May 2026 In Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! It’s the last day of the month and this means it’s time for my month in review. The month of May was harder than the month of April even and, if I had to summarize my attitude in one sentence, it’d be “I’ve had enough, this is the limit!”. Unfortunately, my saying that I’ve had enough, doesn’t mean people around me actually listen.

The month started with a weekend in which I experienced a major breakdown, during which I expressed quite a lot of hopelessness, leading to suicidal ideation. I expressed my despair in the living room with several other residents present. I realize this isn’t acceptable, but I can’t take full responsibility for the situation either. This among other things led the staff to decide to drag me to my room the next Monday for the crime of appearing in distress while in the living room outside of my one-on-one.

This was the final straw for me with respect to my staff disregarding my rights under the guise of my (or rather, other people’s) best interest and I decided to contact the client confidante on involuntary care. So far, even though I had the initial meeting with her three weeks ago, no luck planning a meeting with my support coordinator and behavior specialist and I doubt it’s ever going to happen. I’m currently at a very low point in my perpetually low trust of the powers-that-be. I would like to say I’ve hit rock bottom, but each time I say this, I realize things can get even worse.

All this does diminish my joy in the fun and meaningful activities I do engage in. Mind you, I still do occasionally do meaningful activities and I might start cooking for my side of the home again soon, but I doubt that with the way my staff are struggling to support me, it’s ever going to work.

My wife and I had two meetings on our divorce this month too. It’s been quite stressful even though we’re in agreement about what we want. The next meeting will be for us to sign the agreement and then our part of the process is over I think.

I’m noticing that, despite my hope of expanding my social circle this year, I’m self-isolating more. I did attend the monthly brain injury meeting this month but that’s as far as it goes. Nobody seems to want to support my hopes and dreams either and this frustrates me to no end, because with my executive dysfunction, I can’t pursue them without help.

I did start working in a neurodivergent-friendly dialectical behavior therapy workbook after I’d had the umpteenth argument with a staff. I’ve also let my support coordinator and assigned staff know I’d like to get help regulating my emotions, but I doubt it’s going to happen in a way that works for me. I mean, my staff obviously would like to see me suppress my needs and feelings again, while I do realize I need to express them less aggressively but this does mean expressing them earlier on.

A few weeks ago, the topic of whether I’m at the right care home was brought to the table yet again. I can’t shake the feeling that, so long as I haven’t become unmanageable to the staff yet, nothing will change and, if/when I do become unmanageable, I’ll be kicked right out. The higher-ups are trying to reassure me I won’t be kicked out “just like that”, but truthfully I don’t know what’d be worse: being kicked out or remaininng in my current place while nothing improves indefinitely.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (May 23, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. I originally started typing this post yesterday evening but got distracted and distressed and then never finished my post. It’s now nearly 9PM on Saturday. I just had my evening soft drink but since it’s blazing hot out here, I’ll have to make sure to drink plenty of water. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d expand on my comment about it being blazing hot and talk about the weather. Early in the week, the daytime temp barely got above 12°C and we had rain. On Wednesday, the daytime temperature started to rise and today it’s 30°C. I honestly don’t mind as much, although of course it still being May this makes me worried for the real summer.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that I am still in the game for a perfect month with respect to my movement ring on my Apple Watch. April was a hard month and I didn’t meet my goal several days. This month, I’m probably not going to meet my monthly challenge goal, but at least I still have a chance at closing my movement ring each day.

Yesterday, the staff and I originally planned on riding the side-by-side bike to the nearby lake for a cup of coffee (and my favorite caramel pie). Unfortunately, the bike wouldn’t work properly so we went for a walk instead and stopped by the institution townhouse for a coffee. They sometimes offer cake too, but apparently not this time.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I made use of both my culinary activity time slots this week. Today, I baked a banana cake. The bananas should’ve been riper, but it was okay nonetheless.

On Wednesday, I cooked a one-pot pasta dish with broccoli, chicken and pesto sauce. I’ve given up my idea of cooking vegan dinners only, because all the prep is just too hard.

Besides, the behavior specialist noticed how happy cooking for my fellow residents made me and talked to my support coordinator about it. Soon, I’ll likely have a weekly opportunity to cook for my side of the home. Whether this will be full-on dinner prep each week, will have to be decided on.

If we were having coffee, next I’d share that the behavior specialist came by on Thursday for a talk. It’s a shame she’s a substitute, because it looks like she’s much more understanding of my situation than the regular one. I do hope that she’ll be able to talk some sense into the regular one when she comes back in a month or so though.

It isn’t like she wasn’t critical of me, of course. For example, she asked me whether there’s any risk in my writing about my life in the institution openly online for this care agency. I was up front with her that I can be quite harsh in my criticism of my staff and, if they read it, they may recognize themselves. However, I never name my institution or any individual workers. Not that, being that I’m not an employee, there’s any law prohibiting me from naming and shaming the institution if I so wished, but I can see it wouldn’t help my relationship with my staff. That’s why I don’t usually give out my blog address to staff.

One of the positive outcomes of our meeting is the fact that the behavior specialist and I got talking about my IQ. As regular readers of this blog know, the IQ that’s in my care plan was pulled out of mid-air, in that no-one except for me knows where it came from and until now, no-one seemed to care. It turns out she’d been looking for the report and couldn’t find it. Phew, finally! I explained that the report is nowhere to be found except on my personal computer. The report literally dates back to 1999 and isn’t the best childhood psych eval report I have at that. But it’s the one with the catchiest punchline, ie. the three-digit IQ score. I never realized myself until very recently that most staff, being practically educated, go right for catchy bullet points and, as a result, won’t remember the pages and pages of information about my emotional development when they’ve been wowed about my “super high” IQ. In any case, here’s hoping the behavior specialist will finally get this nonsensical number removed from my care plan.

If we were having coffee, I’d then ramble on non-stop about the other issues this meeting brought up. Do you have a couple hours? I just deleted an incredibly long paragraph because I saw my post was fast approaching 1000 words. Instead, I’ll wrap this up and go to bed, as it’s nearly 11:30PM by now.

Divorced Woman Laughing…

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m still struggling quite a bit with all sorts of things related to my care. Haven’t heard back from the client confidante yet and it looks like either way my staff, including my support coordinator and assigned staff, don’t care. All I can do right now is power through and make the most of my day.

My wife and I had a meeting with the mediator on our divorce today. We are 100% in agreement about what we want, so it’s really an easy process for the mediator. That’s what she actually quite literally said. My wife joked on our way out that for once we’re the easier ones. We literally left the building laughing.

This is my main positive for the day. I can’t stand it that my staff all seem to assume the divorce is a major stressor in my life. I understand why, since most have probably gone through a break-up and none have been institutionalized. However, I’ve probably explained dozens of times that my best friend and the complicating factors involved with our friendship (like the divorce) are the least of my worries at the moment.

I did ask the client confidante about my daily records and whether there are guidelines on what to write in them and not to write in them. The reason is the fact that, at least once (admittedly a while ago), my then assigned staff almost word for word wrote out an argument with my wife I’d told her about. On the other hand, staff are extremely cautious where it comes to reporting on issues I’ve had with them or their coworkers. They don’t use names at all, which I can sort of understand, but they also go to great lengths to make it sound like I was always the bad one in the interaction. For example, I’ve seen staff report that I was “being rude” or “twisting their words” without elaborating on what they and I said. The reason said staff wrote out the argument I’d had with my wife, she said, was that she worried I might be stressed about it later on. Then for goodness’ sake write out the interactions I do say stress me out! But they won’t, because they don’t want to make their coworkers look bad… so they choose to throw me and my best friend under the bus instead.

After the mediation meeting, my wife and I went to Burger King to grab a vegan burger. It was good. All the while, we kept calling each other “participant A” (my wife) and “participant B” (me), since those are our formal titles on the agreement (thankfully the mediator uses our first names most of the time). At the next meeting, we’ll sign the agreement. It will probably take a while after that for our divorce to be registered. In that sense, the title of this post is a little misleading, but I like it this way.

Asserting My Rights

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Yesterday’s WordPress daily prompt was interesting. It asked us to explain what freedom means. I was originally inspired to write a post about human, civil and disability rights as they apply to my situation, but got distracted by family matters.

After last week being dragged to my room by both arms by two staff for the crime of being in the living room outside of my allocated one-on-one time and appearing (slightly) in distress, I decided to contact the client confidante on involuntary care. I remember writing about the Care and Force Act when it was just being introduced and being offended at the fact that it applies to anyone receiving care due to an intellectual disability (including acquired brain injury) or neurocognitive disorder (like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, etc.), not just institutionalized people. Like, under the old law, you had to be detained in an institution first before anything could be done against your (or your guardian’s in the case of being incapacitated) will. Now even those still living independently can receive “involuntary care”. And just for clarity’s sake: “involuntary care” is a euphemism for anything being done against your will, including being locked in or out of a room, forced medication, etc. As an example, if someone with dementia constantly leaves the stove on, they can be involuntarily locked out of the kitchen. Yes, even in their own homes!

However, after speaking to the confidante, I realized the Care and Force Act isn’t a free pass to do as you please if you happen to be a care provider. In fact, I’m now pretty sure that it’s indeed giving the client more rather than fewer rights, at least if they (or their guardian) knows how to assert those rights. And I know now!

Yesterday, the client confidante came by to discuss last week’s incident with me. I had given both staff involved one chance to talk it over with me before. The one leading the “involuntary care” wouldn’t budge and told me she’d talked it over with the behavior specialist, team leader and my assigned staff. She kept claiming forcing me to my room was in the other clients’ best interest. I learned yesterday that the Care and Force Act isn’t about best interest, but about “significant disadvantage”. This means that someone (either the client involved or someone else) has to be at risk of suffering significant harm (in any form, including psychological) if the “involuntary care” isn’t provided. It also requires that “involuntary care” be the last resort. In this case, the staff asked me verbally to go to my room twice, then threatened to ask her coworker to “help” then gestured to her and then they dragged me to my room. That’s not a matter of last resort!

The other staff involved used to be one of my most trusted staff. She initially blamed her coworker for forcing her into a quick decision, until I learned that they’d talked it over before I even went into the living room. Then she finally half-heartedly apologized.

This incident, however, was only the final straw again. After talking to the client confidante and being informed of my rights, I feel that a can of worms was opened of things that staff (used to) do against my will.

For example, this home is locked as a measure of “involuntary care” for two fellow clients at risk of eloping. This is in itself a questionable measure, but the thing affecting me is my being given a black-or-white choice between the door being opened at every hint that I want to leave or my not being allowed to leave the home without explicit permission at all. A similar thing is staff constantly telling me they aren’t allowed to force me into activities as an excuse to lay back at my every hint that I don’t want to do a certain activity.

Another example is the client portal with my records. I have requested access to it multiple times but the question has always been flat out ignored.

I called the confidante this morning requesting that I be allowed to E-mail her with my further concerns/questions. I did so this afternoon. Earlier this evening, fear hit me hard. What if the powers-that-be decide to give me a choice between consenting to whatever they please and being kicked out? This happened once in the psychiatric hospital and well shotgun consent but they got it.

Same when the social worker threatened to declare me incapable of decision-making and make my parents my guardian unless I signed application forms for a home everyone should’ve known I didn’t meet the criteria for. I sent the confidante another E-mail this evening asking whether the institution could legally do this and, if so, whether there’d be any chance that my parents or sister would be appointed as guardians rather than my wife, especially after our divorce.

The confidante will E-mail my support coordinator asking her to schedule a meeting between her, the behavior specialist and me with the confidante leading the process. She told me I’m allowed to file a formal complaint after that. I’ll give it some thought, but that causes me intense fear too. After all, even if no-one can legally threaten me with forced discharge or guardianship, that doesn’t mean they won’t try.

Breaking Point #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again, as well as participating in the Word of the Week linky. I’ve been struggling intensely over the past few weeks and am wondering how much longer it’ll take before I reach breaking point. Or whether there is such a thing as a single breaking point, honestly. I mean, I’ve been comparing the build-up to my being quite likely burned out to the horrific experiment (I tell the animal-loving part of myself it’s just a thought experiment, but I doubt it is) of the lobster in hot water. You know, the idea that if you throw a lobster into boiling water, it’ll jump right out, but if you gradually boil it, it won’t notice until it’s too late and then it’ll die. Realizing this actually happens makes my inner vegan sick! But I digress…

First, I’d like to talk about the weather. It’s been mild with daytime temps between 14°C and 18°C, but the nights have been a lot colder. We had a little rain early in the week, but none over the past few days and there’s none in the forecast for the upcoming week either.

Then, let me share how things have been going. I’m increasingly overloaded and have had quite a few incidents of crying uncontrolably over the past week. I’ve also been engaging in some compulsive self-imjurious behaviors, particularly at night. I’ve almost literally needed the night shift each night over the past few weeks. Each evening, I’m telling myself I won’t need them tonight and feeling guilty when I do. Most night staff are still understanding and kind, but it’s only a matter of time before they, like the regular staff, will grow weary.

Unfortunately, my support coordinator and assigned staff aren’t on the same page. The rest of the team are all over the place. Most are struggling intensely with feelings of powerlessness. Some admit that they wish they knew how to help me, while others act out their feelings by screaming in my face that if I go on like this, no-one will be there for me anymore. The first group, I feel some level of compassion for even if I don’t know how to show it. The second, I only feel scared of. I’m currently actually terrified for the times the staff who screams about there being nobody for me anymore the loudest will be supporting me. This is the same staff who shoved the “one chance” rule down my throat a few months back, but she’s also the same staff with whom I used to do quite many fun activities. She’s not a bad person or a lazy staffer, but she’s most definitely overworked.

I see it’s a vicious cycle: I’m distressed, exhibit more challenging behavior, which frustrates the staff, who then act out in more repressive ways, causing me even more distress… and unfortunately it’s the staff who show the least harmful repression to me who see the most of my obvious distress. I’m extremely scared of where this will end. My worst fear is the harsh staff being seen as more effective and their actions therefore being reinforced. I’ve heard of more than one current client at this institution being “bullied” (staff’s words) into compliance and I know even the Center for Consultation and Expertise is all for ABA (applied behavior analysis), including in many cases aversives.

I do try to see some glimmers each day. I however sometimes feel guilty when I can’t appreciate them or end up spiraling over some apparently tiny detail when I did enjoy some meaningful activities that day. I constantly hear the staff’s (same staff who screams that soon there’ll be nobody) words that I have nothing to complain about because I get familiar staff and enough one-on-one ringing in my ears. I try to remember my support is better already than it was at the intensive support home, but that only contributes to more guilt over my inability to be upbeat.

Recently, after a few incidents in which I’ve become physically aggressive, I’ve been thinking I should be forcibly medicated or even euthanized. My inner animal lover sometimes contributes to this. If aggressive dogs are put down, shouldn’t I? My wife, who is a vegan, countered that just because aggressive dogs are currently put down, doesn’t mean that’s the way it should be.

Unmasking…

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve been struggling intensely for a while now. The aggressive meltdown that caused me to land with my head on the floor (as I mentioned in the comments on that post, I wasn’t actually thrown) was only the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve been having chronic headaches and nausea that the doctor says aren’t due to the fall. Last Wednesday, I had a fever just when the doctor took my temp, so she concluded I must have the flu or something. I doubt it, as I didn’t have a fever any other time my temp was taken and I’m not having any other flu symptoms. I’m more sensitive to stimuli, mostly sounds and scents, than I used to be. Unfortunately, my ability to argue hasn’t gone, so the staff believe I’m “oppressing” them when I refuse them access to my room when wearing strong perfumes. This morning, my support coordinator told me to stop pacing my room, saying it’s compulsive and that compulsive behavior only worsens over time. She may be right about that, but it’s not like I’m doing anyone any harm by pacing and it’s not like the staff deal with the reason for my being more compulsive. I’m pretty sure I’m in significant burnout and the obvious solution to my staff seems to be to repress my behaviors that indicate I’m in distress.

I’m trying to read up and listen to podcasts on autistic self-discovery and unmasking. Not that I have the attention span to read for longer than about fifteen minutes at a time. Or that I think any of the recommendations I find, are useful to me, simply because I have an institution and rather behaviorist staff to deal with. I’m also unsure where to draw the line between valid unmasking and infringing upon other people’s rights. For example, apparently I’m not allowed to ask staff to wear less perfume because that’s “oppressive” and I don’t know where it’ll end when I keep “choosing” to be by myself rather than accepting staff who are essentially presenting in a willfully overloading manner.

Joy and the Fear It Induces #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again late writing my post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today is another hard day. Last week when talking to my support coordinator, I realized one of the problems might be the fact that I think I don’t deserve to be happy. This is not necessarily all there is to my trauma-related symptoms and, besides, is it still paranoia if they are actually out to get you?

I’ve mentioned the fear of joy before. It has been following me forever, since learning that I was losing the little sight I had at around age seven. I always prepared for the day when I’d go totally blind. That day still technically hasn’t come, although I can hardly call the tiny bit of light perception I do have sight.

Then there is Jolanda Venema. Dutch people who are in their fifties or older will no doubt remember her photo in a newspaper in 1988. She was chained to a bed, stripped naked, in an institution for people with intellectual disability. I learned a few years ago that it was actually the institution I live in now. I am not old enough to have actually seen the original newspaper article, but I did learn about a similar case in a child and adolescent psychiatric unit in Utrecht in around 1997. This particular girl, a 16-year-old at the time whose name I forgot, was even more like me than Jolanda, in that she had a borderline normal IQ. Cases like these have always haunted me, but that got worse when I entered the care system in 2005 and more so when I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital in 2007. At the time, staff literally told me that, when I needed more support than the three nurses to sixteen acutely ill patients (if they weren’t understaffed) could provide, I’d be locked up in seclusion. And I was. And coerced into taking high doses of medication to prevent me being secluded tons of times after that.

I know for a fact that I’m not allowed to be truly happy. The adage in care is, after all, that it’s better to provide okay’ish care to two people than excellent care to one. And I would’ve agreed if care ever had been excellent. But it never was in the 20+ years I’ve been in the system and not in the 20+ years before that. At least not for people like me and Jolanda.

This doesn’t mean I never experience moments of joy and I do try to acknowledge them. I’m not purposefully being more negative in order to elicit better care. If anything, the opposite is true. However, as another incident this evening proved, most people don’t nearly try their hardest and they don’t think others do either. Well guess what? I do! That doesn’t mean joyful moments don’t induce fear, but fear is not a choice. Besides, like I said, is it still paranoia if they are actually out to get you? I don’t think so.

Institutional Abuse: Abuse in the Care System #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to my letter I post in the #AtoZChallenge. Today I want to talk about trauma that I for one didn’t experience in childhood: trauma and particularly abuse experienced in the care system. I’m struggling majorly with this, as just this evening I had an aggressive meltdown that led to me being thrown to the ground by one staff and another staff admitting that the only reason I’m not being locked up or physically restrained is the fact that I’m not strong enough.

I want to say here that my choice of words is a bit tricky. Is it “abuse” if the client was themself aggressive, even if it was “just” verbally? I am struggling intensely with the fact that, on the one hand, my wife never locked me into a room or threw me to the ground even though I was quite a nasty person to her at times when we were living together, but on the other, there are just two staff to ten clients here. I try to understand that staff are people too and not necessarily worse people than others are. My wife sometimes said that the staff at the intensive support home were ill-intentioned at best, but I doubt it. My point is, people are part of a system. When that system is purposefully created to oppress some people, yes, the “low-key” oppressors are to blame too, but that doesn’t make them personally bad people. Many unfortunately don’t realize how much they’re accustomed to using (and abusing) their power. In fact, where it comes to care staff, most don’t even have a clue that they’re higher up in the pecking order than us clients are.

That doesn’t mean that the (ab)use of power doesn’t affect us. I mean, I was once, at the intensive support home, told that if I were dragged to my room, I had probably asked for it with my behavior. The thing is, even if I had, that doesn’t make being physically dragged not traumatic. Similarly, I can totally understand why the staff this evening threw me to the ground (I’m not even 100% sure he intended on me landing on my head), but that doesn’t mean my head doesn’t hurt.

One last thing I want to discuss, is the fact that institutional abuse may technically be a staff’s action (or inaction), but it is the result of a long line of decisions made by management, the Care Office or other funding agency and ultimately the government. It is not the client “choosing” to be restrained/locked up/drugged/etc. with their behavior and, like I said, the staff are the ones doing it, but if the government chooses a lock or shot is cheaper than support, they are the ones ultimately responsible.

Three Wishes, Revisited

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Last Tuesday, I saw the Writer’s Workshop prompts for this week. Several of them spoke to me but I somehow didn’t give myself the time to actually write on them. Today, I’m finally back on the blog and I’m choosing the prompt in which you’re granted three wishes. I did a post on this topic already in 2020. Let’s see how things have changed over the years. What would I wish for now?

1. Unlimited door-to-door transportation. I listed ParaTransit access as a wish in 2020, but now that I’m actually using it for things other than getting to my wife, I realize that it’s not that having unlimited kilometers would solve my problems getting to places. I’d also need the driver to actually drop me off at the place I want to go to. Transportation, after all, is one of the reasons I don’t go to cerebral palsy meetings as often as I’d like, because they’re often organized at restaurants, which taxis can’t reach.

2. My ideal room/apartment within a care facility. In 2020, I wanted to be closer to my wife, but if I have my transportation desires covered anyway, that’s no longer a necessity. My ideal place wouldn’t be much larger than my current room, but it would have a private bathroom and its own kitchen, in which I could prepare my own food with assistance. It would also not be as close to communal areas as my current room is, because well one of my main problems right now is overload from all the sounds coming from the living room.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t list more care hours as a wish in 2020, being that I didn’t have my one-on-one at the time. I do now and of course I wish for it to stay the same.

3. Improved physical and mental health. Don’t we all wish for optimal health? I listed it in 2020 too, as my first wish in fact. Since then, my physical health has improved in some ways and declined in others. For example, I’ve lost significant amounts of weight that I indeed needed to lose and as a result, no longer have high blood pressure. I can also walk for longer. On the other hand, my tremors have gotten significantly worse and I believe my cognitive functioning has declined a bit too.

My mental health, I think, is better than it was in early 2020. I hope it improves more though.

Now that I compare my wishes to the ones I listed in 2020, I see an interesting trend, in that despite better quality of life, my wishes are still largely the same. No, that’s not entirely true: they’re bolder, in fact. I wonder what this means.

Meaningful Activities #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! No Weekend Coffee Share (at least, Natalie isn’t hosting) this week again. I love Anne’s Word of the Week linky for summarizing my week too. Maybe when Natalie hosts her coffee share again, I’ll do a combination of the two. That is, if I can figure out a word or phrase to sum up my week. This week’s phrase is “meaningful activities”.

This week was truly a good one overall. I’ll start with my spontaneous baking activity on Saturday. My staff and I had gone on a walk, but we didn’t want to stare at the wall for the rest of my long activity time slot, so she proposed we do a baking activity. I proposed to make caramel blondies, for which I’d bought the ingredients a few weeks ago already to use with another staff, who however wouldn’t say when we could make them. The blondies were extremely filling but good. Next time, I’m going to cut down on sugar a bit and add some white chocolate on top. I served the blondies to my fellow residents in the evening. One of them asked for days after that, when she learned that I had some left over, for more “Astrid cookies”.


On Monday, my staff and I went to the institution townhouse for coffee. We didn’t have our wallets with us, so we couldn’t buy any of the treats they offered (the coffee is free). However, one of the people behind the counter offered us a brownie that wasn’t good enough to be sold to share. My staff had only a small piece and I had most of it. It was delicious! I had planned to eat the last of the blondies that day, but had two and besides, I was completely stuffed already. I decided to offer them to the two fellow residents who aren’t at the day center during the day either.

On Tuesday, the same staff was supporting me in the afternoon again and, of course, we reasoned we had to go back to the townhouse with our wallets to buy something this time. We didn’t fancy another brownie, but we did have a look at some of the handmade items on sale. My staff bought some tea and I bought a bag of rocky road chocolates. No photo in the townhouse, but I did take an interesting photo of the bag on my nightstand.

Then on Wednesday, like I shared that day already, I crafted a polymer clay dice for a staff who was leaving. Today, I also have been claying, because one of the staff who’s been here forever but with whom I’ve never done a clay project, wanted to learn. It felt good being able to do this activity even though it was in the morning and I was a little cranky.

On Thursday, the staff and I rode the side-by-side bike to Twello to buy some things. I bought raisins, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and corn waffles. We also needed a new mixing bowl, since I’d found out earlier that the one we used to have had a large tear in it. The staff offered to pay for it with the home’s debit card, which sounded reasonable, since it was the home’s bowl that tore. Not that I have a mixing bowl, but well.

Yesterday saw another trip to Twello to go to the market. When we were at the townhouse on Tuesday, one of the institution managers was telling us that he’s going to campaign for the upcoming local election at the market on Friday. I didn’t see him at the market, but I did get to talk to two other parties’ campaigners, both of who gave me some seeds to plant. I’m having to think on where to plant them, as my little yard has no flowerbeds.

Overall, this week was truly filled with meaningful activities. Since my new day schedule will (hopefully) take effect on April 1 and I’ll then be having two weekly cooking or baking activities, I’ve been looking at things to make then too. My wife inspired me to look into vegetarian dinners. Not that I’m a vegetarian or ever plan to be, given that meal delivery service meals suck even more without the meat than they do when it’s included. However, when I prepare the meals myself, I’d love to look at ways of adding flavor without meat or poultry. The idea is that usually I won’t have to cook for the entire home, so I can experiment without considering my fellow residents’ preferences.