Hello Monday (April 3, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hello everyone. I’m joining Hello Monday again this evening. Let me share about my weekend.

On Saturday, my assigned staff supported me for part of the morning. We made a melt and pour soap in the shape of a heart. Sadly, I don’t have a picture and I gave it to my husband. I added gold-colored mica powder to the soap and lavender and ylang ylang essential oils.

I also created an essential oil blend for in my diffuser. I used pink grapefruit, bergamot and ylang ylang essential oils in this blend.

I did ask my assigned staff to inquire about my orthopedic shoes. This has been an issue for at least two years: I started out with supportive insoles, then an ankle foot orthosis either with or without semi-orthopedic shoes and finally now orthopedic shoes, but they still don’t fit. The shoemaker is frustrated, wondering when they’ll finally be good enough. Well, when they fit. Honestly, I am skeptical about the method they used to create an image of my feet: not using putty for a “mold” but using an iPad to create digital images, a method they’d used on a client of my care agency for the first time. My guess is this method requires some level of understanding I don’t possess but am assumed to possess based on my expressive language. Anyway, I don’t care how much of a bother I am, but I’m not accepting the reality as it is now, ie. my needing to buy new regular shoes every two months due to them being damaged from the way I walk. If they can’t fit me for orthopedic shoes, they’ve got to find a way to fix my shoe issue some other way.

Saturday was a good day overall. I was supported by two staff – my assigned staff and another – I get along with very well during the morning shift and my day schedule wasn’t disrupted. For the evening shift, three out of four staff were staff I don’t really get along with and I ended up being supported by two of them. I didn’t mind though, as my day schedule wasn’t disrupted and I did get to do some activities I enjoy.

On Sunday, my husband came by for a visit and we drove to Apeldoorn to have lunch at Backwerk once again. I had a tuna baguette. Then we went into several shops, because I wanted to buy some new spring/summer clothes. Sorry, no pictures once again. I bought a blue, flowery skirt and three simple tops in black, white and blue.

Sunday evening was a bit hard. It started out well with the staff explaining to me who would be supporting me throughout the shift. This was repeated several times. Then, at 6PM, unexpectedly a staff who wasn’t supposed to come and whom I don’t get along with, showed up. I had a meltdown and eventually, after a bit of an explanation from the other staff and trying an activity for a few minutes, I chose alone time over time with him.

I also spent my weekend working on the #AtoZChallenge, of course. I don’t generally prepare my posts in advance, so I have lots of work to do on the day itself. I also discovered Reddit last week. That is, I had an account back in like 2008, but they changed things up a lot so that’s no longer valid. I love browsing Reddit now and commenting where I can. I haven’t created a post yet.

Overall, my weekend was mostly good with some negativity due to the unexpected staff change. For those not aware, I am autistic, so it isn’t just that I don’t get along with some staff, but if they’d told me in advance, I could have been prepared.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 11, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I’m very early by my standards, having just had my afternoon coffee. I probably won’t finish this post till early evening though, since it’s nearly 3PM and I’m allowed another activity hour at 3:30. The coffee maker broke down last week. Then we got a new one yesterday – a really fancy one that can work with beans -, but it broke down today. Thankfully, the Senseo coffee maker still works. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d first ask about your weather. We got snow this week. Like actual snow that remained on the ground. Yesterday was cold and snowy and icy. The rest of the week was mostly cloudy with some rain. Today is okay. We even got a little sunshine and the temperature climbed to 7°C.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I finally decided to contact an independent client supporter re my care situation on Tuesday. These are not affiliated with the care agency, but can help clients with their care plan or finding the right care. The person I spoke to on the phone, asked me a few questions and then would forward my info to a client supporter for my area. This person called me on Friday and we’ll have a phone appt on Wednesday. Unfortunately, somehow, her E-mail confirming the appt and giving me her details didn’t reach me, so I’m going to call her on Monday to let her know.

If we were having coffee, I’d let you all know I’ve decided a whole lot needs to happen if I want to actually stay at my current care home. After all, like I didn’t yet say in my previous coffee share post as I didn’t know back then but have written about since on the blog, the meeting between the behavior specialist, my assigned staff, mother-in-law and possibly me got canceled again on March 2 and has now been set for this coming Tuesday. Apparently, my support coordinator won’t be attending. However, since my last mentioning that I saw some potential for it to work out here and now, I’ve had a few really hard conversations with my assigned staff. These conversations made me feel as though there’s little or no room for improvement. In one of our last ones on my care situation, in which I’d pointed this out, she suggested I go back to living with my husband. This would have been an understandable question from someone who has no clue about my care needs. I’m in fact half expecting this question from the client supporter too. However, my assigned staff should know better. The fact that she – one of the staff who’s most accommodating to my needs – asked this question, to me underlines the fact that this care home’s staff are either clueless or careless about my needs, possibly both. I mean, she meant well and didn’t mean to push me. She said that, while living with my husband would no doubt be hard, so is living here for me. Her reasoning also was that, if she were to marry someone, she’d do so with the intention of living with them. Well, our intention for marriage was to prove to each other that we want to remain a couple for life, nothing more, nothing less.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that once again my exercising has declined over the past week. I in part blame the weather. However, yesterday I took up the courage and went up to another client’s room to ask her and her staff whether I could go on her stationary bike. Turns out it’s not her stationary bike at all, but the home’s. I went on the bike for only eight minutes (and four seconds, to be exact 😉). Today, I did go for two longer walks, totaling 73 exercise minutes on my Apple Watch.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you I’ve picked up soap making again. My soaps aren’t great so far. I made a simple butterfly soap on Thursday fragranced with lemon and pink grapefruit essential oils. Yesterday, I made another butterfly with lavender and ylang ylang essential oils, but decided to add some mica powder too as a colorant. However, I had no idea yet how to add micas to melt and pour soap, so messed it up quite a bit by adding way too much mica and also adding it to a white rather than clear soap base, among other things. I guess one never stops learning.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (March 3, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m feeling a bit gloomy today, so I’m trying to cheer myself up with a gratitude list. As always, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). I’m also joining Thankful Thursday, although it being Friday, I’m of course a day late. Better late than never, I guess. Here are my thankfuls.

1. I am grateful for my new laptop. My husband installed Windows and JAWS, my screen reader, on it last Saturday and brought the laptop here on Sunday. So far, I’ve not run into many problems.

2. I am grateful for my unicorn cookie/clay cutters. Like I mentioned a few times, these are a Valentine’s Day present from my husband. I haven’t used them yet, but I think I do like them.

3. I am grateful for some renewed creative inspiration. Too bad this doesn’t really translate into action yet. Here’s hoping it will. I’ve been thinking of restarting soap making again, for example.

4. I am grateful to be back in the reading groove.

5. I am grateful for sleep. Although early in the week, I didn’t sleep all that well, last night and the night before, I did meet my goal of getting eight hours of sleep according to my Apple Watch.

6. I am grateful for improving physical fitness and more walking.

7. I am grateful my orthopedic shoes are back from the umpteenth adjustment. Let’s hope they’re actually right now. So far, at least, I have been able to go for a short walk on them.

8. I am grateful for another nice visit from my mother-in-law yesterday. Normally, she visits on Tuesdays every other week, but we were supposed to have the meeting about my care situation yesterday. The meeting was canceled, but thankfully my mother-in-law visited me anyway.

9. I am grateful for French fries for lunch yesterday with my mother-in-law. And fried chicken. And a little salad. It was delicious!

10. I am grateful for a relatively quiet past few days in the care home I live in with respect to hardly any out-of-control fellow residents. Well, I heard one screaming just when my staff was leaving me after dinner, but it seems calm again.

11. On that note, I am grateful I got through my latest crisis, which involved self-harm, without sustaining major damage. I usually don’t suffer major physical wounds, but I know with my most used self-harm method, it could happen any day.

What are you grateful for?

Keeping My Craft Supplies Organized #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. For my letter K post in the #AtoZChallenge on creativity, I’m once again rather uninspired. This time, my various sources of inspiration didn’t offer any help either, so I had to be creative (no pun intended). Today, I am writing about keeping my supplies organized. I hope this is not going to get me stuck once I reach the letter O post, but oh well.

Back in the psych hospital, when I lived with my husband and in the early months in the care facility, I had all my supplies in a large, wheeled shopping bag. Then again, I only had soaping supplies at the time and I still had to go to the day center with my supplies if I wanted to do something crafty.

After a while, when COVID hit and the day center closed, I put my supplies in my kitchenette cupboard. I still have a few things in the shopping bag, I think, but I really need to clear it out.

About a year ago, staff were talking about wanting to get rid of a large storage case from the living room. I told them I may want to have it, so it got placed in my room. I can’t imagine what I’d do without it, as the thing is now packed full of all my craft supplies and other activity materials.

My craft storage

For my polymer clay specifically, I first had just a basket with a few packets of Fimo in it. Then, I bought a stash of Fimo on Facebook that came in a large tea organizer. I used that for a while for storing my polymer clay, but have now graduated to a large storage box with many compartments. I currently organize my polymer clay by color, but the box doesn’t have enough compartments to store each color in its own place. For this reason, I have, for example, the Fimo soft brilliant blue, pacific blue and peppermint in one conpartment. I did at one point still have one empty compartment, which I now use for the colors I’ve mixed myself.

My polymer clay storage box

I still have a lot of my polymer clay supplies in other places too. For example, the tea organizer now houses my cutters, at least, most of them.

In addition to the polymer clay box, I have several more boxes for jewelry-making supplies. I still have one largely-unused box, but already have a plan for it, as my day activities staff is going to order large quantities of my most-used polymer clay colors for me and those won’t fit in the other storage box compartments.

I guess I could easily say I hoard crafting supplies and, to be honest, I need to do some clearing out soon. Not of the polymer clay though, as I still use that. Thankfully, polymer clay also doesn’t really expire, so even if I were to get tired of it, there’s no reason I should be throwing it out.

Hobbies I Could Turn Into Christmas Gifts

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. As regular readers of this blog know, I have a lot of eBooks on journaling. One of them is a collection of 31 Christmas-related journaling prompts and one of its prompts is about turning hobbies into Christmas gifts. The prompt asks us to think of ten hobbies that could be turned into Christmas presents. They don’t have to be physical presents. In fact, the explanation behind the prompt was about a little boy coming to greet Jesus and, rather than bringing riches like gold or myrrh, he brought his drums and played little Jesus a song. Today, I am going to share some of my passions that I could turn into Christmas gifts. I am pretty sure I won’t make it to ten, but that’s okay.

1. Storytelling. Some kind words can mean the world to someone. I am not too much of a wordsmith in terms of poetry or fiction, but I can definitely share some of my positive thoughts with someone I care about this holiday season.

2. Soap making. Okay, I can’t find my Christmas tree mold as I write this, but I could still create a soap in festive colors. After all, I do have gold and red mica powders.

3. Aromatherapy. Related to the above one, I could obviously add a Christmassy scent to my soap or other DIY bath and body care product. I have a ton of seasonal essential oils, including white fir, cinnamon and orange. I also am pretty sure I have a Christmas tree fragrance oil.

4. Polymer clay. Of course. I recently created a polymer clay Christmas tree and am going to buy white Fimo soon so that I can create a snowman too. I have a few Christmas-related cutters, but I prefer creating sculptures.

5. Jewelry-making. I don’t have that many Christmas-colored jewelry-making supplies on hand right now, but if I wanted to, I could purchase them. I can definitely make a holiday-themed keychain or bracelet. If I am going to use my polymer clay to make jewelry with, I do have Christmassy colors.

6. Reading. I could read my fellow clients a Christmas-related children’s story.

7. Baking and cooking. I am not a great cook or baker, but I could with some help from the staff definitely whip up some seasonal treat. I love looking up recipes.

Well, I can’t think of anything else right now, but I am pretty content with how I did on this list.

How could you turn a hobby of yours into a Christmas gift?

Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday

#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 17, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m rather late joining #WeekendCoffeeShare this week and I’m afraid there’s no coffee left. You can help yourself to a soft drink or a glass of water though. I also have chips in my cupboard. After yesterday’s crying fit over there only being the wrong flavor left, I decided to buy some myself. I did ask the staff to put them into a cupboard which they only have the keys to, but I’m pretty sure they’ll love to open it for you. Let’s have a drink and a handful of chips and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee (or a soft drink and chips), I’d share that this week is still quite meh. Early in the week, I was feeling a little more optimistic at the prospect of starting my increased dosage of topiramate soon. I started it on Friday and so far, unfortunately, no change. I am grateful though for no side effects either.

Over the weekend, I’ve really been struggling. I landed in a bit of a crisis earlier this evening, but thankfully pulled myself out of it. I did E-mail my nurse practitioner and CPN at mental health to let them know I’m worried about deteriorating. My husband said I’m not, but the fact that I keep increasing my meds, tells me otherwise

If we were having coffee, I’d moan about my orthopedic footwear after all. The shoes squeak and, though I’m still not in terrible pain, I cannot walk for more than twenty minutes on them without them feeling horribly uncomfortable. Mostly my left foot, the foot on which I wear the AFO, starts to drag. I haven’t heard back from the physical therapist, but am pretty sure she’ll just say I need to push through.

If we were having coffee, I would show you all the soap I made for my assigned staff, the one who’s on sick leave. I heard last Thursday that she’ll remain off work until the middle of November or so due to among other things her needing to use up all her days off for the year or they’ll disappear.

Like I said yesterday, the soap contains vetiver, lavandin and clary sage essential oils. I decided to use a white soap base and no colorants, because I felt the scents would speak for themselves.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that my husband came by today. We drove to Subway for lunch. I dutifully wanted to get out my CoronaCheck app, but my husband told me to wait. As he expected, they didn’t ask us for it. The taco beef wrap I chose, was rather boring and I’m pretty sure the mince they put in it was vegetarian rather than beef. Oh well, now at least I know what not to choose next time.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (October 16, 2021) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s becoming old, but I’m still struggling. I just dragged myself out of a crying fit that started over the wrong flavor chips (yes, seriously). Sometimes I’m a toddler like that. Writing that down made me chuckle in a self-mocking kind of way. I’m still sad though, albeit not about the chips. To cheer myself up, I’m writing a gratitude list. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT).

1. I am grateful for nice weather most of the week. We’ve had some showers, but it’s not like it’s been raining all day.

2. I am grateful for special lunches most days of the week. As regular readers will know, I don’t care for the usual slices of bread that make up a normal lunch here. On Wednesday though, my staff and I decided to make a salad. We still had some left for Thursday. Yesterday, the day activities group I would’ve been part of if I didn’t get my day activities in the home, made hamburgers and I could have some too. Yum!

3. I am grateful for even more essential oil inspiration. Of course, I already mentioned last week that I’d signed up for Lea Jacobson’s VIP club for a month. Like I said yesterday, this week, I decided to grant myself access to the essential oil safety files too. The combination of these resources has truly helped me get inspired in the aromatherapy department.

4. I am grateful I have been able to do some DIY skincare product making again. Like I mentioned yesterday, I made a hand cream. Today, I made a melt and pour soap with the same combination of essential oils.

5. I am grateful my now former behavior specialist was happy with her leave-taking gift. I gave her the butterfly soap I posted last week.

6. I am grateful the behavior specialist gave me a “gift” too. It wasn’t a physical present. Instead, she let me listen to a piece of music she’d played on the pan flute. I am not at all musically talented, so I have no way of knowing whether it was good or anything, but I liked it.

7. I am grateful my Fitbit is charging again. I’d had problems with the charger not making contact before, but on Tuesday, it wouldn’t make contact even after cleaning both the Fitbit and the charger. I got a new charger and thankfully, that solved the problem.

8. I am grateful my topiramate, the medication I take for my PTSD symptoms, got upped. I started my new dose yesterday. It’s not yet working, obviously, but I’m hopeful it will start to work soon.

9. I am grateful for time and energy to read again. I have been escaping into an inspirational memoir this afternoon.

10. I am so grateful my staff haven’t given up on me even though I’m often tempted to give up on myself lately.

What have you been grateful for lately?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (October 9, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this sunny Saturday. Well, it’s not sunny anymore, as the sun has just set, but it was sunny all afternoon. Today I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. I’m in Lobith and I usually have tea in the evenings here, but if you’d like a cup of coffee, I’m sure my husband can make you one too.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that this week was all quite meh. I’ve said this a couple of times already over the past week. It’s all just one endless stream of sadness, triggers and the resulting flashbacks.

I’m pretty sure I’ve decided I’m going to ask my nurse practitioner to up my topiramate on Monday. I hope this means I won’t have to wait for my next weekly med refill on Saturday to get the upped dose. Of course I know meds won’t solve everything, but I can’t think of anything else right now.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I did find some inspiration in the soaping and essential oil departments again. Yesterday, I even managed to make a simple butterfly melt and pour soap.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I also managed to get in more steps this week than last week and that’s not counting tomorrow yet. Okay, last week was quite a bad week in the walking department, but oh well, let’s be thankful for the little things.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that my orthopedic footwear finally returned from whoever (Shoe or AFO Guy) was working on it earlier this week. It finally seems to be okay now. Not great, but okay. I have at least been able to walk some 25 minutes on the footwear without too much pain and am pretty sure it needs getting used to as well.

If we were having coffee, I would repeat how grateful I am for all the lovely comments on my blog. Like I mentioned last week, I’m participating in #Blogtober21, though my only goal right now is to publish a blog post everyday. I’m no longer going with prompts. Today, I almost wouldn’t have written a post, as I’m with my husband in Lobith like I said and this usually means I can’t concentrate. However, I didn’t want to break my streak.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share my husband cooked me a delicious rice and meatballs meal this eveningn. Neither of us was full after it, so we ended up ordering something else afterwards. However, the meal was very tasty!

How have you been?

Crafty Endeavors #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

This week was a mixed bag emotionally. I haven’t been as motivated as I was before, but, like I said yesterday, haven’t been depressed either. I have also been quite crafty over the past week. In fact, I have been exploring more creative outlets in a single week than I’ve done in a long while. For this reason, I’m choosing “crafty endeavors” as my word of the week.

Early in the week, I created the polymer clay tricolor “rainbow” pendant I showed you on Wednesday. Like I said, at first it wouldn’t cure in the oven, but eventually it did.

I also created the multicolor, layered heart I posted yesterday. Since my mother-in-law brought me a packet of sanding papers, I have been trying to sand this one a little. I only used grits 120 and 400 to get rid of the worst unevenness, since with it being multilayered, I don’t know how to sand the top two layers.

On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I have been busy with soap and skincare product making. I made a lavender and clary sage massage oil. Unfortunately, I used up all my lavender essential oil, so I’ve put that on my wishlist to buy when I feel I am allowed to spend money again.

I also created a lavender and rose hand cream and melt and pour soap. In the soap, I used real dried lavender and rose petals.

Lavender and Rose Melt and Pour Soap

I found the recipe here and, though I felt the use of crushed almonds was a bit strange, I just skipped that step. I really liked the soap.

Then yesterday, I showed it in a melt and pour soap making group on Facebook and was told by all of the commenters that most dried herbs and flowers will mold in melt and pour soap. I seriously had no idea! In fact, just a few days earlier, I’d seen another blogger post a recipe for calendula soap. That one is the one herb that won’t mold, but this blogger also included lemongrass. I’ve also seen tons of recipes for melt and pour soap that do include all kinds of dried herbs and flowers, so my next question obviously is how to sift through all the information out there online. In any case, some of the commenters on Facebook said I’m now officially a soaper for having made the same mistake 99% of melt and pour soapers make.

Then on to polymer clay again. On Friday evening, I made a flower. Then I saw an interesting video on YouTube on making polymer clay earrings and wanted to try it. Unfortunately, one of the colors of Fimo I used was way too brittle for in my extruder, so I decided to mix up the two colors. I’d used blossom rose and porcelain. The shade I got was a very light pink which was lovely. Unfortunately, I only had a tiny bit of it.

This evening, I may try more polymer clay, as I haven’t baked the flower yet and want it baked by tomorrow, but I don’t want to run the oven for just one piece.

Overall, despite this week not feeling as good as the past few weeks, I’ve done really well.

How would you sum up your week?

Word of the Week linky

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 20, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! Today is a mixed bag weather-wise. We’ve had some rain and some sunshine and the temperature rose to 20°C. It’s okay given that I’ve resigned to the idea that summer is over already.

Today I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. Of course, being that it’s past 8PM, I’ve already had all my coffee for the day. My Senseo coffee maker’s loose parts are also in the dishwasher and I won’t be able to make you a Senseo anymore from now on. More on that later. The staff will probably make you one if you ask though.

If we were having coffee (or any other drink), I’d share that indeed, like I shared earlier, my mood seems to have deflated a little, but I can’t quite say I’m depressed or sad. I just feel a little less inspired and motivated and a little more irritable and anxious than I was over the past couple of weeks. It’s okay though. I’m pretty sure that even this little low won’t mean all my elation over the past month or so was for nothing.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve still managed to be quite creative over the past week. Early in the week and today, I did some polymer clay. I created the “rainbow” pendant I showed you all on Wednesday, as well as a pretty useless layered heart.

Layered, Multicolor Polymer Clay Heart

I say it is useless because it has neither a hole for a jumpring or ribbon in it, nor an eyepin attached. It is also too large for an earring. I might be able to make a brooch out of it someday.

I have also been doing some soap and skincare product making over the past few days.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that yesterday when making some soap, the microwave I normally use for melting my soap and other skincare ingredients, malfunctioned. This microwave used to be used by the sleeping shift, who had their room next to the entrance to my care home. However, they no longer use this, so the microwave won’t be replaced.

I’ve had a microwave for my room on my wishlist for several months, but was going to delay actually buying one for a while still. Until this one failed, that is. My husband tried talking me out of buying a microwave and that’s where the Senseo comes in. He said I don’t have space for a microwave in my room, but I will if I do away with the coffee maker. So he proposed he give me the microwave from Lobith, since he hardly uses it, and I give him my Senseo. I’m fine with that, since I rarely if ever actually use the Senseo. In fact, I just discovered that the unopened packet of coffee pods I had in my kitchen drawer had an expiration date of July 2020. I hereby apologize for having virtually poisoned all my Coffee Share guests with moldy coffee. The Senseo, I’m hoping, is still in pretty good condition.

How have you been?