#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 3, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I usually do this on Saturdays, but I want to do it today. It’s 8:30PM, so I’ve had my last cup of coffee and soft drink for the day, but as usual, you can always grab a cup of your favorite beverage. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. New Year’s was windy and rainy. Today, we got a bit of snow. Let’s just say I can’t wait for spring.

If we were having coffee, I’d then tell you that, due to the weather, I didn’t meet my movement goals most of this week. That is, over New Year’s, I didn’t feel safe going outside because of the fireworks. My monthly challenge on my Apple Watch is to burn 335 active calories a day 14 times. This should be easy, but I’m honestly a bit discouraged right now.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, on Monday, I tried to make a smoothie only to discover that tons of black critters had crawled into my blender. My outdoor cushions had been next to the blender and that’s where they came from. The cushions were horribly moldy too. Needless to say I threw out the cushions. I could’ve washed the blender, but the idea of these critters ever having been in it, creeped me out, so I discarded it too.

Thankfully, when I explained the situation on the phone, my spouse offered me a blender that had been sitting in our house since my spouse’s birthday in 2023, because it was a gift from me. Apparently my spouse hardly ever uses it. It’s a lot smaller than my old blender, so no more smoothies for the entire home. It works okay though, as I made my first smoothie in it yesterday.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my New Year’s was okay. I had originally planned to stay at the institution, but ended up spending the night with my spouse at our house. For the most part, we just chilled and watched a little TV. We ate a delicious pasta bake for dinner. We hardly made it to midnight before feeling too tired to remain awake. Unfortunately, the fireworks were really bad, so it was 2AM before we properly slept. Neither of us usually sleeps well when we’re together anyway. I left by 2PM on New Year’s day.

That evening, the staff here at the institution had ordered salads, baguettes and various kinds of meat. It was good. I also had a cup of ice cream topped with loads of whipped cream for dessert.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that, like I suspected, I gained weight over the holidays and am now three pounds over my upper goal weight. I’m pretty sure though that, if I gained three pounds in two weeks, I can lose at least part of the weight again before my dietitian’s appt on the 15th. I am actually considering stopping seeing the dietitian, because I know full well what to do to remain somewhat healthy and I don’t think the dietitian helps keep me accountable. I don’t want to ditch my goal (eh, hope) of being more health-conscious, but I honestly don’t see how the dietitian helps me with this. I’ll give it some more thought and may use my weight on the 15th (ie. a factor of how successful I am at actually following through on what I know to be healthy) as a factor in my decision.

My Hopes for 2025

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s January 1 and I am absolutely not motivated to set resolutions or goals for the new year. In fact, I think calling them “hopes” like I usually do, isn’t doing the trick either. I’m too scared that voicing my hopes is tempting fate. However, I’m going to push through anyway and write them down.

1. Be more aware of my eating habits and eat more healthily. I am still within the agreed-upon weight range for my dietitian (or was when I last weighed myself, which admittedly was before Christmas), but barely so and I’d really like to lose some weight. More importantly though, I need to make sure I’m making healthier food choices.

2. Find a physical activity other than walking that I will be able to do regularly for a longer period of time. I tried swimming, but it’s rare that a staff who can meet my needs is assigned to me during the time the pool is open for me. I’m thinking of going to a gym.

3. Give movement therapy (Sherborne) a fair chance and make some progress on it. I do think I gave play therapy a good enough chance, especially since my first impression of the therapist was already quite bad and I went nine times or so. However, I really do think I need to step out of my comfort zone in movement therapy if I want to make it work.

4. Further taper my medication. This needs a caveat though, since I need to really be aware of whether decreasing my dosage is a wise decision and, if not, what the alternatives are.

5. Remain relatively stable mental health-wise. I have been doing okay over the past month or so and my staff say that certainly after my last med taper, I’ve been relatively stable. Like I said, I’d really like to taper my medication even further, but it’s a priority for me to stay within an acceptable range with respect to mental stability. Although I feel that meds are for me, not anyone else, I don’t want to become an unmanageable monster.

6. Work on self-improvement in the areas of communication, mindfulness and distress tolerance. This is a biggie, but I feel that I really need to work on better interpersonal skills.

7. Broaden and deepen my creativity. I may want to explore hobbies that I have tried before but thought unsuitable, such as jewelry-making. I also hope to develop my skills further in the hobbies I already pursue, such as polymer clay, smoothie making, etc. I hope to do more baking and cooking too.

8. Blog and write more regularly. I wrote 110 posts over 2024, which is a big disappointment for me. I hope I’ll be able to blog more often. I also hope to write more regularly in general.

9. Stay at this care home. I’m really hoping that I won’t make another stupid mistake and end up moving again, either because the powers-that-be think that I want to or because the staff consider me unmanageable.

What do you hope to achieve in 2025?

Gratitude List (December 29, 2024) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m doing a gratitude list again. As usual, I’m linking it up with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. A nice Christmas-themed walk around institution grounds on Tuesday. We were able to see lights, listen to a barrel organ playing festive jingles and at the end of the walk, we could do some crafty things like decorate a clementine with cloves and create a paper rose.

2. The fact that the labeling tape I ordered online early in the week, actually arrived on time for my visit to my in-laws on Christmas (where I’d had it delivered) and the tape also fit into my home’s label printer. I as a result was finally able to label my new clay.

3. Fries. I always have to include several food-theemd thankfuls, don’t I? On Tuesday, we had French fries.

4. Seeing my spouse and in-laws on Christmas.

5. Making salad on Boxing Day. A student staff’s mother had made homemade Turkish-style meatballs called köfte.

6. Being able to play DJ at the home’s dance party on Friday. Another student staff had brought his large Bluetooth-enabled speaker and I asked him if I’d be allowed to connect it to my iPhone and be the DJ. That was so cool! At first, I played ABBA like I’d requested the staff do the previous time we had a party. Then I put on a random EDM playlist, but that wasn’t well-received, so I switched to my own personal playlist of Dutch and dialect songs.

7. Getting in lots of exercise minutes today. I took three longer walks.

8. The fact that my support coordinator reassured me that, pending my one-on-one renewal request, things will stay the same for now and no hours will be cut. Officially, my one-on-one needs renewing by January 1 and we haven’t heard anything yet. I’m still struggling with my current hours particularly in the evenings, so I really hope that things won’t get worse. We’ll see.

9. Meeting up with my spouse again yesterday. And looking forward to going to our house over New Year’s.

10. The fact that the festive season is almost over. I can’t stand all the chaos.

My 2024 #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

SoCS Badge 2019-2020

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday (#SoCS) is “my year”. I don’t usually review my year until December 30 or 31 and, since this post is supposed to be stream-of-consciousness, I cannot do it now either. That being said, I can write down what my year reminds me of.

I am first reminded of the fact that I’ve been tapering my medication since the beginning of the year and am now 10mg down with my antipsychotic and completely off my topiramate. The taper could’ve gone faster had I not landed in crisis just before my first antipsychotic taper and had the behavior specialist not subsequently decided to do the “minute-effing”, by which I would have to compensate for every minute I was in distress during my unsupported time by having less support at my next moment.

The year also reminds me of my continual attempts to get actually reasonably good care, after that system of minute-by-minute compensating was abandoned in late March. I sometimes feel like I could’ve come across like a very hungry caterpillar, but so what? I don’t purposefully experience distress, as the powers-that-be used to think.

I’m also reminded that this is the first full year since 2021 that I didn’t move. Back in 2021, I told my care plan review that I was 95% sure that I wanted to stay in Raalte, but hardly a year after that, I was gone. I resolve for 2025 not to repeat the same mistake.

Overall, 2024 started tough but things have improved ever since. I can’t go into every detail of what I was struggling with in early 2024 and let me just hope and pray that 2025 won’t be the same. That is, improvement is always welcome, of course, but let’s hope and pray that early 2025 won’t bring a setback.

My Hopes for 2024

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. As regular readers of my blog know, I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, instead calling them “hopes”. This is just an excuse not to have to take responsibility, I guess, but oh well. I love writing them and looking back at them after a year to see how well I did. Last year, I did participate in #WBOYC, of course, but honestly I never looked at my hopes for 2023 when doing my monthly reflections. Oh well, maybe my first not-quite-resolution has to be to look back at this post when reflecting on the month. Here goes.

1. Get back on track with respect to healthy’ish eating. I did manage to get to a healthy BMI in 2023. That is, I’m pretty sure with all the New Year’s treats, including more “oliebollen” than I told my dietitian I liked, I’m now back across the line to overweight (I was only half a pound below that line last week). I know that with some cutting back on snacking, and it doesn’t even have to be drastic, I can lose the excessive pounds I gained over the holidays. More importantly though, for the remainder of the year, I’d like to maintain a relatively healthy diet. After all, sugary ttreats and high-fat foods are bad for you even if you’re at a healthy BMI.

2. Get back into a regular movement routine. Though I did excellent for the first half of 2023 and pretty well for most of the second half too, like I said yesterday, I wasn’t moving as much over the past month or two as I would’ve wanted to. This year, I obviously hope to meet my movement goal each day, but I’m not sure that will be a realistic goal, as it wasn’t in 2023 and that’s not just because of lack of motivation. I’d also really like to find another way of exercising besides walking, either swimming again or something else. I seem to remember we do have gym equipment somewhere on institution grounds, so maybe that’s an option.

3. Write more regularly. Last year really sucked in the blogging department. I really hope to change that and get back on track with blogging more often.

4. Broaden my horizons in the crafty department. I hardly touched on this yesterday, but the last couple of months were really positive in this respect. For one thing, I started creating figures, such as the gnome and Santa, without consulting YouTube tutorials. For another, on Saturday, I did something really cool: I crafted a unicorn completely independently! I did initially leave black streaks on the head from touching it while trying to attach the eyes, which the staff had to clean up with alcohol. Other than that, I did everything completely without supervision or help.

In 2024, I really hope to be more creative, try out more things on my own (without the expectation that I’ll lose my one-on-one) and generally have more fun claying and maybe doing other crafty things.

5. Explore other day activities. In 2023, I wanted to expand my horizons with respect to my day schedule, moving beyond 60 minutes at a time, beyond my room and beyond one-on-one. The first was a massive success, as I now have a great day schedule (which of course took me moving out of the home I lived in last year, but oh well). The second and third, I’m not 100% sure I want to achieve, actually. Rather, I’d like to explore meaningful activities, whether these can be done in my room or elsewhere, on my own, with my one-on-one or in a group.

6. Get settled into my current care home, generally. I really hope to get more comfortable here and start building up a trust-based relationship with some staff.

7. Improve in the mental health department. This, for me, means stabilizing with respect to my trauma-related symptoms. It also means getting closer to a proper med combo and dosage. In 2023, I didn’t change any of my meds or dosages, which was frustrating as I did notice some increase in possible side effects. I’ll have a meeting with the intellectual disability physician to discuss my meds on the 15th.

8. Continue to work on my relationships and supporting the people I love. Particularly, my marriage evolved in a positive way in 2023 and I would really love to keep it as strong as it is going forward.

What are your hopes for this year?

2023: The Year in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the year. I am dealing with a nasty cold and very much overloaded by the early fireworks. I really expected the institution town to be quiet, but it isn’t. Regardless, my sense of duty is stronger than my wish to crawl into bed with a PRN tranquilizer and that sense of duty tells me I need to review the past year. So here goes.

I started out 2023 cautiously optimistic. I mean, I admitted in my hopes for 2023 that my day schedule, though better than the one my then support coordinator had given me, was far from ideal. In the months that followed, it would turn out that “far from ideal” was really a euphemism and that the intensive support home wasn’t suitable for me. I know my staff there blame my critical attitude, but honestly my current day schedule is pretty much ideal and, moreover, at least my staff try to think in terms of validating my needs rather than fueling competition for care.

By late January, I had pretty much decided I didn’t feel I could live in the intensive support home long-term, but it took till mid-March for a meeting to formally make the decision to start moving plans again. Then I waited two months before hearing any steps had been taken, then another two before that awesome E-mail from my now assigned staff to my mother-in-law asking what color of paint I wanted on my wall.

In the meantime, I didn’t sit still, though sometimes it felt like it. I indeed wasn’t as active as I was during 2022. I participated in the April #AtoZChallenge on my blog, which was really my only active month this year.

I also helped set up swimming for the intensive support home. After all, the idea to ask the institution pool whether they had a time slot for me and a staff to try out swimming, came from me, and then it turned out this time slot wasn’t available just once, but each week.

For the most part though, over the spring and summer, I struggled. It didn’t help that my support staff came up with the conclusion that I got more one-on-one support than I was getting funding for. This led to regular arguments with my former staff about how to cut those hours once I moved.

When I actually moved and my hours had to be cut, the staff soon enough figured out that this wasn’t a viable situation. Thankfully, I got my hours back, first through my care agency and then through funding from the Care Office.

Once this had been sorted, my life significantly improved. For one thing, I was spending more time creating things out of polymer clay. I also explored other activities, such as baking.

In the health department, 2023 was a mixed bag. I did reach my goal of getting to a healthy BMI, but over the past couple of months I have been struggling to get in the movement needed to meet my activity goals. That is, I haven’t met my movement goals several times this past month. One reason is the weather and the fact that, now that I’m at my current care home, I cannot (yet) go swimming regularly. Another factor though may be the fact that I’ve lost weight and haven’t adjusted my movement goal accordingly. Still another factor may be laziness though.

Lastly, 2023 was the year I left Christianity for good. I mean, I’m still spiritual, but I don’t care for a God that condemns the vast majority of people to eternal suffering, many of whom simply for being themselves.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 20, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Another Wednesday, yay! I’m joining in with the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. Did you do more talking or more listening yesterday? Was it by choice or by necessity?
Talking. Honestly, even though I’m an introvert, I talk more than I listen generally. Maybe that technically makes me an ambivert, who knows?

2. Are you a tea drinker? Hot, cold, or both? Flavored? What do you like in your tea? Do you make Christmas tea this time of year? What time of day do you like to sip your tea?
I’m more of a coffee lover but I do drink tea occasionally. Usually hot. I mostly drink plain green tea, although I like some flavored green teas too, like coconut or cranberry. Nothing in my tea please. I’ve never made Christmas teas and have no idea what makes a tea specifically a Christmas tea. I usually drink my tea in the afternoon or evening.

3. What’s an activity you won’t try, an event you won’t attend, or an athletic challenge you won’t take part in not even for “all the tea in China”?
Marathon running. That is, most likely I will never run more than 100m at all and that can barely be considered running.

4. What’s something most people seem to love but is not “your cup of tea”?
Starbucks. And yes, I thought of that before I’d read Joyce’s answer. Like I said before, I went there twice and thought I sort of liked it the first time (because everyone apparently does). The second time though, both I and my spouse decided we definitely weren’t coming back.

Oh and romance novels. I am not sure whether I haven’t found the right kind yet but I think they’re all horribly cheesy, shallow and predictable, and it’s not like I need lots of twists in a book otherwise.

5. How does your family celebrate New Year’s Eve?
Uhm, we don’t? That is, as far as I know my spouse isn’t expecting me to come to our house for the occasion. Last year, though I did spend New Year’s Eve in Lobith, we went to bed before midnight.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I want to share some good news: my one-on-one got renewed! I don’t know any details yet, but according to my staff everything will stay the same with respect to my care.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 8, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today, even though I already had my last cup of coffee for the day. I’m going to have a glass of water with my evening meds probably while in the middle of this post. Want a drink too? Maybe I can convince the staff to get you a diet soda. I can’t stand them myself and we rarely have Dubbelfrisss, my favorite drink that isn’t water, coffee or green tea, here. Anyway, let’s (pretend to) have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my New Year’s went okay. I went to Lobith. Like I think I mentioned, my husband ordered a waffle maker, so that we could have our own, homemade waffles. Not all turned out as they should, but we had enough of the ones that did turn out good. We spent the evening on the couch watching semi-random YouTube videos, as neither of us wanted to watch the annual New Year’s comedy performance. According to my husband, YouTube decided what we were watching, as he probably had autoplay on. By 11:30PM, both of us were too tired to wait for the clock to strike midnight and we didn’t fancy neighbors coming by to greet us either, so we went to bed.

If we were having coffee, I would share that the first week of the new year has been hard. The home has been short-staffed and many of my fellow residents have been struggling with post-holiday dysregulation. For these reasons and probably others, I am experiencing a lot of disruptions to my care again. I have had quite a few meltdowns lately. I haven’t been as severely self-harming as I was back in late October and November, but quite honestly I’m feeling almost as desperate and the only reason I’m not feeling exactly as desperate is the fact that at least on paper my care is still kind of okay.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that my youngest sister-in-law turned 30 yesterday. I am thankful I was able to craft a polymer clay horse for her. Well, not anything like an actual, anatomically correct horse; really just a unicorn like the ones I usually craft but without a horn. My sister-in-law’s real, living horse is called Wolympia, so I called the polymer clay one Polympia. Sadly, I forgot to take a picture before giving it to my husband to give to her.

How have you been?

2022: The Year in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the year, so in keeping with my tradition, I thought I’d do a review of the past year.

I started 2022 by reviewing the forms for my extra care funding application – my extra care had just been re-approved for two years at the end of 2021 – with the behavior specialist. “Extra care” is what I usually refer to as “one-on-one” here, but I’m told by several staff that it’s not technically one-on-one if it’s not full-time one-on-one. Whether that’s true, I don’t know. I made some suggestions for when the application had to be submitted again in two years’ time. With how much has changed over 2022, I doubt any of it will be relevant anymore.

I also started the year with a healthier food plan and by seeing a dietitian. Over the course of the next nine months, I lost about 4-5kg and, like I had hoped, got to a relatively stress-free food plan. I did, towards late summer, start overexercising a little, but I attribute that to the newness of my Apple Watch.

By April, things started to shift a little, as I officially voiced my wish to explore the possibility of my moving to the main institution or another care agency with an institutional setting. The behavior specialist and I created a housing profile with my needs and wants on it and the behavior specialist gave it to the care consultant.

As it turned out, he only got applications sent out to the main institution and to one other agency, an agency in elder care. The reason was the fact that said agency operates an assisted living facility for blind or visually impaired older adults. With the fact that my long-term care funding is blindness-based, it makes some sense, but the place isn’t suitable at all.

I did get to meet the behavior specialist and two support coordinators for the main institution. As it turned out, they did find a place they considered suitable, ie. my current care home. I moved in early October to what from the care agency’s website looked like my dream home. It quickly turned into a nightmare though.

Thankfully, during the timeframe of late November till late December, some things got settled. I’m still finding I feel very easily frustrated with some things in my home and I’m swinging between letting them go (which is very hard for me) and mentioning them (which may come across as me sweating the small stuff).

For one thing, I lost another 6kg during these three months that I’ve now been here. I know I am still overweight by a few kilograms, so in this sense it’s okay, but it does create some difficulties relating to my disordered eating habits. I’d really like to get in touch with the dietitian again.

In other health-related news, I got some med tweaks in 2022. First, I started pregabalin I think in February. Then, in April, I took my first step lowering my antipsychotic dosage.

I also found out during the summer that my kidney function was mildly decreased. I had it retested about two weeks ago and, though it decreased a tiny bit further, this could be because I have a UTI.

Let me also share about my creative endeavors of the year. I did a ton of polymer clay crafting and really loved it. When I moved to my current care home, I for a while had to let go of this hobby, but now I’m trying to slowly reinvent my creative self.

Lastly, faith-wise, I remain a struggling new believer. I am really hoping and praying that God will lead me further on the right path towards Him in 2023.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 28, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last Wednesday of 2022, so I’m joining Joyce for the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. Did you set any goals for the new year this time last year? Did you meet them or miss the mark? Tell us more if you’re comfortable sharing.
I don’t set goals. Instead, I call them hopes. That removes the pressure, but they’re pretty much the same. I shared my hopes for 2022 on January 1. For the most part, I sort of reached them early on but completely started falling off course after the move to my current care home. I’m slowly getting back on track.

2. What are three words that might describe the kind of person you were this past year or describe in some way how your life looked?
Transition, stress, creativity.

3. What’s something new you ate, saw, heard, or experienced in 2022? What did you think?
This year was a massively transitional year, since I experienced the move to what I thought would be my dream care home but initially turned into a nightmare. It’s slowly starting to get better though. As a result, I experienced many new things. A tiny one is the fact that I ate mash for the first time in a looong while.

4. Oxford Dictionary has announced it’s word of the year for 2022, and it’s this-goblin mode. Huh? Have you ever heard this phrase? Used this phrase?
No, never heard of it until now. Consequently, I have no idea what it means and honestly don’t know whether I want to know. Oh wait, no, I don’t want to find out, as I just saw that Joyce had the definition written out and I skipped over it. Or maybe now I do want to find out.

If you were in charge, what word would you declare word of the year for 2022?
Russification, if that’s a word in English too (it is in Dutch). We need to be aware of what’s happening in Ukraine and especially the parts of it completely under Russian control, like Mariupol.

5. Any special plans for an end of year celebration in your house or town? The travel channel says the world’s best New Year’s Eve celebrations will happen in Copacabana Beach-Rio de Janeiro, the Orlando theme parks in Florida, London, Sydney, New York’s Time Square, Edinburgh Scotland, and Paris. If you could attend any one of these which would you choose? Tell us why?
I will be going to Lobith for New Year’s . My husband just ordered a waffle maker online so that we can make waffles then. He also said he bought Airfryer snacks.

If I had to choose any of these destinations to visit during New Year’s, it’d be Sydney because it’s summer there right now. Then again, I don’t have any desire to visit there otherwise. I would like to go to Edinburgh someday, but not in winter.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’m probably going to end the year on a positive note, as my support coordinator returned from her vacation yesterday and did part of my one-on-one this evening. That’s not the positive news. The positive news is the fact that she said my day schedule is good as it is.