Gratitude List (July 28, 2026) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I used to participate in the Ten Things of Thankful blog hop regularly, but since the original blog on which it was hosted was abandoned in favor of a number of individual hosts’ blogs, I struggled to find it and, when I did, was often too late to join in. Now I’m still on time (though barely) and would like to share my gratefuls. It feels odd doing this on a Tuesday, but oh well. I’m doing this post in the classic editor because I struggle with lists in the block editor.

1. I’m grateful for my best friend. As regular readers of this blog know, the past year or two has seen a lot of change in our relationship, in that we used to be married. The divorce isn’t completely final yet, but that should happen this week or the next. I’m grateful though that, despite no longer being a couple, we still call each other almost daily and see each other several times a month.

2. I’m grateful for banana bread. I baked a vegan version last Saturday and my best friend and I got a small slice of banana bread (also vegan I believe) with our coffees at a coffee shop in Deventer last Sunday. I think the coffee shop one was better, though my own banana bread was also much better than all the other versions I’d baked before.

3. I’m grateful I was able to use up the leftover almond milk from the banana bread before it expired. I needed only 75ml for the banana bread and had a 1l container. I used the rest for smoothies today.

4. I’m grateful both of my smoothies turned out good. One was an espresso-based smoothie and the other, I just made using whatever I thought of: frozen mangoes, almond milk of course, chia seeds and a bit of honey.

5. I’m grateful for a tiny bit of crafty inspiration again. I started on some polymer clay earrings again yesterday.

6. I’m grateful all ingredients for the pasta I’m going to make for myself and my fellow residents tomorrow did arrive. The institution’s grocery service can be hit or miss, but this time, everything came in.

7. I’m grateful for good weather. Tomorrow’s supposed to be hot and it’s still horribly dry, but oh well.

8. I’m grateful for a new denim skirt. I’d never worn denim skirts before, but it’s nice. Also grateful for my size. As regular readers might know, I used to be obese. Since I’m also short, it’s hard enough finding fitting clothes in my size now that I’m at a (nearly) healthy weight, but it used to be near impossible unless I wanted horribly baggy sweaters and pants.

9. I’m grateful a staff braided my hair yesterday. Too bad I didn’t take a selfie.

10. I’m grateful for sleep. It’s been a struggle lately, but I do appreciate all the rest I can get.

A Gratitude Letter to My Paternal Grandfather

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I really want to write more and also to cherish the positives in my life, both past and present. For this reason, I opened the Gratitude app on my iPhone and had the journal feature give me a prompt. It was to write a gratitude letter to one of my grandparents. I have shared quite a few times how my paternal grandmother positively impacted my life. I could write her a gratitude letter and I may do so later on, but for today, I’m choosing to write one to my paternal grandfather.

Dear Theo

It’s been over 23 years since you passed. If there’s an afterlife, I hope there’s a way for the divine to get this letter to you. If there isn’t, I know you’ll never read this, but it helps me personally to express my gratitude for you. I think you may not have noticed it, especially since your dementia was already advanced by the time it was diagnosed, but I felt deeply touched by you even during the last few years of your life.

Your eldest son, my father, may not appreciate this about you, but I realize I got my health-conscious mind from you. I mean, it didn’t always look good on you and my parents don’t like it in me either. You were worried about cognitive and physical decline for as long as I remember. My father thought you were an nagger. I see you had a zest for life that was maybe hidden beneath anxiety.

You also taught me to listen to my body. Not that I can do it well, but at least I’m not the one to decide I’d rather die than go see a doctor.

Of course, I didn’t know you when you were young. You were 61 when I was born. As such, I don’t know whether your zest-for-life-turned-to-anxiety was always there. My father doesn’t have it (yet), at least not the anxiety part. I do. Having seen my parents’ attitude towards you and now towards me, gives me the will to be conscious of what I want in life, including at the end of it. You never had that choice. Then again, I hope you didn’t experience decline when you were my age.

Lastly, I want to thank you for the apparently insignificant details of your visits. You know, the coins worth five guilders you gave me and my sister at the end of each visit. Once, you put them in a transparent container that was screwed tight and that we couldn’t open independently. I remember it frustrated me to no end, because I wanted my coin, for goodness’ sake. However, now that I’m an adult, this is one of my cherished memories of you.

With love, Astrid

Sunny Sunday (April 5, 2026): Green Tea “Without the Hassle”

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today I’m joining Leigha for Sunny Sunday. Today is Easter Sunday. For me, as someone who isn’t a Christian and didn’t grow up with religion, it doesn’t mean much beyond being an excuse to stuff myself full of junk food and candy. I’m grateful that I don’t have a reason to miss my family more than I usually do during these holidays. I mean, I don’t miss the family I have, I think. I miss the family I could’ve had.

Let me, however, share some positives for the day. I made a blueberry, mango and cucumber smoothie for myself and my fellow residents this morning, which we enjoyed as part of our Easter brunch. My fellow residents truly appreciated it. In the evening, we got Chinese food delivered. I ate a lot, but not so much that I got a stomachache.

Generally speaking, I’ve had a pretty good week. Yes, I still experience ups and downs, but overall, I do more meaningful activities than I used to do. For example, yesterday I cooked macaroni (just for myself this time). I had planned on cooking my traditional mushroom macaroni, but couldn’t find the concentrated mushroom soup I needed for its sauce. I used powdered mushroom sauce instead, which was still pretty good.

I’m also finding a way to have my daily cup of tea in the evening despite the change in support hours at my care home. It’s heavily dependent on the particular staff whether it works out or not, but I do hope that as staff learn to understand me more, this’ll improve. Today, I did get to enjoy a cup of green tea. And by green tea I mean green tea “without the hassle”, as I call it, so pure green tea without additional flavorings. I do like a select few flavored green teas, but none that my home usually has on hand and somehow all the green tea they order comes in variety packs with lots of unnecessary flavors. I’m grateful that, today as well as yesterday, the staff were able to find a bag of pure green tea for me.

Thankful Thursday (February 19, 2026): I Still Have Hope…

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today is Thursday, so I thought I’d try to create a post focusing on thankfulness. It’s been a rough week with me having a zillion ideas of things to do but no way to put them into action. I’m still struggling with the lack of structure in my day schedule, which means I have no way of planning any activities.

That being said, I keep having hope. Sometimes I feel that hope is my enemy, in the sense that it’s the only thing keeping me alive and what if it’s idle hope? What if the powers-that-be are unwilling to help me create a more meaningful life and they’re just keeping me in the dark about it because they know things might take a turn for the worse if they tell me?

Let’s focus on gratitude though. Today, I cut up the bell peppers me and my fellow residents had as a side with our lunch. I also went shopping for groceries with a staff. I bought some ingredients for making smoothies and breakfasts, as well as a poke bowl I had for dinner today. That was good.

This staff used to work here until last summer and was one of my favorites. She occasionally still subs here. I feel a little guilty having been so vulnerable with her today as to show her that, in all honesty, I don’t feel my life is meaningful at this point. Thankfully, she did have her regular coworkers write down how much I’m struggling.

I also wrote an E-mail to my assigned staff and support coordinator this evening. My assigned staff is on sick leave again, but she said she’d check her E-mail regularly. I explained the thing I’m struggling with most again, ie. the fact that I experience a lack of meaningful day activities despite sufficient one-on-one hours. The most frustrating part is the fact that it’s not about budget or staffing, so that I honestly don’t see why I wouldn’t have gotten a more structured day schedule months ago.

My support coordinator said a few days ago that she’d get back to me about the issue on Sunday. I doubt anything significant is going to become of it, but the sliver of hope that things might improve, is keeping me going.

For now, what is also keeping me going, is actually thinking up ideas of things to do when the staff are more willing and able to help me create more meaningful activities. Here, I said “when”, not “if”. Does that mean something?

January 2026 in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this last day of the month. I’m joining Natalie for her monthly wrap-up. I started the month with optimism, but as I write this post at nearly 10PM on the 31st, I’m struggling to remain hopeful that anything will ever get better. And is it is, life is a battle.

I fully intended to experience more in the creative and culinary departments in 2026. This was not a total failure in January, but I didn’t start off the year with the bang I’d secretly hoped for.

I did create a few things out of polymer clay this past month. I also crafted a few new bracelets and a necklace. My last crafty project, however, was over a week ago. I created a crocodile out of polymer clay. No picture, as I haven’t even baked it yet. I did make plans with one of my staff to finally create the standing unicorn sculpture I have been meaning to create forever. Let’s hope it doesn’t just remain a plan.

I also didn’t cook a main dish even once. That’s sad, but on the other hand, I did manage to bake a few things. Most recently, yesterday, I baked granola. I ate it this morning with my quark and it was delicious!

In the blogging and general writing departments, the beginning of the month was also a lot more successful than the last couple of weeks. I once again gave up on #JusJoJan pretty early on and only managed to do my Morning Pages for a few days. I do however still have a streak going on in Day One, my preferred journaling app. Granted, I only write some snippets in response to a daily template, but oh well. I still like the Gratitude app, but don’t use it as faithfully as I’d intended. Then again, I realize that pressuring myself to write everyday, isn’t helping my joy.

In other news, none of my staff nor me have heard from the Center for Consultation and Expertise (CCE) yet. On top of that, the behavior specialist went on maternity leave a few weeks ago. She has someone subbing for her, but I doubt this has been communicated clearly to the CCE. Even if it has been, I sort of believe the consultant gave up on me when she got the impression my quality of life is okay.

I realize my support coordinator and assigned staff are well-meaning and really want to help me improve, but I get the impression part of the team doesn’t believe that I deserve or need anything to change. I’m still haunted by the words of my intensive support home assigned staff. She believed that, because of my attitude, there was no way I would ever be happy anywhere. This might be partly true, though it’s not because of my attitude but because living in a neurotypical world as an autistic person is hard. However, just because I’ll never be perfectly happy, doesn’t mean no-one should try to improve my situation. Then again, maybe I’m just one giant nagger of a person.

Share Your World (December 29, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have a lot of thoughts floating through my mind, but none that I can easily type down. To get my fingers started on something, I’m taking part in Share Your World. Here are Di’s final questions for 2025.

1. Do you stay up to toast in the New Year?
Whether I’ll stay up until midnight depends on my mood. I’ll however most certainly not be toasting in the New Year. The staff here leave at 10:30PM as usual and I’m pretty sure the night staff are extremely busy by midnight with all the clients who are afraid of fireworks.

2.  Have you ever kept any New Year Resolutions made in the past?
I doubt it. I used to make extensive lists of New Year’s resolutions as a teen but I’m pretty sure that if I ever kept one, it was by chance. Now I call them hopes to keep the pressure off.

3. Do you have any plans for 2026?
I have hopes, like I said, although I haven’t penned them down yet. No definite plans at all. Oh wait, I’ll most likely continue to attend the monthly local brain injury meet-up, which has its first meeting of 2026 on January 19. I’m also intending to go to at least one real-life meeting for adults who spent time in the NICU and will attend the mild cerebral palsy meet-up if I don’t contract COVID again.

4. What was the highlight/s of 2025 for you.
There weren’t any high highs this year, but I did have some good moments, such as my cooking activities.

Gratitude

Di always includes an optional gratitude section at the end of her Share Your World posts. For mine, I’m going to include a favorite affirmation from the Gratitude app.

I like how this affirmation compares human life to nature (or rather, the rest of nature). Indeed, I am allowed to go through seasons and each of the seasons prepares me for what’s ahead.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (December 27, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Can you believe 2025 will be over with in less than a week? I honestly can’t. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s past 8:30PM, so no more coffee for me. My favorite soft drink wasn’t cold, so I had water with my evening medication today. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. We had a frigid Christmas with a daytime high of -1°C. Today, the daytime high is 4°C. That’s still below-average for this time of year though and it’s still freezing at night.

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you I finally let go of my movement streak on my Apple Watch. That is, like I said before, I was cheating all the while because I’d paused my rings when sick last September. On Christmas day, it was freezing cold, so I didn’t care for a walk. I could’ve cheated again, but didn’t.

If we were having coffee, next I’d share about my Christmas. I was at my and my wife’s house for the night. Christmas is often stressful with family issues and forced cheerfulness, but this year it was genuinely okay. Then again it was just the two of us (plus my wife’s cat, who was in hiding from me almost all the time).

The best part was my Bastogne cookie dessert. It was my idea to make this and I helped crumble the cookies and lended my wife my hand mixer. The recipe though was for eight servings. We made half of that, but of course it’s still a lot for just two people. The rest of the meal was good too.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that I decided to give the staff who’s retiring next week her polymer clay “cheer up frog” on Sunday rather than wait for her last shift. She was very pleased with it.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d share that, yesterday, I decided to download yet another self-care app on my iPhone. I already used to have a ton of them, like I’ve had a ton of different apps for all kinds of things over the years. This one, I downloaded because I read on another blog about affirmations and wanted to do these again. The app this blogger uses, Labyrinthos, isn’t all that accessible with VoiceOver and its paid plan is a little outside of my budget. Besides, much as I love to dabble in tarot (which this app is mainly about), the cards are still mainly visual. This got me looking for other apps for affirmations and gratitude etc. The app I downloaded is simply called Gratitude. So far, I really like it. I’m really hoping to make positivity a bigger part of my life in 2026.

I Don’t Owe Anyone a Grateful Heart

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Today’s prompt for Reena’s Xploration Challenge is quite fitting. Reena asks us to ponder the paradox of gratitude and resistance.

Sometimes, by being grateful, we can bring about change. I am reminded of a story in one of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books in which nurses on one floor were irritated with another floor’s nurses for their constant negativity. Instead of fueling the conflict by becoming negative themselves, the nurses wrote a lengthy gratitude letter to their colleagues. I am not sure whether this was exactly what the story was about, but this was at least the message I took from it. The fact that the one group of nurses focused on the positive rather than giving in to the other group’s toxicity, turned the situation around for the better.

At other times though, particularly when there’s a power difference between two people or groups of people, gratitude becomes passive resignation. In this case, while it can be helpful in the short term to the oppressed person to keep a positive outlook, if the oppressor takes gratitude as acceptance, in the long run nothing will change.

I will give an example from my own life. Regular readers of my blog know that I’ve been accused of having a negative attitude by many people in positions of power, such as my care staff and treatment providers in various care settings. An example is being told I ought to be happy that anybody wants to work here at all. Well, no. While it’d be easier for me in the short term if I could just accept the umpteenth random stranger for my one-on-one care, in the long run it’d mean I’d always get assigned the random temp worker because regular staff would rather support the others and chill out with other regular staff while they can. Besides, even if it’d cost me less effort to resign than it costs me to rebel, I don’t owe my staff a positive attitude. If there’s anyone for whose sake I should have a grateful attitude, it’s myself.

It doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with this whole idea. I feel intense guilt whenever a staff throws some variation of “be happy anyone wants to work here” at me. I am also constantly reminded in my head of my assigned staff at the intensive support home, who was disappointed in me for never having a perfect day even when they’d followed my day schedule completely and had always assigned me regular staff. Which, for the record, never happened.

I, for clarity’s sake, don’t think violent resistance is the answer. When I have a meltdown over some rule I disagree with, being aggressive will always end in me being restrained. However, there’s a whole world between aggression and passivity. And sometimes, unfortunately, the people in positions of power are so caught up in their reality of being the ones to decide, that they (either willfully or not) ignore my less obvious attempts at resistance.

For example, last week I was trying to resist the “one chance” rule about orienting new staff. I tried going along with what the staff wanted, but this only led to further abuses of the rule. I tried talking sense into the staff, but this didn’t work either. Finally, on Saturday, I had the most massive meltdown. I am not proud of my behavior at all. In fact, I really wish I could’ve solved the issue without being aggressive, if for no other reason, then because the staff are far stronger than me and I ended up being restrained. In the end, I thankfully finally got a meeting with the behavior specialist on Monday and the rule got ditched. Now all I can hope for is that my main message, that I have to consent to every individual rule or agreement affecting me unless the behavior specialist uses the Care and Force Act, got through to everyone.

Gratitude List (August 24, 2025) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since I last joined Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT), but today, I feel like it. Here are my gratefuls for the past week.

1. Baking a cake. Earlier this week, I decided to use up the second of three cake mixes I’d gotten from my parents for my birthday. It was raspberry cake. Unfortunately, I found out today that the third mix had an expiration date in April, so I threw it away. Now I do think the other mixes probably had their expiration dates at the same time, as they came in one package, but oh well.

2. A long bike ride. On Wednesday, the staff and I rode the side-by-side bike to the nearby town to get groceries, only for me to realize then that I didn’t know what groceries I’d wanted to buy, so we decided to just bike around. It turned out I’ve broken my record for the longest bike ride at 19.3km.

3. The night staff. I’ve been needing their support a few times lately and often feel like a burden. The night staff used to make that feeling worse by telling me to “just try to sleep”. Thankfully, recently they’re telling me that I am not a burden and they’re there for me as much as they are there for everyone else. Even if they don’t fully mean this, it helps me feel more comfortable.

4. The staff having cooked chicken and noodles for us on Wednesday.

5. An institution cafeteria sandwich on Thursday.

6. Green tea. Always, green tea. I’ve been requesting it in the evening more often lately and that’s been feeling good.

7. My having been allowed to play DJ again with the home’s large Bluetooth speaker. I mostly played ABBA songs, but did one MARINA song too, realizing only when it’d started that it was rather explicit. Oh well, most of the residents don’t know English and the few who do, just chuckled at it.

8. Mini candy bars. A fellow resident’s parents brought them yesterday and they are yum! I only found out that they were from Aldi today. If I’d known earlier, I’d have asked my spouse to drive by there on the way from Apeldoorn to the institution so that I could pick up a bag myself.

9. Diarium, a diary app. Recently, there was a discussion on Reddit about journaling and I decided to give this app, which is available on both Windows and iOS, another try. It has a lot fewer features than Day One, but Day One’s web-based interface (there’s no PC app) honestly sucks.

10. The weather. We’ve been having lower temps this week than last week and I’ve had to wear my jeans again and even put on a jacket some of the time. Still, it’s been warm and sunny enough.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 5, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had my last cup of coffee for the day and probably won’t finish this post before I have my evening soft drink, but I might be able to get my staff to prepare me a cup of green tea at around 9PM. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. Oh my, has it been hot! On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had daytime temps of 36°C. The weather has been more bearable later in the week and tomorrow, we’re finally supposed to get rain. We were supposed to get a few thunderstorms on Thursday too, but thankfully not.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that I did manage to meet my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day this week. Not by walking on those hot days, of course. That is, on Wednesday evening I did go for a short walk. On Tuesday, I stayed indoors all day and got my exercise by dancing. I did walk on every other day.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I talked about exercise with the movement therapist on Wednesday. Next week, she’s going to come up with some exercises that I can do on my fitness mat.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that my best friend and I went out for dinner yesterday at the Thai restaurant we took my parents to for my birthday two years ago. I had chicken with black pepper, garlic and vegetables and of course rice that was enough to feed a family of four. I loved the food, but I did feel pretty overloaded afterwards.

If we were having coffee, next I’d moan about my day schedule. It’s still frustratingly unclear. This got me to have an outburst on Wednesday, because of course it was too hot to go for a walk and the staff assigned to me couldn’t do dice games. It all boils down to the fact that I feel overwhelmed by all the activity options and then I end up doing nothing. I’m really unsure as to how to solve this issue and sometimes I feel like a nagger.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d tell you that, thankfully, I’m still able to appreciate the little things in life. Like the green tea I mentioned above. On Wednesday, I was talking to my best friend, who was having a cup of tea at the time, and this got me thinking that even though it was 9PM, no-one said I couldn’t at least ask for a cup of tea myself. I prefer plain green tea, so I went to the living room and asked the staff for a cup of green tea. She was okay with this, so the next day, when she worked again, I decided to ask her for green tea at 9PM again. I’m seeing this as a treat. Same with my extra cup of coffee this morning when I woke up. Of course, people living independently might take their tea or coffee at the time they wish for it for granted, but I don’t.