Moon Phases and Seasons

Posted on by Astrid

I, being blind, haven’t been able to see the moon in at least a quarter of a century and for most of this time, I didn’t pay much attention to its existence. I didn’t have a clue which phase the moon was in until a year or two ago, when Apple introduced moon phases as part of its weather app. Even then, I saw the moon phase as just some random factoid I liked.

That is until a few months ago, my staff told me about a fellow client who is usually very cognitively impaired and withdrawn but lights up significantly during the time around the full moon. I haven’t yet figured out whether moon phases impact me too, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. I’m just not as aware of the moon because I can’t see it.

Which brings me to the topic of seasons. Fall here has been incredibly warm and I’m struggling to conceptualize the fact that it’s late October. I can still see whether it’s light or dark outside when I’m actually outside, but I am starting to struggle more with the concept of seasons. I do still know that it’s late October, but I don’t “feel” it, if this makes sense. I don’t know how much of this is my blindness and how much, if anything, is cognitive decline.

I’m sharing this post with Friday Writings, for which the optional prompt is the moon. Yeah, I know it’s Sunday, but who cares?

It’s October

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s October. Several years, I’ve at least tried to participate in blog challenges, such as #Blogtober and #Write31Days. I saw that #Blogtober is running again this year, but I’m not officially participating. Still, I’m challenging myself to blog more this month. I did okay’ish in September.

Generally speaking, I don’t like October. It’s not as bad as November, but it’s not a fun month. Unfortunately, this year so far is no exception.

The weather’s bad, so I didn’t walk today except to a staff’s car to drive to a DHL service point to pick up a slow juicer I’d ordered online on Sunday. It’s a Chinese brand, so I may at some point regret having bought it because of the risk of microplastics in my juice. In fact, I’m already putting a good juicer and blender (my blender is not Chinese but it’s a cheap one) on my wishlist should I decide juicing and smoothie making is a true keeper hobby for me. I’m not buying either until I’ve waited a few months to make up my mind though.

I did start off this month with a new course on Duolingo: intermediate English. So far, most of it is ridiculously easy. Then again, the option I selected on the start screen to determine my skill level made the app think I’m at the early B1 level in the CEFR classification system. My spouse said my writing skills are probably C1 level at least but I’m pretty sure I miss some B level vocabulary. Let’s hope the course will aid in teaching me that.

TGIF: October

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. It’s the last day of September (duh!) and I haven’t written enough posts this month. That is, if I want to aim for 300 posts in 2022, I’ll need to have written 225 now. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, since both October and December have 31 days and September has only 30, but oh well.

In any case, today’s optional theme for Paula’s TGIF is “October”. Paula asks us what our plans are for the month.

Of course, October’s main theme for me is moving to the main institution care home and settling in there. Today, I packed my first box. I also told all fellow residents I’m close to. The one in my own home at first hardly reacted, but now seems to understand to some degree. The woman in the care home down the road became a little emotional. I gave her a matching necklace and bracelet. The guy in the care home next to mine, the one with the chickens, reacted understandingly when I explained that the people in my new home are of a higher intellectual level. “So more like you and me?” he inquired. Yes, like that. I gave him the polymer clay sun, because he’s usually in a sunny mood. He gave me an egg he’d collected from one of his chickens this morning.

I already have two visits from my family planned in the first week of my stay at the new home. On October 8, my sister and her family will be coming by and my mother-in-law will visit me on October 11.

Besides settling into the new home, October will be a busy blogging month. I am participating in the 31-day writing challenge once again, although I won’t even attempt to do a landing page this time around. I usually just sign up for the prompts and to have some reason to blog everyday, even though I haven’t completed the challenge in years. There is of course also Blogtober, for which there are prompts this year too. I am not sure what I’ll do with those. All this to say, my cares about not having written enough during September, are really not all that important. Besides, no-one is going to come after me if I don’t write 300 posts in 2022.