Stim Toys

Hi again everyone. Today I’m joining Word of the Week. The idea is to sum up your week in a word or phrase. Today’s phrase of the week is: online window shopping.

You see, like I mentioned last week, I had resolved not to spend any more unnecessary money until my benefits arrived on the 23rd (last Friday). I actually kept this promise to myself and didn’t buy anything, but over the week, I did have a lot of ideas of what I wanted to buy once my benefits arrived. Then when they did, it was almost the weekend, so I decided not to spend my money yet because my packages wouldn’t be sent out till after the weekend anyway.

Most of my online window shopping involved crafty stuff. Like I mentioned yesterday, I got it in my head that I wanted to try latch hooking again. Thankfully, my day activities staff remembered that a client at my pre-COVID group at the day center used to do this but no longer did. She went looking for the supplies and, on Thursday, I had a bit of canvas, a latch hook and a whole lot of yarn. The yarn was cut too short for me to work with right now, but I had some yarn and lace in my room too. Learning the craft again was hard, but I eventually managed to make some knots.

I also found a really cool polymer clay ornament while browsing some other blogs and this got me thinking of restarting polymer clay. Like jewelry-making and latch hooking, I did this in the past but threw my supplies away because I couldn’t manage the craft fully independently. Now that I let go of that ambition and actually have the one-on-one support I need, I am really thinking of restarting the craft. This blogger used an embossing folder and glitter glue to decorate her ornament, which had me looking at card making stores again too. I’m pretty sure that’s the only craft I’ll never pick up again.

I also did some online window shopping that didn’t involve crafts. Like, on Thursday I found out that NVDA, a free screen reader I occasionally use on my PC, now works with the Vocalizer voices I’m used to with JAWS and VoiceOver (my regular PC and iPhone screen readers). I immediately downloaded the add-on, only to realize that of course I’ll need a license. I mean, NVDA may be free, but the Vocalizer voices are not. A license costs €99. I’m still undecided as to whether I want to invest in it or wait for JAWS to fix the one major bug that leads me to using NVDA, that is, the inability to use the WordPress block editor with it.

Lastly, on Friday, I got talking to my assigned home staff about stim toys. Specifically, chewable jewelry. I initially thought that only U.S.-based sites sold them, but it turns out several of my fellow clients use them. I looked up chewable jewelry and found several online stores in the Netherlands that sell them. Of course, they’re marketing them mostly for children, so I may need one for heavier chewers. I haven’t yet decided on buying it though.

How would you sum up your week?

A few months ago, one of the staff at my day activities showed me a fidget spinner. I’d never seen one before, although I’d heard of it, of course. It was a little disappointing, to be honest. I mean, yes, you can fidget with it, but it doesn’t have as many features as some of the other toys at day activities. I didn’t really understand the hype.

Last week, the things my assigned staff had ordered for me to play with, came in the mail. There was a deck of cards to play games with, a set of dominoes, but also a fidget toy. This one had a lot more buttons and things.

I often love to fidget, but not necessarily with standard fidget toys. I have a set of makeup brushes at day activities that I like to stroke.

Then again, my main stim (the autistic term for fidgeting activity) is hair twirling. I remember my second autism diagnostician telling me I really needed to unlearn it, as it was a “serious social handicap”. I was at the time in my first month of my psychiatric hospitalization for suicidal ideation, so even if it were a serious social handicap, I had other things to worry about. Turns out my parents and said diagnostician are the only people truly offended by this behavior.

Speaking of which, everyone stims. I have mentioned this a few times before but I remember one day sitting in on a demonstration some social services students were giving of their work. The student pretending to be the social services person was constantly clicking his pen when talking to the client-student. I thought this was odd, but no-one else noticed.

Still, I may want to get myself a stim toy to replace the hair twirling with. I saw some on Stimtastic.com that I may love, but the shipping cost from the United States to here holds me back from ordering anything.

Linking up with today’s Daily Inkling.

Online Window Shopping #WotW

Fidgeting