#WeekendCoffeeShare (March 8, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this International Women’s Day! I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. It’s 7:30PM, so no more coffee for me. If you’d like a drink though, feel free to grab one and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. For most of the week, it’s been absolutely gorgeous! Today, we even reached 20°C. I know that this isn’t good news, in the sense that it’s way too warm for early March. I do care, but I also realize that I alone (or even all of the Netherlands alone) can’t stop or slow down climate change. For this reason, I’m enjoying the good weather while I can.

If we were having coffee, then I’d brag about all the physical activity I got in. Yesterday, I set a new record on my exercise minutes by exercising (mostly walking) for over three hours. I burned 600 active calories according to my Apple Watch.

Today, I didn’t walk as much, but still went for a few nice walks and I did ride the side-by-side bike. It’s an eBike and my staff had forgotten to check its battery level, so it quit working midway through our ride.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that, on Thursday, my staff and I took a walk around the nearby lake. We also walked this route one day in late January and I remembered a little café along the way had the most delicious caramel pie. My partner looked at the menu on Wednesday and said the caramel pie wasn’t on it. Maybe it was the “pie of the week”. Thankfully, once at the café, my staff asked the waitress whether they still had the caramel pie and they did!

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I am planning to create a trinket dish out of polymer clay soon. I ordered a cutter for it, which arrived on Monday. Unfortunately, my ceramic tile that I work on, is too small to cut out the shape on. However, one of my staff said she still had ceramic tiles somewhere and, thankfully, these were big enough. Haven’t gotten down to actually creating the trinket dish yet, because the weather’s just too beautiful.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that, on Tuesday, a staff and I went for a walk around grounds again with the purpose of taking pictures of nature. There were mostly snowdrops and crocuses to be seen.



A few days later though, they’d mostly gone and the first daffodils could be spotted. No pics of those, as it was too sunny when I was out today.

If we were having coffee, I would conclude by saying this week overall was good. I had a few moments when I was in distress over the fact that there were quite a few temp workers, but the staff made sure always to assign me a regular staff. I realize it can’t always be this way and I’m okay with that, but I did tell my staff that my accepting a temp worker once out of necessity doesn’t make them a regular.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (February 1, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. After a month on hiatus, the Wednesday HodgePodge is back and I’m joining in. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. Tell us anything you want about your January.
It was such a looong month. Oh, that’s a cliche, but who cares? I shared my monthly reflections yesterday.

2. Lake Superior State University posts a list each year of words they think should be banished from the Queen’s English for misuse, overuse, and/or general uselessness. The 2023 list includes GOAT, inflection point, quiet quitting, gaslighting, moving forward, amazing, Does that make sense?, irregardless, absolutely, and it is what it is.
Which of these words/phrases do you use regularly? Which of these words would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word/phrase not on the list you’d like to add?
I use “absolutely” and “amazing” a lot. I also have a lot of other words I use way too frequently. It’s probably because my written English isn’t as good as I’d like it to be. As for a word or phrase I’d like to see banished most out of this list, it’d be “it is what it is”. That’s just such a useless statement. By the way, I have an inkling “GOAT” when spelled in all-caps means something other than the animal, but I have absolutely (see, here I go again) no idea what it means.

I don’t know which words or phrases I’d add to the list in general, but I’d erase “obviously” and “definitely” from my own personal vocabulary if I could (and replace them with a dozen synonyms). Oh wait, I could do that, but I’m too lazy to use my thesaurus.

3. February 2nd is Groundhog Day. What’s something that feels repeated in your life right now?
Wow, this HodgePodge is a true English lesson! After all, I had no idea what groundhogs even were or what they had to do with repetition. That being said, my days at this point in my life are one giant string of repetition, truthfully. In a way, they’re very unpredictable, but since there is no rhyme or reason to my weeks, the days all roll into each other.

4. What’s a food you love that’s named after a place?
I really don’t know all that many foods named after places. I was going to say “mexicano”, which is a type of rectangular mince snack, but that would be named after the ethnic group. Besides, the mexicano has nothing whatsoever to do with Mexico or Mexican food.

5. What’s the best season of the year to visit your part of the country? Tell us why.
Spring or summer. I live in a part of the Netherlands where the summers can get hotter than, say, in the coastal provinces. However, there’s a lake quite near where I live now, which is good for swimming (we used to go there when my family still lived in Apeldoorn). Spring would also be a good time to take walks around here, I guess, but I haven’t tried that yet as I moved here in the fall.

I wouldn’t recommend visiting the Netherlands during winter at all, as we hardly get snow and, even if we do, we don’t have mountains so it’s no use for skiing.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
My care home’s kitchen renovations are done! They were actually finished nearly a week early. I’m so happy about it, as it means I can finally cure my polymer clay creations in the oven. It also means the living room furniture will be moved back to the actual living room soon rather than all of my fellow clients gathering in the hallway right across from my room. That’s been quite disastrous. Honestly though, I still do want to leave this care home, as the real problems aren’t temporary.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (May 4, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m participating in the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here are Joyce’s questions and my responses.

1. May Day! May Day!…last time you shouted for help? Or maybe just asked?
I’d honestly never heard that expression. That being said, I shout for help quite regularly, most commonly when I’m having a horrible flashback or panic attack. Last Monday, I probably didn’t shout for help, but did plea for help. My one-on-one support staff had left me alone because I’d told her to go away in an irritable voice while melting down. This caused me to spiral into crisis. I will spare you all the details, but I eventually came to my senses and was able to cry out for help.

2. What’s something you may do this month?
Visit my sister and her family. I most likely will, since my sister is expecting a baby very soon. Other than that, there are just too many things I may or may not do, such as finish a book, get to another polymer clay project, etc.

3. “April showers bring May flowers”…is this true where you live? What’s blooming? What’s your favorite springtime blossom?
It’s somewhat true, but we haven’t had that much rain in April this year. I’m not really sure what’s blooming here. I do know one of the nearby care homes has tulips blooming in its garden. My favorite springtime flowers are probably hyacinths, but I love many others.

4. What’s something you learned at your mother’s knee?
I am reminded immediately of a nursery rhyme that goes “One, two, three, four, paper hat, paper hat.”. When my mother would count to four, I’d always reply “Paper hat”. When my father would count to four, conversely, even as a toddler, I’d reply: “Five!”.

5. Share a thought about motherhood.
Now we’re probably supposed to share something positive, such as how beautiful the gift of motherhood is or something. I, however, am not a mother and don’t have the greatest memories of my own mother’s mothering me. Besides, my father was my primary caretaker. Not that my memories of him are any better. All that being said, I feel strongly that mothering is a skill that doesn’t necessarily come naturally as soon as a child comes out of its mother’s womb. I wish it were this way!

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Since it’s Liberation Day (from WWII) tomorrow here, I would like to take a moment to show my gratitude for living in freedom, peace and in a democracy.

Ten Things I Love About Spring

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the first day of spring, so what better day than today to share my favorite things about spring? Granted, I didn’t come up with this idea myself, but found it in a list of journaling prompts. Here goes.

1. The flowers. Yesterday, I came across a spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum). I love the many other spring flowers, including daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, etc.

Spring Snowflake

2. The sunshine. When it’s sunny on a spring day, it’s not so sunny that I will get very easily sunburned. Not that I get sunburned easily anyway, and I do make sure to use a facial cream with sunscreen when going out in spring too. However, I really like the spring sunshine more than winter’s or summer’s sunshine.

3. The temperatures. This week, we get really great spring weather, with temperatures rising to about 18°C. I love this. It usually gets like this even more often in April and May and may even get warmer, which I like more. My ideal daytime temperature is about 22°C.

4. The birdsong. I really love to hear the birds sing in spring! I of course can listen to birdsong on Spotify too, but the real thing is much better.

5. My mood usually being better. I know that spring fatigue is a form of seasonal affective disorder, but I don’t suffer from it. In fact, my mood tends to improve in spring.

6. The smells. Of course, this is related to the flowers, as most spring-related scents are floral. I really love the smell of hyacinths in particular.

7. The fact that sunset is still early enough that I can go outside close to it to take pictures. I recently learned that taking pictures outdoors at midday will make the pictures look bad due to overexposure to sunlight, so I instead decided to go out to take pictures closer to sunset. (Sunrise, as regular readers of my blog will know, is way too early for my liking even in the middle of winter.) Now that it’s early spring, the sun sets at around 6:45PM, but when daylight saving time sets in this Sunday, that will be an hour later. In the middle of summer, I won’t be able to go out close to sunset because my one-on-one will have left, but in spring, I will still be able to.

8. Daylight saving time. This means longer days (for me). I already talked about the advantages of it for photography, but it also means I can have the curtains open longer and get daylight in.

9. Baby animals being born. And the cows at the nearby farm being released from their barn. It’s awesoome to watch farm animals in spring.

10. Extra money in May. For whatever weird reason, people on disability benefits, like those in regular employment, get holiday pay. This is deposited into my bank account in May. I usually have something in mind to spend it on (other than a vacation) months in advance. This year, I’m still undecided, but I really look forward to it.

What are your favorite things about spring?