A Child Called “Baby”

Posted on by Astrid

Today, Emilia of My Inner MishMash asks us about our name. How do you feel about it? Do you know where yours came from or why your parents picked it?

I probably shared this before. In fact, I did indeed write about this topic in 2019. I didn’t bother to actually look up the post until finishing this one though, so well, here’s the story again through a 2023 lens.

When I was born, my parents didn’t have a name picked for me yet. The reason is the fact that I was born three months prematurely. As a result, for a few hours, the name plate on my incubator read “Baby Van Woerkom”. According to my mother, my father was so displeased with this that he quickly came up with a name (or picked one from the names they’d been discussing among each other). And thus I was named Astrid.

Of course, my parents do have a story of why they named me Astrid. Apparently, I am named after Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Similarly, my sister was named after Sigrid Undset.

I do like my name, sort of. I like its relative uniqueness. I don’t like the fact that it’s hard to pronounce in English, but I do like the fact that in English-language literature for this reason I hardly come across characters named Astrid. I avoid books when I know they have a character named Astrid in them.

I don’t have a middle name and yet, I always wanted one. As a teen, I’d pick random middle names that bore neither an etymological nor a linguistic similarity to “Astrid”, such as “Elena”. Now if I had to choose a middle name, I’d go with something that also has its origin in northern Europe but is relatively easy to spell and pronounce in Dutch and English, such as “Kirsten”. I liked that one back as a teen too but didn’t use it as often. The name “Kirsten” is Christian in nature though, while “Astrid” has Pagan connotations. However, I don’t really care. The combination might actually signify the importance of the Christ, as the name “Astrid” means something like “beautiful God”.

Coffee, Beer, Night Staff, Etc.: Questions I Asked My New Care Home #31Days2022

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s optional prompt for #31Days2022 is “coffee”. I was immediately reminded of one of the E-mails I sent to my assigned staff in preparation for my orientation visit at the care home I’ll be moving to on Wednesday.

One of the less important questions I asked was whether they have set coffee times and, if so, whether they brew regular coffee or “decaf shit”. I did point out, with a winking emoji, that it wasn’t like I didn’t want to live there if they served decaf all day, but that this’d mean I’d need to ask my husband to give me my Senseo back (if he even still has it) As it turns out, they serve regular coffee at least in the afternoon.

I asked some other questions too. Most of the first ones I E-mailed, were worded rather formally. Some of the other less important questions were about groceries. I asked whether the home contracts with a local supermarket or with a nationwide healthcare-specific superstore (the latter), whether they did chips and soda or (alcohol-free) beer on weekends and, if so, whether clients had to pay for those treats themselves. It turns out they offer these treats on Saturdays and clients don’t need to pay for that, but each client does have an account with the superstore in order to get extras, which they do need to pay for.

I also asked what my mailing address would be, since the home has a fake within-institution mailing address. Mail should be sent to the institution’s main address, with the fake address as an additional address line (I’m not yet sure how mail delivery people aren’t going to get confused).

More important questions had to do with the availability of staff. As it turned out, the early shift starts at 7AM and the late shift ends at 10PM, except on Saturdays and Sundays and every other Friday, when it’s 7:30AM and 10:30PM. That had me a little concerned at first, because I was worried I might not be able to get the right support at night.

Another important question was about the night shift. I knew that the institution night staff operate from a central office in the main building, but I wondered whether one night staff would be allocated to my home (and a few others) or whoever received my call, would come or send someone. It turned out whoever was in charge of receiving calls at that point, would send someone who was close by.

Thankfully, at my second orientation visit, I found out the door to the home is locked at night, so I cannot leave the home then. This is good in light of the 30 minutes or so between the late shift leaving and the night shift being able to fully step in. I am not in a medically fragile state, so it’s not likely I would die of a seizure or something within those 30 minutes. However, if I could leave the home on my own, it would’ve been quite possible that I’d wander around grounds all night. I am happy I will be as safe as possible in my new home.

The Tuesday Four (September 13, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Just after I discovered the Wednesday HodgePodge, one of its participants alerted me to another weekly meme called the Tuesday 4. Today, because I’m bored and yet want to write, I’ll join in. This week’s questions are rather simple, yet they allow for much discussion if one so decides.

1. Are you happy with the way your life is going?
Well, it’s complicated. Right now, I’d say yes, but I’ve had to travel quite the bumpy road to get here and there’s still a lot of room for improvement. For example, I would hopefully be even happier with the way my life is going once I’m in a more suitable care home. Besides, the fact that I answer “Yes” to this question, is also dependent upon the fact that I’m in a pretty good mood.

2. Are you planning any trips in the future?
Not trips as in longer travels, but my husband and I just decided to go for a day trip to Zwolle on Sunday in honor of our eleventh wedding anniversary on Monday. Zwolle is the nearest city to where I live in the care facility. We decided to go on Sunday rather than Monday because most restaurants are closed on Mondays.

3. Are you reading anything at the moment or do you plan on reading something interesting?
I am currently reading A Family Torn Apart by Cathy Glass, a foster care memoir. I love fostering and other inspirational memoirs and have read quite a few of Cathy Glass’s other books.

4. What’s for supper tonight at your house?
I live in a care facility, as regular readers know, and we get our meals delivered to be warmed in an oven or microwave. I had potatoes, mixed veggies and a chicken sausage. I rarely choose potatoes from the meal delivery company, but apparently all other choices from the menu were even worse.

As of September 1, the company has decided to provide whole-grain pasta and brown rice instead of regular pasta or rice, something I mostly consider a good thing. The brown rice takes a little getting used to. They also upped the amount of veg in their meals from 150 to 200 grams. I hardly notice it in the pasta or rice dishes and I wonder whether they skipped those. I mean, originally they weren’t providing the whole-grain pasta or brown rice on the so-called “pasta menu”, which I usually pick from, so only the twice a month or so that the regular menu serves pasta or rice as an option was that the healthy alternative. Thankfully, enough people were complaining that the healthier food was not really happening so that they did change it across the board. I wonder whether they did the same with the increased amount of veg though. In any case, I had enough veg in my meal today.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (March 16, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have been discovering some great new memes/blog hops lately. One of them is The Wednesday HodgePodge. The idea of this meme is to answer five (semi-)random questions and then add your own random thought at the end. I say the questions are semi-random, because they do seem to have been inspired by a theme. I loved this week’s questions, so here goes.

1. It’s March 15th (Tuesday) and as the saying goes-“Beware the Ides of March”…have you read/studied much Shakespeare? Do you have a favorite Shakespeare play? How do you feel about a Caesar salad?
I haven’t studied Shakespeare at all. In fact, I don’t think I’ve actually read any of his plays and the only exposure I got to them was watching a school play of Romeo and Juliet in high school. As a result, I had no idea the expression about the Ides of March didn’t actually originate with Julius Caesar himself.

As for a Caesar salad, I do like it on occasion, but it isn’t my favorite at all.

2. Have you ever been to Rome? If so what do you love about the city? If not, any desire to go?
Well, I went to grammar school, so of course we had to visit Rome. The best aspect of it was visiting the Capitoline Museums, but only because a very daring teacher asked one of the museum employees whether I could touch the sculptures, because I am blind. Somehow we actually got permission for me to touch them with one hand. I mean, for those not familiar with them, these are 2000-year-old sculptures, for real! Two years later, when my sister, who is sighted, visited Rome, they had created replicas for blind people so that they could actually get the full experience of touching the sculptures.

3. What’s your favorite place to ‘roam’?
Switzerland. I’ve only been there once, but it’s by far my favorite place to wander about. My husband and I went there on our delayed honeymoon in the summer of 2012 and we’re fully intending on going back once COVID restrictions are lifted there.

Other than that, I’d just say my own neighborhood. I love going on walks and taking pictures as I go.

4. Do you like pizza? Thick or thin? Red sauce-white sauce-other? Your favorite toppings? How do you feel about pineapple on a pizza?
I love pizza! Usually I prefer a thick crust, but I love a good Italian-style pizza too. I love both red and white sauce. My favorite toppings include salami, chicken, bell peppers, red onions, red peppers, etc. I don’t care for pineapple on a pizza but it’s not that I wouldn’t eat it either.

5. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’…tell us how this expression applies to something in your home-life-job currently (or recently)?
Well, I have a ton of larger craft projects that I’ve gotten started on and that I really wish I could’ve finished in a day, but that’s just not working.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
All this talk about pizza has me craving good food, even though I just had lunch. Thankfully, I’m going to cook pilav later this afternoon. I also had the most amazing Indonesian takeout food yesterday. A staff brought me some and it was truly the best Asian food I’d ever had.

Sunday Ramble: Books

Posted on by Astrid

E.M. Kingston started a prompt called Sunday Ramble a few weeks ago and today’s topic is “books”. The idea of the Sunday Ramble is that she poses five questions on the topic and you’re allowed to ramble as you please. By this she seems to mean that you don’t need to answer the questions in order, but can turn them into an essay too. I am just going to answer her questions though. Here they are.

1. Do you prefer digital, paperback, or hard bound books?
This is a no-brainer: digital! The reason is simple: I am blind and cannot read print. Back in the days before eBooks became accessible with screen readers, when I’d still have to digitalize my own books, I preferred hard bound books because they were easier to place on the scanner. Then again, I never liked the process of scanning my own books.

2. Do you have a library full of books or just your favorite tales?
Library of books! I have a Bookshare membership, which is like a library service for the print disabled which lets you download an almost unlimited number of books for $50 per year. You can also keep them as long as you’re a member of the service as far as I’m aware. I currently have roughly 260 books downloaded off there. That is, I have 263 books in Voice Dream Reader, the app I use to access Bookshare books, but that includes some PDFs I downloaded elsewhere and DAISY books from the Dutch library for the blind too.

In addition to using Bookshare, I occasionally buy Kindle books or eBooks off Apple Books. I also like to use BookBub to get free books on Kindle or Apple Books. So if the question had been about number of books bought rather than number of books I have on my shelves, the answer would be quite different, since most books I get either free through BookBub or via my Bookshare membership.

3. Harry Potter, Narnia, or Twilight? (You can choose all three or pick and choose.)
Uhm, am I going to get laughed at if I say I haven’t read any of these at all? If I have to choose though, I’m going with Narnia because it’s Christian-based.

4. Do you like when books are turned into movies? Why or why not?
I don’t really ever watch movies, so I consider that a no.

5. What is a book that you have read over and over again?
I hardly ever reread books now. As a teen though, in the days of scanning books, I had fewer books to choose from. That is, of course I was a member of the Dutch library for the blind then too, but I didn’t like listening to audiobooks. Anyway, I could read Caja Cazemier’s Dutch young adult novels over and over again. My favorite was probably Iris, about a girl who runs away from her mother and is placed in a youth home.

Activities I Do When I’m Alone

Posted on by Astrid

I have been struggling more with alone time and the fear of being left to my own resources lately. For this reason, Carol Anne of Therapy Bits’ question yesterday comes at the right time. She asks what things we like to do when we’re alone.
Here’s a list of things I can do by myself.

1. Go online. I can read other people’s blog posts, be it in my feed reader or through link parties.

I can also go on Facebook and other social media. I don’t personally use Twitter, Instagram etc. much at this point, but I still like to scroll through it.

I also recently developed an interest in watching YouTube videos in the areas of crafting and faith.

2. Read. The only goal I set for myself this year that I truly, definitely haven’t reached, is my reading goal. I’ve so far only finished six books out of my goal of 20. That being said, I do like to read the occasional short story or chapter in a self-help book.

3. Write. I am currently on an eight-day streak with this blog (including this post). I can also write in my private diary, for which I use an app called Day One. I use this app for freewrites and gratitude lists too.

4. Pray and read my Bible. I sometimes slack out on my Bible reading a little, opening the app and only reading the verse of the dday. Today, I did pretty well, having actually finished a plan I had been doing for a while and also having read up some in the book of Judges (because someone I follow mentioned a verse from there).

Besides filling my time, Bible study and prayer will bring me closer to God and will hopefully make me realize that I am never truly alone, even when I am physically alone. I am also never left to my own resources, even if it feels that way.

5. Listen to music and dance. The word “dance” should really be put between scare quotes, since my sense of rhythm is nonexistent. However, I enjoy listening to country, southern rock and contemporary Christian music while moving.

In addition, I also like to listen to calming music while lying in bed. Then, I prefer nature sounds and harp, guitar or piano music. I also occasionally listen to contemporary Christian music when I’m neither resting nor dancing. Then, I’m digesting the lyrics.

Do you struggle with alone time? What activities do you do when you’re alone?

Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

I’d Rather Not Ask

Posted on by Astrid

This week’s prompt for #LifeThisWeek is “Questions”. Denyse writes in her original post that she tended to be a question-asker until she was faced with a cancer diagnosis, when she felt too overwhelmed to ask questions. And maybe, I’m assuming here, also a little too self-conscious. She was able to ask some of her questions eventually but even still encounters things she didn’t even know she wanted to know.

I am not a huge question-asker. Like, over the past week, I’ve been asking lots of polymer clay-related questions, but I’ve felt self-conscious each time. I’d rather solve my own problems than ask for help.

Unfortunately, with me being multiply-disabled, that’s often hard. Even when my only recognized disability was blindness, I struggled with asking for help for those things that those who are just blind usually get help with. I’d rather figure things out on my own, only to get frustrated and distressed when things didn’t work out. I considered myself fiercely independent, but I really wasn’t.

As my father at one point said: “You have an issue with only saying when you think people should have helped you.” I realize that’s rather disrespectful indeed, because, well, other people are not mind readers and cannot have guessed that I wanted to ask for help. Then again, I didn’t necessarily want to ask for help.

I’m trying to learn to ask for both explanations and assistance when I need it now, but I often still feel very self-conscious. This happens especially online, where people can’t tell right away that I’m disabled. For example, people in the polymer clay Facebook groups often suggest I watch YouTube videos, so then I feel kind of obligated to say that those won’t work for me as I’m blind. I do tend to say that I’ll ask my support staff for help, because of course I can’t expect a random person online to explain everything in plain text. Each time I feel I have to mention my disabilities though, I feel some of my self-esteem go. I’m not sure that’s justified, but it’s the way it is.

Early Days Online

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday, Rory asked whether we remember our first times online or with a computer in general. I certainly do. I may have shared some of these memories before, but just in case I haven’t, I’m going to dedicate a post to them.

I got my first computer at the age of eleven in January of 1998. That one didn’t have an Internet connection though. Its operating system, Windows 95 SP2 (which my father explained was like Windows 96), did support Internet Explorer, but my screen reader didn’t. That screen reader, Slimware Windows Bridge, was quite primitive. So was the Braille display, which I remember to be attached to my computer via the printer port. Though it did work with just Braille, without speech, if the speech unit in the Braille display malfunctioned, so did the entire thing.

In 2002, I got my second computer and my first JAWS version. For those who don’t know, JAWS is the most commonly-used screen reader today. This computer had Windows 98 installed on it and it did have Internet access.

My father at first was adamant that I use the Internet as much as I want, even though we had a dial-up connection back then (not the kind where you can’t phone and go online at the same time). He said that, if the bill got too expensive, we’d get broadband. Then when the bill did get to over €300 over the summer, it turned out broadband wasn’t available at our house. After a few months of my parents trying to restrict my Internet access and my trying to evade said restrictions, we eventually got cable.

I got my first online diary that fall of 2002. It was on DiaryLand if I remember correctly, though I often switched between DiaryLand, Diary-X, Teen Open Diary and whatever else was available. The only service I never actively used, was Xanga. I also had a Dutch online diary.

The worst mistake I made, looking back, was not taking care of other people’s privacy. I not only wrote out every argument I’d had with my parents in detail, but also referred to other people, such as my teachers, by their real names. One teacher in particular had a rather unusual last name and at one point was googling her name for genealogy purposes. Not surprisingly, she stumbled upon my Dutch diary. Though I (interestingly) had used a nickname there, she quickly found out it was me. She personally didn’t mind, but did caution me that others might.

What mistakes did you make in your early days online?

Truthful Tuesday: Birthdays

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! It’s Tuesday and I’m feeling a little better still than I was yesterday. I’m still having a cold, but it’s mostly manageable now.

Today I’m participating in Truthful Tuesday. This week’s question is: as you have gotten older, do you still celebrate your birthday, or has it become just another day to you?

The presumption behind this question is that, as we get older and the effects of aging become less positive than they were when we were a child or teen, some people no longer appreciate their birthdays.

I find, and maybe this will change when I get even older, that the opposite is true. I will be 35 in June and have found that, with increased age, does come increased wisdom. I am probably not old enough yet to start feeling depressed about my life’s regrets. That doesn’t mean I don’t have many, but they don’t weigh me down that much as of yet. I hope that won’t come either, but I’m pretty sure it will.

In contrast, when I was a child, I feared growing up. My birthdays were fun because of the gifts I got, but that’s about it. I never felt that flash of excitement that some children and teens feel as they get older. No, not even (or especially not) when I turned twelve, sixteen or eighteen.

When I turned 30 in 2016, I did have some mixed feelings. I was excited to be allowed into the over-30s groups on Facebook but also felt that, at my age, I could no longer have emotional outbursts. I still did. That latter feeling subsided over time though as I realized a neurotypical ten-year-old wouldn’t have meltdowns like mine.

My birthday has always been an exciting yet stressful event. Now though, it’s more exciting than stressful usually. My parents don’t make a point of telling me to act grown-up anymore. For this reason, them visiting me for this occasion – usually the only time a year I see them in real life -, is mostly fun.

I do indeed still celebrate my birthday. Months in advance, my husband starts asking me what I want for my birthday. It’s also a bit of a tradition that he takes the week around my birthday off from work.

Most years, I spread out my birthday party over several days, as I don’t want to have the house full of visitors. Last year, the visiting restrictions due to COVID were lifted the day before my birthday. This meant that my parents could actually take me out for a ride in their car rather than having to sit in the care facility’s garden for the entirety of the visit.

My mother-in-law visited me the day before and brought me the giant bear soft toy. That’s another thing that makes birthdays fun: I love getting gifts. Of course, I can buy myself the things I really want too, but I actually like the fact that people give me something I wouldn’t buy myself.

Maybe, now that I’m inn my thirties and don’t have to act grown-up, as I’m on disability and in long-term care, I can finally feel the excitement of being a kid at heart.

My Twelve-Year-Old Self Would Be Surprised

Posted on by Astrid

Today, Emilia of My Inner MishMash had a very interesting question of the day. She asks what twelve-year-old you would never believe about your current self. This is the perfect question to get me reflecting on how I saw my life at age twelve.

Honestly, there is nothing about my current life that would be so far off that my twelve-year-old self wouldn’t believe it. I mean, I alternated between seeing my adult self as a professor and seeing her as a care facility resident. That first image, I saw as the “good” one. I would be a linguistics or mathematics professor. Never mind that, at least here in the Netherlands, mathematics isn’t a suitable university major for a blind person.

That second image, I saw as the “bad” one. I have probably written before about the sixteen-year-old girl in the media in around 1997 or 1998, when I was eleven or twelve. She had a low IQ, but not so low that she’d fit in with intellectual disability services. She also had severe challenging behavior. The reason she was portrayed in the media, was the fact that she was being restrained and held in solitary confinement in an adolescent psychiatric hospital. I totally identified with this girl.

Of course, currently, I’m not being restrained or secluded. I have some experience of manual restraint and seclusion, but not to the extent this girl did.

This gets me to the part that would probably surprise my twelve-year-old self most about my life right now: that I am relatively happy. For what it’s worth, I totally thought that, if I had to be in long-term care as an adult, I would be utterly desperate.

Another thing that would’ve totally surprised twelve-year-old me, is that I’m married. In truth, it still surprises me at times that my husband is willing to share his life with me. Though as a teen, I imagined becoming a mother later, I never quite considered a partner in my life. Besides, being married doesn’t at all fit in with the “bad” image of myself as a care facility resident.

Lastly, like I commented on Emilia’s post, the one thing that my twelve-year-old self wouldn’t believe about me, is that I found my faith in God. After all, I was raised atheist and was at age twelve clueless about faith. My teachers at the Christian school for the blind made me participate in prayer, something I had a huge aversion to. Honestly, till this day I struggle to pray at set times of the day because it feels more like a ritual than an investment in my relationship with God.

What would surprise twelve-year-old you most about your life right now?