#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 21, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Sunday again and, though I have lots of things I want to write about, I cannot seem to get started. I am however enjoying once again joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. It’s lovely to catch up with people who visit my blog each week for this hop.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m sweating, even though it’s supposed not to be that very hot here now. Only about 23 degrees Celsius. I guess my room keeps the heat. Next week, the temperatures are supposed to rise to 35 degrees Celsius or more.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I need your prayers, positive thoughts and crossed fingers re our house-hunting journey. We found a house we may want to buy. Yesterday, my husband took me on a tour of the town.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I had a lovely day yesterday at my in-laws’ house. My father-in-law is about to return from his vacation in about an hour, so it was just my husband, me and my mother-in-law. My husband cooked up a tasty dinner of pasta with cheese, minced meat and zucchini. When we returned home, we drove right through a thunderstorm. This was a bit scary.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m currently reading Angels in Our Hearts by Rosie Lewis and Casey Watson. I just finished the second story. It is a really good book.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my husband helped me tidy my room today. We threw out a lot of my soaping stuff that had expired.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’m really wanting to pick up creative writing again, but somehow, I feel stuck.

How was your week and how is your week-end going?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 7, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Ugh, I’m feeling so off. I want to write so bad. Words are spinning through my mind, but somehow I cannot put them down onto the keyboard.

I am once again joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I had a delicious little apple pie with my cup of green tea this evening. Grab a cuppa and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that we decided to let go of one of the houses we were looking at this past week. It’s the house built in 1880 that my parents are totally in awe of, but we’d take a huge risk if we bought this. Inspecting the foundation for problems cost like 5000 euros and there is indeed a high risk that the foundation will be unstable. That amount of money is not something we want to invest before buying the house, yet we don’t want to risk finding out about it once it’s ours. I didn’t like the house to begin with, but my husband loved its appearance.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that next Wednesday, I am invited to go check out the living facility with my current care agency. It’s in Raalte, which is a little over an hour’s drive from my current home. My support coordinator was told not to get me too excited, so I predict the place has already almost certainly been taken, but oh well. We’ll see.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I bought some books on Amazon today. One is a collection of journaling prompts (yes, again!), which cost only 99 cents, but it’s still disappointing. It has a ton of typeos and characters VoiceOver makes out to be Chinese or Japanese in it. The other is Angels in Our Hearts by Casey Watson and Rosie Lewis. It’s a collection of previously published eShorts by these two foster carer writers. It sounds good.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that my husband ordered a new Windows computer for me today. My mother-in-law will pay for it, as she’ll get my Macbook. The computer he ordered is an HP Pavillion, which I’ve heard is quite a sturdy model. It doesn’t have a solid state drive like my Macbook, but it does have some type of thing attached to the hard drive that keeps stuff you use often in a sort of ready-access memory. The hard drive has 1tB of space, which is awesome. I no longer need to worry about getting it full and I can even copy all of my CDs to my PC now. I have a ton of CDs with music that’s hard to come by on streaming services, so that’s cool.

I think my husband will go collect the computer at the pick-up point near his work tomorrow. On Wednesday, the adaptive tech company is coming by to install JAWS, the screen reader, onto it. I called the company to let them know they’ll need to schedule the visit with me in the morning, as I’ll be off to Raalte at 2PM.

What’s been happening in your life lately?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 30, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all and welcome to another post in the #WeekendCoffeeShare. This week has been mostly good. I just had a cup of green tea once again, so have a cup with me and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee or green tea, I’d share that this past Thursday was my birthday. I turned 33. I usually look forward to my birthdays, even though my wishlist is usually rather useless to my family. I love the gifts they give me anyway.

I had almost a full birthday week really, as I had visitors each day from Thursday up till today.

On Thursday, my parents visited and we had dinner at a restaurant called Paddy’s. I expected Irish traditionals, but the music that was played was 1980s Dutch pop. I liked the food though. I had a burger. My father had a lamb’s stew and my mother and husband had fish.

On Friday, I celebrated my birthday at day activities and my parents-in-law visited. I got a lovely sensory soft toy. It can, like the sensory cat I got from my sister two years ago, be warmed in the microwave and then smells of lavender.

Yesterday, my sister and brother-in-law visited. My sister is 30 weeks pregnant tomorrow, so I just had to feel the bump. They gave me new sandals.

Today, my two sisters-in-law visited. They brought me lovely smelling body care supplies. One of them had also made a cheesecake, which was yummy!

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that all the visitors have been looking at the information for the houses we might be offering to buy. Other than the one we saw last week, we visited another house and two apartments this past week. We’re still undecided as to which to place an offer to, if any, and of course, this is none of my blog readers’ business.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that I met with a care consultant for Visio, one of the two blindness agencies, last Wednesday. This did lead to a little argument with my husband, as he thought I may want to live in their facility that’s nearly two hours away. I did decide then that, even though my husband wants the best for me, being close enough that he can visit each week-end, is more important to me than finding a good placement.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that the oak processionary is no joke. When I first heard of it in the late 1990s, I didn’t worry. Neither did I earlier this summer when I heard it was in my area. I thought people were overreacting to it. Well, now that I have a terribly itchy rash all over my body, I can say it’s serious.

What’s beeen up with you lately?

#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!