The Wednesday Hodgepodge (December 3, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I badly want to write but feel horribly uninspired. For whatever reason, I feel drawn to blog hops in which I haven’t participated in forever, like the Wednesday Hodgepodge. I haven’t participated in forever because I’m not a Christian and don’t want to elicit judgmental comments from fellow participants. I like the questions though and used to love the community spirit. This is a double-edged sword, unfortunately, in that I feel like I cannot fully be myself in Christian-centric communities. However, I can be myself on here and nobody is required to read or comment on my posts. With no further ado, here are this week’s questions.

1. What does it mean to have the “holiday spirit”? On a scale of 1-10 how is yours this year? (10=off the charts, 1=still looking for it)
I was immediately reminded of Tom Lehrer’s Christmas song when I saw this question.


That being said, I’m also reminded of the holiday spirit as referring to the spirit of community and connection to family and friends. In this respect, my holiday spirit is at a 2 at best. I, after all, hardly have any contact with my family and as of this year we’re not celebrating Christmas at my in-laws’ either. Thankfully, I will be going to our house to celebrate the holidays with my wife. However, since neither of us are religious, I don’t think it matters much that we’re being together specifically for Christmas. At least it’s a way to avoid having to spend time with our parents.

2. What’s your favorite character from a (December) holiday-themed movie, book, or TV special? Tell us why. 
I don’t think I’ve ever watched holiday-themed movies. When I was a kid, my parents used to watch musicals on TV on Boxing Day, like My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, etc.

The only Christmassy book I remember reading is Murder on Christmas Eve by Ann Sutton. I read it last year, when I was more into the holidays than I am now. It’s a mystery set in 1920s England. Dodo Dorchester, the main character, is quite interesting.

3. Do you like gingerbread? Are gingerbread houses part of your holiday tradition?
I don’t care for gingerbread, but I don’t hate it either. No gingerbread houses here. However, yesterday, I did craft a gingerbread man out of polymer clay.

4. Much of our vocabulary is determined by where we live or where we grew up. What say you- sprinkles or jimmies? lightning bugs or fireflies? soda or pop? sneakers, trainers, or tennis shoes? sub, hoagie, grinder, or hero? freeway, highway, or motorway? frosting or icing? sauce or gravy?
I am a non-native English speaker, so I use the words that I know best: sprinkles; fireflies; soda (or coke); all three for the shoes but mostly sneakers; no idea what the next couple words have to do with each other; highway most of the time; both frosting and icing; sauce for pasta and gravy for meat/potatoes.

5. Share a favorite holiday memory from your childhood.
This is not Christmas-related, but since St. Nicholas is still not over yet (it’s December 5), I’ll share a memory of that. I’ve probably shared it a few times before: the last year that I still believed in St. Nick, my father recorded himself playing St. Nick’s servant Pete claiming to be stuck in the chimney. Not that we even had a chimney at that house, but what did I know? The next year, my father played the recording for me outside of the holiday season to make me stop believing for sure.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Despite not being in the holiday spirit, I did create a few Christmas decorations out of polymer clay over the past few days. Tomorrow or on Friday, I’m also going to bake St. Nicholas-themed cookies.

It’s October

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s October. Several years, I’ve at least tried to participate in blog challenges, such as #Blogtober and #Write31Days. I saw that #Blogtober is running again this year, but I’m not officially participating. Still, I’m challenging myself to blog more this month. I did okay’ish in September.

Generally speaking, I don’t like October. It’s not as bad as November, but it’s not a fun month. Unfortunately, this year so far is no exception.

The weather’s bad, so I didn’t walk today except to a staff’s car to drive to a DHL service point to pick up a slow juicer I’d ordered online on Sunday. It’s a Chinese brand, so I may at some point regret having bought it because of the risk of microplastics in my juice. In fact, I’m already putting a good juicer and blender (my blender is not Chinese but it’s a cheap one) on my wishlist should I decide juicing and smoothie making is a true keeper hobby for me. I’m not buying either until I’ve waited a few months to make up my mind though.

I did start off this month with a new course on Duolingo: intermediate English. So far, most of it is ridiculously easy. Then again, the option I selected on the start screen to determine my skill level made the app think I’m at the early B1 level in the CEFR classification system. My spouse said my writing skills are probably C1 level at least but I’m pretty sure I miss some B level vocabulary. Let’s hope the course will aid in teaching me that.

Share Your World (July 22, 2024)

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Hi everyone. I haven’t touched this blog in over a week, but thankfully have been doing okay. Today, I’m joining Share Your World. Here goes.

1. When you retire (or when you retired) do you have a picture of a small cottage with a white picket fence outside in a quiet village or something similar?
I honestly wasn’t fully sure at first what Di meant with this question. Do I have a picture? No. I have just one physical picture in my home and that one is of myself. Oh wait, she meant whether we envision ourselves living in a small cottage blah blah. Well, I for one don’t. I’m not technically retired, in that I’m not of retirement age and, since I never worked, I still consider that age (which by the time I reach it is probably mid-70s) the cut-off point for retirement. I don’t honestly envision myself ever living in a small cottage. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ll live in a care home forever.

2. What do you associate with school dinners (apart from school of course)?
I envision another post in the making, as I can talk up a storm about school lunches. We didn’t get a cooked meal at my schools. Well, I did a few times when I’d be having after-school activities. I remember one such meal, a dish called “hete bliksem” in Dutch, which is basically a stew of mashed potatoes, apples and bacon. I detested it!

3. Can you play a musical instrument?
No, not at all. I took lessons learning to play keyboards at the training center for the blind when I was 19, but really didn’t get beyond the absolute basics. I have forgotten all of it since. Like I’ve also probably shared before, I took a few guitar lessons when at summer camp in Russia in 2000, but it took me the whole first lesson to figure out what the instructor, who spoke only English and Russian, meant by the “strings”.

4. What made you smile today?
My being able to teach one of the student staff here about care profiles and him appreciating my “lesson”. Care profiles are the care packages and associated budget each client in long-term care is allocated. I really loved perseverating on a topic I know a lot about without it personally affecting me at that very moment (because the student staff isn’t the one making decisions about my care).

Another thing that made me smile today is being able to describe the above image, which Di used for the optional gratitude section, directly from the web through my screen reader. I think I somewhat agree with the sentiment expressed in the quote too. At least, in my case, life may not always get better, but I do get to experience good days at every age.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (February 1, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. After a month on hiatus, the Wednesday HodgePodge is back and I’m joining in. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. Tell us anything you want about your January.
It was such a looong month. Oh, that’s a cliche, but who cares? I shared my monthly reflections yesterday.

2. Lake Superior State University posts a list each year of words they think should be banished from the Queen’s English for misuse, overuse, and/or general uselessness. The 2023 list includes GOAT, inflection point, quiet quitting, gaslighting, moving forward, amazing, Does that make sense?, irregardless, absolutely, and it is what it is.
Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly? Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word/phrase not on the list you’d like to add?
I use “absolutely” and “amazing” a lot. I also have a lot of other words I use way too frequently. It’s probably because my written English isn’t as good as I’d like it to be. As for a word or phrase I’d like to see banished most out of this list, it’d be “it is what it is”. That’s just such a useless statement. By the way, I have an inkling “GOAT” when spelled in all-caps means something other than the animal, but I have absolutely (see, here I go again) no idea what it means.

I don’t know which words or phrases I’d add to the list in general, but I’d erase “obviously” and “definitely” from my own personal vocabulary if I could (and replace them with a dozen synonyms). Oh wait, I could do that, but I’m too lazy to use my thesaurus.

3. February 2nd is Groundhog Day. What’s something that feels repeated in your life right now?
Wow, this HodgePodge is a true English lesson! After all, I had no idea what groundhogs even were or what they had to do with repetition. That being said, my days at this point in my life are one giant string of repetition, truthfully. In a way, they’re very unpredictable, but since there is no rhyme or reason to my weeks, the days all roll into each other.

4. What’s a food you love that’s named after a place?
I really don’t know all that many foods named after places. I was going to say “mexicano”, which is a type of rectangular mince snack, but that would be named after the ethnic group. Besides, the mexicano has nothing whatsoever to do with Mexico or Mexican food.

5. What’s the best season of the year to visit your part of the country? Tell us why.
Spring or summer. I live in a part of the Netherlands where the summers can get hotter than, say, in the coastal provinces. However, there’s a lake quite near where I live now, which is good for swimming (we used to go there when my family still lived in Apeldoorn). Spring would also be a good time to take walks around here, I guess, but I haven’t tried that yet as I moved here in the fall.

I wouldn’t recommend visiting the Netherlands during winter at all, as we hardly get snow and, even if we do, we don’t have mountains so it’s no use for skiing.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
My care home’s kitchen renovations are done! They were actually finished nearly a week early. I’m so happy about it, as it means I can finally cure my polymer clay creations in the oven. It also means the living room furniture will be moved back to the actual living room soon rather than all of my fellow clients gathering in the hallway right across from my room. That’s been quite disastrous. Honestly though, I still do want to leave this care home, as the real problems aren’t temporary.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (October 12, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I haven’t been around in a few days and am not too motivated to write. However, I don’t want to abandon this blog altogether, so I’m participating in the Wednesday HodgePodge for today. Here goes.

1. Thursday (Oct 13) is National Train Your Brain Day. What do you do to keep your brain in tip top shape? Is it helping?
Does reading and writing in English, which is my second language, count? Other than that, not very much. I used to love a word game called 7 Little Words, but it’s not as accessible now as it used to be.

Is it helping? I’m afraid not. I feel like I’ve been slowly deteriorating over the past fifteen years.

2. You can sit with anyone in the world and “pick their brain”…whom do you choose? Tell us why?
Anton Došen, a former professor of psychiatry of intellectual disability here in the Netherlands and the first one (if I’m correct) to describe the discrepancy between cognitive and emotional development.

3. What’s something happening in the world (or your corner of it) right now that you have trouble “wrapping your brain around”?
Too many things to count… Politics, the economy, the war in Ukraine, my staff’s expectations of me… God’s love… etc.

4. On a scale of 1-10 where do you fall in the pumpkin fanclub? (1=blech, 10=make it all pumpkin all the time) Tell us something delicious you’ve tasted recently that had some pumpkin in it somewhere.
Hmmm, I don’t really care for pumpkin that much, unless it’s mixed in with other vegetables in some kind of stew or something. I’ve never had pumpkin spiced anything either.

5. Share a favorite song, book, or movie with an autumn title, setting, or vibe.
I have absolutely no idea.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I am struggling. For one thing, fall is the hardest season for me. For another, settling into my new home is really difficult. Thankfully, I’m getting to know my staff a little and trying to let them know how I feel. This is hard, as I don’t want to be seen as too demanding. I am pretty sure some staff see me as such anyway.

Report Cards and Progress Reports

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Today’s topic for Throwback Thursday is report cards and progress reports. I am going to write mostly about traditional report cards in school, not the many psychological reports I had written about me during my childhood and adolescence.

Looking back, I was a good student academically, but it didn’t show on my report cards during elementary school. I attended special education and my teachers didn’t really believe I was more than just average intellectually. In fact, when I had a nationally standardized test in the sixth grade, the school’s principal called my parents in utter disbelief to tell them I had gotten a very high score. My father was like, duh, I told you so.

My behavior did get reported on. Though I had severe social and emotional challenges, I always got average ratings on those things that mattered to the teachers. I remember one day feeling disappointed when my rating on “correct behavior” had been lowered from the previous report card even though as far as I knew I hadn’t made mistakes about addressing the teachers formally.

In high school, I did get actual grades. Not letters here in the Netherlands, but numbers between one (worst) and ten (perfect). In my first year at grammar school, I got a lot of tens. These did get my classmates envious, so sometimes I’d argue for a lower grade. For instance, I had a ten on a drawing theory test and I hadn’t done any of the other drawing assignments because, well, I’m blind. Initially, I got a ten on my report card because that was the only grade I had. My classmates protested and my father and I agreed. Then the grade got lowered to an eight, reflecting the fact that I’d gotten a ten on that test and a six (barely passing) on drawing in general just for participating in the class.

Once in my third year, I was rebelling and hardly studying at all, so I did earn a few ones. One time, in my fifth year in high school (eleventh grade), I got a one in French for not doing an assignment because I’d had to do it with a partner and I hadn’t been able to find a partner, because I’d felt too anxious to ask anyone.

I wasn’t really punished harshly for failing grades or rewarded for good grades, but I did know I was expected to excel. Often, my parents made me do extra work, particularly before I was mainstreamed at grammar school.

My best subjects in elementary school were math and geography. In high school, those changed to languages, because high school math requires much more non-verbal intelligence and insight, something I don’t have. My best grade on my final high school exam was in English.

Now, as an adult, I do have an English-language blog, but I don’t think I learned to blog in high school. After all, despite the fact that grammar school is the highest level high school, I really wasn’t all that good at English after graduation. Other than English, I don’t use anything I learned in school really. I mean, during my year in special ed secondary school, textile arts was my worst subject and now I like to do macrame. Go figure.

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.

Good Enough

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s optional prompt word for #LifeThisWeek is “Good”. Denyse takes on a cynical approach to the word, which reminds me of the many degrees of being called “good” I experienced.

In my elementary school years, my parents were in a constant fight with the schools for the blind I attended about my educational needs and my potential. According to the school, I was a good enough student. That’s the literal translation of the words that appeared on my report card often. Sometimes, when I was better than average, just “Good” appeared.
My parents thought I ought to get some more recognition. They thought I was excellent, sublime, a genius.

My schools thought I should be going to their secondary school program, which at the highest level catered to average students. My parents believed I could do far better.

I doubt, to be very honest, that my teachers truly didn’t see that academically, I was above-average. At least some of my teachers must have seen this. However, socially and emotionally, I was significantly behind. This was probably the real reason my schools recommended I continue in special education. My parents disagreed. They felt that I would be overprotected and underestimated in special ed. They might’ve been right. We’ll never know, since my parents took me from educational psychologist to educational psychologist until they had the recommendation for mainstream high level secondary education in their hands.

What I do know, is that I ended up being overestimated and underprotected. My parents would love to deny this and blame the staff in independence training for essentially setting me up for long-term care. Agree to disagree. Then again, we’ll never know, because I didn’t go into independent living and on to university right out of high school.

Sometimes, I wish I was just the average, good enough student that some of my teachers saw me as. Then at least I wouldn’t have to face the enormous challenge of both a high IQ and an emotional level comparable in many ways to an 18-month-old child. Then, I might not be writing blog posts in English, but I also might not need 24-hour care.

Then again, I enjoy writing blog posts. I like my care facility. Life is good enough for me.

Not Quite California Dreamin’ #SoCS

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SoCS Badge 2019-2020

When I was a teen, I dreamt of going to the United States in my third year of college. After all, I was going to be an English major, choosing American studies as my specialty. Then in my third year, I would be incredibly motivated and talented and would be allowed to go on an exchange student visa to the United States.

I had already picked my preferred cities to go to. Most were suburbs of Boston. First, it was Lynn. Then Somerville.

Then, at one point, I got obsessed with Columbia, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. Then, finally, Silver Spring, MD, a suburb of DC.

None of these were college towns as far as I know, but I always dreamt of going to college in the city and living in the suburbs eventually. Because, after all, with my incredible talent (ahum) and affirmative action, I calculated that I’d be allowed to stay for some professional career and never go back to the Netherlands again.

Now that I think of it, it’s interesting that I never dreamt about going to California for my studies. I would say that most people choose either the east or west coast. At least people from Europe most likely do, with the Midwest, South and Great Plains being far more conservative. I just envisioned living in New England or the DC area.

And just for the record, it all never came true. I never even majored in English at university. I still haven’t been to the United States, though I hope to visit there someday. Mostly to meet some people I know.

This post was written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS), for which the prompt this week is “Cal-“. I could’ve written about calendar calculation, calories or Calibre (an eBook management tool). Instead, some of the other participants’ posts inspired me to write about my American dream.

What I Wanted to Be When I’d Grow Up #Blogtober20

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Today’s prompt for #Blogtober20 is “Wannabe”. I originally had no idea what to write for it, until I saw Mandi’s own post mentioned writing about what she wanted to become when growing up. Mandi chose against this theme, but I’m going with it. I can’t remember whether I ever covered this topic on this blog – I’m pretty sure I did on one of my older blogs, but it might have been here too. Even if I did cover the topic here, I have a lot of new’ish readers, so it may still be interesting.

I remember in Kindergaten we had some type of celebration that included a “fortune-teller” with a crystal ball – of course, it was another grade’s teacher. I remember she asked us all what we wanted to be when we’d grow up. Most girls wanted to be a princess, of course. I can’t remember what I said I wanted to be.

When I learned to write, however, I knew pretty soon that I wanted to be a writer. My parents, realistic as they were, told me up front that writing wouldn’t earn me a living unless I was a real good one. So for money I usually wanted to be a teacher.

I originally wanted to teach small children, of course, because I myself was still young. When I got to the later elementary grades, I made up my mind and wanted to become a high school teacher. Or a professor even. I remember proudly telling people when I was twelve that later I wanted to be a Dutch-language linguist. Later, I wanted to become a mathematician.

This was, at least, what I told others when my parents or teachers were present. Secretly, I made plans to become a psychologist. I wanted to help children or adults with my kind of problems, which I was well aware of by that age.

When I was in my later years of high school, the thought of becoming a psychologist remained at the back of my mind. Openly though, I chose to go the “safe” path and applied to become an English major. Then I made up my mind at the last moment and chose to take a gap year to go to the rehabilitation center for the blind.

I got the opportunity to study psychology, albeit not at university, in 2006. I jumped at the opportunity and did eventually earn my foundation (first-year diploma) in applied psychology. I passed communication skills only if I promised that I wouldn’t continue in this field though. I know, psychology isn’t the best major for an autistic. But I didn’t want to do something I didn’t like, so I picked linguistics as my university major with the intent of doing my minor in speech and language pathology. As most of my readers know, it didn’t work out.

I still intend on someday taking some more psychology or pedagogy classes. I will most likely never work at any paid job though. Still, my original dream of becoming a writer, has at least partly come true.

#Blogtober20