Kymber’s Get to Know You (May 1, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. How is it May already? Time flies and the #AtoZChallenge certainly was a fun thing that made time fly. I really do hope I’ll be able to continue in the flow of blogging, but I won’t promise anything even to myself.

Today, I’m joining Kymber for her Get to Know You prompt. This week, it’s a This or That. Here goes.

1. Shopping online or shopping in-store?
For fun, I prefer shopping online, honestly. It allows me the ability to browse what’s available, whereas in-store I’m dependent on someone to tell me what they see. Because of this, if I could really do all my shopping online and package delivery here to the institution wasn’t as complicated as it is, I’d do all my shopping online. Yes, I do realize that town centers would be empty without stores, as they already are much emptier than they used to be. We’ll find a solution to that though.

Currently, I do go shopping in-store once a week with my best friend and I do love going to the supermarket with my staff. However, the latter is probably because the supermarket doesn’t deliver to the institution and I can’t access the website of the one that does.

2. Science fiction or mystery?
Mystery, although in all honesty I’m not that much of a fiction reader. I do read the occasional sci-fi novel but think mysteries are more my thing out of these two.

3. Movie adaptations or books?
Books. I don’t watch movies, because without audio description I can’t follow them because of missing the visual aspect and with audio description, I can’t follow them because I get overloaded. Then again, like I said above, I am not that much of a fiction lover in general.

Kymber’s Get to Know You (January 9, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have been quite tired over the past few days, so didn’t do much writing. I’m still proud to say that this is my sixth blog post in January. Considering that some months in 2024, I only published five posts total, this is good.

Anyway, regular readers may remember me participating in the Wednesday Hodgepodge for a while. I stopped doing that, because I didn’t like it that the overwhelming majority of participants’ posts were heavily Christian-based. Now though, I seem to have found something to replace it with: Kymber’s Get to Know You. Here are the questions for this week and my answers.

1. What is the most memorable activity you did with your family as a child?
Not an activity we did as a whole family, but play-based learning with my parents comes to mind. For example, my father taught me to calculate squares using computer chips he’d been removing out of the devices himself. I also remember us looking at maps together. My mother also made little books in large print for me to learn to read when I was about four. Here in the Netherlands, children don’t usually learn to read until they’re six, but I was a precocious learner. My parents will probably be proud to see me list these “intellectual” activities.

2. What quality do you appreciate most in a friend?
Acceptance. I want to be myself with a friend and if they aren’t willing to accept that, fine but they aren’t my friend. I will also accept my friends for who they are. I don’t mean that mutual annoyances can’t happen. They happen between me and my spouse, who I consider to be my best friend, all the time. However, when it comes down to it, we accept each other for who we are.

3. What is one characteristic you received from your parents you want to keep and one you wish you could change?
My mother jokes that I inherited all my positive qualities from my father and all my negative ones from her. I was almost going along with it, because indeed the first positive characteristic I thought of comes from my Dad and the first negative one from my Mom. However, I’d like to boost my Mom’s self-esteem a bit (should she ever read this) and lessen my Dad’s. Therefore, I’d like to keep my Mom’s creativity and get rid of my Dad’s snobbishness.