The Wednesday HodgePodge (March 22, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here goes.

1. Did you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in some way? If so tell us how. Are you a fan of corned beef? Cabbage? The color green?
No, I didn’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. I am not a big fan of cabbage or corned beef, but it’s not like I hate them either. I do love the color green.

2. March 22nd is National Goof Off Day…will you celebrate? Your favorite way to goof off? Last time you had a whole day to spend “goofing off”?
I don’t work and can officially choose my own activities within my day schedule, although a lot of staff will suggest them for me. In this sense, I can “goof off” as much as I like, although it doesn’t often feel like it. My favorite ways to “goof off” would be reading, watching YouTube videos and chilling out with an essential oil diffuser on. By the way, crafting is also a favorite way to spend my time, but since I need support with that, I often don’t feel as playful about it as the expression “goofing off” reminds me of.

3. Something on your to-do list that has been there more than a month? Will this be the month you finally cross it off?
I don’t have a to-do list, honestly.

4. In your opinion, what emotion is the most beneficial? Which one is the least useful?
The most beneficial emotion, to me, is joy. Okay, yes, I copied that from Joyce but I completely agree. I had it as my word of the year last year. The least useful emotion, to me, is bitterness.

5. What was your favorite thing to do as a kid? Elaborate.
Many different things. I enjoyed playing with PlayMobil® until I was at least thirteen. I also loved sitting on the swings in my garden. However, I was also quite nerdy, enjoying geography and drawing maps by hand (obviously not detailed at all due to my severe visual impairment and my poor spatial awareness). My favorite map to draw was that of Italy.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Just a thought: for those of you who don’t need care, can you imagine what it’d feel like if, each day, five or so different support people, often random strangers, showed up in your home claiming to want to do an activity with you? How about if they felt entitled to ask you personal questions to “get to know you” without disclosing much about themselves (after all, they’re “professionals”). What if, after six months, you’d seen literally over a hundred of them, if not several hundreds? How would it make you feel? I just asked a staff, who is a temp worker here but has supported me about ten times now so I’m supposed to “know” him, this question, after I got very irritated with another temp worker (who’s supported me about five times). The more familiar temp worker seriously replied that he wouldn’t mind who got into his home as long as they’d do the activity with him. I guess this means needing care is too far out of his realm of experience to understand the question.

My Favorite Color

Posted on by Astrid

A few days ago, or maybe it was even a few weeks, the daily prompt in my journaling app, Day One, was to write about your favorite color. I couldn’t think of what exactly to write at the time. Now, as I sit here and today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt stares at me, I just have to write.

Is my favorite color actually purple, you’d ask? Well, yes, it is one of my favorite colors and if I had to pick just one, it’d probably be this. I usually say I have multiple favorite colors, namely purple, blue and green. They all are represented in the six bottles of alcohol ink I ordered online earlier this week: three shades of blue, two shades of purple and a shade of greenish blue too.

Then again, with respect to clothes, I used to only wear black for many years. It was a statement, in my mind, but the statement never came across. I guess everyone thought it was just easier for me to match my clothing that way, being that I’m blind. And it was.

Now that I do wear colors, I have to say I don’t actually have anything purple in my wardrobe. I should really change that.

And I should get to crafting a purple unicorn ashtray for the male staff doing my one-on-one shifts once a week, who I overheard is leaving in October. Oh wait, he asked for a pink one. And polymer clay isn’t suitable for ashtrays anyway. But he’ll appreciate the humor.

Color Mixing Recipes!

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts this week asks us to write about something we collect or used to collect. Another asks us to write about something we’ve been working on this week. Yet another asks us to make one superficial wish. I am going to combine all of these and talk about color mixing recipes for polymer clay.

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am totally blind, but I did have a bit of useable vision growing up. As a result, I do still have a concept of color due to my memory of sight and also due to my synesthesia (in my case, ability to see Braille letters in color when I touch them).

As regular readers also know, my main creative hobby recently, besides blogging, is polymer clay. I love the fact that polymer clay comes in so many varieties of colors and that you can also color it with alcohol inks (which I’ve never used so far), soft pastels, acrylic paint, etc.

However, a few months ago, I discovered color mixing recipes. The vendor I impulsively bought a small collection of five recipes from, builds its recipes on four basic colors of Fimo soft: white, sunflower yellow, Indian red and brilliant blue. I immediately bought all four colors, but didn’t yet have a precision kitchen scale to be able to weigh out 0.25g, for example.

This past Sunday, I bought such a scale and also bought another collection, this time of 60 color recipes. Even though I can’t yet say I actually collect polymer clay color recipes, I would really like to.

That brings me to my superficial wish: an endless supply of free Fimo color recipes. There is an app that provides color recipes based on the colors in photos, but it’s available only on Android. Besides, one of my staff tried it yesterday and it constantly crashed. It also uses Fimo professional. Now I don’t mind that, since the advantage of Fimo professional is it actually comes in the true primary colors, such as true yellow, true magenta, etc. I would really love to be able to try to mix those colors too, as I’ve heard mixing actual true primaries creates more vivid colors than mixing fake primaries such as sunflower yellow and Indian red.

By the way, here is a blob of polymer clay in the first color I created using my new collection of color mixing recipes and my precision scale: moss green.

Of coursse, since I didn’t create anything with this color yet, it looks a bit weird, but I’ll be using it in a fall-inspired craft project I have in mind.

Since then, I’ve created two more colors, both for the fall-inspired project too: camel and burnt sienna. I have also been oohing and aahing at a ton of color recipes I would like to buy someday still. But they’re better if they don’t cost me money. So, if Mama Kat’s friendly genie would please pop by me and grant me that endless supply of free Fimo color mixing recipes, I could create all the colors I want.

Mama’s Losin’ It

Excitement: Things I Enjoy About My Creative Work #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter E post in the #AtoZChallenge. There are many E words related to creativity, but I decided to share the things I enjoy about being creative. I chose the word “Excitement” for my post title, because that was the title of the prompt in The Year of You for Creatives that inspired this idea. Now, of course, I can no longer cheat and use another “Ex” word for the letter X, but I try to avoid that at all cost anyway. Tomorrow, if I don’t make up my mind before then, I’m going to share about my creativity-related frustrations.

The first thing I enjoy about being a creative, is learning about other artists’ creative process. I love watching and reading tutorials on the various crafts I enjoy and they truly inspire me. This is more of a recent development, since doing soap making in 2016. Before then, I’d just create what I wanted without any sort of tutorial. This, however, often led to disastrous results.

Another thing I love about my creative work, is shopping for new supplies. Either that or just looking for supplies online without actually buying them. I have a huge wishlist of things I want to buy someday. About a month ago, I decided to put some of them on my online birthday wishlist rather than buying them myself. My birthday isn’t until the end of June, so this is quite the exercise in patience.

A thing I especially love about all of my creative endeavors, is being able to share them online. I am in groups on Facebook for pretty much every craft I dabble in currently (and maybe even some I don’t anymore). I cannot really imagine being creative without sharing my work at all.

Lastly, something I am currently very excited about is finding new techniques to try with my crafts. For instance, today I tried to mix a color with polymer clay using my precision kitchen scale (yay, I finally bought one!). Knowing it turned out as I wanted to (for which, in the case of a color, I of course rely on my staff) is pure delight.

Childhood Creative Endeavors #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter C post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I initially wanted to write about cardmaking, but I don’t feel like that now. Instead, I’m going to talk about my creative endeavors as a child.

As a young child, I had a bit of useable vision that allowed me to use colors sort of appropriately (that is, as appropriately as a sighted child my age could). I loved learning about the names of unusual colors. I remember, in particular, learning that the sixth color of the rainbow is indigo, which I was fascinated by.

I could do some basic drawing too. In Kindergarten, I went to mainstream school with hardly any accommodations. I remember having to color inside the lines of a piece of paper, giving each little shape within the drawing a different color and not leaving any white. When, several years later, I looked at it, I saw considerable white. I have no idea how I compared to the other kids though.

By the age of eight, I’d lost the ability to tell most shades of green and blue apart, but I continued to love drawing until I was about age twelve. Then, I realized I’d lost so much vision that it’d make no sense. Even so, before then, my drawings up till that age remained comparable to a Kindergartner’s in quality.

When I went to special education, I was taught other creative activities. I remember making at least a dozen origami frogs in second grade. However, my teacher did at one point write on my report card that she wished she were two teachers so that she could teach together. In other words, I required so much attention that she’d really need to split herself in half to be able to teach the class too.

My parents bought a pottery kiln when I was about eleven, so I also tried my hand at ceramics. I wasn’t too good at it, leaving fingerprints on my work all the time, but at least I enjoyed the process.

Writing also was a lifelong passion of mine. I can’t, in fact, remember a time when I didn’t enjoy writing. At first, I’d make up stories to go along with my drawings. As a tween and teen, I wrote stories that were somewhat or very much related to my real life. My greatest achievement is a work in progress, a young adult novel by the working title of “The Black Queen” about a teen whose mother has multiple sclerosis. This story, though it had autobiographical elements, was inspired by a conversation I overheard about a classmate.

Did you love creative activities as a child?

The Color Of Words #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

SoCS Badge 2019-2020

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “color”. I already shared about my perception of color several months ago. Like I shared then, I no longer have the ability to see colors in the physical world due to being totally blind. I used to as a child though and still retain the ability to see colors in my mind’s eye through synesthesia.

I mentioned that color words don’t always correspond to their own color. For example, the word “green” is mostly red. The word “color” itself is mostly yellow. Both o’s are yellow and so is the c. Interestingly, so is the u in the British spelling of the word.

I love some words more depending on their color combinations in their synesthetic presentations in my mind. For example, really I like the British spelling of “colour” more than the American one. The slightly darker shade of yellow for the u adds an interesting shade to the word that makes it somehow more appealing. Same for the word “synaesthesia” in its British spelling. I don’t honestly think there are many words whose American spelling appeals more synesthetically to me than its British spelling. Then again, I am used to mostly using American English on my blog, so that’s what I’ll do.

Color Vision

Posted on by Astrid

As regular readers of my blog will know, I am blind. I wasn’t always totally blind though. As a child, up to around age twelve, I could see most colors. I could still see some very bright colors until I was eighteen.

When I asked the ophthalmologist at the university medical center to put me on the waiting list for cataract surgery in 2013, some color vision was all I hoped for. The doctor said that the best possible outcome was that I could have hand motion vision, ie. see someone’s hand move from one meter away. I didn’t really care about seeing anything one meter in front of me. If I’d have to hold a colored paper five centimeters in front of me to see its color, that was fine by me. I just wanted to be able to distinguish colors again. Unfortunately, though the surgery was at least a partial technical success, I never regained color perception.

When asked at the rehabilitation program for the blind what we’d be happiest about to regain if we ever regained our vision, most of my fellow clients mentioned some variation of independence. I, though, said that I’d be able to enjoy the colors of nature again. Unfortunately, though technology has come a long way, it will likely never be able to recreate an experience remotely similar to color vision.

I can still, fortunately, see some colors, but it’s in my mind’s eye. You see, I have projected grapheme-color synesthesia. When I touch the characters on my Braille display, they evoke a visual sensation of a color. Each letter corresponds to its own color, though some of the colors are very similar. That probably reflects the fact that I was never able to see the full variety of shades of colors that sighted people can. For example, the V and J are both a light shade of green. I can tell them apart if I see them both, in that the J is a slightly lighter, mintier shade, but it’s hard to describe.

Words also have an overarching color. In case you’re wondering, the colors of color words don’t always align with their meaning. For example, the word “Green” is more red (after the letter G) than green, even though both E’s are green.

I love my synesthetic color perception. It makes up for a loss of appreciation that no amount of technology can compensate for.

This post was inspired by CalmKate’s Friday Fun Challenge with the theme of “Colors”. I’m not really sure whether this rambling piece fits the idea of the challenge, but oh well.

Jade

Posted on by Astrid

We don’t have an alter named Jade. We do have one named Jane, one named Janita and one named Jace (short for Jaclyn). But we have no Jade. Then again, we love jade.

Jade is a beautiful green gemstone. At least, that’s the color we know. There are also creamy white and blue jades. We had at least one, a green jade, in our gemstone collection, I believe.

It is supposed to be a protective stone, in terms of crystal healing. I’m not sure I believe in crystal healing, but to some extent, I guess I do. Jade is supposed to promote self-sufficiency. In that sense, I guess our alter named Jane would love it as her stone.

When I look at the supposed benefits of jade, I see it also promotes balance, harmony and moderation. To me, this signifies that it could be an especially useful stone for us.

It isn’t specifically suited to our Zodiac sign. That is, it is suited to Libra, which we are supposed to be if you take our due date as our birth date. Which I have no idea whether any astrologers even do. I guess not. Our regular Zodiac sign is Cancer.

Jade is connected to the heart chakra. The heart chakra’s color is green. At least, when I did a guided color meditation using the chakras, I was told to envision the heart chakra as green. I wonder whether there’s any connection between the main colors of gemstones and what chakras they’re most related to.

Synesthetically, the word “jade” is also green. Three out of the four letters are green and the overarching color of the word is an emerald green. I truly think it’s amazing!

Linking up with #JusJoJan, for which the prompt today is “jade”. I’m not sure I’m allowed to link up, since I didn’t previously participate this year, but oh well.

Blue to the Blind #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “blue”. The idea is to write about the firsst blue object you see when sitting down to write your post. Well, I am blind, so I don’t see anything blue as I sit here to write. I could be writing about things I know to be blue. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. Or at least, they’re both seen as blue due to the sun’s reflection on them, or something.

I could be writing about my sensory cat, the soft toy I got for my 31st birthday from my sister. I think the cat is blue. It is filled with lavender, which I know is kind of blue too.

How would I describe blue to a person who’s never seen it? I can, at least, having had color perception as a child, still imagine blue in my mind’s eye. Someone born totally blind can’t. I once wrote a post describing the color green to blind people on my old blog. This was a journaling prompt, just so you know that no actual blind person asked me to describe the color green. Which, I should say, I really can’t.

I mean, synesthesia may be able to help. Blue is a “cool” color. It is the color of the number three in my synesthetic perception. Then again, even with synesthesia, everyone’s perception is different, so that wouldn’t make sense.

Interestingly, there are no blue letters in the word “blue” and the overarching color in the word is orange for the letter B.

I wonder now, does my synesthesia always make words look like the color associated with their first letter. I’m not sure, but the word “green”, even though the two E’s are green, isn’t really green overall. It’s more red with a touch of green. The G is red.

Mondays are green too, even though the word “Monday” has no green letters in it. Fridays are blue and yet again, there’s no blue letters in the word. Isn’t that fascinating?