#WeekendCoffeeShare (December 10, 2022)

Hi everyone. How are you doing? I had my last cup of coffee for the day, but still I want to join in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I guess you could get a Senseo if you want one, or a cup of tea, or soda. Or you could go for water like I will now. Let’s have a drink and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you how your weather’s been. It’s been a month since I did a coffee share post and winter has well and truly arrived by now. Daytime temperatures hardly get above 0°C, although we don’t get very low night-time temperatures. Thankfully, despite the cold, I’ve been able to go on walks everyday, as it’s not been raining that much.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I finally reached breaking point here at the new care home last week and my mother-in-law called the home to get to speak to a higher-up, either the behavior specialist or the manager. She was told that I’d had a good day that day. While that was mostly true, it wasn’t about that day. My mother-in-law then contacted the mediator I had been in touch with too. She is independent and helps advocate for clients or family members but is paid for by the care agency.

After a week of playing phone tag, the mediator finally got in touch with the manager and was able to convince her to schedule a meeting between me, the mediator herself, a staff and the behavior specialist. This will most likely take place before Christmas, so the staff who will be attending won’t be my support coordinator, as she’s off on vacation till after then. I did ask that my mother-in-law be invited too, which the mediator initially didn’t feel would be appropriate. Her reasoning was that it’d be too many people attending and that she (mediator) would be there to support me already. However, the mediator is not able to realize how much I’m not able to process during a verbal conversation, so I stood my ground.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, earlier this week, one of the staff and I were able to create a new, more suitable to me day schedule. It was (unofficially) started today (while we’re waiting for the staff to type it out). The new schedule is organized around timeframes, like my day schedule at the old care home, but of course with the note that these are rough directions. I am quite satisfied with my first day using the new day schedule, but of course I do realize that it may only be 2 1/2 weeks before it will be trashed by my support coordinator.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am loving spending time on my polymer clay again. I am not getting my hopes up yet, but, in my new day schedule, I have lots of opportunities for claying. I made use of them today and created my first actual unicorn! Granted, it doesn’t have a mane or tail yet, because with the particular tutorial I used, you had to bake the unicorn and then attach those parts and bake again. I am hoping to do that tomorrow. I however am completely excited about crafting again. Now all please pray my new day schedule works out and my support coordinator won’t trash it when she comes back.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you all that I got some lovely presents in the mail from my parents on Thursday. I got a lavender-filled unicorn soft toy that can be heated in the microwave. I also got three different kinds of candy: chocolate, licorice and so-called Dutch traditional candy, which was hard candy. I loved all of them. The online shop also sent a few random samples of a sugar soap, so-called immune boosting capsules and some kind of fruit and veggie powder that you need to put into water and drink. I threw these away. So far, I haven’t actually microwaved the unicorn, but I did hold it when trying to sleep.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 7, 2022)

Hi everyone. How are you all doing on this first Wednesday of the last month of 2022? I’m still struggling quite a bit. I might share a bit about this at the end of my post. After all, I’m participating in the Wednesday HodgePodge and the last question allows for us to insert a random thought. Let me get to the first five questions first though.

1. The Hodgepodge lands on National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Have you visited the memorial? Any desire to do so? Have you visited other WW2 sites and memorials? Do you think we do a good job of teaching current and younger generations about the events of WW2? Do you think it matters?
I have never visited the Pearl Hahrbor memorial, as I’m not in the United States. I’m not sure about any other WW2 sites or memorials either. I mean, yeah, I was born in Rotterdam, which was heavily bombed during the German invasion of the Netherlands, and I did see the memorial statue many times. Not sure about any museums if that’s what’s meant.

I do think teaching the younger generations about WW2 matters. I’m not sure how well of a job we do, as I’m not even sure how well-educated I myself am and I’m not considered “younger” anymore by most standards.

2. Many books, both fiction and non-fiction have been written with WW2 as the setting. Is this a ‘genre’ you gravitate towards? Share with us a book (or two) you’ve enjoyed that is set in some way around WW2. If you’re not a reader, how about a movie?
I don’t really gravitate towards this genre, honestly. The only book I can think of off the top of my head is Anne Frank’s diary. I loved it when I was a teen, but didn’t fully comprehend the horrors Anne and her family lived through at the time.

3. According to Better Homes and Gardens Magazine there are seven popular color trends for the holidays this year. They are- red and white, Victorian blue, pops of pink, rich shades of green, rainbow hues, black and white, and nostalgic retro colors. Are you ‘trendy’ when it comes to holiday decorating in 2022? How so? Does your tree have a ‘theme’?
No, I’m not trendy at all. In fact, my staff put up my Christmas decorations that I had left over from last year yesterday because I’d completely forgotten. I don’t even have a tree, as the cheap one I bought last year consumed huge amounts of batteries.

4. What’s a current trend you buck?
I have absolutely no idea what’s even currently trending, so no clue.

5. What’s your favorite chocolate something?
I don’t honestly care for actual chocolate. Give me white chocolate, which isn’t real chocolate, instead. If I have to go with something that has a trace of actual chocolate in it, I’m going with a Knoppers cookie bar. These are chocolate-covered waffles with nut cream inside of them.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
We celebrated St. Nicholas at the care home on Monday. I chose not to join my fellow residents in the living room, but I had my treat and presents in my room. For presents, I had a pair of socks and a chocolate letter. I initially thought I found the socks ugly and, while they are a bit on the large side for me and I wouldn’t personally have bought socks with prints on them, my husband convinced me the colors do look good together. They’re blue socks with tulips in various colors (mostly pink and orange) on them. I also got a little rhyme with my presents, as is customary with St. Nicholas. I liked that best.

Gratitude List (October 22, 2022) #TToT

Hi everyone. I’m feeling very overloaded today, but it’s too early for me to go to bed or I might wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep. Instead, I’m writing a gratitude post. As always, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful I was able to let go of the issue with the staff from two weeks ago.

2. I am grateful for delicious home-cooked couscous, which a staff member who is originally from Morocco shared with me and a few others at the care home on Sunday.

3. I am grateful I beat this same staff member 4-0 in the card game mau-mau again today, but also grateful he beat me on Thursday. I think I told you all last week that he’s learning the game from me, so I love it when he wins (but I love it just a bit more when I win!).

4. I am grateful I was able to try out polymer clay a few times this week. So far, all of my projects failed before I even attempted to bake them, but that’s okay.

5. I am grateful for white chocolate. I consumed quite a bit of it over this week.

6. I am grateful my medication got sorted. It was quite the ordeal last Saturday and I actually called the out-of-hours GP surgery, not knowing that, if my staff said I could cope without meds for a day or possibly two, that meant a doctor had actually said so already. In the end, I got my Saturday morning meds at around 9PM and am now thankfully fully in the electronic medication system.

7. I am grateful for quetiapine. I just took one about half an hour ago and thankfully, it’s calming me.

8. I am grateful for fish. Doubly grateful, in fact. Last Saturday, my staff took me to the marketplace for fish and, this afternoon, the staff ordered fish for everyone at a fish shop in the next town.

9. I am grateful for warm weather. The daytime temperature hardly got below 15°C this past week and, for the past several days, it’s been 18°C.

10. I am grateful for a nice, long walk across institution grounds and through the nearby forest with a fellow resident ant two staff. I regret not having taken my phone with me so that I could have taken pictures.

What are you grateful for?

Gifts My Husband Gave Me

Today is Valentine’s day. Of course, my husband and I aren’t together now, as he had to work and I’m at the care facility, but I wanted to honor the occasion anyway by sharing something about my husband I appreciate. I looked to Lisa Shea’s collection of journaling prompts on love and romance. One of the prompts is to share a gift your lover gave or gives you that’s most precious to you. It can be a physical gift or an action or emotion. Instead, I am going to share a list of things my husband gifted me. Some of these things, I didn’t really appreciate in the sense that I liked the gifts themselves, but the gesture at the time was very much appreciated. And the story behind those gifts gives me and my husband a good laugh now.

1. A Planxty CD. This was the first gift my husband gave me when we were officially dating, for my 22nd birthday in 2008. I only listened to it probably once or twice when he came to visit. Then again, that same year, when he had his birthdday on November 12, I thought I’d gifted him a very well-thought-out present: a book of previously-unpublished philosophical texts by British Idealists. British Idealism was my profile research (high school graduation thesis) topic and he was a philosophy major at the time. He never read the book though.

2. Homemade apple pie. One year, I think it was 2010, my husband brought me a home-baked apple pie in the psych hospital. It was delicious!

3. A Tom Lehrer CD. This CD was much more appreciated than the Planxty one. In fact, I put the entire thing on my computer so that I can always listen to it, even now that I don’t have a CD player anymore (or the CD for that matter).

My husband had introduced me to Tom Lehrer’s song I Hold Your Hand in Mine back in 2008 and I loved it. From there on, I learned about most other songs. We still crack jokes about some of these songs.

4. Chocolate. It used to be kind of a tradition that my husband would buy me chocolate on Valentine’s and our wedding anniversary. Not that I’m a big chocolate fan, but I loved them nonetheless. One year, I bought my husband peanut rocks (chocolate filled with peanuts), but I’d bought him the milk chocolate ones when he preferred dark chocolate. Oopsie.

5. A bear soft toy. I can’t remember whether I showed this one on my blog yet, but last year, I got a gorgeous teddy bear holding a heart for Valentine’s day.

6. Winegums. I remember one day, my husband had been shopping at the wholesale store and he’d bought five bags of winegums (gummy candies) for me. He said he’d wanted to buy a prime number of bags and three seemed a little too few to him. You can imagine my delight, but, if you know me, you can also imagine I consumed them within a week.

7. A phone case. In 2020, when I’d bought my current iPhone, I’d asked my husband to set it up as a birthday gift and, if he wanted to give me a material gift anyway, he could give me a case. It turned out I could do the setting up mostly myself with some help from my staff, but I did get a pretty sturdy phone case.

I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting something really important my husband gave me. Of course, the most important thing he gave me, and continues to give me, is his love. I hope he feels I give him the same in return.

loopyloulaura

Also linking up with Senior Salon Pit Stop #200.

Gratitude List (November 12, 2021) #TToT

Hi everyone. I’ve really been struggling lately, which is one reason I haven’t written much. To get myself out of my rut, I thought I’d share a gratitude list. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful or #TToT for short. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for salami pizza. We ordered delivery from the local Italian restaurant on Sunday and I had this.

2. I am grateful for the night staff who helped me calm even the slightest bit on Sunday night when I was experiencing severe mood dysregulation.

3. I am grateful for a new book to immerse myself into. I’m reading a collection of short, autobiographical stories from a Dutch GP.

4. I am grateful for relatively good weather again over the past week. We’ve hardly had any rain and, though the temperature was quite low for my liking, at least it wasn’t freezing.

5. I am grateful my abdominal discomfort seems almost gone. I think I’ve finally reached the right dosage of magnesium. We aren’t to evaluate it with my GP until sometime next week though. Fingers crossed.

6. I am grateful my assigned home staff has returned to work part-time again. Like I mentioned before, she had been on sick leave since late September, but she seems to be recovering. She worked part of my day activities shift on Tuesday and my evening one-on-one today.

7. I am grateful for white chocolate. I bought myself a chocolate bar yesterday. I have it in my locked kitchen cupboard so that I can’t consume it all at once, but that way I do enjoy it more.

8. I am grateful for new essential oils. I ordered cypress, mandarin and lavender. Lavender, I’d had before but had used up. The others, I’d never used before. I did have to throw out a few others that I either didn’t like or that had expired, but that’s okay.

9. I am grateful I finished my polymer clay owl. Some people think it looks more like a turkey, but oh well. I’ll write a separate post on how I made it with more pictures later.

10. I am grateful for my staff. I have been extremely depressed lately and have been convinced that they should and will abandon me. While I heard from the manager yesterday that three staff are indeed leaving my care home, this apparently has nothing to do with me and the staff I have the best relationship with, aren’t leaving (yet).

What are you grateful for?

Lovin’ Lately (September 25, 2020)

It’s Friday and that means it’s time for the Friday Favorites linky. I don’t join in every week, but today, I have a lot of amazing things I’ve loved lately.

1. My new essential oil diffuser. I had promised myself a new one when my benefits came in on Wednesday. After all, the old one was a bit leaky at times and its buttons had been stuck for a while. Wednesday in the middle of the night, I decided to order it despite my benefits not having shown up in my bank account yet. I got it from Bol.com, a large Dutch online store similar to Amazon. When checking out, Bol.com offered me free same evening delivery because I have a type of subscription (only €9,99/year) with them that allows free delivery. It seems rather decadent to want same day delivery on non-essentials, but so what? It arrived the following evening at around 8:30 and I love it!

2. Lots of essential oils. I ordered those at the end of last week at an online soaping supplies store. However, they take 3-6 working days to process and ship your order, so my oils didn’t arrive till Tuesday. I went through my old essential oils on Wednesday, seeing which had expired. I still have quite a lovely selection though. Currently, a blend of patchouli, bergamot and lavender is diffusing in my diffuser.

I also ordered some other soaping supplies, but haven’t used those yet.

3. Chocolate. On Wednesday, I had been in the care facility for one year. To celebrate, I asked my staff to get some mini candy bars for me and the other clients to enjoy. I particularly loved the crispy one.

4. Books. I haven’t been reading that much lately, but I did download a few new books off Bookshare. Among these are, not surprisingly, several books on essential oils. However, I also saw that the latest Katherine Center novel, What You Wish For was added to Bookshare. I haven’t gotten down to reading any of her books, but I think I’d enjoy them.

5. A weighted blanket. I discussed sensory integration with the physical therapist a while ago and suggested I try a weighted blanket for relaxation. The company that my care facility works with, sends them on a try-out basis for two weeks for just shipping costs. If it helps, the physical therapist is even going to ask my facility to purchase it for me. So far, it’s pretty great.

6. A small table. When we had the COVID scare and were in room-based isolation early in the week, I needed a table to eat on other than my desk. The staff got a small table from an empty room. We’re no longer in isolation, but I’m allowed to use it for as long as no-one else needs it. I love it! I have my diffuser on it. Used to have it on my countertop, but that didn’t work. I may ask my husband to help me look for a similar table at Ikea.

What are some things you’ve been lovin’ lately?

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Smoothie Bowl!

Hi all, how are you? I had a better day yesterday than Monday. Didn’t sleep much at all Monday night, because I was so excitedly browsing sites for soap making recipes. However, I wasn’t really tired or grumpy at all.

Today was even better. On Wednesdays, the staff interns at day activities usually do a cooking activity with me, as most other clients are off to a weekly music performance in the assembly hall. I hate the music performance but love cooking, so that’s a win-win. One of the interns changed her schedule, so isn’t on on Wednesday anymore, but the other still is. Today, we made a smoothie bowl. It didn’t turn out as well as I wanted. Particularly, we used a little too much milk.

What We Used

  • 1/2 cup milk. The original recipe had us use 75ml of oat milk, but I thought that would be too little. Apparently not. Half a cup, so roughly 125ml, made the smoothie a little too thin. As a side note, we used regular cow’s milk.
  • 1 1/2 bananas. We used one for the smoothie bit and the other half on top.
  • 1 tablespoon peanut butter. The recipe I used had us use two tablespoons, but I think that would’ve been way over the top.
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder. I can’t remember how much the recipe said we needed to use.
  • A handful granola. This is spread on top of the smoothie.

This made for one large bowl.

How We Made It

First,, I peeled the banana and cut it into slices. I had the intern do the half banana that would be used on top, as I doubted my slices would be thin enough. Then, I scooped the banana, peanut butter, cocoa powder and milk into a measuring cup. I then mixed it using an immersion blender. I have a regular blender at the care home, but had forgotten to take it to the day center. The intern poured the mixture into a bowl and we added the granola and sliced half banana on top. You can also add coconut chips.

How Did It Taste?

It was delicious! Like I said, it was a little too thin. I had expected the thickness to be like custard, but it was more like a milkshake. The chocolate and peanut butter tastes were really well mixed. The smoothie almost tasted like chocolate-coated peanuts. There were hazelnuts in the granola, which tasted extra good when combined with the smoothie. Overall, I loved the activity and the result.

Linking up with the Wednesday link party.

PoCoLo