Would You Rather (Fashion Edition)

Posted on by Astrid

Last week, Anjali of Chasing the Maximum Life created a meme or something like it. In it, she asks a number of Would You Rather questions about fashion. I am not at all a fashionista, but this may in fact be one reason I choose to answer her questions. I mean, it’s good to hear from trendy folk, but also from the ordinary woman who is pretty careless about fashion. Here goes.

1. Wear the Same Outfit Every Day OR Only Be Allowed to Wear Neutrals for Life?
I wouldn’t mind either, unless of course wearing the same outfit everyday would mean the same exact set of clothes. I mean, I’m not very good with personal care, but I do try to make sure I wear clean clothes at least in the morning. That being said, for the sake of fitting in, I’m going with only be allowed to wear neutrals for life.

2. Be Underdressed for An Event OR Be Overdressed for An Event?
Overdressed. I don’t usually like revealing clothes at all.

3. Have an Unlimited Supply of The Perfect White T-Shirts OR Have an Unlimited Supply of The Perfect Little Black Dresses?
Obviously black dresses. I just can’t see myself wearing white, because it shows stains so incredibly easily.

4. Only Be Able to Wear Futuristic Clothing OR Only Be Able to Wear an Old-Timey Clothing?
I honestly have no idea what is considered futuristic, so I’m going with old-timey clothing.

5. Have A Closet Filled Only with Prints and Bright Colours OR Have A Closet Filled Only with Black Clothes?
Black! As much as I love the few colorful clothes I own, I can’t imagine myself wearing those all the time. In fact, as a teen, I copied one of my favorite teen fiction characters’ habit of wearing only black. I no longer do that and have said that I’d like some more colorful clothes, but if I have to choose, I’ll still go for black.

6. Wear Leather Jackets for The Rest of Your Life OR Wear Denim Jackets for The Rest of Your Life?
Denim jackets. I love the look of good leather, but I cannot see myself wearing that for the rest of my life. Besides, I think it’s way too sweaty.

7. Wear Chanel Or Louis Vuitton?
Chanel. Not that I know either, but I keep getting LV junk mail and don’t want to risk my money if I confuse a scam for the real thing.

8. Wear Only Dresses OR Only Coordinating Suits to All Formal Events?
Dresses. I’ve never worn a coordinating suit.

9. Wear Heels That Are Ugly and Old but Super Comfortable OR Wear Gorgeous Heels That Everyone Loves but Torture Your Feet and Give You Blisters?
Ugly but comfy. I told you, I’m not a fashionista at all. In fact, give me shoes without heels anytime. I get foot pain wearing even the most comfortable of shoes and would fall over if I had to wear any type of even moderately-high heels.

10. Shop More and Pay Less OR Shop Less and Live More!
Shop less and live more. I don’t like clothes shopping as it is.

These were the questions. I’d love to hear your opinion on them.

The Lockdown Tag

Posted on by Astrid

I don’t think anyone specifically tagged me for this tag, but I saw it on a number of other blogs. The idea is to answer a number of questions about life in lockdown. We just went into “partial lockdown” again, or really are going tonight, but the prime minister delivered the news yesterday evening. I think it’s about time I write about life in lockdown again.

1. Overall, how are you handling the quarantine?
I’m hanging in there. Now that at least some restrictions have been going on for over half a year, I’m coping less well than at the beginning of the lockdown.

2. Have you violated any of the restrictions? If yes, what rule(s) did you break?
Honestly, yes. When the no-visitors policy in care homes was lifted last May, we were expected to still keep our distance from visitors and avoid physical contact. Well, I did at first try, but I just couldn’t resist hugging my husband.

3. What viral recipes have you tried during the lockdown?
I didn’t even know that this is a thing. I haven’t really tried any new recipes, honestly.

4. What activities have you missed the most during quarantine?
At first, of course, I missed seeing my husband altogether, as it wasn’t allowed at all. Now that we’re allowed visitors again, I miss going places, like restaurants, with my husband. Restaurants are closed again for two weeks at least from tonight on, but even when they were still open, I wouldn’t take the risk.

5. Do you wear a mask when you leave the house?
Uhm, no. I don’t travel by public transportation at all or go to public places much. Until yesterday’s press conference, the government didn’t want to mandate mask-wearing except on public transportation, but only “strongly advised” it in public places like stores. As of tonight, a mask will be required in all public places and also outside of classes in secondary and tertiary education. It’s not required when going for walks outdoors. I do think that, when my mother-in-law visits tomorrow, I’m going to wear a mask to protect her, as she’s generally very careful and I’m not.

6. Are you an essential worker? If yes, what is your job title?
No. I don’t work. Thankfully, my staff are classed as essential workers and we didn’t get holiday or weekend staffing levels so far, which I was worried about at first.

7. How do you exercise during the lockdown?
I go for walks, go on the elliptical, do weight training and yoga. Basically, all my usual exercise activities. I was on the waiting list to go swimming before lockdown and had considerd going to a gym too. Swimming was canceled here at the facility and, though gyms are still open, I don’t want to take the risk.

8. Have you subscribed to any new subscription services since the lockdown started?
No. I did briefly restart my Netflix subscription, but canceled it again after a month. I much prefer reading to watching.

9. What did/does your daily schedule look like before the pandemic started?
I’m assuming the question is meant to ask how our schedules differ now that we’re in lockdown, because of course the pandemic is raging so there’s no present tense “does” before the pandemic. Anyway, before the pandemic I would go to the day center at around 9:30AM and stay there until 4PM. Now that we’re provided day activities in the home, I usually don’t start them until 10AM at least. I also take more breaks than I used to. I much prefer the current arrangement.

10. Do you think that the pandemic is getting better or worse?
Worse. It’s all pretty awful. I really hope they’ll find a vaccine soon.

11. What have you learnt/became grateful for during the lockdown?
I’ve become more appreciative in general. For example, I’m grateful for my health, my ability to still go outside for walks, being able to see my husband… lots of things!

12. How do you think the world should learn from this pandemic so that things are better in the future?
I think in general people have learned to be more health conscious. Other than that, I don’t think the pandemic taught us any big lesson or whatever. Of course, I could get all fluffy about people possibly being kinder and more grateful towards each other and the planet, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

I’m not tagging anyone, but if you want to do this tag, feel free to.

Friendly Fill-Ins Week #218

Posted on by Astrid

I have a lot I want to write about, but I cannot quite put fingers to keyboard and actually write. I checked out some other blogs to get me motivated and stumbled upon the Friendly Fill-Ins for this week. They are fun, so I thought I’d join in. Here are the questions.


  1. I had ___________ for _____________.

  2. I ________________ surprises.

  3. _________ is my idea of fun.

  4. If I were a food, I would be _________.

1. I had French fries and snacks for dinner today. One of the staff who’d be working the evening shift today, had noticed there were still fries and snacks in the freezer, so she proposed to the other staff we fry them today. We also had ice cream for dessert and I had one of my favorite cookies with my evening coffee.

2. I hate surprises. Unless it’s pizza at my favorite pizza chain or something like that.

3. Reading is my idea of fun. I really love it.

4. If I were a food, I would be Brussels sprouts. Small, round and slightly bitter. Of course I’d be multiple sprouts.

What about you?

Real Neat Blog Award

Posted on by Astrid

This Thursday, I was tagged for the Real Neat Blog Award by Emilia of My Inner MishMash. Thanks so much!

Here are the questions Emilia asked her nominees.

1. What’s your eye colour? Do you like it or would you change it if you could?
My eye color is a kind of weird blue-green-grey mix. I guess I like it, though I’ve never had enough vision to actually see it. I had a cataract on my left eye for many years before getting it removed in 2013. The eye surgeon told my husband that, even if it didn’t have any positive effect on my vision, it was good for my appearance that it was gone.

2. Have you had a good relationship with your parents?
Well, uhm, it’s complicated. As a child, I thought my life was pretty normal, but as I grew up, I realized my relationship with my parents really wasn’t as it should have been.

3. If you had to rename yourself, what would your name be?
Uhm, I guess it depends on who’s fronting. Like, each of us alters would like our own name.

4. Do you like to daydream? If so, does your dream world look in any specific way that you are able to describe?
We love to daydream. We don’t have an extensive inner world though, or it changes depending on our needs. Like, Milou created an inside beach and we often like to retreat there.

5. If you feel very hungry, what is your go-to meal?
Anything. I really can eat anything I normally like when very hungry. That being said, when I’m hungry, I do get more irritated than usual if the food delivery company has served me a meal I normally don’t like.

6. What is your favourite instrument or one that you would like to learn to play?
Guitar. I took a few guitar lessons when on a summer camp in Russia in 2000, but the instructor spoke only Russian and English and I spoke only Dutch and a tiny bit of English. It wasn’t a success.

7. What types of blogs/blog posts do you most enjoy reading?
Really anything authentic. In other words, I don’t care much for sponsored posts or the like, but anything that’s written from the heart, I’ll read.

8. Do you like to sing?
No.

9. What is the best way for you to recharge after an exhausting day, whether physically or mentally?
That would have to be retreat into my bed with calming music on and a scent I love in my essential oil diffuser.

10. If you were a founder of a charity, whom/what would it work for?
It would be an organization advocating for people with complex care needs or multiple disabilities.

Here are my nominees.


And anyone else reading this post.

My question sfor my nominees are.


  1. What song best describes your personality?

  2. Have you ever studied personality typology? If so, what is your type (MBTI, enneagram, etc.)?

  3. What is the farthest place from your home you’ve traveled to?

  4. What is/are your favorite color)s)?

  5. How would you describe your taste in books?

  6. Has the global health crisis (COVID-19) given you more or less trust in your country’s government?

  7. Do you have any pets?

  8. What is your favorite wildlife animal?

  9. Which of the four seasons best describes you?

  10. How long have you been blogging?

Thanks again Emilia for nominating me!

Fun and Games for When You’re Bored #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to my letter F post in the #AtoZChallenge. I want to have a lighthearted topic for today. After all, I’m bored and don’t want to delve deep into some topic of self-care. Of course, dealing with boredom appropriately can be an act of self-care. I’m sharing a few fun activities to do when you’re bored.

1. Card games. I particularly love the game of “pesten” (“bullying” in English), which is a variation to the card game of mau mau and similar to Uno. It is played with a deck of 55 cards (52 of a regular pack plus three jokers). The goal is to get rid of all of your cards first, but you can bully the person next to you by the cards you play. For example, if you play an eight, the person next must pass his turn. If you play a two or joker, the next person must draw two or five cards from the stack, respectively. There are some other rules too that are pretty complicated particularly if there are more than two players in the game. For example, an ace means to turn around, so it’s often hard to remember whether we’re playing clockwise or counterclockwise. For this reason, I usually play the game with one other person.

I should really be trying to learn some other card games, as “pesten” is the only one I know. I guess playing solitaire is a good boredom killer if you’re by yourself.

2. Board games. I don’t play those often, but as a tween, I did. I particularly liked monopoly. I now have an audio-based version of monopoly on my iPhone. Still figuring it out though.

3. Word games and puzzles. I particularly like to make word strings, where the next word has to start with the last letter of the previous word. These can be themed, such as first names, animals, etc. I also like to do word puzzles on my phone. Most regular word games are not accessible with VoiceOver. However, I have an app called 7 Little Words that is.

4. Reading. We as a system like to read a variety of books depending on who out of our personalities is fronting. For example, the young alters like reading funny stories and jokes. Like we said yesterday, there are many free kids’ stories available in eBook format from both Amazon and Apple Books.

The teens and adults prefer young adult novels and occasionally fiction geared towards adults. We also love memoirs.

What fun activities can you think of to do when you’re bored?

Friendly Fill-Ins Week #201

Posted on by Astrid

Today I’m bored, so I am joining in with Friendly Fill-Ins, hosted by Ellen of 15andmeowing and Lorianne of Four-Legged Furballs. Here are the questions.

1. My favorite outdoor activity is _________.
2. One positive aspect of social isolation is _________.
3. It’s fortunate that _________.
4. I have _________ memorized.

My answers are as follows.
1. My favorite outdoor activity is walking. This is a no-brainer. I love love love it and am so very happy that I can still do it.
2. One positive aspect of social isolation is the virtual connection it brings. We’re all in this together, after all.
3. It’s fortunate that I am healthy, well-fed and safe.
4. I have nothing really memorized. I used to be really good at calendar calculation, but that wasn’t memory-based in my case. I also at one point had the public transportation network in my city memorized, but that was like thirteen years ago. Too bad Raalte has practically no public transportation.

If you’d like to answer these fill-ins too, feel free to do so. I’d love to read your answers.

Quote of the Day (February 19, 2020): Everyone Sees What You Appear to Be

Posted on by Astrid

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.” – Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

When first starting this blog, I intended to do a daily quote of the day post. I never did. In fact, my “Quotes” category has only four posts. I do like quotes though, so when I figured I had nothing else to share, I decided to do a quote post again.

Today I checked out a sort of guided self-discovery journal called Happy to Meet Me. This quote was printed above the first prompt. The prompt was about common misconceptions about you. It asks you what you wish people would automatically see about you.

This is harder than I thought. After all, the prompt isn’t what you wish people didn’t immediately know about you. I mean, that would be easy. I wish people would see beyond my blindness. But then what would they see?

I think most people would see me as still somehow disabled if they didn’t see I’m blind. Like my sister said when I was a teen, I don’t appear like someone my age judging from even my way of walking. Of course, I have mild cerebral palsy, but the average Joe won’t have a clue. They’ll most likely think I’m intellectually disabled. Until I start to talk. Then most people will be baffled and start to assume my every way of being different is due to blindness again. After all, most people here are still pretty clueless about autism.

I don’t really know what I wish people would automatically know about me. I mean, back when I was still more serious about blogging, I knew that people had their blog name printed on T-shirts and I even for a fleeting moment considered getting one myself. I’m glad I never did, as honestly in the age of smartphones I don’t think I’d want people in the streets to be able to Google me without ever having met me. I mean, my blog is way too personal for that.

I can think of things I wish professionals would automatically know about me. I wish they understood the disconnect between my intellectual and emotional functioning. I can also think of things I wish friends would automatically know. I wish they’d know about my interests. But what would I want other people in general to know? I guess I’d start with the very basic: I am a human being just like you.

What do you wish people would automatically see about you?

The Daily Four (September 9, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

I am once again joining in with The Daily Four. I am a day late with this one, as I didn’t discover it till nearly 9PM yesterday, which is my usual bedtime. Here are the questions.

What truly motivates you to write?
My readers, I guess. Before I became a blogger, I had an online diary and even when I still kept my diary on my private computer, I always envisioned someone reading it. I rarely write without an audience in mind. It doesn’t mean I get depressed if my posts don’t get (m)any comments, but I delight in finding that people read my work.

Other than that, I’m motivated by an intrinsic will to write. Even in the times of my personal computer diary, I would be proud if I wrote an entry everyday for a certain amount of time. The longest I’ve gone without skipping a day, is probably like three months.

What’s cluttering up your life today and what are you doing about it?
I don’t really know. I’m not one to be bothered by physical clutter easily, probably because I don’t see it and as such, it doesn’t distract me. However, there may also be this thing like mental clutter, where thoughts clutter up your life. That definitely happens to me and I’m not sure it’s a thing, but I’m making it into one. Worries tend to clutter up my life in this way. So does thinking about what I should be doing instead of doing it.

Did you enjoy a creative childhood?
Yes. I was a writer from an early age on. I also enjoyed drawing when I still had enough sight to do it. My mother was the most encouraging of my artistic creativity, but my father encouraged me to think creatively.

Have you ever wanted to write a book or if you have written a book do you feel accomplished for doing so?

Yes! I wanted to be a children’s book author when I grew up and have quite a few unfinished manuscripts. One of them was pretty far along. It was called The Black Queen and was about a teen girl whose mother had multiple sclerosis. I must admit, my stories were full of plagiarism though and not very imaginative.

I still intend on someday writing my autobiography. However, I’m not sure whether I’ll do it, as it requires quite a huge attention span to sit and write a book.

The Daily Four (August 26, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Over at A Guy Called Bloke, there’s a new meme called The Daily Four. I found the questions very inspiring, so I’m participating today.

What was the worst thing you did as a child?
I wasn’t a very naughty child, but my parents claim I terrorized the family. Being autistic, I’ve done a lot of destructive things during meltdowns. I ran away quite often and, according to my mother, was physically aggressive towards her as a teen. One day in particular, I remember ruining my sister’s birthday party (I think it was her 10th birthday) with my meltdown.

Growing up, what was your ideal dream job and did you bring that to a reality at all?
I’ve always wanted to be a writer. Though I only had one piece published in an anthology, I am pretty sure that blogging is a dream come true. I always thought that, like Anne Frank, I’d have my diary published someday. I guess I didn’t realize how unimportant my life is compared to hers.

What were the things you both liked and hated about your schooling?
I was often bored at school during my years in special education, but I liked it there nonetheless. At least I had friends, something I cannot say of my time at grammar school. What I most hated though, was the loyalty conflict I had, because my parents were in constant fights with my school over my needs.

Where there is a will, there is a way! Do you agree?
Yes, usually. Some dreams are unrealistic, but there’s always a way to come close. For example, of course, I will never be a plane pilot, being blind, but if I wanted to, I could arrange to see the inside of an airplane. In fact, I did at age twelve.

Mystery Blogger Award!

Posted on by Astrid

Thanks a bunch to Beckie of Beckie’s Mental Mess for nominating me for the Mystery Blogger Award.

Rules

  1. Put the award logo/image on your blog.
  2. List the rules.
  3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
  4. Mention the creator of the award and provide a link as well.
  5. Answer the 5 questions you were asked.
  6. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.
  7. You have to nominate 10-20 people.
  8. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.
  9. Ask your nominees any 5 questions of your choice; with one weird or funny question (specify).
  10. Share a link to your best post(s).

The Mystery Blogger Award was created by Okoto Enigma. I am unable to copy/paste the image.

Beckie’s Questions

1. If you were to have one wish come true, what would it be?
I’m going to be selfish here and wish for a bright future for myself and my husband.

2. What is the least favorite thing about yourself that you wish you could change?
My difficulty tolerating distress.

3. What was the last funniest thing to happen to you?
A funny thing? I don’t know.

4. What was your favorite subject in school?
English.

5. Weird/Strange Question… If you could have dinner with anybody (Dead or Alive) who would that be, and what would you like to ask them?
I never ask lots of questions during dinner, as it’s all about the food to me. I’d just have dinner with my husband.

Three Things About Me

  1. My first word was “aircraft industry” when I was ten-months-old.
  2. I went to grammar school, but forgot almost all my Latin and Greek.
  3. I used to be an auditory learner and hated reading Braille until I was about thirteen. Then I got a computer and I hated the screen reader’s synthetic speech so much that I developed a preference for learning through touch.

I’m not choosing a favorite post, as I can’t decide. What do you all think is my best post?

My Nominees

  1. Bipolar Barb
  2. Therapy Bits
  3. My Inner MishMash
  4. Bipolar-Ilari
  5. BlindWilderness
  6. Color Me Bipolar
  7. Day by Day
  8. I Am My Own Island
  9. Just Being Me
  10. Kristen Experiments

My Questions

  1. What is your favorite color?
  2. What is the biggest challenge you face right now?
  3. Do you have any pets?
  4. (Weird/Funny) Would you want to be the opposite gender for a while if you could?
  5. What was your major in college?