Things That Made Me Smile (March 14, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m joining the Weekly Smile today. I don’t promise this will be a weekly feature, of course, but the hashtag is #WeeklySmile. I could really use a bit of cheer today, so I’m going to share some little things that gave me joy lately. Hopefully writing about them will make me smile now too.

First up are flowers once again. Last Thursday as well as yesterday, I went for a walk and took some pictures of flowers I came across on my way. The below picture is of an anemone we came across yesterday. We initially called it a giant crocus, but I found out it’s an anemone by running the picture through some plant identification apps.

That’s my second little joy: I just love learning about all sorts of different plants and running my pictures through identification apps. I haven’t yet found the perfect plant identification app after having tried out several, but that’s okay.

Finally, a thing that’s been making me smile for days: discovering an app that will allow me (with some help) to make collages and mosaics with my photos. The app is called PhotoGrid and, though some parts of the app are free, I decided to try out the premium membership right away and didn’t cancel when my trial period (which admittedly is only three days) was over. The below collage, my staff and I made with most of the photos we’d taken while going for a walk on Thursday. I’m linking this post to Mosaic Monday. Hope I did it right.

One of my staff later suggested I use this collage as my cover photo on Facebook, so I did. I had never had a cover photo before.

It may seem weird that I, being blind, like photography. However, with the image description tools, including now the plant identification apps, on my phone, I think it’s a great way of getting acquainted with my surroundings.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 11, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this late Friday evening. It’s too late for coffee for my liking, but I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare regardless. I’m pretty sure there are still some soft drinks in the fridge, so if you’d like a drink, you can have one of those. Or you can just have water. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you about your weather. The weather here has been truly beautiful all week. Yesterday, the temperature rose to about 16°C. Today, it was slightly cooler, but still about 14°C and mostly sunny. Over the weekend, we’re supposed to get slightly cloudier weather and we may get rain on Monday and Tuesday. Oh well, I guess that’s a welcome change for the farmers.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you all about the new creative projects I’ve been busy with lately. First, early in the week, I finished yet another polymer clay unicorn. This one, for those who can’t see, is teal with purple legs, tail, mane and ears. The purple color is the color I’d been mixing myself a few weeks ago. Its horn is Pacific blue and the unicorn stands on a heart-shaped surface of the same color as its horn.

I’ve also been creating a mobile for my sister’s new baby. The baby isn’t due until May, but I don’t want to put myself under pressure.

Finally, I’ve had a bunch of ideas in my head. I got a lot of rings similar to the one I put my polymer clay owl on. One is for the mobile, but I want to use one for an Easter bunny too and maybe I can think of others too. I also thought of combining a slice of wood from a tree with polymer clay and my staff gave me a slice. I really look forward to crafting with all of this material!

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve also been loving experimenting with photography and photo editing. Of course, my staff does most of the work in this case, but I tell them what I want them to do and I suggest ways of improving the pictures based on the tips I get on photography blogs. For example, when I took Wednesday’s flower pic, I didn’t realize it might look burned out due to excess sunlight. Then when I went out to take some more pictures on Thursday, I made sure to take them later in the day and to make shade with my body while my staff took the picture.

At the suggestion of one of my staff, I also downloaded an app that is really cool for collage making and such.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I had a haircut this morning. I had my hair cut in layers, so that my wavy hair comes out even more than it normally does.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you that the dietitian came by this morning too. We did an exercise in mindful eating. It was really quite interesting. We got a slice of a tangerine and had to listen to a story and, midway through, we had to look at the slice (my staff at least) and describe it without saying what it was. Then we could feel it, smell it, lay it on our lips and finally take a tiny bite, all the while describing the sensations without mentioning what we were eating. We then chewed onto the tiny bite as long as we could and then, once we’d swallowed it, had to wait until the taste disappeared. The idea is that, if I want a treat, such as a piece of licorice, I can do the same (well, except for taking tiny bites) and not take another one until the taste has truly left my mouth. I have been trying with licorice, but not been successful yet.

How have you been?

A Walk on Wednesday

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this beautiful Wednesday. It was sunny all day and the temperature reached 13°C in the afternoon. For this reason, I decided to go for a nice walk again. I’m still not fully recovered from COVID, but I was able to walk for about 15 minutes without feeling very tired. I really enjoyed my walk!

I took my phone with me on my walk, so that I could hopefully snap a picture of some flowers in bloom. I was really surprised when my staff said that the daffodils were in bloom in a garden we passed by. I mean, I’d been of the impression that they don’t blossom until sometime in mid-April at the earliest. I did feel a little self-conscious, taking a picture of some random person’s flowers, but oh well, we weren’t taking the flowers away.

Like I may’ve said before, VoiceOver Recognition no longer automatically describes images when I tap on them. However, contrary to what I used to think, image recognition isn’t completely gone; it was just moved to being its own separate function. This does allow for more detail to be added into the descriptions. In this case, VoiceOver clearly recognized that there are daffodils in this picture both on the lower right and lower left side of the image. I love this!

I’m linking this post with Cee’s Flower of the Day.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 19, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this gloomy Saturday evening. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I’m right between my dinner and my evening coffee and I cannot offer you a drink other than water right now, as my staff is busy and I don’t want to leave my room. I’ll get to that bit later. So, can I get you a drink of water? Otherwise you’ll have to wait until my staff returns. Anyway, let’s have a chat.

If we were having coffee (or water, in this case), I’d share that we’re quarantining right now, as four or five of my fellow clients are positive for COVID. Four are confirmed and the fifth one can’t be tested but is treated as having COVID too. I took a lateral flow test right after dinner this evening and so far I’m still negative, as are the four other clients supported by the same staff as me outside of my one-on-one hours.

This is the reason the staff are busy, with the staff who care for the COVID-positive clients having to wear PPE and the other staff having to remain out of these clients’ way. It is all rather chaotic.

If we were having coffee, I’d share some of my new clay creations with you too. Like I think I said yesterday, I finally created a cactus on Monday evening.

Polymer Clay Cactus

Then on Wednesday, I created my second-ever polymer clay cane. This one I did using a heart-shaped cutter for the image. I managed to do the reducing all by myself! Then I had my staff cut it into slices, which we then made into beads.

I also created several possible charms to go with these beads. One is a heart which I do kind of like. The other was a unicorn, but I threw that one away. I now only need to make more beads, because, even though I have more than just the four beads shown in the picture above, I don’t have enough for a necklace.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, this afternoon, I have been experimenting with photo editing and meme making again. I didn’t have any success, of course. I mean, I found a photo editing app called Snapseed, which is relatively accessible with VoiceOver, but the one thing I wanted to do, ie. add text to an image, was not. That is, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to enter the text I wanted to add onto the image.

The result of all my experimenting is that now I have eight apps in my Photography folder on my iPhone rather than the four I used to have. And those four already seemed excessive, being that, besides the camera and default photos app, I only use one out of the two image recognition apps I have. Oh well.

If we were having coffee, I’d share about my nurse practitioner’s appointment on Thursday. I am so thankful we were still allowed to leave the home back then, because the appt was really productive. With respect to my new medication, the pregabalin, my nurse practitioner recommended I wait and see another two weeks before concluding it’s ineffective for my anxiety. We discussed my anxiety in a little more depth and also for the first time in a long while went into my diagnosis. He actually said he believes my diagnosis is DID (dissociative identity disorder) or at least some variation of it (ie. other specified dissociative disorder). I quickly talked over it saying it doesn’t really matter, as I know firstly he can’t diagnose me (but then again the psychiatrist can) and secondly I still haven’t had the extensive assessment required for a DID diagnosis in most places here in the Netherlands. That being said, it felt so good to be validated like this! My nurse practitioner also finally will make room for us to discuss my flashbacks at a later appt. He said the reason he didn’t go into it right then was the limited time left in our appt, but he’d definitely like to discuss it with me. That feels kind of weird, but in a good way.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’m so glad the storms are finally over. Last Wednesday night, I hardly slept at all due to the high winds. Thankfully, last night and the night before that were better. My husband’s and my house did suffer some damage to the roof though. Hopefully insurance will be able to cover the cost of getting it repaired.

How have you been?

Four Skills I Wish I Were Good At

Posted on by Astrid

Today, one of Mama Kat’s prompts is to write about something you wish you were good at. I can’t just name one thing, so instead, I’m going to make a list of skills I wish I possessed.

1. Creative writing. Like I said on Sunday, I don’t really have a vivid imagination at all and my works of creative writing aren’t all that original at all. Now of course Julia Cameron (from The Artist’s Way) and others say you really don’t have to have natural talent to be a creative. Maybe then, I wish I had the perseverance to actually sit down and write those tons of freewrites, raw drafts, etc. it takes to come up with a coherent story in the end.

2. Photography. Okay, I don’t really mean the ability to point the camera correctly, set the right filters, etc. That’s a skill I will never possess due to being blind. I rather mean the ability to find picture-worthy things in my environment and then direct my staff to take pictures.

3. Language learning. This is a broad skill. Again, it is not something I wish I were good at per se – I already think I’m a decent language learner if I set my mind to it. Of course, I wish I were better at phonics in general, so that I could more easily develop decent-sounding speech in the languages I know (which currently is singular language, honestly, as I only know English as a second language). However, as with creative writing, I wish I had the perseverance to actually devote myself to learning a language rather than wanting to be able to write a blog post in said language immediately.

4. Distress tolerance. Ha, let’s share a skill that isn’t just useful for the fun of it. I really wish I were good at tolerating frustration. In dialectical behavior therapy, this is considered a skill that can be learned indeed, but I honestly am highly skeptical about it in my case at least.

What do you wish you were good at?

Mama’s Losin’ It

An Eventful Wednesday

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Wednesday evening. The weather was beautiful today. It was cold in the morning, but sunny and about 21°C in the afternoon.

This morning, I had an appointment with my community psychiatric nurse. I hadn’t seen her in four weeks, as two weeks ago she had had to cancel due to a crisis situation. This time, I was able to talk through some of my struggles. I vented some of my grief with respect to my blindness. I ended on a positive note though, sharing the wonders of VoiceOver Recognition.

At 1PM, I had a quick dental check-up. The dentist comes to our day center four times a year for these, so I didn’t have to travel. Thankfully, all was well and I was literally gone within minutes.

Then I had a talk with my support coordinator about my upcoming care plan review. We had to discuss my risk inventory. This is a long list of possible risks someone can experience, such as of choking, falling, epileptic seizures, aggression, etc. With each box, the staff have to tick of “Yes” or “No” and if yes, elaborate on the risk. I disagreed with several “No” answers, but then my support coordinator explained that this is within the current care situation. For example, there is no risk to my personal hygiene because my staff are there to help me with this.

I did get my coordinator to add a “Yes” to risks re social media use because my Internet use can often trigger me and lead to meltdowns. I did ascertain that these risk assessments are not necessarily associated with restrictive measures. In other words, just because there’s a risk associated with my Internet use, doesn’t mean they need to restrict my online activity.

Later, I realized there really needs to be a “Yes” in the box on risks associated with overweight too. I had said this at the meeting but my coordinator had said that since I don’t suffer with sores due to fat or the like, there’s no risk. I do feel there is, given that my BMI is above 30 and I need support in maintaining a healthy’ish diet.

I went on three walks this afternoon and evening. On my way back from one of them, my one-on-one asked me whether I wanted to photograph the chickens near the day center. A client at another care home here has always wanted to have chickens and he finally got his wish granted a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately, only one of them lays eggs so far. The guy whose chickens these are says the other one’s crest needs to get redder before she will lay eggs. My husband said it might actually be a rooster though. I hope not.

Things That Made Me Smile (August 30, 2021) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this beautiful Monday evening. I was feeling a bit down in the dumps earlier today. The reason is the fact that I had a vision screening by the blindness agency this morning. The result was more or less as I expected: I only have a tiny bit of light perception in the central visual field of my left eye. It however was a bit of a bummer too, in that I’d hoped to perform slightly better.

To cheer myself up, I thought I’d join The Weekly Smile and share how amazingly far assistive technology has come. It may not replace actual vision, but, combined with my imagination, it can go a long way.

What I mean by assistive tech specifically is VoiceOver Recognition, the iPhone’s built-in image description functionality that was released first in iOS 14 not even a year ago. Last month, I already mentioned that it can recognize some basic shapes and colors (such as my pink, heart-shaped polymer clay ornament.

on Wednesday though, my father-in-law posted a picture of a statue to the family’s WhatsApp group and asked us to guess who it was. Without VoiceOver Recognition or similar third-party apps, I would have lost out on the fun. VoiceOver Recognition though immediately described the image as a statue of a bear on a water fountain. I replied with this answer in the group and was asked to name the bear. A little Googling revealed that it was “Berend Botje” from the nursery rhyme by that name.

My husband told me that, from the picture, he hadn’t made out that the statue was of a bear. I ran the image through VoiceOver Recognition and Seeing AI, one of the more commonly-used third-party apps for image description, just now and neither recognized it as a bear specifically this time. However, the fact that I “won” my family’s very visual riddle despite being totally blind, definitely makes me smile.

I’m also joining in with #LifeThisWeek and #SeniSal.

Gratitude List (September 18, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Friday, yay! It’s the Friday there are no day activities, so I spent most of my morning and part of the afternoon in bed. I’m feeling a bit tired and down in the dumps, so I thought I’d do a gratitude list. As always, I’m linking up with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. The weather. Early in the week, the temperatures reached over 30 degrees Celsius. I loved being able to wear a skirt for what might be one of the last days this year.

2. Going for walks. I reached my step goal of 10K steps a day three times this week.

3. The scenery. I cannot fully enjoy it, of course, as I’m blind, but I do appreciate it.

Scenery

4. Taking pictures with my phone. I, of course, needed some help taking them and still needed to delete several because my finger was showing. However, I loved the ability to do it. I’m still not planning on following the rule of a picture with every post, as that just won’t work for me.

5. The sensory garden. I spent some time in it on Tuesday afternoon. I loved smelling the rosemary. Sadly, the lavender had already stopped flowering. I also loved listening to the little stream of water.

Sensory Garden

6. Wraps. We made those for lunch on Thursday and I loved them. I had three of them. We had them filled with chicken, lettuce, cucumber and red pesto.

7. Soap making, of course. I loved being inspired to make some soaps again and am planning on making more. One of the staff is retiring next week, so I’ll make one for her.

8. My essential oil diffuser. Okay, its buttons are almost stuck, but not completely, so I can still use it. Last night, when I couldn’t sleep, I diffused a store-bought essential oil blend called Sweet Dreams into it. I am already on the lookout for a new diffuser in case this one stops working altogether. I also have been looking at recipes to make my own blends.

9. Special interests. And people who listen to me perseverating about them. My current special interest is, of course, soap making and aromatherapy. I have been loving telling a new staff, who will be replacing the retiring staff, all about how to make soap, lip balm, essential oil blends and such.

10. My husband, of course. It’s our ninth wedding anniversary tomorrow, so how can I not mention him? I saw him over the week-end and will be seeing him again tomorrow.

What are you grateful for?

A Sunny Monday

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this beautiful Monday! It’s mid-September but the temperatures rose to 29°C here anyway. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get even hotter weather, with temperatures rising to 34°C in some places in the south of the country.

I went for three walks today. In the morning, my regular day activities staff was in a meeting, so a substitute came. She took me on a long’ish walk. I think we took over half an hour. Then in the afternoon, I took my usual 20-minute walk when the regular staff had returned.

I was originally planning on taking some pictures, but ultimately I didn’t really have the courage. That little voice that says as a blind person I shouldn’t be interested in visual stuff like photographs, was pretty prominent in my mind.

In the evening, I took another longer walk. The staff who took me pointed out that there were some cows real close. I asked her to take a picture with my phone. Both Seeing AI and Envision, my two image description tools on my phone, didn’t get beyond calling it livestock, but my iPhone itself did identify cows in the picture.

Ultimately, I took over 12K steps so far today. This gives me an excuse to take it easy tomorrow, when it’s going to be so hot. I might make a soap then or maybe I’ll try out the matcha green tea in a smoothie. I doubt I’m going to try it as regular tea, as I’ve heard it tastes pretty bitter then.

I may also visit the sensory garden attached to the day center. I went there some weeks ago and loved smelling the herbs. There’s a birdcage there too, although at the time the birds didn’t make a sound.

I may try to take some pictures myself. What do you think? As a blind person, should I be interested in pictures, and if so, is it worth it if I try to take them myself? I mean, would you like to see more pictures on this blog even if they’re not good?

The Ordinary Moments

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 14, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Happy Sunday afternoon everyone! I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I think I just ate all of the cheesecake that one of my staff brought for her birthday yesterday and I think the other residents ate all the cream cake she’d brought too. I guess we still have lots of cookies though. Have a cup of coffee and a cookie and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I would rave once more about the smoothie maker a staff brought me on Monday! I have been making smoothies almost everyday since. Yesterday, I made one with frozen blueberries in it for my husband. Its color was a bit grey or so my husband said, but it tasted good. Unfortunately, the staff left the blueberries in the fridge rather than the freezer, so we had to use them all up today.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how much fun I’ve had with this staff member. She’s returning from long-time sick leave, so is slowly building up her hours again. This means sometimes she just comes as an extra staff to do fun things with us. Like, on Friday, she helped another resident and me make cards for a staff who just earned her carer diploma. We also played a game using a mallet and nails, in which you have to slam wooden blocks into a piece of cork. Normally the wooden figures are really relatively thin, so I don’t have the coordination to do it properly, but these were actually thick blocks.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I had a nice phone conversation with my former support coordinator. She was really nice. Like I said on Friday, I’d half assumed she no longer knew who I was, but she definitely still remembered.

Like I said on Friday, she told me my staff have been thinking of applying for more care for me. This did make me feel a little scared, as last year the application for long-term care was really hard.

Yesterday, I reread the application and indeed, some things are more severe now than my staff thought they were back then. This has me feeling all sorts of things. Isn’t care supposed to help me be more independent? Well, the goal for me is stabilization, not development, but yeah. My inner critic is shouting at me, but I try to shut her up.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I’ve been experimenting with my new phone’s camera. I’ve been taking random pictures of my room. I haven’t had a staff check them yet, so not sure they’ll ever go on my blog, but oh well.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you that I got a Netflix subscription again yesterday. I’ll just try it for a bit and then may unsubscribe again, but I wanted to see the Netflix original Diagnosis. This, like the book by that title I’m currently reading, is based on Lisa Sanders’s New York Times Magazine column on hard-to-diagnose medical conditions. It’s very interesting.

What have you been up to lately?