Hello Monday (April 3, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hello everyone. I’m joining Hello Monday again this evening. Let me share about my weekend.

On Saturday, my assigned staff supported me for part of the morning. We made a melt and pour soap in the shape of a heart. Sadly, I don’t have a picture and I gave it to my husband. I added gold-colored mica powder to the soap and lavender and ylang ylang essential oils.

I also created an essential oil blend for in my diffuser. I used pink grapefruit, bergamot and ylang ylang essential oils in this blend.

I did ask my assigned staff to inquire about my orthopedic shoes. This has been an issue for at least two years: I started out with supportive insoles, then an ankle foot orthosis either with or without semi-orthopedic shoes and finally now orthopedic shoes, but they still don’t fit. The shoemaker is frustrated, wondering when they’ll finally be good enough. Well, when they fit. Honestly, I am skeptical about the method they used to create an image of my feet: not using putty for a “mold” but using an iPad to create digital images, a method they’d used on a client of my care agency for the first time. My guess is this method requires some level of understanding I don’t possess but am assumed to possess based on my expressive language. Anyway, I don’t care how much of a bother I am, but I’m not accepting the reality as it is now, ie. my needing to buy new regular shoes every two months due to them being damaged from the way I walk. If they can’t fit me for orthopedic shoes, they’ve got to find a way to fix my shoe issue some other way.

Saturday was a good day overall. I was supported by two staff – my assigned staff and another – I get along with very well during the morning shift and my day schedule wasn’t disrupted. For the evening shift, three out of four staff were staff I don’t really get along with and I ended up being supported by two of them. I didn’t mind though, as my day schedule wasn’t disrupted and I did get to do some activities I enjoy.

On Sunday, my husband came by for a visit and we drove to Apeldoorn to have lunch at Backwerk once again. I had a tuna baguette. Then we went into several shops, because I wanted to buy some new spring/summer clothes. Sorry, no pictures once again. I bought a blue, flowery skirt and three simple tops in black, white and blue.

Sunday evening was a bit hard. It started out well with the staff explaining to me who would be supporting me throughout the shift. This was repeated several times. Then, at 6PM, unexpectedly a staff who wasn’t supposed to come and whom I don’t get along with, showed up. I had a meltdown and eventually, after a bit of an explanation from the other staff and trying an activity for a few minutes, I chose alone time over time with him.

I also spent my weekend working on the #AtoZChallenge, of course. I don’t generally prepare my posts in advance, so I have lots of work to do on the day itself. I also discovered Reddit last week. That is, I had an account back in like 2008, but they changed things up a lot so that’s no longer valid. I love browsing Reddit now and commenting where I can. I haven’t created a post yet.

Overall, my weekend was mostly good with some negativity due to the unexpected staff change. For those not aware, I am autistic, so it isn’t just that I don’t get along with some staff, but if they’d told me in advance, I could have been prepared.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 11, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I’m very early by my standards, having just had my afternoon coffee. I probably won’t finish this post till early evening though, since it’s nearly 3PM and I’m allowed another activity hour at 3:30. The coffee maker broke down last week. Then we got a new one yesterday – a really fancy one that can work with beans -, but it broke down today. Thankfully, the Senseo coffee maker still works. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d first ask about your weather. We got snow this week. Like actual snow that remained on the ground. Yesterday was cold and snowy and icy. The rest of the week was mostly cloudy with some rain. Today is okay. We even got a little sunshine and the temperature climbed to 7°C.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I finally decided to contact an independent client supporter re my care situation on Tuesday. These are not affiliated with the care agency, but can help clients with their care plan or finding the right care. The person I spoke to on the phone, asked me a few questions and then would forward my info to a client supporter for my area. This person called me on Friday and we’ll have a phone appt on Wednesday. Unfortunately, somehow, her E-mail confirming the appt and giving me her details didn’t reach me, so I’m going to call her on Monday to let her know.

If we were having coffee, I’d let you all know I’ve decided a whole lot needs to happen if I want to actually stay at my current care home. After all, like I didn’t yet say in my previous coffee share post as I didn’t know back then but have written about since on the blog, the meeting between the behavior specialist, my assigned staff, mother-in-law and possibly me got canceled again on March 2 and has now been set for this coming Tuesday. Apparently, my support coordinator won’t be attending. However, since my last mentioning that I saw some potential for it to work out here and now, I’ve had a few really hard conversations with my assigned staff. These conversations made me feel as though there’s little or no room for improvement. In one of our last ones on my care situation, in which I’d pointed this out, she suggested I go back to living with my husband. This would have been an understandable question from someone who has no clue about my care needs. I’m in fact half expecting this question from the client supporter too. However, my assigned staff should know better. The fact that she – one of the staff who’s most accommodating to my needs – asked this question, to me underlines the fact that this care home’s staff are either clueless or careless about my needs, possibly both. I mean, she meant well and didn’t mean to push me. She said that, while living with my husband would no doubt be hard, so is living here for me. Her reasoning also was that, if she were to marry someone, she’d do so with the intention of living with them. Well, our intention for marriage was to prove to each other that we want to remain a couple for life, nothing more, nothing less.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that once again my exercising has declined over the past week. I in part blame the weather. However, yesterday I took up the courage and went up to another client’s room to ask her and her staff whether I could go on her stationary bike. Turns out it’s not her stationary bike at all, but the home’s. I went on the bike for only eight minutes (and four seconds, to be exact 😉). Today, I did go for two longer walks, totaling 73 exercise minutes on my Apple Watch.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you I’ve picked up soap making again. My soaps aren’t great so far. I made a simple butterfly soap on Thursday fragranced with lemon and pink grapefruit essential oils. Yesterday, I made another butterfly with lavender and ylang ylang essential oils, but decided to add some mica powder too as a colorant. However, I had no idea yet how to add micas to melt and pour soap, so messed it up quite a bit by adding way too much mica and also adding it to a white rather than clear soap base, among other things. I guess one never stops learning.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (October 16, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s becoming old, but I’m still struggling. I just dragged myself out of a crying fit that started over the wrong flavor chips (yes, seriously). Sometimes I’m a toddler like that. Writing that down made me chuckle in a self-mocking kind of way. I’m still sad though, albeit not about the chips. To cheer myself up, I’m writing a gratitude list. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. I am grateful for nice weather most of the week. We’ve had some showers, but it’s not like it’s been raining all day.

2. I am grateful for special lunches most days of the week. As regular readers will know, I don’t care for the usual slices of bread that make up a normal lunch here. On Wednesday though, my staff and I decided to make a salad. We still had some left for Thursday. Yesterday, the day activities group I would’ve been part of if I didn’t get my day activities in the home, made hamburgers and I could have some too. Yum!

3. I am grateful for even more essential oil inspiration. Of course, I already mentioned last week that I’d signed up for Lea Jacobson’s VIP club for a month. Like I said yesterday, this week, I decided to grant myself access to the essential oil safety files too. The combination of these resources has truly helped me get inspired in the aromatherapy department.

4. I am grateful I have been able to do some DIY skincare product making again. Like I mentioned yesterday, I made a hand cream. Today, I made a melt and pour soap with the same combination of essential oils.

5. I am grateful my now former behavior specialist was happy with her leave-taking gift. I gave her the butterfly soap I posted last week.

6. I am grateful the behavior specialist gave me a “gift” too. It wasn’t a physical present. Instead, she let me listen to a piece of music she’d played on the pan flute. I am not at all musically talented, so I have no way of knowing whether it was good or anything, but I liked it.

7. I am grateful my Fitbit is charging again. I’d had problems with the charger not making contact before, but on Tuesday, it wouldn’t make contact even after cleaning both the Fitbit and the charger. I got a new charger and thankfully, that solved the problem.

8. I am grateful my topiramate, the medication I take for my PTSD symptoms, got upped. I started my new dose yesterday. It’s not yet working, obviously, but I’m hopeful it will start to work soon.

9. I am grateful for time and energy to read again. I have been escaping into an inspirational memoir this afternoon.

10. I am so grateful my staff haven’t given up on me even though I’m often tempted to give up on myself lately.

What have you been grateful for lately?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 9, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this sunny Saturday. Well, it’s not sunny anymore, as the sun has just set, but it was sunny all afternoon. Today I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. I’m in Lobith and I usually have tea in the evenings here, but if you’d like a cup of coffee, I’m sure my husband can make you one too.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week was all quite meh. I’ve said this a couple of times already over the past week. It’s all just one endless stream of sadness, triggers and the resulting flashbacks.

I’m pretty sure I’ve decided I’m going to ask my nurse practitioner to up my topiramate on Monday. I hope this means I won’t have to wait for my next weekly med refill on Saturday to get the upped dose. Of course I know meds won’t solve everything, but I can’t think of anything else right now.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I did find some inspiration in the soaping and essential oil departments again. Yesterday, I even managed to make a simple butterfly melt and pour soap.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I also managed to get in more steps this week than last week and that’s not counting tomorrow yet. Okay, last week was quite a bad week in the walking department, but oh well, let’s be thankful for the little things.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that my orthopedic footwear finally returned from whoever (Shoe or AFO Guy) was working on it earlier this week. It finally seems to be okay now. Not great, but okay. I have at least been able to walk some 25 minutes on the footwear without too much pain and am pretty sure it needs getting used to as well.

If we were having coffee, I would repeat how grateful I am for all the lovely comments on my blog. Like I mentioned last week, I’m participating in #Blogtober21, though my only goal right now is to publish a blog post everyday. I’m no longer going with prompts. Today, I almost wouldn’t have written a post, as I’m with my husband in Lobith like I said and this usually means I can’t concentrate. However, I didn’t want to break my streak.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share my husband cooked me a delicious rice and meatballs meal this eveningn. Neither of us was full after it, so we ended up ordering something else afterwards. However, the meal was very tasty!

How have you been?

Crafty Endeavors #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

This week was a mixed bag emotionally. I haven’t been as motivated as I was before, but, like I said yesterday, haven’t been depressed either. I have also been quite crafty over the past week. In fact, I have been exploring more creative outlets in a single week than I’ve done in a long while. For this reason, I’m choosing “crafty endeavors” as my word of the week.

Early in the week, I created the polymer clay tricolor “rainbow” pendant I showed you on Wednesday. Like I said, at first it wouldn’t cure in the oven, but eventually it did.

I also created the multicolor, layered heart I posted yesterday. Since my mother-in-law brought me a packet of sanding papers, I have been trying to sand this one a little. I only used grits 120 and 400 to get rid of the worst unevenness, since with it being multilayered, I don’t know how to sand the top two layers.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I have been busy with soap and skincare product making. I made a lavender and clary sage massage oil. Unfortunately, I used up all my lavender essential oil, so I’ve put that on my wishlist to buy when I feel I am allowed to spend money again.

I also created a lavender and rose hand cream and melt and pour soap. In the soap, I used real dried lavender and rose petals.

Lavender and Rose Melt and Pour Soap

I found the recipe here and, though I felt the use of crushed almonds was a bit strange, I just skipped that step. I really liked the soap.

Then yesterday, I showed it in a melt and pour soap making group on Facebook and was told by all of the commenters that most dried herbs and flowers will mold in melt and pour soap. I seriously had no idea! In fact, just a few days earlier, I’d seen another blogger post a recipe for calendula soap. That one is the one herb that won’t mold, but this blogger also included lemongrass. I’ve also seen tons of recipes for melt and pour soap that do include all kinds of dried herbs and flowers, so my next question obviously is how to sift through all the information out there online. In any case, some of the commenters on Facebook said I’m now officially a soaper for having made the same mistake 99% of melt and pour soapers make.

Then on to polymer clay again. On Friday evening, I made a flower. Then I saw an interesting video on YouTube on making polymer clay earrings and wanted to try it. Unfortunately, one of the colors of Fimo I used was way too brittle for in my extruder, so I decided to mix up the two colors. I’d used blossom rose and porcelain. The shade I got was a very light pink which was lovely. Unfortunately, I only had a tiny bit of it.

This evening, I may try more polymer clay, as I haven’t baked the flower yet and want it baked by tomorrow, but I don’t want to run the oven for just one piece.

Overall, despite this week not feeling as good as the past few weeks, I’ve done really well.

How would you sum up your week?

Word of the Week linky

Useful Resources for Aromatherapy #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi and welcome to my letter U post in the #AtoZChallenge on essential oils. I’ve been debating a lot what to cover for this letter, but eventually decided to do a quick post on resources for doing your own aromatherapy.

I use a number of books for my information on aromatherapy. However, the Internet is also rich with resources. First up is AromaWeb. This is one of the most reliable sources on essential oils and aromatherapy online. There are essential oil profiles and there’s information on safety, but there are also recipes for your own aromatherapy products. This site usually comes up first when I search for general essential oil information.

Next is Loving Essential Oils. This is mostly a site full of recipes for diffuser blends and other DIY products with essential oils. I also think they sell aromatherapy supplies. When I search for diffuser blends, this site usually pops up first.

I also like to get my diffuser recipes from One Essential Community. They also offer many different DIY recipes with essential oils.

Last, I want to recommend EOCalc.com. This site has never popped up in Google searches that I did before, but it was recommended in a Facebook natural soap making community. I have so far never used my essential oils in soap and I am not sure this site is useful for melt and pour soap makers like me. However, this site has a wealth of essential oil blends. I just convert the percentages to drops and then use the recipe for my diffuser.

Lovin’ Lately (October 9, 2020) #Blogtober20

Posted on by Astrid

Okay, I’m once again pretty late writing a post. I’m seriously uninspired today. The #Blogtober20 prompt for today, “Imagine”, didn’t evoke anything in me. Since the prompts are optional, I could of course do a gratitude list or lovin’ lately post. That at first didn’t feel good with the challenge, as I wanted to write originally for the challenge, but so what? Sharing my likes and loves might bring you joy! Today, let me share the things that I’ve loved lately and that bring me joy.

1. The weighted blanket. I already mentioned it a few times this past week but yesterday, it was decided that I can keep it. My care facility is paying for it. I am very happy about this.

2. Yet more essential oils. On Tuesday, some new oils arrived, including cinnamon, clove, lemon and orange. I now have over 20 different oils and can make a lot of lovely blends. Right now, I’m diffusing a Christmassy blend of cinnamon, patchouli, clove, orange and ylang ylang. I am completely in love with the most recent additions to my oil collection!

3. Soap making. I love to make melt and pour soap. On Monday, a staff asked me to make one for a relative of hers. I got down to making it on Tuesday right away. She had requested rose fragrance, so I decided to also try out my red mica colorant. Because you only need a tiny amount of it, I decided to make two soaps: one for the relative and one for the staff herself. The butterfly is for the relative and the square one for the staff. In case it isn’t readable, the square one has “100% hand made” written on it.

4. Free and cheap books. I cannot remember who it was, but a fellow #Blogtober20 participant shared some tips on getting free or cheap books legally a few days ago. One of them was BookBub. It’s a U.S.-based (and maybe UK-based too) site that collects book deals from the main book retailers, such as Amazon, Apple Books, Kobo, etc. It sends out a daily E-mail with that day’s deals. Through BookBub, I found quite a few interesting books.

Of course, since I’m in the Netherlands, I got an error once trying to download a free book from Amazon.com. However, I looked it up on Amazon.nl and it was free there too. The first one I got is a cozy mystery called Killer Cupcakes by Leighann Dobbs. It’s the first in a series, but if I’m correct, the books can be read as standalones too.

5. Products from The Body Shop. I must say I haven’t bought any yet, but I’ve been oohing and aahing at their advent calendar and their pumpkin vanilla product line too. I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy the pumpkin vanilla hand cream if it isn’t sold out already.

What things brought you joy lately?

#Blogtober20

Green Tea and Lemon Soap

Posted on by Astrid

This week, one of Mama Kat’s writer’s workshop prompts is to write about the last thing you made. Another of her prompts is about something good that happened this week.

Well, the good thing that happened to me is the fact that I’m motivated for soaping again. I’m seriously loving it!

Last week, I googled all over the Internet for soaping recipes, but didn’t really find the motivation or time to actually make any soaps. This week, I made two.

Now I must say that researching soaping is almost as enjoyable as is actually making soap. For example, today, I decided to look into making all-natural soaps and researching essential oil brands that are relatively safe. I mean, I know that natural health-minded people say that essential oils are by definition safer than fragrance oils, but I disagree. This is the reason I used a fragrance oil in the soaps I made this week.

So what did I make? Those who saw my Lovin’ Lately post last week might be guessing it correctly. Yes, I made green tea and lemon soap! I used this recipe for inspiration.

I used my default brand white glycerin-based melt and pour soap base. Then I added the cheapest matcha green tea powder I could find. After all, I didn’t really need it for actual tea. I used one teaspoon for about 100g of soap. I added a fragrance oil called Juicy Yellow Lemon from a great fragrance oil store. In my first soap, pictured below, I added three drops of fragrance oil, but I felt it was a little strong. I wouldn’t recommend using 3/4 teaspoons essential oil in one pound of soap, as the linked recipe recommends, because particularly lemon EO is very phototoxic.

The green tea got a little clumpy as I mixed it in with the soap base. Maybe I should’ve mixed it with some glycerin first, but I didn’t have any on hand. Actually, I think the spotty effect is a bit charming in its own right.

I made this one yesterday. Today, I made another soap using the same method, but it is heart-shaped. That one is for my husband, as it’s our ninth wedding anniversary on Saturday.

So how did I like it? I rarely use the soaps I make myself, but decided to give this one a try before making the one for my husband. Contrary to my expectations, the soap feels really smooth when using it. I also don’t feel like my skin gets rubbed too much. I loved the combination of green tea with the lemon scent!

What have you made recently?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Lovin’ Lately (September 11, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this beautiful Friday! How are you all? I’m doing pretty well. I thought I’d share another edition of Lovin’ Lately. As usual, I’m linking up with Friday Favorites.

1. Cold tea. Last Saturday, a staff brought a bag of so-called cold tea. This is a new product from Pickwick (I believe). It’s herbal tea that you add to cold water instead of hot water. The staff brought me the pineapple and lime flavored one.

2. Fragrance oils. I decided for the first time to check out a webshop specializing in fragrance oils for candle and soap making or oil diffusers. I’d heard of this shop before, but never bought anything off it. This time, I ordered two fragrance oils: one pineapple and the other juicy yellow lemon. I got another fragrance oil as a gift. That one isn’t suited for soap or skin or hair care products, but I’ll try if I can diffuse it in my oil diffuser.

3. MyNoise. Emilia over at My Inner MishMash recommended this app (well, she didn’t name it until I asked). Like she says, it’s an app that lets you listen to various soundscapes and you can set the volume for each individual sound within the soundscape. I pretty soon decided to purchase the full version, which has like 150 different sounds. You can also somehow calibrate your own soundscapes or something, but I’m not sure how that works. I’ve so far been listening to a lot of nature-based soundscapes.

4. Soap making recipes. On Monday, I decided to check out YouWish, a Dutch soaping supplies store with a great blog. I really want to get into the soap making craft again. I haven’t yet tried out any of the recipes yet, but will next week. Some use micas, which are powdered colorants. I bought two at the fragrance oil store too.

5. Matcha green tea powder. When searching for more melt and pour soap making recipes, I saw a recipe that uses green tea powder as a colorant and additive. I immediately decided to order some matcha green tea powder. The site said that it’d arrive within a day, but it didn’t. It finally arrived today. I saw on the packaging that besides tea, you can also use this in smoothies. That sounds pretty cool!

What have you been lovin’ lately?