July 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means it’s time for my monthly reflections. As usual, I’m joining in with What’s Been on Your Calendar? (or #WBOYC for short).

This month was a toughie once again. All I had to keep me going was an E-mail from the behavior specialist at the end of June saying that they were still investigating a possible new home for me, so I hadn’t been forgotten. This didn’t do much to perk me up, honestly. At the beginning of the second week of the month, my mother-in-law E-mailed her to request extra supports. We had been discussing her asking the behavior specialist to come round to talk to me every once in a while to keep me from spiraling further into crisis before, and in fact my mother-in-law had requested it before, but that message had not been responded to. This time around, it turned out the behavior specialist was on vacation till the end of the month. I’m pretty sure given her work schedule, she should be back tomorrow, but even though our E-mail was sent pretty early in her leave, I’m skeptical that she’ll respond then.

Of course, I did find out on the 23rd that a new home has been found for me. Like I mentioned last week, the way I found out about it was rather weird and I don’t know anything about the home other than what my care agency has on its website about it. A moving date hasn’t been set either as far as I’m aware and I won’t be informed till about two weeks in advance. My assigned staff asked me today whether I keep wondering when I’ll be moving. Yep, of course.

In other news, my support coordinator did leave the agency a few weeks ago. I can’t say I miss her, as I can talk to my new one much more easily. Still, I’m glad I’m leaving this place in the hopefully not too distant future.

I haven’t really been crafting much over this past month. The only thing I finished, in fact, is a bracelet with the glass beads I got from my mother-in-law for my birthday. Today, I did finally get round to claying once again. And got my hands all blue from handling alcohol inks without gloves.

I also didn’t walk as much as I did last month over this past month. I honestly don’t really care though.

Since iOS 16.6 resolved the Braille display bug that caused me to be unable to read books on my iPhone, I have been reading more over the past week. I also finally bought a blender, so yay for smoothies!

Here’s hoping August will be a better month than the past few months have been.

June 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the end of the first half of 2023. Wow, can you imagine? I’m joining What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC). Here goes.

Honestly, I can’t remember much of the first few weeks of June, other than the fact that I was extremely motivated to get moving. I had signed up for two Apple Watch challenges. Suffice it to say that motivation quickly diminished and I finally broke my 300-odd day streak of reaching my movement goal yesterday. That is, I broke it last Saturday too but cheated by lowering my movement goal for that day.

In other respects, the month has been meh too. I only wrote twelve blog posts, including this one, and hardly have been crafting. I mostly spent my days playing dice and the odd card game. I think I might be depressed, but more likely it’s the shitty circumstances of living in my current care home.

However, I’m pretty sure my staff think I’m doing well, as I’ve been in the communal room more. The reason is mostly to connect to somewhat familiar people, because I’ve mostly been assigned completely new temp workers. When I try to communicate my discomfort with this, I’m usually met with rather curt remarks that the staff have no obligation to explain their decisions to me and then, when I spiral further into meltdown, I’m met with harsher and harsher actions from the staff.

The month of June is, of course, also my birthday month. I had my sister and her family over in Lobith last Saturday, which was okay, though a bit stressful. I spent Tuesday, which was my actual birthday, in Apeldoorn with my parents and spouse. I really loved the Thai food we ate.

In the health department, I have been doing okay. My cardio fitness level has been declining again, unfortunately and is now just barely in the below-average range. I gained a little weight too, but truthfully my weigh-in on May 31 showed the lowest weight I’d been in forever, so I’m not worried about that. After all, I’m still at a healthy BMI.

How was your June?

April and May 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. In April, I didn’t get to post my monthly reflections because I was too busy with the #AtoZChallenge. Today, for this reason, I’m doing reflections for both April and May. I’m linking up with What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC).

Honestly, I don’t remember much of the month of April. It was a really busy month in a way with me participating in the #AtoZChallenge on my blog, which I badly wanted to complete despite struggling with my mental health. In other ways though, it was a boring month, in that I hardly got to do anything creative. I also felt like I had to train new staff almost on a daily basis. By this I mean the fact that, almost every day, the least familiar staff member would be assigned to me and they’d be left with just the instruction to follow my day schedule.

I did work on an activity list detailing steps for each activity I usually do, but this unfortunately didn’t bring me closer to actually exploring creative activities with not-so-familiar staff.

In late April, my mother-in-law sent the behavior specialist an E-mail expressing my distress with the unfamiliar staff situation, as well as with the fact that no-one had told me anything about any progress re finding me a more suitable care home. During the month of May, I’ve had some meetings on this topic, but nothing has been decided yet and I’m pretty skeptical anything will be decided anytime soon. That is, unless the powers-that-be decide no place can be found for me.

Thankfully, I did have the #AtoZChallenge to inspire me. I did, for this reason, write 31 posts.

The month of May was a mixed bag in many respects. It was better than April had been on the care front. This did help me feel better, but it wasn’t like I could actually bring my many ideas for activities into action.

In early May, I went clothes shopping with my support coordinator and assigned staff. That same day, another staff also took me to a nearby lake to go for a walk and take some pictures.


I did over the month of May in particular develop some renewed interests, for example in essential oils. I also still want to buy a new blender, so that I can make smoothies again. However, I haven’t yet decided on one specifically.

I went to my spouse’s and my house in Lobith at least twice during the months of April and May. Honestly, my marriage is stronger than ever and I’m so happy about it!

All this being said, in general I very much feel as though my life has been “on hold” over the past few months. Though I did often feel quite inspired, I didn’t know how to put these ideas into action. I can’t completely blame the care home, but the fact that no matter what the staff here do to improve my situation I’ll never trust them not to mess up again, does contribute.

In the health department, I did significantly improve, at least on those measures I know. I lost weight and currently weigh 57.4kg, which is within the healthy range for my height of 1.53m. I also for the first time today got a cardio fitness level of 25 on my Apple Watch, which is in the “below-average” range (until a few months ago, I was consistently in the “low” range). Next month or in July, I’m due to get my annual bloodwork done and I’m kind of worried about that, particularly my kidney function of course. I do overall feel quite healthy though.

March 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means I’m reflecting back on this month’s happenings. I’m joining What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC). Here goes.

This month would have started with my having the meeting on my care on March 2, but it got postponed yet again for the third time. I did get a visit from my mother-in-law instead and we took a walk through a nice park. Here are a couple of pictures my mother-in-law took with her phone of a remembrance stone we saw there.



The next Sunday, my husband and I drove to Ikea in Zwolle, where I bought a stuffed orang-utan. I so far didn’t show it on the blog yet, so what better day to do this than today?

On the other Sundays, my husband and I drove to Apeldoorn to have lunch at Backwerk. We did try visiting another lunch cafe once at the recommendation of one of my staff, but literally all tables were dirty.

On March 17, I finally had the meeting on my care. The positive aspect was that the powers-that-be will be looking for another, hopefully more suitable care home for me. The negative aspect is the fact that, in the meantime, nothing will change. This had me spiral out of control quite a bit, which my staff feel frustrated with.

Last week, it led to a bit of a disagreement between me and my assigned staff, because she got frustrated with my negativity. The way she worded it, even if my day schedule doesn’t get disrupted and I’m supported by regular staff for the entire shift, I still find a reason to complain. I countered that this hadn’t happened in months. Even this morning, with three out of four staff being regular employees, the fourth staff supported me for most of the shift.

In the health department, I did pretty well. I finally saw the dietitian last week and we concluded I no longer need to lose weight. Not that weight loss ever was a priority for me, more like a welcome side effect of my healthier-for-me lifestyle. The fact that I’d lost weight rather rapidly over the past five months, meant I had to up my calorie intake to prevent further weight loss. I did gain a bit of weight in the first week on my new food plan, but then again I did eat fries once in that week and a large burger another day. I’m not stressing about the weight gain at all.

In other health news, my cardio fitness level according to my Apple Watch has declined slightly and is in the “low” range again, though just barely. My heart rate recovery, on the other hand, is steadily improving.

All this being said, I’m trying to embrace my body as it is and appreciate my health for what it is.

In the blogging department, I did quite poorly, having written only eleven posts including this one. I am not sure how I’m going to do with the April A to Z Challenge given this reality, but I trust I can do it.

February 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month and this means I’m reflecting back on the month that was. Like last month, I’m joining What’s Been On Your Calendar? (or #WBOYC for short).

The month of February, overall, was slightly better than the month of January. This was reflected in nineteen (including this one) blog posts in 28 days, compared to only thirteen in 31 days last month. However, it wasn’t “good” by any means.

On the 14th, we were supposed to have a meeting about my care, but this was postponed because my support coordinator was off sick. It has now been set for this coming Thursday but my assigned support staff told me it may need to be postponed again.

The last few weeks were okay care-wise and there were even a few days when I received optimal care by this home’s standards. On Friday, I told my assigned staff I might not want to leave this home after all, which she translated to my having decided I don’t want to leave. On Monday I tried talking to her about improvements that would make my life better here, but this led nowhere. Now I’m pretty sure that, since any attempt on my part to talk about improving my care situation leads to “but you can’t expect continuous one-on-one” before I’ve even stated my wishes, I’ve pretty much lost trust in everyone for good. And just so you know, this wasn’t my first attempt to talk about improving my care.

Craft-wise, I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped. I gave up on The Artist’s Way after barely a week and I didn’t expand on my creativity as much as I’d have liked. I was, however, invited to help decide on the monthly theme in the Dutch polymer clay Facebook group, which became “Unicorns” of course. Like I more or less expected, I was the only one contributing, but oh well. At least for once I could participate.

I did read a lot more than I’d expected in the past month. I have been reading more diversely too. This is related to the fact that I had a discussion with my husband a few weeks ago about queer identity.

Also due to said discussion, I decided to finally abandon Christianity. I’ve been struggling with my faith ever since becoming a Jesus follower at the end of 2020 and part of the reason is my queer identity. And just because I’m happily married to a man, doesn’t mean I need to disown that. I could, of course, still call myself a progressive Christ follower, but who would I be kidding then? If the God of the Bible exists, I’m going to be condemned whether I follow Him half-heartedly or not at all.

In the health department, I’ve been doing pretty well. My cardio fitness level is improving and is almost at below-average level rather than low. I also lost 2kg over the month and only need to lose just over 1kg to be at a healthy BMI. I haven’t heard what the institution nurse said yesterday about the cream not working for the burning sensation on my back.

Lastly, I bought a new computer last week, which I’ve now been using for a few days. I’d been dreading Windows 11 for years due to my fear of the unknown I guess, but it works quite similar to Windows 10.

January 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this final day of January. Last year, I loved looking back on each month as it related to my word of the year. I didn’t choose a word of the year for 2023. Not sure why, but I just couldn’t find one. I however do like these monthly reviews, so I’ll continue them. The monthly word of the year linky has also changed to #WBOYC, which is an acronym for What’s Been On Your Calendar. I’m joining in with this linky today for my monthly reflections.

This month, I started out with mixed feelings of hope and fear for the coming year. Just before New Year’s, my assigned staff had introduced the piece of paper with agreements re my care on it, which was slightly disappointing to me because of it being easy to interpret in multiple ways. As the weeks proceded, I found out that, indeed, it didn’t do much to improve my care. In fact, I still live moment-to-moment, not because I can’t get through each moment due to my mental health, but because the staff and home in general are so unpredictable.

Several weeks ago, I decided I definitely want to find another care home. This, obviously, requires a talk with the behavior specialist and support coordinator, but, so far, my support coordinator hasn’t responded to requests to share when she is available. I have it in my head she’s decided to ignore me until I shut up about wanting to leave. After all, several staff have started to talk nonsense about baby steps towards adjustment, and I’m pretty sure they don’t mean the steps towards adjustment should come from the staff. Even though I do experience good enough days here and there, I won’t shut up though until structural changes mean good enough is going to be the norm, and I’m sure this isn’t going to be here.

In other news, I had three visits from my mother-in-law during the month of January. I also saw my husband almost each week – missed only one because I had a cold.

I started working with the book The Artist’s Way at the end of the month. I’ve only just started with Morning Pages and am taking the program at a slower pace than is recommended, partly because I’m a slow reader and partly because I need to modify the Artist’s Dates to suit my needs. For example, since I don’t handwrite my Morning Pages, I have no reason to give myself a sticker on the envelope each day I completed them, and I can’t use regular stickers anyway. However, I saw 3D unicorn stickers and want to buy those and stick one on my laptop for each day I complete my Morning Pages for a week. Of course, since they are sold online, I may need to have them delivered to my in-laws because my care home’s address isn’t always recognized by delivery people. I’ll get to that tomorrow.

I wasn’t as crafty as I’d like to have been, but did slightly expand my horizons where it came to polymer clay, in that yesterday I started on a unicorn in a lying-down position and today I tried to decorate my latest standard, sitting unicorn with Hotfix rhinestones.

I didn’t write as many blog posts as I’d hoped during January. Of course, there was #JusJoJan, but even when the prompts did speak to me, I often didn’t write. I am still considering participating in #Write28Days in February, but honestly haven’t written anything for it. Not that I had any of the previous years I took part either, but then I was more motivated.

I did for the umpteenth time revive my Instagram account. This time, I’m actually finding some joy in it, because I actually find that I can interact with some people on there.

In the health department, January was a true mixed bag. I did get moving sufficiently, particularly walking, but healthy eating was a huge struggle. Over the month, I maintained my weight, so still 3kg to lose for me to be at a healthy BMI.

Lastly, I did attend the cerebral palsy online meeting for the provinces of Gelderland and Utrecht this evening. It was good. There will be a live meeting in March, so I’m hoping to go there too.

My Hopes for 2023

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and a happy 2023 to you all! Regular readers of my blog know that I don’t do resolutions or new year’s goals. Instead, I call them hopes. Whether that isn’t just the exact same but worded slightly euphemistically, is up for debate. However, I found that, many years ago, when I did lists of resolutions, they didn’t work out. Now that I call them “hopes”, I usually probably subconsciously stick to them more. I say this every year as an introduction to my hopes.

This year, I haven’t actually thought of many hopes I have. That is, I do hope to achieve many things, but secretly I do think my “hopes” do need to be somewhat realistic in order to make it onto my new year’s list. Doesn’t that make them just like goals? Oh well, I guess so. With no further ado, I’m just going to write down the things I hope to achieve in 2023.

1. Get to a healthy weight. I never dreamt of writing this when I started my healthier eating journey at the beginning of 2022, but I lost over 10kg in 2022 and I’m only 3kg above a healthy BMI now.

2. Keep up my movement routine. I have my movement goal on my Apple Watch set pretty low at 300 active calories a day. I’d really like to surpass it regularly.

I would also like to improve on the parameters of my physical fitness level, such as my heart rate variability. These are all really low right now.

I am hoping to start actually exercising in other ways besides walking. I’d love to start swimming here on institution grounds.

3. Get to a more stable place mentally. In 2022, I hoped to remain stable mental health-wise, which got ruined by my choice to move and its consequences. Now, I’m hoping to get back to a place of relative calm again.

4. Further lower my antipsychotic dosage. I really hope the move to my current care home doesn’t mean I’m on 25mg of aripiprazole forever.

5. Get to a meaningful day structure and day activities. Okay, I have the new day schedule, which is better than the one my support coordinator gave me, but it’s not what I’d hoped for when I came here. I am really hoping to explore day activities beyond my room, beyond 60 minutes at a time and beyond one-on-one.

6. Write regularly. This is another thing I was pretty awesome at in 2021, hoped to maintain in 2022 and lost track of due to the move. I even only wrote five blog posts during the month of November. I am really hoping to get back into the writing groove this year.

7. Further explore my creative side. I’d really like to find ways to do part of my polymer clay work independently, so that I can actually do more complicated things with my 60-minute time slots of supported activity.

8. Socialize more. This was one of the main reasons for the move, at least according to the behavior specialists involved. Indeed, it is a positive aspect of my current home that wasn’t there at my old home. I honestly don’t know whether I can socialize much with the people at my home, but I can at least try and, if that doesn’t work out, there are almost 400 other residents here at the main institution. I’d really love to talk to some of them more.

I’d also love to connect to my peers in the cerebral palsy community more. I’ll hopefully attend the countrywide cerebral palsy day again in April and also hopefully join the online meetings more often. I’m also hoping to get in touch with the Eye Association more. I know this was something I hoped to achieve in 2022 but didn’t.

9. Get serious about the basics of my faith. I had a discussion about faith with my husband yesterday and the bottom line was that I tried to run without having learned to crawl, so to speak, because I was watching John MacArthur videos, which are deeply theological, even though I’m really still a new believer. I mean, okay, I’ve been a Jesus follower for two years, but I’m still struggling with the basic concepts of the Christian faith. That’s probably why I call myself a “progressive Jesus follower” rather than unapologetically claiming my identity as a Christian. I really hope to move closer on my journey towards God in 2023.

I am linking this post up with today’s #JusJoJan post, for which the optional prompt word is “resolution”. I am thinking of writing another post about resolutions in a different sense, namely the Model European Parliament debating contest I participated in during high school. However, it’s past 9PM so I don’t think I’ll have the time or energy for another blog post.