#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 23, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

A lot has been floating through my mind today, but until I decided to participate in #WeekendCoffeeShare again, I had no idea how I was going to convey my thoughts into a blog post.

Like last week, I’m having a cup of green tea as we catch up. I love green tea, more so than coffee. I must say though that I’ma bit addicted to coffee. I drink it more to get energized or out of habit than because I truly like it.

If we were having coffee (or green tea), I’d share how I’ve been doing with respect to finding a living facility. On Tuesday, I had an appt with the care consultant for a facility with my current care agency. Because he isn’t in a position to decide whether I’m a good fit, I’ll have to wait for him to discuss my case with the behavioral specialist and manager. He said he’d call my support coordinator next Tuesday, but wasn’t sure whether he’d have any news by then yet.

Because I wanted to remain active, my support coordinator has been contacting some other agencies. We started with the two national blindness agencies. Bartiméus has living facilities about an hour’s drive from my current home. Visio’s living facilities are all at least 90 minutes away. Visio was the first to return my support coordinator’s call and I have a meeting with them next week.

My husband was a little sad, as he thought I want to live in Visio’s facility that’s nearly a two-hour drive away. Of course, I want to be as close to my husband as possible, but I didn’t know how to go about finding a suitable living facility. My support coordinator is going to contact other agencies closer to my current home next week. These are not for the blind, but oh well.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share about our house-hunting experience. The visit to the house on Tuesday was okay, but after reading some reports on it, we decided not to go for it after all.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my husband and I had lunch at a pancake restaurant today. I had a pancake with blueberries, while my husband had one with raisins and bacon as always.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that the screen reader company finally called to let me know I could get a new version of JAWS, my screen reader for Windows, covered by health insurance. It is also about time for a new Braille display, he said, and they could let health insurance pay for both in one go. This means that after an eighteen-months-long wait, I may finally be able to get a PC with Windows 10 and the screen reader I love. Of course, I already have a Mac and hence I told the company rep I had to think of it.

My husband was critical at first. He asked which I’d get rid of if I had to choose one: my Mac or a PC with Windows 10 and JAWS. I said I’d get rid of my Mac. I mean, I’ve had it for nearly half a year and still struggle to use it. Other blind people say that’s normal, but I really don’t want to spend that long getting used to a computer. I mean, that’s how long it took me to get used to my very first PC! So my husband offered to get me a laptop with Windows 10 and all if he can have my Mac.

I have been thinking it over and the only thing I can do with my Mac that was a pain on PC was using a good feed reader. Then again, I can’t get used to the way Safari works on Mac, so if I want to actually interact with feeds, I’ll still prefer my iPhone. I no longer use my PC, because it has two broken keys and its Windows 8.1 won’t properly update.

Anyway, I’m going to call the company rep to let him know I’ll go for getting the Braille package as it’s called tomorrow.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that it’s incredibly hot outside. In the coming week, it’s forecasted to get to 35 degrees Celsius or more. That’s no fun, as we don’t have air conditioning at home or at day activities.

The coming week should be exciting. Tomorrow, the day activities staff are taking some fellow clients and me to a local park and having lunch at a restaurant there.

Next Thursday is my birthday. I love it each year. We are going to eat at an Irish pub with my parents then. My sister and her husband are coming over for a visit on Saturday.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (June 22, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I am feeling okay. Not bad, not good. I am however rather uninspired as to what to write. For this reason, and to hopefully lift up my mood just a little, I’m going to participate in Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here is my gratitude list for the past week. Man, it’s been forever since I did those.

1. Eating rice. My husband bought a rice cooker last week. I love rice, but my husband doesn’t like it when he cooks it the regular way. He does like it when cooked in the rice cooker though. We had rice or risotto several times this past week.

2. Lunch out with my husband. On Tuesday, my husband and I went for a visit at a house we might want to buy. It didn’t work out in the end, but the lunch beforehand was good.

3. My husband preparing my breakfast a few times. My husband is off work this week and next week, which means he’s still in the house when I get up at 7:20AM. Normally he leaves the house at between 5:00 and 6:00AM. He prepared my breakfast a few times this week, making me a cup of coffee. I’m normally too lazy and in a rush to make coffee for myself on week days, so this was extra lovely.

4. Nice weather. It’s been pretty good all week. For next week, the temperature is supposed to rise to 35 degrees Celsius, which isn’t what I like. But I’m thankful to be able to wear summer clothes.

5. Being productive in finding me a living facility. We had a meeting with the care consultant for a facility with my current care agency on Tuesday. The outcome was vague, as this person wasn’t in a position to decide whether I’d be a good fit. However, my support coordinator has been trying to contact several other care agencies.

6. Some nice walks with my support coordinator. On Wednesday and Thursday, when we finished the work we were doing for finding me a living facility, we went for a walk. It was fun.

7. Getting free candy. At the marketplace near my day activities, there is a candy, nuts and dried fruits vendor I regularly buy candy at when we visit the marketplace each Friday. This past Friday, he gave the staff some free candy to give us during coffee breaks.

8. Trying out some new workouts. I’m currently trying squats and such, which are incredibly hard. I also reached my five-day exercise goal, but cheated a little, as walks of 15 minutes or more do count and I didn’t go on the elliptical.

9. Curly fries again, yay! I hadn’t had them in a really long time, but my husband ordered them for me yesterday.

10. Leftovers from a fellow client’s celebrating 25 years working at my day activities. I didn’t attend the celebration itself, as it was on Tuesday afternoon, when we were visiting the house on sale. However, we had lots of leftovers on Wednesday.

Oh my, I’m really obsessing about food as I write this list. Can you tell I love eating? Well yeah, I do. Now going to try to exercise some.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 16, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

I have a ton I want to write about, but I’m not sure I can dedicate a full post to any one of these things. For this reason, I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I should really make this a regular habit, but for whatever reason, I cannot seem to make anything a regular habit where it comes to my blog. Anyway, grab a cup of coffee, while I grab a cup of green tea. Let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d like to share that this week has been pretty exciting. Not that anything much has happened, but we have a ton of plans layed out for the coming while.

For example, my husband decided he wants to go have a look at a house that’s for sale. It’s in his work city, which would mean a lot of time and money saved on commute. It’s a really old house, but my father said modernizing it should be relatively easy. My husband and I are going to have a formal visit on Tuesday.

My husband did ask whether, if I move there with him, I’ll retain my care. I said yes. The last time I participated in the weekend coffee share linky, I was awaiting news about my long-term care appeal. Well, I won! On June 4, I got approved for long-term care.

This also means I can start looking for a living facility. However, if my husband and I decide to buy the house and move before I’ve found a suitable facility, I will retain my current home support and day activities even though that city isn’t in our local authority. That’s as much as my parents know about long-term care. I haven’t told them I’m probably moving into a care facility.

Speaking of living facilities, I’ll meet with the care consultant for a living facility next Tuesday. This facility is about an hour’s drive from my current home, but it is with my current care agency and seems more suitable than the facility I toured in January. I cannot be sure of that, of course, as I have yet to be fully informed. So on Tuesday morning, I’ll meet with the care consultant and then in the afternoon, I’ll accompany my husband to the house visit.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that my husband bought a rice cooker. He doesn’t like rice the way he usually cooks it, so was trying whether a rice cooker would help. I liked it. I really love the smell of rice!

#WeekendCoffeeShare (May 25, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

And yet again, I did not write for almost an entire week. Fortunately, this time it isn’t because my depression is worse. It’s still there, mind you, but it’s not worse than it was a week ago. I don’t really know why I couldn’t find the mojo to write again. To get back into the swing of things, I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. So grab a cup of coffee and let’s catch up. That is, I’d rather have a glass of ice-cold water right now, but if you’d like a coffee, that’s fine with me too.

This week has been a bit boring but also exciting. This week was when I was supposed to get news regarding my care situation. I still can’t disclose details. That will hopefully change soon, as I did get some news and may know for sure where I’m at this coming Tuesday. For those who don’t know, I’m in the process of applying for long-term care. Please all pray and send positive vibes my way.

On Wednesday, I normally struggle at day activities, because it’s the busiest day and we have a cooking activity then. I tend to want to be in control then and struggle trying not to be bossy. This Wednesday though, I did pretty well. I was even able to help with the cooking itself.

I’ve been fairly active as far as exercise is concerned. I went swimming with my day activities group on Tuesday. I nailed my step goal (10,000 steps) on Wednesday and nearly on Thursday too. I also finally got back into the swing of going on the elliptical regularly. As such, I got over four hours of exercise this past week.

My husbband invited me out for dinner at a chicken restaurant this evening. I love love love chicken and this place didn’t disappoint. It was an hour’s drive from our home, but my husband doesn’t mind driving.

Tomorrow, I’m probably going to have a relaxing day. We might visit my in-laws, as we usually do on Saturday but didn’t today. Other than that, I’m just hoping my day will go by okay.

A Beautiful Memory: Clowns

Posted on by Astrid

It looks like, even though I’m still depressed, I’m getting a little bit of my writing mojo back. I have at least been commenting more on other people’s posts and feel like I want to write again. I was inspired to write this post by a question over at Pointless Overthinking. The question was about your most beautiful memory from last year. In 2018, my most beautiful memory was of saying goodbye at my old day activities. I already posted about that when it actually happened though. For this reason, I’m choosing another memory to share.

On November 23, 2017, my old day activities organized a “day out” for all clients. The reason it was called that was because they get money to take each client on an outing each year. This hadn’t happened in years though and, with many clients being profoundly and multiply disabled, it would’ve been hard. Instead of going out with those who could do this, the staff chose to have a “day in”. They organized for two clowns to visit the center.

I attended the group for profoundly and multiply disabled people at the time. I am not profoundly disabled, but I most enjoyed the sensory activities at that group. The clowns visited us and started interacting with the clients. None of the other clients can talk, but they thoroughly enjoyed it. So did I.

In addition to the clowns visiting, the staff had organized for a snack and fries delivery truck to come by. The clients at my group couldn’t make it clear what they wanted from the truck, so at first I too was just given a particular snack. When I discovered you were actually allowed to order your own snacks and fries, and as much as you wanted, I joined the people at the more able industrial group to fetch myself snacks. It was a ton of fun.

I was reminded of this day a few weeks ago, when a staff’s ddaughter visited us practising as a clown. She was in the process of auditioning to become a hospital clown and wanted some practice. She was really good. Unfortunately, she didn’t pass the auditions though.

Overeating and Overweight: My Relationship with Food and My Body #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 15 in the A to Z Challenge. The O is, for whatever reason, a difficult letter. I didn’t have an inkling what I was going to write about until today and then made up my mind several more times. I finally settled on two O words: overeating and overweight. Today, I am going to describe my struggle with emotional eating.

I remember when I was as young as five stealing candy from my parents. So did my sister, but I was always the one initiating it and taking the most. My parents thought it was funny.

Despite this, my diet was relatively healthy until I enrolled into mainstream secondary school at age thirteen. Then, my eating quickly got out of hand. I ate sausage rolls every single day. I also bought large amounts of candy every week, which I’d eat in one sitting. My parents noticed, but other than giving me a bit of a talking about it, they didn’t help me change my behavior.

I don’t really know why I overate in the first place. It was more of a habit, an addiction perhaps, than that it was tied to clear emotional distress. Of course, I suffered chronic stress, so that may’ve contributed.

I had some ritualistic behavior around food too. I didn’t know a thing about calories, but I wrote down everything I ate. This was often ended with a piece of self-hatred. It was true t hat I ate too much, but I made no attempt to change it other than by berating myself for it.

I was curvy from early secondary school on, but always maintained a healthy BMI somehow. This didn’t change till sometime in 2012. I rapidly started gaining weight and continued to gain weight until the summer of 2017. Then, I tried to lose weight. I lost about 10kg and then started gaining again. I haven’t been weighed in in several months and am pretty sure that, though I am not where I was in mid-2017, I’ve gained some considerable weight.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. I don’t like the way my body looks and the fact that I am at increased risk for illness and premature death. However, in a sense, I’m too lazy to really do something about it. It’s true that, once again, I experience a ton of stress and I think about overeating on a daily basis. However, I can resist the urge most days. I don’t eat the whole can of peanut butter or something. In this sense, I have the willpower to keep from bingeing. I would really love to get myself to stop doing it altogether. Since tomorrow is my usual shopping day, I am resolving here not to buy myself candy this week.

Gratitude List (March 16, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I have been feeling a little off lately. This morning (or early afternoon to be exact), I awoke and immediately felt grumpy. I had a hard time snapping out of the moodiness. Then I read in a Dutch Facebook group about listing the positives of a day. I haven’t participated in #TToT for a while, so it’s about time.

1. Pizza on Sunday. We’d planned on having fries and snacks on Friday, but then my husband had to work late, so I ate at my in-laws. I don’t know whether the pizza night on Sunday was to make up for that, but I loved it.

2. More day activities! From next week on, I’ll be going to day activities a full day rather than just the morning on Monday. On Tuesday adn Friday, I already go full days and I’ll try Wednesday someday. Thursday will remain my day off.

3. Swimming on Tuesday. I was able to go in the deep pool again and swam almost the entire half hour.

4. Eating potato and carrot mash at my in-laws. There’s a word for this in Dutch, but I’m too lazy to look up whether there’s one in English too. My mother-in-law gave me the choice between that and sauerkraut. I didn’t expect to like the mash either, but I definitely hate sauerkraut. Surprisingly, I liked the food. Not enough to ask for second helpings, but enough to eat my first serving.

5. Phone check-ins with my support coordinator. As of last week, she’s been checking in with me at the end of nearly each day she works. I love it.

6. Being able to go for a short walk with my support coordinator on Wednesday. It rained almost the entire day, but when we went for a walk, it didn’t.

7. A rainbow. When walking with my support coordinator, she spotted it and took a photograph. She says this is our lucky rainbow.

Rainbow

8. Blueberries, bananas and honey liquorice. I went to the supermarket with my support worker on Thursday and got myself these. I particularly loved eating the blueberries in my yoghurt on Friday.

9. Outdoors horseback riding. Again, the weather treated us well on Friday afternoon. It rained the whole day, but when it was time for us to go horseback riding, it didn’t. I don’t like indoors horseback riding nearly as much as I do going outdoors, so this was wonderful.

10. Meditating. I’ve been doing a bit of it again this past week. It’s still hard to find the time and focus for it, but I love it. I finally figured out a way to play the learning to meditate course on Insight Timer. For whatever reason, VoiceOver renders the button to play it non-clickable, but somehow I got it playing. Now I may get Insight Timer premium once my disability payment is in.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Gratitude List (February 2, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I didn’t write much this past week. Not because I didn’t have anything to share, but because somehow the words wouldn’t make it onto the page. I had an extremely eventful week, which I will share more about later and which I already shared a bit about last Wednesday. Today, I’m going to write a gratitude list for the past week. As always, I’m linking up with #TToT.

1. My shoulder pain being almost over. Like I said two weeks ago, I suffered a small collarbone fracture. Yesterday was the last day of my strong painkillers. I had wanted to quit them earlier, but my husband said not to be too hard on myself. Today though, I only took two paracetamol and am more or less fine. Granted, I didn’t do a lot of repetitive work, so after I’ve finished this post, it’ll probably hurt more.

2. Being able to exercise again. I went on the elliptical for a total of 35 minutes yesterday. I did take breaks, but I felt my legs more than the injured arm.

3. Sensory activities. I already shared last Wednesday about the living facility I might go into that has lots of sensory supplies. Seeing this inspired me to explore the sensory equipment at day activities more. I found a large cylinder which you can roll on. I also spent time in the small (almost too small for my overweight body, but not yet) indoors cocoon swing.

4. Buying my Macbook. I haven’t unboxed it yet, but I’m glad I finally put one foot in front of the other and bought it.

5. Stuffed animals. Today, I experienced severe overload and had a meltdown while at my in-laws. My mother-in-law brought me a huge collection of Disney soft toys and other stuffed animals. I loved them.

6. Sleep. I didn’t sleep well early in the week. Thankfully, towards the end of the week, I slept better.

7. Getting some delicious treats for myself on Thursday. Some were healthy too, like blueberries. Some were not (liquorice!) but I loved them nonetheless.

8. The day activities staff treating us to some special food on Friday. She decided to spoil us, so for lunch on Friday, we had croissants and some salty crackers with cream cheese and olives. I went to the marketplace to buy them with this staff.

9. My husband. I need to be extra grateful for him because this past week has been stressful.

10. My support coordinator, whom I saw four times this week.

What have you been grateful for this past week?

Gratitude List (January 4, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Yay, it’s time for my gratitude list with #TToT once again. I am also linking up with the Word of the Day Challenge, for which the prompt is “gratitude” today. Do you want to know what I’ve been grateful for lately? I love to share!

1. Two wonderful full days at day activities between Christmas and New Year’s. There were only about five clients there each day and two staff. On Thursday, I went for a walk with one of the staff. We also ate pancakes for lunch. On Friday, the staff drove the center’s van to a restaurant in a nearby village, where we had a drink. I had hot chocolate with whipped cream. One of the clients from my group, an older man who used to drink beers with his friends regularly before he declined from a brain injury, had an alcohol-free beer. I could tell he thoroughly enjoyed the experience. So did I.

2. Resting over the week-end. I was pretty tired from all the Christmassy stuff by last week Saturday. So was my husband, so we chose to have a lie-in. I normally feel bad about getting up at like noon and my husband doesn’t like it either, but neither of us minded.

3. Oil balls or whatever the English term is. These are fried balls made of the same stuff that pancakes are made of. They’re a traditional New Year’s snack here. I was nauseated from them for days, but who cares?

4. Not having gained any weight over the holiday season. That is, I may’ve lost then gained some or vice versa, but in any case I was at the exact same weight last Monday that I’d been in early November. I already mentioned this last Monday, but I’m still so grateful for it.

5. A long walk with my mother-in-law. On Wednesday, she visited me and we went for a walk into the next village. This was about a 5km walk that took us 70 minutes.

6. Horseback riding with my support worker. Yesterday, for the first time in a while, my support worker was available to assist me as I rode the horse. It was truly a lovely trip. While waiting on the taxi back home, a young man from my day activities came into the canteen. Once she’d made out that we knew each other, his staff prompted him: “Who’s that?” I was delighted to hear him say “Astrid!” I only see this man on one of my days at day activities and I hadn’t expected him to recognize me, so it was truly lovely that he did.

7. Fried chicken. Yesterday, my husband cooked a rather boring meal of macaroni with bell peppers and leek. He surprised me at the end by saying that, if I admitted this was the most delicious meal I’d ever had, he might have some chicken for me. So funny! We had wings and filet. I liked the filet better, so my husband gave that to me.

8. Getting a head massage. We havve a head massager at day activities. I love it and today, my staff were doing beauty stuff. I asked for the head massage first, but I also had my nails done.

9. Looking at an online store for sensory supplies with my staff. I already knew the store and have my sensory cat from there, but my staff hadn’t heard of it. They probably got the sensory room modeled by Barry Emons, the inventor of snoezelen, but his shop is harder to use and the itmes are more expensive than the store I found. I was totally excited ooohing and aaahing at all the lovely supplies and all the more excited because my staff was excited too. We might get some stuff for my day activities group.

10. Dancing. On Friday afternoon, one of the staff at another day activities group organizes a “prom” for the entire center. I only went once before, but today, I decided to go again. I loved it.

11. Eating French fries for the first time in a while. Today, my husband heard a doctor on the radio say that you need to go to the snack conrer once in a while or you’ll get fat, or so he said. The real talk was probably about crash diets not working, but I loved my husband twisting it to an excuse to get us fries. We also each had a burger with it.

12. The lovely blog interaction I’ve been involved with this past week. I’ve gotten more interested in reading and responding to other blogs and it probably pays off on my own blog too. Besides, I just love reading other blogs, as it inspires me too.

What have you been grateful for this past week?

Small Accomplishments For Today

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday, Girl with the Paw Print Tattoo wrote an interesting post of little accomplishments. She used these to focus on the positive rather than the negative. Like she said, it’s easy to focus on what we could’ve done better, but it’s more helpful to focus on what we did achieve. Today, on the last day of 2018, I am sharing a list of my accomplishments for the day.

1. Got out of bed before noon. My husband got up by 8AM, but it was good enough for me to be up by 11:30.

2. Got showered and dressed. Most people don’t understand that this costs me a lot of energy. I don’t understand it myself sometimes, as I’ve been doing it by myself for so many years it seems obvious. However, it still takes more effort than it would most other people, I think.

3. Ate relatively healthily and not too much. Of course with it being the last day of the year, we had snacks and we had croissants for breakfast too. However, I didn’t eat more than I should have.

4. Went on the elliptical for nearly 30 minutes. This isn’t even a small accomplishment, as it is quite big a deal. Last week, my husband criticized me for having stopped exercising regularly and eating too much. It’s been only a week, but I can already say I’m doing a little better.

5. Was able to sit in the living room with my husband and sister-in-law for two hours without needing to go upstairs to unwind. MY sister-in-law came by for an early new year’s celebration (she left at 9PM). Last year, I was so involved with my special interest du jour that I hardly paid attention to her. This year, I was even able to enjoy it.

6. Didn’t have a meltdown, despite the fireworks and all the things that are unusual on this day.

7. Writing this blog post. I originally didn’t intend on writing today, but then I saw the aforementioned post and I just had to copy the idea.

What “small” things did you achieve today?