TGIF: A Short But Productive Week

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today, I’m joining Paula Light’s #TGIF once again. Paula writes about this being a short week. I almost forgot about that. I mean, we don’t do Memorial Day here in the Netherlands. We have Veterans’ Day, which I believe is on June 29. However, last Sunday was Pentecost and, as with Easter, the Monday after that is called second Pentecost and is an official holiday too.

My week, despite being short, was productive. On Tuesday, I had a meeting with my behavior specialist and a behavior specialist responsible for a possible new care home (or several, I don’t know). They were purposefully vague about the home(s) this behavior specialist is in charge of. Nonetheless, I think the meeting went quite well.

On Wednesday, I was frustrated all day because my Braille display wouldn’t connect to my PC. I thought the problem was the cable, but it wasn’t. In the end, I found out that I had somehow managed to remove my Braille display from within the screen reader’s settings for default Braille display. My Braille display still doesn’t charge properly, for which a technician will come round on Tuesday.

As of yesterday, I am exercising more than I did last month, because I signed up for two challenges in a fitness app called Challenges. Yesterday, in fact, I burned over 500 active calories according to my Apple Watch. Today I’m not yet there, but I did get in significantly more steps. I don’t want this to become an obsession, so I’m making sure I do other activities too. Like, yesterday I created a polymer clay ice cream cone. I later realized that, because I had used white Premo, it needs to be cured at 135°C, but all the other colors are pretty light Fimo soft, for which 130°C is the maximum temperature (and in fact they often darken at this temperature too). I usually cure a Fimo/Premo combo at 130°C and will this time too, but am pretty sure the Fimo colors will be ruined.

This afternoon, my mother texted me asking whether I’d thought about celebrating my birthday (which is on the 27th). If it’s up to her, she’d like for my parents, my spouse and me to go out for dinner. I discussed it with my spouse, who suggested we go to our favorite chicken restaurant, which is about halfway between my parents and Lobith. Or was about halfway between my parents and Lobith, that is, since when looking it up, I found a different chicken restaurant, closer to my parents (so a longer drive for my spouse) and it turned out our favorite chicken restaurant no longer exists. I’m not yet sure what to do now, but I’ll think on it.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (May 10, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here goes.

1. Did you watch the coronation of King Charles III? Share some of your thoughts about that, or about the royal family in general.
No, didn’t watch it and don’t care for the royal family at all. I honestly am more on Harry and Meghan’s side if I have to choose one. Not that I know much about the entire situation leading up to them being the black sheep, but there are always two sides to a family split-up and everyone seems to side with Charles, William and Catherine. Being that I’m old enough to remember Diana, albeit not very well, this tells me Charles himself is far from perfect and he hardly seems to acknowledge it.

2. What are you the uncrowned queen of?
Here at my home, I’m the uncrowned queen of smoothie making. Sadly, the blender died and the staff think a stick mixer works as well (which it doesn’t), so I’m waiting for my benefits to arrive on the 23rd so that I can buy a new blender.

3. In a box of chocolates which one do you usually go for?
Coffee cream. I also love caramel and anything with nuts in it.

4. Something learned at your mother’s knee?
I’m not sure what this expression means, but if it means something I learned from my mother as a child, I’ll go with my love of crafts and simple food prep. My mother would often help my sister and me bake cookies. Though I haven’t done that in years, it does probably translate into my love of smoothie making.

5. “Like mother, like daughter”…in what way is this saying true for you?
The first thing that comes to mind is a negative one: both of us have really poor distress tolerance. However, both of us are also somewhat creative. We also look somewhat similar: both of us are short, both of us on the curvy side, both with dark hair. My mother has brown eyes though, while mine are blue.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I am currently reading I Want My Daddy, the latest foster care memoir by Casey Watson. So far, it’s good. It has an intriguing twist that I didn’t expect.

Finding My Way #31Days2022

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. The first optional prompt for #31Days2022 is “way”. I thought of several titles for this blog post, but ultimately decided on this one. The rest just randomly flowed out of my fingers.

Only four days before I move to the new care home. I told my mother about it on Tuesday. Somewhat surprisingly, she didn’t react weird to the fact that I’m going to live on institution grounds. Not surprisingly, she did start talking to me about how I might be able to walk around grounds independently then.

I did, indeed, mention to the support coordinator and behavior specialist for the new home, when they came to assess my suitability for the home, that I may want to learn to take a little walk myself on institution grounds someday. Afterwards, my current assigned staff cautioned them against too high expectations. After all, I want to be “normal” pretty badly, but I still remain multiply-disabled in some significant ways.

I know that people who are “just” blind can learn to find their way around institution grounds quite easily. But I’m not “just” blind. For one thing, I am not even sure I could use my white cane in a manner that would allow me to detect obstacles safely, given my mild mobility impairment due to cerebral palsy. For another, due to autism-related executive dysfunction and other factors, my energy level varies greatly from one day to the next. So does my capacity to handle sensory stimuli. Consequently, I may be able to find my way for a short walk around grounds pretty easily one day and get hopelessly lost and frustrated the next.

I remember back when I was in the psych hospital, I voiced a similar wish to learn to take a quick walk around the building. An orientation and mobility instructor from the blindness agency came by, taught me a few times with very limited success. Before she was even finished teaching me, the staff decided it was my responsibility, so no matter my mental state, if I left the ward (even in a meltdown), no staff would come after me. I was then supposed to take my little walk, despite the fact that, in a meltdown, I wouldn’t remember where to go at all.

I know at least here in the Netherlands staff can’t legally restrain you once you’ve left an open ward, but that wasn’t the point, since I didn’t need restraining. Their point was that I was now somehow capable enough to find my way by myself and, if I wasn’t, it wasn’t their problem. This at one point led to my husband needing to drive over from the next town to take me back to the ward.

In a sense, I should know the new care home isn’t like the psych hospital, but I keep getting flashbacks. All I can hope for is that my current staff will do a proper handover.

Gratitude List (September 30, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Good morning everyone! I was up at 7AM today and am ready to blog. Today, I am writing a gratitude list. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful I was able to break the cycle of compulsive exercising before it got too bad. Last Saturday, I didn’t meet my exercise goal on my Apple Watch and, now that I didn’t have a perfect month anyway, I was able to let go of the need to meet all my goals everyday and just do what feels good.

2. I am grateful for my health. I’ve been having a sore throat for a week or so. It isn’t bad, just slightly annoying. In this regard, I am grateful I don’t have COVID. And yes, even though I don’t have any other symptoms, I took a test on Sunday just in case.

3. I am grateful for a comforting talk with the manager for my current care home. She was able to answer some of my more important questions about the new care home.

4. I am grateful my husband was content with the new care home and quite happy to see me move in there. In his own words, it is a “significant improvement” over my current care home.

5. I am grateful for muesli rolls. On Tuesday, we couldn’t find anything to eat for lunch that I like, so my staff offered to drive to the supermarket. I chose muesli rolls, which aren’t what I usually have. I am grateful my staff felt that these were within reason so the care facility would pay for them.

6. I am grateful for blueberries. On the same trip to the supermarket, we bought blueberries too. They were still reasonably priced even though I think blueberry season is over here.

7. I am grateful for the support of my staff as I navigate the stress of transferring to the new care home. I still had some worries on Wednesday and even on Thursday after I’d made my decision, but my staff are able to support me through them. So is the behavior specialist.

8. I am grateful my sister reacted positively to me moving to the main institution. She, in fact, said she will now be able to visit more often, as the main institution is close to Apeldoorn, where her in-laws live. She enthusiastically planned a first visit for October 8, the Saturday after I move in.

9. I am grateful for a somewhat relaxed text convo with my mother. I informed her that I’m moving, to which surprisingly she reacted pretty supportively. She did put in a few comments about the possibility that I could learn to walk around grounds on my own (which I might at some point, but it isn’t a given) and that I could help prepare food, but oh well. Both of these comments wouldn’t have bothered me had they not come from her, actually.

10. I am grateful for some weight loss when I stepped onto the scales today. I lost 0.3kg compared to last week, which is pretty much what I’d expected.

What are you grateful for?

The Wednesday HodgePodge (September 21, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t blogged in several days. A lot is still on my mind, but I’m too all over the place to write it all down in a coherent way. Don’t worry, I’ll get to it, eventually. For right now, I’m joining in with the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. Volume 478. Sounds like a lot. Where were you in 1978? If you weren’t born where were you in 2008?
In 1978, my parents got married. I wasn’t born yet. As for 2008, I spent the entire year on the locked acute psychiatric unit. I got there in November of 2007 and left for the resocialization unit in March of 2009. This year was also the year I started officially dating Jeroen, whom I married in 2011.

2. Raise your hand if you remember records playing at a speed of 78 rpm? What’s a topic that when it comes up you “sound like a broken record”?
No, I don’t think I remember that. As for the second part of the question, anything that causes me stress or worry can get me talking like a broken record.

3. What’s the last thing you recorded in some way?
I rarely if ever make audio recordings. In fact, I did one once in my private diary app Day One just to see if it’d work. Can’t remember when though. Joyce supposes many will reply with something they’ve added to their DVR, but I have no idea what that even is. So yeah, like her, I’m going with something I wrote down and it’s my worries about the prospective new care home. I E-mailed them to my assigned home staff Monday night.

4. Thursday is the first day of fall (in the northern hemisphere). How do you feel about the changing seasons? Something you’re looking forward to this fall?
Fall is my least favorite season, so I don’t really like this change of the seasons. However, I do look forward to hopefully being able to capture some photos of the amazing fall colors. I’ve heard the main institution that I may move to in two weeks is surrounded by beautiful nature.

5. In what way (or ways) are you like the apple that didn’t “fall far from the tree”?
My mother half-jokingly says that I got all my negative traits from her and all my positive traits from my father. Indeed, I do share my mother’s short temper, but I also share her creative talent. In many other ways, we differ. For one thing, she hates to depend on others (except for my father). For this reason, she can’t stand those in the helping professions, including doctors. This is somewhat worrisome now that she’s in her late sixties and her health is declining. However, she considers me an attention-seeker for accepting care.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’m so nervous! In less than an hour, I will be headed to the main institution to have my first orientation visit with the prospective new care home. I am really hoping it is as good as people say it is. Please all pray this works out for me.

Precious Memories of My Father

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today in her Sunday Poser, Sadje asks us to share our most precious memory of our father or the father figure in our life.

My father was a homemaker and my and my sister’s primary caretaker when we were children. As such, he, rather than my mother, was the one I’d see when I came home from school.

As a child, I took very much after my father, but now I have very mixed feelings about our relationship. My father is intelligent and he knows it. He also knows that I am intelligent and he feels that this somehow negates all my problems. In his opinion, all people who disagree with him, particularly those in the helping professions, are stupid.

Because my father and I are both intelligent, my father did encourage my cognitive development from an early age. This is evident in my different response to my parents when prompting me, for example. There’s this Dutch nursery rhyme that goes: “One, two, three, four, paper hat, paper hat.” Whenever my mother chanted: “One, two, three, four…”, I’d reply with “paper hat”. When my father chanted the same though, I’d reply with “five!”.

this is not a direct memory I have of my father though, as I was too young to form actual, verbal memories when this happened. I do remember, however, my father teaching me math when I was about seven. He would show me square calculation by using computer chips that were square-shaped. He’d lay them in a row of, say, three, then lay them in a square of three by three and explain that this is a square calculation. (The Dutch word for the square calculation and the shape isn’t the same, so I had to follow an extra step.) Similarly, he’d explain squareroots by doing the reverse.

We would also spend long evenings looking at his world atlas to see where different countries and other geographic areas were located. I still had enough vision to, with some difficulty, follow his finger along the maps.

When I got older, I had to catch up on reading, as this was one of my weaker subjects, mostly because I didn’t like the fact that I had to read Braille. My father encouraged me, well more like forced me, to do extra reading at home. One memory I have is of me reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Dutch when I was about eleven. To show me that he, too, was taking up a challenge, he read the book in its original English. I am currently listening to the audiobook in English on Apple Books.

In short, my father nurtured my intellectual side. Currently, I much more value my creative side, which my mother nurtured (a little). Still, my memories of doing academics with my father are mostly good.

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?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 24, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this late Saturday evening. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare even though it’s rather late for coffee here at nearly 9PM. Besides, I had green tea this evening. I can of course still make you a Senseo, although with the amount of coffee stains in and on my coffee maker I wouldn’t recommend it. So I guess a glass of water or a soft drink should suffice. I hope that’s alright. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, firstly I’d share that I’m so grateful the weather has been much milder over the past week than it was the week before. Of course, we here in Raalte weren’t personally affected by the floods either and damage control down in Limburg is still ongoing. However, the weather here has been truly beautiful.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, thanks to the weather as well as my feet cooperating, I have been able to get in a lot of walking lately. I got in over 11K steps each day of the week so far.

I am still not sure I’ll sign up for Steptember, the annual fundraiser for the cerebral palsy charity this coming September. The aim is to raise funds while aiming for 10K steps each day, regardless of whether this is done while walking, wheeling, biking, etc. Last year, I did participate, but I didn’t really like the pressure I put onto myself by signing up.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been really crafty over the past week. I have been making some new bracelets. One of them, I sent to my mother. She received it in the post today and was happy with it.

I also picked up trying to do latch hooking again. This is a yarn craft for making rugs etc. I learned this at the blindness rehabilitation center back in 2005 and tried to pick it up again briefly in the psych hospital, but was too easily frustrated for it back then. So far, I am not 100% sure I understand the technique again yet, but I’m confident that ultimately I’ll learn.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m truly grateful for all the comments on my blog over the past few days. It makes me feel so happy to see that others read and appreciate my writing.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would announce that tomorrow is my third blogiversary! That is, it’s the third anniversary of my having (re)started this blog. I say “re” because I used this domain (or the WordPress.com subdomain at least) back in 2011 too. I have been on WordPress for over fourteen years and have had an online diary ever since 2002. I still keep learning and growing everyday. I am so, so grateful that, contrary to what some “influencers” say, blogging isn’t dead at all. I hope it never dies.

How have you been?

Mother’s Day

Posted on by Astrid

Today is Mother’s Day in the United States as well as here in the Netherlands. I’ve seen lots of ads for it floating by for weeks. It’s probably been this way forever. That being said, I never quite paid much attention to Mother’s Day after getting out of elementary school. Back in the day we did the obligatory Mother’s Day crafts. Since my mother has her birthday in late April, she never quite cared (or we conditioned her not to).

I started caring again, at least a little, when I got out of the psychiatric hospital and started day activities at a center for people with intellectual disability. Most other clients still made crafty things for their mothers. I decided to join in and create something for my mother-in-law.

You see, I have never had the best relationship with my own mother. She no doubt loves me, but the way she expressed it when I was growing up is, well, kind of odd.

That plus my mother’s late April birthday means I never quite honored her for Mother’s Day. My mother-in-law though has her birthday in late November.

My own parents have always been big on independence. I understand, but they took it a bit too far given that I’m multiply-disabled. They pretty much left me to my own resources by the time I left high school at age nineteen.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, has offered to be my informal representative with my care agency. This means that she’s invited to care plan meetings and would be appointed as my guardian should I ever become incapable of making my own decisions.

One time before I was dating my now husband, I too had to appoint an informal representative for a living facility I was on the waiting list for. I appointed my father, but wasn’t happy about it. I do trust my parents to leave me to my own resources, but I don’t trust them to be there when I actually do need them. What I mean is, I am confident that they won’t approve of restrictive care measures without my consent, but I am pretty sure they will rather advocate for me to be kicked out of care.

With my mother-in-law, I am pretty much on the same page. I am not sure she’s seen my current care plan, but she has talked about it in a way that suggests she knows and understands my need for intensive support. Even my husband doesn’t know some details she appears to be in the know about.

My husband jokingly calls my mother-in-law my adoptive mother. If adults can adopt a mother, that’s quite exactly her. I am glad to have her. And just in case you were wondering, yes, my own mother is happy for my mother-in-law to be my informal representative.

A Favorite Childhood Gift

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop prompts is to share about a favorite Christmas gift you received as a child. Here in the Netherlands though, Christmas isn’t that popular for gift-giving. Instead, we celebrate St. Nicholas on December 5. I can’t remember that many gifts I received for St. Nicholas and the entire celebration was one big stressor once I no longer believed in St. Nick. We celebrated it until I was 20 in 2006. Then in 2007 I was in the psych hospital and my parents didn’t want to risk inviting me. That’s how the tradition ended.

The other major gift-receiving opportunity was and still is, of course, my birthday. It is on June 27, so pretty much as far from Christmas as you get it. Still, I’m going to share about a favorite gift I received for my birthday as a child. Mama Kat twisted the prompt too by listing several things, so oh well.

I can’t remember whether I had invited anyone to a birthday party when I turned eleven. After all, I was pretty much friendless at the time. However, I did celebrate it with my family. The main gift I remember getting was a Barbie doll with aerobic attire. I named her Teresa. I loved the doll, even though I knew already that eleven was a little old to play with it.

Later that summer, my mother took me on a “mother-daughter walk”, which was mainly an opportunity for her to tell me the school had recommended I go residential there. She claimed the reason was that I had behavior problems, which she attributed to my having too many toys. I can’t follow that train of thought other than through some idea that I was so spoiled I somehow felt entitled to have tantrums. That wasn’t true, for clarity’s sake. In any case, my mother regretted having given me the Barbie doll.

I cherished Teresa even more from that moment on. When, during the following school year, I’d have a meltdown, my mother would often pack a random number of toys and claim to throw them out. (In reality, she hid them in her room downstairs.)

The followign year, when I turned twelve, I felt so ashamed for still playing with Barbie dolls that I claimed they’d aged with me, so it was okay. Most of the dolls are still with my parents, I think. I think at one point I broke Teresa’s leg though and had to actually throw her out.

Mama’s Losin’ It