The Wednesday HodgePodge (April 5, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s time for the Wednesday HodgePodge once again and I’m giving it a try. Last week, I was scared away by the challenge of writing a limerick. I hope my participating in the hodgepodge today doesn’t mean I won’t have energy left for my #AtoZChallenge post later this evening. We’ll just see.

1. What would you say is the most difficult task when it comes to spring cleaning? Have you completed that task this year? Any plans to get it done?
Uhm, I don’t do spring cleaning or most cleaning at all for that matter, but when I still did my own cleaning back in the independence training home in 2006-2007, I thought windows were the hardest. I tried them exactly once in the 18 months I lived there and the staff agreed it’d be best to hire someone to do those for me. Another task I hated was cleaning out kitchen cupboards. I don’t have those here, but I seriously need to give the cupboards and closets I do have a good wipe down.

2. Your favorite pastel color? Favorite thing you own in a pastel shade?
My favorite pastel color is probably lilac, although I love all pastel colors really. I don’t own any pastels in my clothing as far as I’m aware, but I do own several pastel shades of polymer clay. The one I use most often is pastel aqua Fimo.

3. Do you like ham? Do you fix ham year round or is it mostly just a “holiday food”? Baked ham-ham and eggs-ham and cheese sandwich-scalloped potatoes and ham-Hawaiian pizza….what’s your pleasure?
I don’t really like ham, but it isn’t like I dislike it either. It’s not specifically a holiday food here. My favorite food that includes ham would be a Hawaiian pizza.

4. Do you celebrate Easter? What did Easter look like when you were a kid? What are your plans for Easter this year?
I don’t celebrate Easter. I mean, we might have some treats here at the care home and I’ve heard the living room was decorated for it, but it’s not like I go to church. Never been, in fact. I grew up atheist, so while we’d paint eggs and go on an Easter egg hunt, the story of Jesus’ resurrection wasn’t really familiar to me.

5. Something that makes you feel hopeful amidst all the chaos and confusion this world brings?
I am not sure how to answer this question, as I realize most hodgepodge’ers are Christians and I am not. I am not even sure what I do believe in. I mean, I am certainly not an atheist, but I have let go of my belief in the God of the Bible. Now is not the time for me to go into my reasons why, as I don’t want to offend my Christian fellow hodgepodge’ers.

However, to answer the question, I do believe that, ultimately, things will work out. I sometimes cynically joke that things will work out in 2034, referring in a kind of twisted way to the book by that title that claims World War III will start then. Seriously though, I do believe in some higher power, which I’m not sure yet what to call, by which everything is connected and will ultimately fall into place as it should be.

Other than that, the small joys I experience each day remind me that there’s still hope in the world.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’ve been in my current care home for exactly six months today and am hopeful it won’t be much longer, as there have been a lot of crises lately. Today, however, so far, is a pretty good day. Let me focus on that!

Gratitude List (April 16, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this Saturday before Easter Sunday. I have no idea whether English-speaking people have a word for this Saturday. In Dutch, it’s called “silent Saturday”. I’m having a relatively good day. I thought I’d do a gratitude post once again. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for physical therapy. The physical therapist came by twice this week. Once for my back, which had been planned already. The second time, she came by for bad pain in my right calf. It had been going on for a few days, so really I could’ve told her the first time, but it wasn’t so bad then. Thankfully, after some massaging and a bit of exercising, the pain is almost completely gone now.

2. I am grateful for a good nurse practitioner’s appt on Monday. It was really validating.

3. I am grateful for some distractions from anxiety in the form of polymer clay color mixing. I created some really cool colors.

4. I am grateful my day activities staff ordered the true colors six-pack of Fimo Professional polymer clay, which includes a color mixing chart, as well as large packs of white, Indian red and brilliant blue Fimo Soft polymer clay. (With white, Indian red, brilliant blue and sunflower yellow, which I already had, you can create the colors from the recipes I bought.) The best part is, the day center actually pays for it!

5. I am grateful the Fimo Professional isn’t as crumbly as it was when I last used it. It was actually a bit on the soft side, but still useable.

6. I am grateful for a good Easter lunch yesterday (or should I say Good Friday lunch then?) at the day center.

7. I am grateful for sunshine today and most of the week. Only yesterday was a bit of a cold and cloudy day.

8. I am grateful my computer accepts USB sticks and external hard drives again for now. It for a long while would crash when I fed it a USB stick or hard drive through the USB port. Now, I was able to put both my external hard drive and a USB stick into the USB port without problems. Unfortunately, my wedding pictures aren’t on my external hard drive, like I’d hoped, but I was able to locate some old documents and transfer them into my OneDrive.

9. I am grateful for renewed energy. I decided to have a nap this afternoon and feel so refreshed.

10. I am grateful I won’t be kicked out of the care facility. I’m horribly scared of this again after some recent events, but my staff reassured me.

11. Bonus thankful: I am so grateful for Jesus! It is Easter tomorrow, so I can’t leave this post without mentioning Christ.

What are you grateful for?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (April 12, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Happy Easter Sunday to everyone. I am once again joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had some decaf and right after that had the only fizzy drink I like, called “Dubbelfrisss”. It is only slightly fizzy though. Have a drink with me and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I would ask all my fellow #AtoZChallenge participants how you’re doing on the challenge. I am so far doing pretty well. The J and K are always hard letters for me, but as you can tell, I found a word for the letter J. I am almost decided on my letter K post too.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about all the fun the littles (inner children) have had reading jokes and free stories. We are a member of an E-mail list called Laughing_Place, but rarely even read the E-mails sent out until this past week. We laughed out loud at some of the jokes. As Milou said, the littles also had lots of fun going on a seesaw. We went on it again on Friday.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I got a lovely Easter card from a woman who lives at another home in our care facility. We can’t see each other much now that the day center is closed, but I talked to her from across her fence.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about the blog upgrade I purchased. I have the Premium plan now. As you may be able to tell, I now have my own domain and all WordPress.com ads should be gone. I also got Google Analytics, which I’m having a love/hate relationship with. I’m pretty unsure about all the technical design stuff I can do now, as I’m not tech savvy at all. I’m still not entirely sure this was a wise purchase, but so far I’m not regretting it. I might once the 30-day refund period is over though.

I am thinking about starting my blog’s Facebook page back up. This upgrade also comes with cool social sharing options, so I’d bettter make use of them. I want to get a cover photo for my FB page then though and would love a logo for my blog. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I reached my daily step goal certainly on both Thursday and Friday and probably on Wednesday too. However, then my Fitbit wouldn’t cooperate, so it says I got 33 steps only. I in fact got nearly 13K steps on Thursday and nearly 12K on Friday.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I made a soap for a staff who’s leaving in a week or so. She is a substitute for someone who’s on maternity leave and that other staffer will return on the 21st. The soap is a butterfly that’s been scented with lavender fragrance oil.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you that there’s a new client at my home. I’m struggling a bit with it, but she seems nice.

What have you been up to lately?