The Wednesday HodgePodge (March 23, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Wednesday and I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge again. In honor of daylight saving time, I think, the questions this week revolve around the topic of “time”. Here goes.

1. What’s something you never seem to have enough time for?
Blogging. I usually write my blog posts at the end of the day, because I need enough alone time to be able to compose a blog post and I don’t have long chunks of alone time during the day. That being said, the issue probably isn’t that I don’t have enough time, but that I don’t allow myself enough time to start on a blog post if I don’t have time to finish it within that chunk of alone time. Right now, I changed that by starting my blog post in the staff’s lunch break and now I’m finishing it between day activities and my evening one-on-one coming on.

2. If you could turn back time and relive just one day in your life, which day would you choose and why?
This is such an interesting question. Like Joyce, I believe there already is a perfect timekeeper of the universe, ie. God, and to interrupt His timekeeping would not just be impossible, but if it were possible, would lead to disastrous results. That being said, in the hypothetical event that turning back time and reliving one day of my life would not alter the rest of it, I would choose the day of my wedding in 2011.

3. Something you enjoy making that takes a long time to prepare/cook?
I’m assuming we’re talking just food here, since there’s a reference to cooking. For me, cooking even relatively “simple” meals takes up a lot of time. When I still cooked independently, it used to take me at least 90 minutes to prepare and cook a standard macaroni, for example. After all, I needed to do a lot of organizing before I could even get started and I’m a slow cook too. For this reason, I don’t think there’s anything I really enjoy making that would take other people a lot of time to prepare or cook. In fact, now that I get help on the rare occasion that I do cook, I still prefer to make relatively simple meals. The pilaf I cooked last week was really the most time-consuming dish I’ve cooked so far since moving into the care facility.

4. A time recently where you needed/gave yourself a ‘time out’? How do you do that?
I don’t like resting during the day, even though I need to at times. When I had COVID last month, I really had to force myself to lie in bed. Taking time-outs usually involves resting in bed with my weighted blanket over me and my stuffed animals near me, listening to soothing instrumental music through my music pillow and with an essential oil blend in my diffuser.

5. Something you’ve done recently that you’d describe as a ‘good time’?
Yesterday, my mother-in-law came by for a visit. We went for a walk and a coffee and pie in a nearby town. The pies were too sweet for our liking, but the coffee was okay and at least we had a good time enjoying each other’s company.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
This coming Saturday, if I don’t get a cold from one of the several staff who have been working here with cold symptoms (they tested negative for COVID, of course), I’ll be taking a ParaTransit taxi to my and my husband’s house in Lobith. If I do get a cold, I will most likely stay at the care facility and will certainly not take the taxi. Though all mandatory COVID-related restrictions and requirements were lifted today, I still don’t want to infect anyone. Let’s just hope I won’t get a cold, as I’m really looking forward to spending time in Lobith again.

Sunday Ramble: Creativity and Imagination

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I am a little uninspired with respect to my blog, so I thought I’d join in with E.M.’s Sunday Ramble, for which the prompt, interestingly, is creativity and imagination. The idea is that we answer E.M.’s five questions on the topic and ramble on as we see fit. Here goes.

1. When did you first discover your love of writing?
I honestly don’t think I ever knew how to write without loving it. That being said, I didn’t start writing stories or poems consistently until the fifth or sixth grade and I didn’t start a diary that I kept regularly until I was thirteen.

2. Would you say that you found your imagination at a young age or when you became older? If you want to, share something you discovered with your imagination.
Imagination? What imagination? I honestly don’t think my creative writing is particularly imaginative. My parents used to say I was a good writer, but they probably never meant it, as they too recognized my writing was full of plagiarism and, if it wasn’t, was pretty much a retelling of my own life.

That being said, when my sister and I did pretend play together, I was always the one making up the stories. I guess back in those days, they were imaginative enough for someone at that age. My imagination just never developed; it rather regressed.

3. What is your favorite genre to write about? (Example: Sci-Fi, Fantasy, True Crime, etc.)
Other than blog posts, I mostly write poetry and flash fiction. My poetry is just word vomit I guess and with respect to my flash fiction, the advantage is the fact that I don’t have to finish the story I started in an original way.

When I still wrote short stories and even a few novels-in-progress, my favorite genre was realistic young adult fiction. I did attempt to write a few short stories in this genre again recently, but really they got nowhere.

4. Do you ever get “writer’s block”? If so, do you have a reason of why it happens?
Sure I do; that’s why I’m writing this post rather than an original blog post. I honestly don’t know why it happens. In my case, my writing inspiration just tends to ebb and flow.

5. Can you tell me something that I do not know that you do not mind sharing about your style of writing?
I always write with an audience in mind. Even when I write in my private diary, I explain stuff that I myself know and write in a style that is “censored” in a kind of way. It didn’t use to be this way when I first started keeping a diary. In fact, when first starting an online diary in 2002, I was reminded that I had to explain things to people because they weren’t in my head like my private diary’s inner companion was. Now, nearly twenty years on, it’s the other way around.

Gratitude List (February 5, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Saturday evening. I’m doing a gratitude list again. I don’t promise I’ll have time for another post for #Write28Days, but I’ll try. As usual, with this post, I am joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good psychiatrist’s appt on Tuesday. I went to the mental health outpatient clinic to meet my nurse practitioner face-to-face and we talked to the psychiatrist via the eHealth system, as she was working from home. I got a new medication, which should hopefully help reduce my anxiety.

2. I am grateful I got a license code for the latest JAWS, my screen reader. I don’t know how the screen reader company managed to arrange for it so quickly, as I haven’t seen the bill in my health insurance app yet, but oh well.

3. I am grateful WordPress still provides the classic editor as an option. The latest JAWS does work with the block editor, so I tried that for a few days, but I kept accidentally deleting random paragraph blocks and overall, I consider it still quite a cumbersome editor.

4. I am grateful I have been able to be crafty again. My flower fairy or whatever it was, didn’t turn out as good as I’d liked. Besides, in the tutorial, they did the body in light flesh color, same as the head, so it looks like the thingy is naked. For this reason, I’m not going to show it on my blog in case I offend anyone.

I did create a Disney princess figurine out of polymer clay on Thursday. Most staff immediately guessed correctly who it was when looking at her: Elsa from Frozen. Since it’s quite small (only about 3cm high), I wasn’t able to refine her facial features or whatever. That’s okay though.

Polymer Clay Elsa from Frozen

5. I am grateful for a trip to Action, a budget store, in a town about a 20-minute drive away on Friday. We do have an Action here in Raalte too, but the one in that town was larger or so my staff said. I bought acrylic paint to paint details like eyes on my polymer clay creations, thin paintbrushes to use with the acrylic paint or with glitters or Fimo liquid, a utility knife and some other things. I was looking for soft pastels too, since the site said they sell them, but apparently this particular store didn’t have them in stock.

6. I am grateful for decent sleep most nights this week. I slept really poorly on Wednesday, but the other nights, I slept okay.

7. I am grateful to have been accepted into some lovely Christian E-mail groups. I am grateful for the kind people on there and for the fact that they don’t judge me for not living with my husband, which I know isn’t a traditional Christian marriage setup.

8. I am grateful I have been able to blog consistently for a few days now. I am not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it up, but we’ll just have to see.

9. I am grateful I am able to make relatively healthy food choices on days even when I did have a “bad” food for lunch for example. I mean, I don’t do “cheat days” where I ditch the food plan altogether and that’s good. Every healthy food choice I make contributes to my ultimate goal of a healthier lifestyle.

10. I am grateful for no side effects from the new medication so far. I was supposed to get it at 5PM this evening, but due to some mistake the pharmacy made, it got in the system for 8AM. The staff gave it to me this morning and I took it without concern. I am so glad we found out before the evening staff gave me an extra dose.

What are you grateful for?

Where I Think I’ll Be in a Year’s Time Based on My Current Daily Actions #Write28Days

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Welcome to day four in #Write28Days. Today’s optional word prompt, “nesting”, didn’t quite speak to me. I also wasn’t really inspired to write any sort of in-depth personal growth article. Rather, I picked up a collection of journaling prompts called The Self Exploration Journal and chose a prompt I hadn’t used on this blog before. It asks us to reflect on where, based on our current daily actions, we can expect to be in a year’s time.

Now I know that my future is in God’s hands, not mine. I have no way of knowing where I will be one year from now. That however doesn’t mean that I can’t take daily actions to hopefully live a healthier and more enriched life. Today, let me share some things I’m doing to take care of myself and some things in which I could still improve on and what I think these will mean for my future.

First, last month, I started on a healthier diet. It’s been a rocky road and I’m still struggling to find my balance on it. During the first week, I felt like I was just eating lettuce and carrots and was disappointed that I’d lost only 0.5kg. Now, I think I’ve found a better balance, but I might’ve swung slightly too far to the other side again. After all, this week, I had a sausage roll for lunch on Wednesday and a cheese roll today. I still am losing weight (or at least, I had a maintain this week). Based on my overall daily actions, I can expect to probably have lost a few kilograms next year, but I can’t expect to be anywhere close to a healthy BMI. Then again, that isn’t my goal.

Given that I hardly walk or exercise in other ways lately, I can’t expect my physical fitness level to improve. It’ll probably have declined by next year.

Mental health-wise, I can expect to still be in treatment and take my medication as prescribed, but I can also expect to still be quite vulnerable. Of course, I am always hoping that the next med tweak or change of treatment will be the thing that’s going to help me stabilize forever, but I have to be realistic: that’s not going to happen.

In the creative department, I can expect to experience ebbs and flows. I will probably have improved my polymer clay craft, having explored mixed media. I will likely still be a blogger, publishing several posts a week at least.

Given that, even though I look at other living places almost daily but haven’t actively decided I want to move, next year, I’ll likely still live in my current care facility. I’ll likely still be married to my husband too.

In summary, I can’t expect anything major to change for the better in the coming year but I am hopeful that I won’t make a turn for the worse either. I am hoping for slight improvements in the healthy eating and crafty departments. And, of course, I do really need to get my behind off the chair, but we’re talking current daily actions and that’s not happening right now.

Gratitude List (January 22, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s time for another gratitude post. I’m struggling a little, but, as I’ve said many times before, this makes them all the more important. As usual, I’m joining in wiht Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful to have seen my husband on Sunday. We went to the Subway drive-through to get a sandwich. I chose a turkey one, to which my husband asked whether I took it because of my diet or because I was in the mood for turkey. “Both,” I replied.

2. I am grateful my mother-in-law visited me on Wednesday. We went for a drive around the nearby countryside and for a short walk in a nearby village.

3. I am grateful for muesli for breakfast. I am also grateful the dietitian allows me muesli with some nuts or raisins in it and it doesn’t have to be plain grain.

4. I am grateful for blueberries. When in the nearby village with my mother-in-law, we decided to get some groceries for her. I decided to get blueberries too.

5. I am grateful my dental chek-up last Wednesday was uneventful and, other than the fact that I have inflamed gums, everything was fine.

6. I am grateful for a good laugh with one of my staff on Thursday. I originally was anxious about her being my one-on-one that day, because a few weeks prior she’d triggered me with what she thought was encouragement of my independence. I thankfully talked it over with her and we then laughed our butts off at some silly jokes we were cracking.

7. I am grateful I am inspired to write on my blog. I still struggle to find the motivation to go on walks or to craft, but at least I’m writing almost everyday, sometimes twice a day.

8. I am grateful my nurse practitioner keeps trying to help me and takes me seriously despite how complicated I might be. I have been experiencing increased flashbacks to the time I spent in the psych hospital lately, but I try to remind myself my staff and my treatment team at mental health are different.

9. I am grateful it looks like the essential oils I ordered on Thursday, are on their way. I ordered with a company that doesn’t use the bank’s payment processing system, so I had to make my payment manually, then panicked worrying that I’d made a typeo somehow. Apparently not. Let’s hope the company isn’t altogether lying and will actually have shipped my essential oils.

10. I am grateful I’ve found the courage to experiment with essential oil blends that are slightly different from the ones I find online. For example, earlier I used tangerine rather than orange in a blend that otherwise contained cardamom and cinnamon. It smelled delicious!

What are you grateful for?

#IWSG: My Biggest Writing-Related Regret

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

Hi everyone. It’s the first Wednesday of the month and this means it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to meet. I have been doing pretty well in the writing department over the past month.

My Morning Pages, which I started last Saturday, are going strong so far, although I’m resisting getting up for writing them sometimes. I am not as strict with myself as Julia Cameron expects. I mean, I can’t handwrite at all, so I am typing up my pages. I am also not being strict about the three pages (750 words) per day. So far, yesterday, I almost got there. The other days, I barely got to 500 words if even that.

Then again, I’ve been blogging quite consistently over the past month. I wrote 23 blog posts in December, which means I reached my goal of publishing 300 posts in 2021 (in fact, I published 303). In January so far, I’ve been posting everyday and I am still quite motivated to continue doing so. There are a few blogging-related challenges that provide prompts, such as #Bloganuary, #JusJoJan, etc. I don’t intend on participating in any of these challenges every single day, but to use them as springboards towards creativity.

Now on to this month’s optional question. This month, we are asked to share our biggest regret in our writing career. I don’t quite consider myself as having a writing career per se and, as such, my biggest regrets involve things I didn’t do rather than things I did. Like, in late 2020, I fully intended on writing a story for Chicken Soup for the Soul about the impact of care homes closing to visitors due to the pandemic on me and my husband. I never did. I could, of course, still write the story and share it on my blog, but that would be different to submitting it to Chicken Soup.

Behind the fact that I never wrote, much less submitted the story is a fear of rejection. I tend to think my work is not good enough. Then again, if I don’t try, I will never succeed.

In my Morning Pages, I keep writing that maybe I am not supposed to do The Artist’s Way at all, because I am already public with my writing and my crafting. I am not a shadow artist in this respect. Furthermore, as Julia Cameron says, it is audacity, not talent, which gets some people to become published creatives and others to stay in the shadows. I tend to interpret this to mean that, if I am audacious enough to publish my work online without having done the program first, it must mean I’m not talented. That’s probably not what she means.

Gratitude List (January 1, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

And here I am with another post. I am determined to start the year off on a positive note even though I’m in a pretty foul mood right now. For this reason, I’m doing a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for Psalms 100. This is a psalm of gratitude which was the focus of study in the first day of the YouVersion New Year’s Bible reading plan I started today. It inspired me to do a gratitude list today.

2. I am grateful I could see the fireworks last night. I only saw brief flashes of light, no colors. Officially, real fireworks were banned this year due to COVID-related restrictions, but no-one apparently cared.

3. I am grateful I slept relatively well last night despite the fireworks. I went to bed at 10PM yesterday evening, woke up at midnight and went back to sleep at around 1AM. I got up at 8AM to start the writing ritual I mentioned earlier this afternoon.

4. I am grateful the festivities are over with for a while now. I don’t like the lack of structure. I am also grateful that, this year, it wasn’t too bad, as both Christmas and New Year’s are on weekends.

5. I am grateful we had French fries for dinner yesterday as a New Year’s Eve treat.

6. I am grateful I don’t have any symptoms suggestive of COVID as of yet, after one of my staff tested positive earlier in the week. I decided not to get a lateral flow test yesterday after all.

7. I am grateful the dietitian said I already eat pretty healthily. At least that’s what my assigned staff told me when she’d E-mailed her my current list of things I eat. There are some things I’m not likely willing to change, like my crunchy muesli for breakfast, but some things I definitely am open to suggestions and alternatives about.

8. I am grateful I was able to take a few walks again today. They were short walks, but at least I was able to get outside.

9. I am grateful for all the great blogs I’ve been reading today. I do feel a little disappointed that my posts are getting fewer comments lately than they used to get, but this may be a phase. I do still find joy in writing my blog posts.

10. I am grateful for a ton of blogging-related inspiration. Seriously, how will I find the time to type up all the posts for which I have ideas floating around in my head? I’m so glad though that my creativity is flowing. It isn’t coming out in my polymer clay as much, but it is showing up in the form of writing.

These are seriously all gratefuls from the last 24 hours, with the exception of the French fries, as it’s now 6:30PM and we eat dinner at 5PM. I feel a lot better having jotted down these things I’m thankful for.

What are you grateful for?

My Hopes for 2022

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and a very happy 2022 to you all. Today, like each year, I am sharing some things I hope to achieve in the coming year. I don’t usually call them goals, let alone resolutions. I mean, I used to have a ton of New Year’s resolutions when I was a teen, but these went out the window come Blue Monday. Not that I’d ever heard of that date at the time, but it was still what happened. So, hopes. Here are my hopes for 2022.

1. Get to a less stress-filled (I originally typed “less stress-free”), relatively healthy diet. I already eat relatively healthily at least if I look at my hopes for last year, in that I consistently eat two to three servings of fruit each day. I have also ditched the cookie with my morning coffee. My idea of experimenting with eating bread rather than crunchy muesli for breakfast, went out the window pretty soon and I’m not likely going to give it another try.

That being said, I could still improve on my lunches and make healthier snack choices. Besides, I would really like to stress less about food. For this reason, my staff got in touch with the dietitian, who is going to E-mail her a list of tips and recommendations based on my current food list this coming Tuesday.

2. Remain stable mentally. I am pretty stable mental health-wise already. I hope I will remain relatively sane as I adjust to my increased topiramate and later my decreased aripiprazole in particular. Of course, my aripiprazole taper might not be over with by the end of this year.

3. Keep writing consistently. I started a morning writing ritual today. Officially, I decided on Morning Pages, which dictates you have to write three pages. Then again, this is done by hand and I cannot do this anyway. I’ll be content if I can keep up the writing habit each morning even if I don’t make it to 750 words.

I did pretty great on my blogging over 2021, having written 303 posts over the year. I’d really like to write at least as many posts this year.

I would also like to broaden my horizons where it comes to my writing styles, writing more creatively.

4. Expand my creativity. Particularly, keep up with my creative hobbies. I did quite well on those over the past year too, having rediscovered polymer clay. I’d really like to improve my skill, but, like last year, don’t intend on doing the work all by myself.

I would especially like to discover some things to make myself rather than just copying from YouTube. Of course, I already select my own colors and do some things differently than in the tutorials, but I’d really like to expand on my creativity.

I will continue to do my own version of The Artist’s Way. I mean, I can’t take myself on artist’s dates completely solo because I can’t leave the house independently, but so what? My inner artist wants to be released just as much.

In line with the above, I’ll also experiment more with making my own essential oil blends and such rather than just copying recipes I find online.

5. Get back into the reading groove. This was a massive fail in 2021. One of my bookish resolutions for 2021 was to read 20 books. Well, I didn’t even reach half of that. See, I should’ve called them hopes rather than resolutions. Anyway, I’m not setting a number for myself right now, but I do hope to read some more than I did last year this year.

6. Socialize more, be it online or offline. COVID permitting, I’d like to go to the rescheduled Cerebral Palsy Day in April and to a regional Eye Cafe. This is a meeting of the Eye Association, which I joined in late November. I may also want to join the regional CP Cafe, which is held online on January 8. In addition, I’d really like to join online and hopefully at some point offline meetings related to my hobbies.

7. Deepen my faith. My faith really went in deep ebbs and flows over the past year and that’s not good. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my faith altogether. In fact, I signed up for an introductory course on Christian doctrine at BiblicalTraining.org last Thursday to get myself back in tune with what I believe. I really hope to be working on my relationship with God through Jesus Christ more this year.

What are your hopes for 2022?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Also linking up with #LifeThisWeek.

#IWSG: Writing Stressors and Delights

Posted on by Astrid

IWSG

Hi everyone. Can you believe it’s December already? I in a way can’t, but in another sense am so grateful November is finally over! It’s the first Wednesday of the month and this means it’s time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group (#IWSG) to meet. The past month was pretty good as far as writing goes. I published 21 posts again, which I considered “okay” in August but now am rather content with. I also actually did some creative writing, which I am really happy about. I am striving for 300 blog posts in 2021 and am pretty sure I can make this happen. After all, I’ll need to publish 20 posts for that this month and December is a longer month than November and a less stressful one at that (for me at least). Wish me luck!

Now on to this month’s optional question. This month, we are asked to write about what stresses us the most in our writing and what delights us. My main stressor is the pressure I put onto myself, for instance of having to write a certain number of posts (okay, okay, I know, I just did that!).

Another big and related stressor is the comparison trap. I mean, I compare myself to more successful writers and bloggers and see how much they get done and I get stressed out about it. For example, I’ve always wanted to write a book but cannot get myself to write this many words at all even during NaNoWriMo. It probably doesn’t help that NaNoWriMo is in November, but then again I couldn’t do it during any month. I probably won’t ever write a book.

Of course, there are a lot of less successful writers and bloggers out there too. Bloggers who barely post once a week, for example. And how do you define success, anyway? I mean, I’ve never wanted to earn money with my blog and I still delight in every comment I receive.

This brings me to the delights of writing. My main reason for writing is to express myself, but I definitely find huge joy when I feel I’ve touched someone else’s heart. I don’t write for my stats, regardless of my inner critic’s attempts to make me do so. Rather, if I find that I’ve genuinely been an inspiration to one person, that’s far more important than a dozen generic comments.

How I Cope With Loneliness

Posted on by Astrid

Today in her Sunday Poser, Sadje asks us about loneliness. She describes the experience as the feeling she gets when her family or friends can’t celebrate something important (such as the seasonal holidays) with her. This is one aspect of loneliness indeed. I feel lonely, left out even, knowing that my sister will be celebrating St. Nicholas with my parents next week and I haven’t been invited. Okay, she has a child for whom this holiday is more meaningful than it should be for me as an adult. Still, I am reminded of the last year we celebrated St. Nicholas with my family, or rather, the first year we didn’t. That was because of me: I had been admitted to the mental hospital shortly before and my parents didn’t want the hassle of having to watch me while I was on leave, so at first they suggested they celebrate the occasion without me. That year, my sister refused and the celebration didn’t go forward at all. Now that my sister has a child, there’s no way she’s going to care about whether I’ll be included or not. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’d rather have me excluded.

Loneliness, however, can take other forms too. Like I mentioned last month, loneliness comes from within a lot of the time. That’s why you can feel lonely when you’re surrounded by people. I often felt this way in the high school cafeteria.

I find that what helps me cope with loneliness is to surround myself with positive influences, both in the form of people and activities. I mean, I could dwell on my family’s rejection of me, but I do have a loving husband and loving in-laws. I also have caring staff and nice fellow clients, some of whom I consider friends.

It also helps me to engage in fulfilling hobbies, such as writing, reading and crafts. Through my blog and Facebook groups, I feel a genuine sense of connection to the outside world. Reading helps me escape my problems, including my sense of isolation. Crafts distract me and help me feel that I can be productive in a way. All of these help me overcome my sense of loneliness.

How do you deal with loneliness?