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.

Re(dis)covering My Creative Self

Posted on by Astrid

Today I crafted a dachshund out of polymer clay. I haven’t put it into the oven yet, as I still want to create other things before baking them all together. I sometimes feel a rush to create, create, create as who knows when this will end? In two weeks’ time, my support coordinator will be back and may decide to put my old day schedule back in place, in which I had only one tiny moment when I could possibly choose to work with clay, inbetween my morning coffee, a long walk and my lunch.

I am taking baby steps towards becoming my creative self again. This blog post is part of the process, as writing too is part of creativity. I notice my writing suffered significantly due to the chaos that was (and may become again) my support at my current care home. I know I’ll still have lots of time to write if my support coordinator puts my old day schedule back in place, but time isn’t the only factor. Inspiration is, too. And when all I do is try to survive from moment to moment – the staff’s terminology for the times they step in to support me -, I am not able to be creative at all.

I am really trying to look at these few weeks as an opportunity to re(dis)cover myself as a creative person, not just as a disturbed, manipulative yet oh so intelligent person, like most of the staff see me. My hope is that the staff who see me as primarily oh so intelligent yet disturbed and manipulative, will soon realize that, with the right support, not only will those “disturbed” behaviors lessen, but I will be able to show them my artistic side. If not, I am hoping that, soon enough, the staff who do get me will be able to convince my support coordinator and those who agree with her that this is not the right place for me. They have seen a glimpse into what I can be like when I am properly supported and I am cautiously optimistic that they can help me maintain this sense of myself, regardless of what happens when the support coordinator returns from her time off.

Zone: Describing My Creative Space #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to the last day in the #AtoZChallenge. About half of the times I’ve completed the challenge, I’ve chosen “ZZZ” for sleep as my topic for my letter Z post. I originally wanted to do the same now, but I really can’t think of ways in which my sleep relates to my creativity other than the obvious: that I need enough of it to be creative.

Instead, I am going with the word “Zone” and describe my creative space, or where I feel like I can “zone in” to my creative self.

I blog wherever I have access to my phone or computer. I could also probably be crafty in many places. However, the place I feel most comfortable being creative in, is my room in the care facility.

I have a desk, which I’ve had for over fifteen years. This desk, I use to have my computer and iPhone on. I prefer typing on my laptop keyboard, but can also type on my iPhone’s external keyboard. I cannot type anything beyond simple messages, usually consisting only of one word, on my iPhone’s screen directly. Even with the external keyboard, due to WordPress having done away with the classic editor on mobile devices, I much prefer to blog on my laptop. For this reason, when I want to blog and I’ll be away, such as at my and my husband’s house in Lobith, I’ll take my laptop with me.

For crafting, I have a separate table. I do need to clear it out when I am finished for the morning or afternoon, as I eat at that table too. I already showed you all where I keep my craft supplies in my letter K post. I can easily reach those from my table.

Then there is, of course, the shelf above my desk, where I display my finished projects. That’s part of my creative zone too, in that it inspires my creativity.

Values: How My Creativity Reflects and Supports My Personal Values #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter V post in the #AtoZChallenge. This was a hard letter to find a topic for, but with the help of The Year of You for Creatives I found one: personal values. Core values are the abstract qualities you find important in life, such as trust, love, connection, growth, etc.

Now I haven’t really ever taken the time to evaluate my core values, so it is quite hard to say whether they are reflected in my creativity. However, when I give it some thought, I realize one of my main core values is authenticity. This is still hard to express in my creativity, particularly my polymer clay. Like I said yesterday, after all, most of my creations are still pretty much copies of what I see online.

In my writing, I do try to express my authentic self. This does mean I am quite open about my experiences of, for example, mental illness. I used to overshare to the point where it got uncomfortable for the people around me. Now, though some of my relatives probably still perceive me as oversharing, I do try to be mindful of other people’s privacy.

Another of my core values is connection. This is reflected in the fact that I want to share what I create and know about other people’s creative work. This is one reason I have a blog. It is also one reason I started responding to people’s comments on my blog. For the first so many years that I kept a blog, I didn’t do this, because I felt it’d corrupt my stats somehow (don’t ask me why). I now not only know that engaging with your commenters is the ethical thing to do, but I also really value the connections I develop through interacting on my blog.

Connection is also a reason I’m in Facebook groups for polymer clay and why I share my creations on Facebook. I don’t really do Instagram, although I might want to learn to use it someday for my creative pursuits.

Self-determination is another core value. I initially wrote “independence”, but that doesn’t quite do it justice. Even though I’d really like to be independent, after all, that’s just not realistic where it comes to my crafting. I do, however, want to make my own choices and do as much as I can by myself.

Lastly, growth is a core value of mine. I always aim for progress, no matter how small. I do not always find this is reflected in my work, because I sometimes don’t see the progress I’ve made. I could really improve in this area.

Unique: Developing My Personal Style As a Creative #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter U post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I want to talk about developing my own unique style as a creative.

As a writer, I think I do have a unique style. I have certain words that I use often, even though I try to vary my language too. In fact, I may have so much of a specific word choice that it gets boring at times. I really want to step outside of my comfort zone where it comes to my writing more and explore styles that I don’t normally employ. This includes poetry and flash fiction.

As a polymer clay artist, I haven’t really developed my own style yet, in the sense that most of my current creations are still based on the creations of popular YouTubers. Some are actually pretty much copies.

An interesting exception may be my unicorns. I do give a specific twist to my designs, most notably in the twisted mane and tail.

Unfortunately, with respect to my polymer clay, I struggle to step outside of my comfort zone even more than I do in the area of my writing. I fear ruining my clay, even though obviously that’s no problem, since I can always buy new clay. Honestly, now that I think of it, I may not have a unique style in any of my creative pursuits at all, but may just be sticking to a particular comfort zone. I really need to start experimenting more!

It may all be related to the fact that I’m not as imaginative as I’d like to be. Then again, Julia Cameron of The Artist’s Way (I think) encourages her readers to explore creativity by experimenting. She also says that, to be a good artist, you first need to be a bad artist. In this sense, maybe I should really start making my own unique creations rather than copying from YouTube more. They may turn out rubbish, but so what? Some famous quote I think said that something’s better well stolen than poorly created. I think I disagree.

Time Management in My Creative Process #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to day 20 in the #AtoZChallenge. Today for my letter T post, I have a topic related to my letter D and R posts. After all, I am going to write about time management as it applies to my creative work.

I don’t have any real obligations where it comes to my creative work. I mean, in my blogging, when I sign up for a challenge such as this one, it’s just to be able to give myself some greater goal. Similarly, I don’t take on any assignments in my polymer clay, so I am basically the only one setting my deadlines.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel any pressure. I get a thrill out of knowing I’ve made a long streak of blogging on here or have been able to finish a big project “on time”. I also get stressed when I feel I’m not meeting my own goals.

I currently blog everyday and, over the past year or so, have maintained an average of at least three to four blog posts a week. I usually write my blog posts during my time I don’t have direct one-on-one support, so between 1:30 and 4PM on weekends or after 8PM each day.

One of my goals in the care facility is that I do something “useful” each day. This could be a creative activity such as polymer clay, but on days when I have appointments with mental health, those count as my “useful” activity of the day.

Given that I don’t keep track and my activity level fluctuates a great deal with my mood, I cannot say how much time on average I spend on my creative work during the week. Sometimes, I make something out of polymer clay everyday, while at other times, I am lucky if I manage one simple activity, such as mixing a predetermined color, a week.

I tend to feel useless when I’ve not accomplished much in a given week, in the sense that I haven’t finished any big projects. However, this is also related to my perfectionism. To put things into perspective, when I was still in the psych hospital, I struggled far more to get things done than I do now.

Sensory Experiences That Influence My Creativity #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today is day 19 in the #AtoZChallenge and it’s time for my letter S post. I was initially feeling a bit uninspired, so looked to The Year of You for Creatives again. In it were several prompts about sounds and sights influencing your creative work. I decided to expand on the prompts and write about sensory experiences in general.

Most times, I prefer to work on my polymer clay in relative silence. That is, I do speak with my staff, but only about the polymer clay project we’re working on. I also don’t have music on in the background. To be honest, I haven’t even actually tried it. It may be relaxing.

I sometimes do have an essential oil blend in my diffuser. Smells can inspire me, as they give off a relaxing or energizing vibe, which I can then translate into the colors I use for my polymer clay projects.

I also find that I’m inspired by sights. I mean, I cannot actually see colors anymore, but imagining a particular color in my mind’s eye does inspire me.

When I write, I do occasionally have music or a soundscape on in the background and I often have an essential oil blend in my diffuser. Right now, I have a playlist of rainforest sounds on Spotify on. My oil diffuser currently diffuses a blend of bergamot, orange, spearmint and ylang ylang essential oils.

I find that music, soundscapes, colors and smells inspire my writing, particularly my poetry and freewrites. I have a journal in the diary app Day One specifically for freewrites and I love to write stream-of-consciousness style based on a snippet from a song or a sound. I haven’t yet included the songs themselves into my journal, as that works only with Apple Music and I don’t use that.

What sensory experiences inspire your creativity?

Rituals and Routines Surrounding My Creative Work #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to day 18 and my letter R post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I’m going to talk about rituals and routines surrounding my creative process.

I don’t really have any particular rituals, in the sense that I do certain ritualistic things related to my creativity. Maybe it would help me if I did, because I sometimes struggle to get started with my creativity. Maybe having a creative ritual would help me get the “signal” that I’ll be crafting. Then again, that’d be similar to having a creative routine.

I do have certain specific routines where it comes to my polymer clay. First, I set up my work space. Usually, my staff help me roll out my no-stick mat and set up my pasta machine. They also retrieve my ceramic tile and the pencil case with my cutting tools in it from the locked kitchen cabinet. I have my clay in a large storage box, which I usually put onto my bed before starting to work. Most of the time, if I need just one color at a time, I get them out of the box one by one too and return them as soon as I no longer need them.

I usually have the staff pull my hair into a ponytail before I start to work too, because I don’t want to get hair into my polymer clay. When I’m wearing a fleece vest, I remove that too. I do usually wear black T-shirts, even though I’ve heard lint from that can get into your polymer clay too. I however don’t have any white shirts.

I always make sure to wash my hands before working with polymer clay and inbetween colors. A notable exception is when I’ll be using black for a figure’s eyes, because firstly I’ll just need a tiny bit of black then and secondly black will hardly be contaminated by other colors.

When I’m done working with polymer clay, I also have a routine that includes cleaning every tool I’ve used, including the ceramic tile, the pasta machine, any cookie cutters, my knives, etc. I clean most things using baby wipes, but this does mean I need to dry most of my tools (especially my pasta machine!) too. Most pros disassemble the pasta machine for cleaning, but I have no idea how to do that or how to put it back together.

I have no set time for polymer clay. For other creative activities, such as blogging, I do usually have set times, because I need to be alone when doing them. My most common time to write a blog post is after 8PM in the evening.

Quilting: My Grandmother’s Creative Passion #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter Q post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today, I am not going to share about one of my own creative pursuits, but about my grandmother’s main creative passion. My paternal grandmother was one of my main sources of inspiration in many ways.

My grandmother loved quilting. She at one point went to Amish country in Pennsylvania to learn from the people there. By the time I was born, she was pretty good at quilting already, so good even that her quilts were shown at exhibits internationally.

She made a bed quilt for each of her granddaughters (and one of her grandsons, because he specifically asked for one too). Mine, a quilt with lots of images of animals on it, was shown at an exhibit in France. My sister’s quilt was a simpler-looking patchwork design.

When my sister and I were young, we’d often go for sleepovers at my grandmother’s house. She would then take us to the “activity group”, which was a group of ladies gathering weekly in a room at a local estate to do quilting and other fiber arts. I loved working with the fabrics, even though I never even could do basic hand sewing, let alone work the sewing machine or quilt.

My grandmother made quilts until a few years before she died in 2018. We got a quilt she created in 2014 at what would turn out to be my and my husband’s last visit to her in 2016. I fully intended on taking a picture, thinking I had it here with me, but I can’t find it now. Think it’s at my and my husband’s house in Lobith.

I did find a small pillow that my grandma had quilted and which I took with me after her funeral (we were all encouraged to take one or more of her quilts).

When she could no longer quilt due to her eyesight failing, my grandma started knitting. Even when she was put under palliative sedation, according to my aunt, her hands still moved as though she were working with yarn or fabric.

Even though I did not inherit my grandmother’s love for quilting or yarn-based crafts, or her skill for that matter, I do believe I inherited some of her creative spirit and I don’t just mean in the crafting department. My grandmother knew what she wanted and went for it. I am the same.