chalk pastels.

2. Paint brushes. I did get those at Action and they’re pretty good. I can use them for applying acrylic paint (which I also bought), Fimo liquid, varnish, etc. to my polymer clay.

3. New colors of polymer clay. I ordered five packets of polymer clay at my favorite Fimo shop, three of which I already had a little of. The new-to-me colors were Chocolate and Jade. I particularly think I love the color Jade. Of course, being that I am totally blind now, I may remember the color all wrong from the days I owned a piece of jade and the color of polymer clay may not look like the gemstone at all. However, I like to let my imagination run wild.

4. Tuna. Last week, my husband couldn’t visit me due to the storm. This meant we wouldn’t be going to Subway to get lunch either. To give me something to make up for it, my assigned staff ordered canned tuna from the supermarket to be delivered on Tuesday. I ate half the can on my bread on Wednesday and the other half on Thursday. At first, I thought I was going way overboard with my food plan, but the dietitian today reassured me that I wasn’t especially since it was tuna in water, not olive oil or the like.

5. Quick and hassle-free delivery of all my recent orders. I ordered the chalk pastels on Saturday and, thanks to being a Select member to Bol.com, got free next-day delivery, including on Sundays. I ordered the polymer clays on Monday late afternoon and received them Tuesday. I also ordered a varnish for my polymer clay with a new-to-me store, which also delivered the next day.

One thing I’m still waiting for, is a CD I ordered for my father’s birthday back last month. It had to come out of the UK and I just got confirmation yesterday that it’d arrived in the Netherlands, but I had to pay a customs clearance fee. Thankfully, the process of paying this fee was very doable via the postal service website.

What are some things you’ve loved lately?

I’m linking up with Link-Up on the Edge #282.