Gratitude List (September 16, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Right now I’m very hyper because of some really great news I just received. I’ll get to that at the end of this gratitude list, so you’ll have to be patient (or skip ahead). As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful with this post. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for my improved physical fitness. My cardio fitness level according to my Apple Watch is still low, but it’s slowly creeping up. My heartrate recovery is within the “good” range though. Granted, the watch only measured it after brisk walks, since I can’t run.

2. I am grateful for eggs. The guy from the care home next door to ours who has chickens near the day center, lets me check for eggs during the weekends when he’s home with his family. On Saturday, I found one. Then today, he gave me one just because he wanted to.

3. I am grateful the orthopedic shoemaker finally gave in and is going to get me completely orthopedic shoes rather than the semi-orthopedic ones I had been struggling with for the past two years. The semi-orthopedic shoes kept giving me blisters even after he adjusted them many times. For the fully orthopedic shoes, the shoemaker’s coming to measure my feet and make an imprint or whatever in early October. From that point on, it may still take six months before I get the actual shoes, but oh well.

4. I am grateful the orthopedic shoemaker finished repairing one of my regular walking shoes. For those who don’t know, the fronts keep getting damaged within weeks due to my drop foot. Now the shoes are at the main institution, where normally only a transportation guy picks them up to bring them to Raalte once a week on Thursday. The staff here are trying to send someone out there to pick them up on Monday.

5. I am grateful I decided to buy an extra pair of walking shoes.

6. I am grateful for new clothes. I went shopping for them on Wednesday. I bought two jeans and a blouse.

7. I am grateful for iOS 16 and WatchOS 9. I decided to update on Wednesday after all. Both have a few bugs, but not that many that they cause serious problems. Particularly, I am grateful that, after all sound disappeared from my Apple Watch after the upgrade, a restart (with sighted assistance) solved the issue. I am also grateful not to have encountered the bug so far that causes VoiceOver to stop working after restarting your iPhone.

I am grateful for all the new features with WatchOS 9. I love sleep phases and heartrate recovery like I mentioned. I also love that the Translate app on iOS is now available in Dutch too.

8. I am grateful I am doing pretty well on the fitness challenge I participate in this week. I have consistently maintained a position in the upper mid range, around 25th out of 107 participants.

9. I am grateful for a great weight loss result today. I lost another 0.9kg. Last week, I’d lost the same amount. I’m now 66.5kg, which is pretty awesome considering when I came to the care facility I was almost 10kg heavier and I’ve lost over 5kg since starting my food plan in January. I do realize I need to make sure I’m not overdoing it with exercising or I’ll gain all the weight back once the weather’s not so good anymore and subsequently I’ll lose my motivation to walk.

10. I am grateful for some sunshine today. We had rain too, for which I’m also grateful, but I’m happy I could go for some walks outside in the sun.

11. And now on to the great news… I am grateful the main institution home I’m on the waiting list for has a room for me real soon. I will be orienting on Wednesday and the Monday after and, if then I decide I want to move there, moving date has been set for October 5! Remember it’s up to me and, if I don’t want to move there, no-one is kicking me out of here. This is all causing a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. After all, the only other time I ever requested to move myself, I had to decide within the day of a place having been found and it was the worst decision I ever made. Thankfully, my husband is coming to the second orientation visit with me and my staff will come with me on both visits. Now I’m going to write out some questions I have for the home.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (September 2, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m feeling really thankful for a lot of things today. What better time than now to write a gratitude post? Of course, I say that when I’m feeling down in the dumps too. In my opinion, it’s always a good time for a gratitude post. Anyway, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) as always. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good weekend with my husband. We had pizza delivered, which was delicious. We each ordered a salad too, but I decided to eat my pizza first then was full so we had to throw the salad away. I felt a bit guilty about it because of food waste, but, as my dietitian says it, I’m not a replacement for the trash. In other words, just because something gets thrown out if I don’t eat it, doesn’t mean I need to eat it. I shouldn’t have ordered it and I know that for the next time.

2. I’m grateful for my health. Like I mentioned on Wednesday, I had a health scare earlier this week, but it was nothing, for which I’m so grateful.

3. I am grateful for my husband’s good health too. He tested positive for COVID earlier this week but I am so grateful he isn’t very ill with it.

4. I am grateful for no COVID symptoms in myself so far. Let’s hope I won’t get it.

5. I am grateful for my Apple Watch. It truly motivates me to stay physically active. I must admit I do need to watch out that it doesn’t become an obsession though.

6. I am grateful for the care facility’s new side-by-side bike. This is like a tandem bike but, rather than one person riding the bike sitting behind the person steering it, the person on one side has the controls. I just went for a 5.7km ride on it and, for whatever reason, my Apple Watch counted the full 27 minutes as exercise. Granted, I had started a workout manually, so it may not have caught it had I not done this, but well.

7. I am grateful for French fries on Wednesday as a treat from the old student staff who had her last shift. I am also grateful I took the opportunity to sneak to the living room to ask for a second helping, which I then decided to eat while sitting on the couch. It was fun being surrounded by my fellow residents once again, which is a rarity nowadays since I get one-on-one support.

8. I am grateful for a maintain in the weight department this week. I am also grateful the dietitian is mostly satisfied with how I’m doing, although she does worry slightly about the possibility that exercise might become an obsession.

9. I am grateful for Simple Radio, an app on my iPhone (and Apple Watch) that lets me listen to any radio station. I mostly like 1000Schlager Web Radio at this point, because I love the upbeat German songs to dance to.

10. Last but not least, and I initially wasn’t sure I was going to share this in my gratitude post or wait for #WeekendCoffeeShare, but I am so grateful that I just need to share: I am number one on the wait list for a home at the main institution for my care agency. They’re currently in the process of finding a new home for one of the current residents. According to the behavior specialist, it might go quickly but might still take six months before this has happened and as a result I can start the process of orienting there. Six months, in my book, is still super quickly. You all will have to wait for my coffee share post tomorrow for more details, but I’m excited and nervous at the same time. Mostly grateful though.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (August 12, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I want to write a gratitude post this evening. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here are my gratefuls.

1. I am grateful for my husband’s new car. Last week Sunday, he came by for a visit and drove me to Subway for lunch in it. It’s a Fiat Panda. I remember those as really small and uncomfortable cars, as my parents had one from the mid-1980s back when my sister and I were children. This one’s a 2010 model though and much better.

2. I am grateful I was able to finish the necklace for the woman in the nearby care home who has her birthday tomorrow. The Fimo beads did get a little discolored, even the white ones that I’d cured at 110°C. Oh well, according to my husband, the colors do fit nicely together.

3. I am grateful I actually got the money back from the pasta machine I’d ordered and then returned. I wanted to spend it on polymer clay supplies I do want at that same store this evening, but then somehow our Internet broke down.

4. I am grateful for Internet access on my iPhone, so that I wasn’t completely cut off when the care facility’s WiFi broke down.

5. I am grateful the WiFi is back up for now. After all, blogging on my iPhone is still a pain.

6. I am so grateful my one-on-one shift today got sorted eventually. The care home is so short-staffed that no-one could initially be found to work my shift. They finally found a solution that was far from ideal, for the person doing my shift and me, but we got through it.

7. I am grateful for ice cream cones. Like I said on Wednesday, a staff bought them for me when we were at the supermarket. We still had some left today, so I got one again.

8. I am grateful for a tiny bit of weight loss regardless. I didn’t really mind my diet over the past week and it was too hot for exercise, but still I lost 0.2kg.

9. I am grateful getting blood drawn wasn’t painful yesterday. I went to the doctor last week because my IBS-related symptoms seem to be increasing and changing. The doctor ordered bloodwork just to be sure it’s nothing else and I had to have it drawn yesterday. I have really thin veins, so usually it’s real trouble, but not this time.

10. I am grateful for books, music, YouTube videos and podcasts to entertain and inspire me.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (July 31, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this last day of July! Today I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) for a gratitude list. I’m rather late to the party, but better late than never, huh? Here goes.

1. I am grateful for some good phone talks with the care facility’s behavior specialist this week. She gave me some useful advice on how to handle my frustration with respect to my recent care review with her and my nurse practitioner from mental health.

2. I am grateful my nurse practitioner gave the get-go for me to lower my antipsychotic again. Next week, I’ll be starting with the slightly decreased dose.

3. I am grateful for a nice visit from my sister and her family. I am so grateful Janneke, my oldest niece, was really friendly with me. I tried to show her how to make a play-doh unicorn, but she may still be a bit young for that and/or I wasn’t engaging enough.

4. I am grateful I got to hold Wolke, my youngest niece, who is just two-months-old.

5. I am grateful for the belated birthday gifts my sister and her family brought me. I got four sets of cutters and a set of texture sheets to use with my polymer clay.

6. I am grateful for a delicious salami pizza with added olives and red peppers. Yum! We ordered pizza (and fries for Janneke) last Monday when my sister and her family were here.

7. I am grateful for a good visit from my mother-in-law on Friday too. We went out to have lunch, which was delicious.

8. I am grateful for no mosquitoes last night or the night before. This hopefully means my anti-mosquito device, that I’d bought last Friday when in town with my mother-in-law, is working. Either that or none had been in my room at all. I don’t really care which, as long as the critters aren’t bothering me.

9. I am grateful my pasta machine isn’t broken after all. I had experienced it’d crumble several colors of polymer clay. Even after a deep clean session, it still did this, so I thought it must be broken. Thankfully, one of the most knowledgeable people in the Dutch polymer clay Facebook group took a look at a picture I’d taken and said it wasn’t broken. Apparently it’s the clay.

10. I am grateful the new pasta machine I impulsively ordered online when thinking the current one was broken, can be returned. I will probably ask my staff to drive me to the PostNL pick-up point tomorrow. When I have my refund, I’m going to order supplies I really do need from that same store I now ordered the pasta machine from.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (July 15, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I am struggling a little, but trying to stay positive. As such, I want to write a gratitude list again. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful as usual. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for ice cream. Last Sunday, the local Rotary Club sent out some people to do a performance on care facility grounds, like singing and acting and all. I didn’t like that, but they also sent an ice cream truck. I loved the stracciatella and vanilla ice cream, even though I normally don’t care for chocolate.

2. I am grateful I was able to bring a huge smile to my old assigned staff’s face when I gave her the polymer clay hedgehog I’d crafted for her.

3. I am grateful for nice, warm enough but not too hot weather this week.

4. I am grateful my physical fitness level is pretty much back to where I’d like it to be. I have been walking a lot over the past week. Not reaching 10K steps most days – just once, last Saturday, in fact -, but I’m so glad I’m walking longer distances again.

5. I am grateful for my husband’s creative pep talks. Earlier in the week, I had almost lost my polymer clay mojo because I kept doing my flat projects wrong. Then when I’d found a way to bake them without them bending upward or getting air bubbles at the back – by baking them or cardboard -, someone I consider a polymer clay expert claimed that would cause me problems. That discouraged me a lot, but my husband said not to listen to just one person and to do what works for me.

6. Speaking of which, I am so grateful at least that one little piece of polymer clay – a random cookie cutter star – turned out pretty good.

7. I am grateful I didn’t cry when my old assigned staff officially left yesterday.

8. I am grateful for a really nice card from her too. It has a small lucky doll inside of it, because she wishes me good luck.

9. I am grateful for my new stuffed dolphin. When my old assigned staff put me to bed yesterday, I grabbed ahold of my favorite stuffed animal, the lemur, and she commented I could seek comfort with him when I miss her. She had considered buying me a soft toy as a goodbye present, but she reasoned I have quite many already. This got me thinking and, within an hour, I’d ordered this stuffed dolphin off Bol.com, to be delivered today. It’s a little smaller than I’d expected, but actually it’s the perfect size for me to hold it when trying to sleep.

10. I am grateful that Seeing AI, the image description app on my iPhone, guessed my age in the above photo as 27. 😁 Not that I really care, but I just noticed and thought this’d make for a fun last item on my thankful list.

What are you thankful for?

Thankful Thursday (July 7, 2022): Flowers

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m still feeling rather sad, a bit depressed even, today. I try to tell myself it’s okay. I’d even say it’s normal. I mean, attachment loss sucks.

This is not the post for me to whine about that though. I don’t want to. Rather, I’m going to try to find something I can be grateful for. I’m therefore joining Thankful Thursday.

Today, I felt rather unmotivated, but pushed myself to leave the home anyway to go for a walk. I took my phone with me. It was a cloudy day, so the right weather for taking photos. Somewhere in the neighborhood, we came across what my staff said are some kind of hydrangeas. There were pink and white ones. I actually got to touch them, which was cool.


I still want to learn to do some photo editing with help from my staff. On one of these, the staff did some cropping within the Photos app, but I do have other editing tools too. In any case, being able to photograph these flowers and appreciate their beauty by touch too, is truly something I’m grateful for today.

Because today I share a flower photo (or two), I’m linking this post to Cee’s Flower of the Day too.

Gratitude List (May 20, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m feeling all sorts of things today. To focus my attention on the positives, I am doing a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful my husband and I went barbecueing on Saturday. It was delicious!

2. I am grateful my hearing is still fine. I had a hearing test on Monday and am so happy it showed I can still hear pretty well.

3. I am grateful for clean water. Upon inspection, legionella was found in one of our water pipes. Again, for the second time in a year. I am grateful the cleaning crew was able to destroy the bacterium.

4. I am grateful for an opportunity to go swimming. Because the crew had to come out to clear our waterworks of legionella bacteria, we had to leave the home from 10AM till 4PM Tuesday. The other clients could stay at day activities, but I normally get my day activities in the home. We did set up my computer in an empty room at another home, but I really wanted to be gone. My staff offered to take me swimming. It was great fun!

5. I am grateful for a day in which I walked more than 10K steps. Tuesday was a truly amazing day with respect to physical activity.

6. I am grateful that, after the legionella was destroyed, the home didn’t smell of chlor or whatever they used to clear the waterworks.

7. I am grateful for warm weather. Not today, but the rest of the week, we had daytime temperatures of roughly 25°C.

8. I am grateful my husband’s truck’s trailer got fixed. It had been having problems with its brakes that could’ve led to it catching fire for weeks. Thankfully, each time, my husband stopped driving just in time. Last Wednesday, he texted me that it’s a miracle and the thing had been fixed.

9. I am grateful for crafty inspiration once again. I have truly been loving creating some things in polymer clay again. Unfortunately, because I used the day center’s oven today to try if that’d work better than the large care home one, it burned my project. It was just a small test case though.

10. I am grateful my sister gave birth to a healthy baby girl yesterday. She chose the name I dislike as the baby’s first name and, for the middle name, chose the name I like but spelled in a way I like a little less. I’ll get used to it though.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (May 13, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! What a week, what a day it’s been. I really feel like writing, but my head is buzzing, so I thought for a bit of cheer and calm, I’d do a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I am grateful my staff were able to get the staffing schedule figured out and actually without temp workers needing to step in. The reality was, the temping agency didn’t have anyone available, so the regular staff ended up overworking, but this was a huge positive for me as it meant no unfamiliar faces.

2. I am grateful that a new staff was finally hired to work here. She did come from another home that’s part of my care facility, so they might now have a staffing shortage, but oh well, that’s not my problem. Until this staff came here, a lot of potential staff were given a look around my home but decided eventually not to want to work here.

3. I am grateful for delicious home-cooked chicken and rice yesterday. I actually cooked it with my day activities staff.

4. I am grateful for the smile on one of my fellow clients’ faces when I offered him a serving of the chicken and rice too. He is the only one in my care home who can eat rice without choking, so the staff, when cooking, never cook rice. I’m so happy he was pleased.

5. I am grateful for Sadje’s comment on my last blog post. I thought WordPress was acting up, since I wasn’t getting any comments. It might still be, but at least someone is able and willing to comment.

6. I am grateful for a visit from my mother-in-law on Tuesday. I am grateful we had a good talk with my assigned home staff. After that, we went to Rijssen, a town about a 30-minute drive from Raalte, to go for a walk and have coffee.

7. I am grateful I was able to mostly stick to my healthier eating plan over the past week. The only exception was the sausage roll I ordered in Rijssen. It not only was unhealthy, but came out of the microwave or so it seemed, so it definitely didn’t score an eight out of ten on how much I wanted to eat it. That’s the rule my dietitian gave me for treats: if they don’t score an eight or above on how eager I am to eat them, I might consider skipping them.

8. I am grateful that I did lose 0.4kg when I stepped onto the scale today as compared to last week.

9. I am grateful my semi-orthopedic shoes arrived back from the orthopedic shoemaker. The last time I sent them back, I had a blister on my right heel after only ten minutes of walking on them. Now I haven’t walked longer than that at a time on the shoes, but so far, so good.

10. I am grateful I got an E-mail from the store I bought the headphones that stopped working after two weeks at, saying they’ll give me my money back. I don’t have it in my bank account yet, but they said it could take up to five business days.

11. I did order new headphones and am grateful they work so far. They are a fifth of the price of the non-working ones, but still I am hoping they keep working.

12. I am grateful for paracetamol. I had to take it several times this past week for toothache or headache, but thankfully it worked.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (May 6, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Friday of May. My husband and I always count the days from May 4 till May 8 as special days. May 6 is only special because Pim Fortuyn, a Dutch politician, was murdered on this day in 2002. Not really a cause to celebrate. Nonetheless, I’m doing a gratitude list today anyway. As usual, I’m linking up with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good talk with the behavior specialist on Tuesday. She was really understanding of my wish to eventually find a more suitable care home.

2. I am grateful I finally had a face-to-face meeting with my community psychiatric nurse again after several months. She’d been off work for a while and, before that, I had COVID and had to talk to her on the phone. I am so glad she’s back!

3. I am grateful my nurse practitioner called me on Tuesday, after I’d E-mailed him on Monday evening because I’d been in crisis. We will soon be planning a meeting with the behavior specialist too so that my nurse practitioner can get a more complete picture of my mental health.

4. I am grateful my husband’s car didn’t need replacing or repairing after all. The financial setback I mentioned last week, was related to his car. It made a weird sound, which could be the oil level, but could be a lot of other things, likely to be very expensive to repair. My husband was considering trading in the car if it wasn’t the oil level. Thankfully, that’s what it turned out to be.

5. I am grateful the store I bought the headphones at (the ones that stopped working after two weeks) finally sent off the headphones to the manufacturer. It took my staff making a phone call on Monday for them to send them out and another phone call for them to confirm they’d actually been sent out, but now I’m hoping they’ll be fixed soon.

6. I am grateful I am still allowed to borrow the headphones the Care Lab loaned us before I even originally ordered the ones that stopped working. You normally get to only keep products on loan for like a month or so, but the staff said they’d contact the Care Lab.

7. I am grateful I was allowed to go into the nearby care home’s garden to photograph their tulips yesterday. They are beautiful! I had been wanting to photograph them all week, but hadn’t been able to find the right time of day either sunshine-wise or with respect to being able to ask the staff whether I could enter their garden.

8. I am grateful for home-cooked macaroni this evening. It was delicious! Yesterday, I also had some leftover macaroni that we still had in the freezer from the last time we’d cooked it.

9. I am grateful for some crafty inspiration again. I finally did a little crafting today.

10. I am also grateful I finally seem to be in a reading groove again. I have truly been enjoying my young adult novel, Thrive. This is the final installment in the Overthrow trilogy and it’s been out for a year already, but because its prequel was a bit disappointing, I didn’t get to reading this one.

What have you been grateful for lately?

Sharing this post with Flower of the Day too because of the tulip picture.

Gratitude List (April 29, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I am feeling a bit meh today. I don’t really feel like writing a gratitude list, but I do feel like writing something and I can’t think of anything else to write. For both of these reasons – to have something to write and to cheer myself up -, I am going to try to write a thankful list anyway. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for pizza today. Yes, again. Another staff is leaving and she wanted to give us pizza or pasta from the local Italian restaurant as a goodbye present.

2. I am grateful I was able to give the staff who’s leaving her present. I didn’t end up making something for her myself and initially wanted to stay in my room while the other staff gave the presents to this staff, but I am grateful I decided to go and give her one of the gifts the other staff had bought on behalf of us clients.

3. I am grateful for quiet time to write. It’s now nearly 9PM and between 6PM and 7PM, a guy from the home next door was blasting his music on top volume. Even with noise canceling headphones (unfortunately still the ones I have on loan) on, I still could hear the music clearly. I’m so glad it’s quieted down now.

4. I am grateful for a good phone talk with my mother-in-law on Wednesday. I was able to tell her I’m going to discuss entering the process of finding another care home. To my surprise and gratitude, she fully supports me.

5. I am grateful for a nice phone call with my mother on her birthday yesterday. I obviously didn’t tell her I’ll be looking for another care home. We made some smalltalk and it was okay.

6. I am grateful for sleep. Despite feeling quite on edge lately due to a lot of issues, I am sleeping relatively well.

7. I am grateful to have been able to go to the day center for a considerable time twice this week.

8. I am grateful for funny stories to listen to on YouTube. There is a Dutch children’s book author called Jacques Vriens who read his own stories aloud on YouTube. There are also English-language YouTube channels for children’s stories, which I also love, but Jacques Vriens is a childhood favorite of mine.

9. I am grateful I was able to go onto the large trampoline on Wednesday. It was great fun!

10. I am grateful to be relatively financially secure. I won’t go into detail here, but I am just happy my husband and I can handle a little financial setback.

What are you grateful for?