When Pluto Was a Planet #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

This morning, I read on a major Dutch news app that a dwarf planet had been discovered on the outskirts of our solar system, reducing the chances that there’s a ninth planet in our solar system to extremely low.

Wait… there are nine planets, right? That’s what I was taught in school and I’m not that old, am I? Or Maybe I am, since it’s been nearly 20 years since Pluto was officially declassified as a planet. It’s now a dwarf planet just like the newly-discovered one, even though Pluto is four times the size of this one.

That brings me to nostalgia in general. That time when Pluto was a planet, when there were 15 million people in the Netherlands… that’s a song, but there are now 18 million. I guess either time flies or I’m getting old or both, since there will always be 15 million people inn the Netherlands and Pluto will always be a planet. Oh, that’s rather ignorant.

This post was written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday, for which the prompt this week is “that time”. I’ve included the Spotify link to the song because YouTube doesn’t seem to work properly.

What, When, Where, With Whom and What After That?

Posted on by Astrid

I have been struggling with staff randomly switching up who will support me, my day schedule being changed for various reasons, etc., a lot lately. This causes me a lot of stress. Like regular readers of this blog may know, I have about eight hours of one-on-one support a day, divided into blocks between 8:15AM and 9:30PM. Between my support moments, I have unsupported time slots that range in length between 30 and 45 minutes.

I often struggle with my unsupported time, looking at my watch every few minutes to see whether my support staff will be coming yet. I also look at my watch a lot during my supported times, because I dread the moment my staff unexpectedly say they’re leaving.

Last night, I thought up a way to possibly solve this issue: to organize my day schedule more by activity. We need to watch out this doesn’t become the stupidly vague day schedule my former support coordinator at the intensive support home gave me. After all, when the day schedule says that we’re going for a walk and doesn’t specify how long that walk will be and there are absolutely no timeframes related to the activity, some staff will take me for a three-minute walk around the home while others will take me for an hour-long walk. Then, if after the walk I’m supposed to have unsupported time until lunchtime, the length of my unsupported time could range anywhere from like 30 minutes to nearly an hour and a half. This was actually what my day schedule back at th e intensive support home was like.

What I’d like instead, is to know what, when, where, with whom and what after that. To put it more concretely, I’d like to discuss during my morning routine who will be supporting me for the rest of the morning shift (and after handover for the evening shift), what we’ll do, including what I’ll do during my unsupported times, and to put those activities on a tactile “picture” board (with Braille instead of pictures). I think knowing what I’ll do during my unsupported times will lessen the number of times I look at my watch too. It also will mean I know who’ll support me for my activities, so that I know whether I feel comfortable with them doing certain activities with me or not.

I’m pretty sure this is all wishful thinking. One of the staff, who happens to be one of my “favorites”, didn’t think it was a bad idea. Then again, my assigned staff said I was lucky that I heard 25 minutes in advance that he was going to be there for my early afternoon activity, because his shift doesn’t start till fifteen minutes before that activity starts and if it was up to him his morning shift colleague would’ve conferred with him prior to telling me that he was coming. That would mean I’d get at best ten minutes notice. According to my assigned staff, no-one specified how much preparation time I need, so technically speaking five minutes should be enough. I think that’s rather, well, literal-minded at best and purposefully twisting the truth at worst.

This post was a rather long contribution to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday, for which the prompt today is “watch”. I usually don’t write pieces that are this lengthy and in fact struggled to maintain stream-of-consciousness style.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (November 29, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been four weeks since I last participated in the Wednesday HodgePodge, so I thought I’d join in again. For those who don’t know what it is, the Wednesday HodgePodge is an opportunity for bloggers to answer a diverse selection of questions. Here goes.

1. Does anybody really know what day it is? Last week we skipped the Hodgepodge and I just assumed this week would find us in December, but nope. Still November. Do you wear a watch? Use a paper calendar or strictly electronic? What’s your favorite hour of the day? Why?
Well, usually I know what day it is without looking it up, but I was confused yesterday too. I told my staff, when she was looking up who would be working today, to look at the 28th. Nope though, it’s the 29th already.

I do wear a watch, ie. my Apple Watch. I bought it primarily for its activity tracking purposes, but honestly now I find myself using it as a timekeeping device too. In fact, my assigned staff at my former home said I’d keep track of staff’s whereabouts by the second. That wasn’t true, but oh well.

My favorite hour of the day is probably 8PM, as that’s when I’m most energetic. I am currently writing this blog post around that time.

2. Tell us something about how you celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday.
I didn’t. It’s not a thing here in the Netherlands. I did want to benefit from Black Friday, which is a thing (of course, since companies benefit from it ultimately), but when ordering something online that day, had forgotten to check the store’s newsletter whether they had any coupon codes.

3. What’s a sound you hate to hear?
Where to even get started? The vacuum cleaner and lawn mower come to mind now as most common sounds I hate, but I am generally very sound sensitive. Oh wait, a particularly annoying sound is people whistling.

4. Where do you not mind waiting?
Uhm, nowhere. I’m not very patient and can’t handle long periods of nothingness.

5. I really wish____________________________________.
That my one-on-one gets approved real soon.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’m having a nasty cold. Or maybe it’s COVID, since I didn’t get tested. I doubt it though, since I’m still at roughly the same fitness level I was last week. That is, my cardio fitness level according to my Apple Watch has decreased, but it isn’t like I can no longer go for 45-minute walks.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (April 12, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge yet again. Here are Joyce’s questions and my answers.

1. April 13th is National Scrabble Day…are you a fan? Do you enjoy word games in general? What’s an eight letter word that tells us something about your life currently?
I don’t like Scrabble, because eventually the board becomes too crowded for me to understand. I do love other word games. There was a game I used to enjoy on the iPhone called 7 Little Words. That is, until they introduced a special “screen reader mode” that was just slightly less inaccessible than the rest of the game had become from then on.

An eight-letter word that says something about my life… clueless. I’ll leave it at that.

2. Do you have a junk drawer? Is it full? Do you know what’s in it? What’s in it?
Not really. Oh wait, the upper drawer in my desk probably counts, as it does have lots of miscellaneous stuff in it, particularly parts that belong to my various gadgets, such as my original Apple Watch wristband (well, only the lengthening half of it, as I recently discovered). I do know of most things in it, but not everything.

3. When does time pass quickly for you? When does it pass slowly?
It passes quickly when I’m engrossed in writing a blog post or in a good book or especially when crafting. Slowly when I am waiting on something.

4. These eight vegetables are in season during spring-asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, collard greens, garlic, herbs. What’s your favorite? Any on the list you refuse to eat? Last one on the list you ate?
Wasn’t this a question last year too? Anyway, my favorite is broccoli. There aren’t any on the list I refuse to eat altogether, but I really don’t like celery. The last one of these I ate was a carrot this afternoon with my lunch.

5. What’s the oldest thing you own? Tell us about it.
I don’t think I own anything old, so I’ll have to guess either my stuffed whale which I’ve had since I was a baby or my desk. Though I’ve owned my desk for only like 17 years, it’s secondhand.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Thank goodness for a bit of sunshine inbetween the rain today. I went for a walk this afternoon and then stopped by the day center cafeteria to have a hot cocoa and a muesli bar, the latter of which my staff treated me to out of the vending machine. Yum!

Solo: Making the Most of My Alone Time

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for #JusJoJan is “solo”. It has many meanings, but the overarching one is “alone”. For this reason, I thought I’d use this as an opportunity to write about ways to make the most out of my alone time.

You see, I don’t really do well with alone time. It makes me anxious. At the same time, I need alone time. It helps me recharge. How can these two coexist, you might wonder. Honestly, I’m not quite sure.

However, the more important question is, how can I make sure the recharging effect gets the upper hand rather than my anxiety? The key to this is making the most out of my time alone.

In my old day schedule, I had random slots of alone time that could last anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes, sometimes longer if I didn’t come out of my room to alert the staff. This caused intense anxiety, because I never knew when I’d have time alone and, when I did, how long it’d last. This meant I didn’t know what activities to do during my alone time.

Now though, I usually have time slots of 30 to occasionally 45 minutes alone. In all honesty, I think the 30-minute time slots could be lengthened to 45 minutes if they could be decreased in number and by extension my time slots of activity lengthened too. This isn’t likely possible at my current care home though.

During the time of my old day schedule, I used to feel stressed when alone and as a result use up the time by wandering around my apartment. Now I occasionally still do this, but I try to put each moment of alone time to good use. For example, Bible study and blogging are things I can’t do when a staff person is in the room. I do these when I have alone time, but sometimes I struggle to finish them off during my 30-minute solo time slots. At the same time, I struggle to find meaningful activities that I can do within my 60-minute time slots (which are usually cut short) of one-to-one support. Part of the reason is my need to get into a routine – for example, of gathering my polymer clay supplies. Part of it is the fact that some staff start out by proposing a certain activity, which makes it hard for me to switch to wanting something else. And part of it is probably my mindset too, in that I get overwhelmed with not knowing how long an activity will take and thinking I “only” have this amount of time. This applies to alone time too.

I often say that, in an ideal world, I’d have one-on-one all the time. This isn’t true. In an ideal world, I’d have good chunks of alone time with staff only popping in once every 45 minutes (because otherwise I’d lose track of time), so essentially no extra care then, during later evenings and part of the weekend. I’d also have good chunks of supported activity during the day. Oh wait, that’s pretty much how I had it in Raalte and I was going to let go of comparisons with old homes. No, wait again, my day schedule back there wasn’t ideal either. But it allowed for longer chunks of activity time during weekdays and that’s really what I dream of.

Time Management in My Creative Process #AtoZChallenge

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and welcome to day 20 in the #AtoZChallenge. Today for my letter T post, I have a topic related to my letter D and R posts. After all, I am going to write about time management as it applies to my creative work.

I don’t have any real obligations where it comes to my creative work. I mean, in my blogging, when I sign up for a challenge such as this one, it’s just to be able to give myself some greater goal. Similarly, I don’t take on any assignments in my polymer clay, so I am basically the only one setting my deadlines.

That doesn’t mean I don’t feel any pressure. I get a thrill out of knowing I’ve made a long streak of blogging on here or have been able to finish a big project “on time”. I also get stressed when I feel I’m not meeting my own goals.

I currently blog everyday and, over the past year or so, have maintained an average of at least three to four blog posts a week. I usually write my blog posts during my time I don’t have direct one-on-one support, so between 1:30 and 4PM on weekends or after 8PM each day.

One of my goals in the care facility is that I do something “useful” each day. This could be a creative activity such as polymer clay, but on days when I have appointments with mental health, those count as my “useful” activity of the day.

Given that I don’t keep track and my activity level fluctuates a great deal with my mood, I cannot say how much time on average I spend on my creative work during the week. Sometimes, I make something out of polymer clay everyday, while at other times, I am lucky if I manage one simple activity, such as mixing a predetermined color, a week.

I tend to feel useless when I’ve not accomplished much in a given week, in the sense that I haven’t finished any big projects. However, this is also related to my perfectionism. To put things into perspective, when I was still in the psych hospital, I struggled far more to get things done than I do now.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (March 23, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Wednesday and I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge again. In honor of daylight saving time, I think, the questions this week revolve around the topic of “time”. Here goes.

1. What’s something you never seem to have enough time for?
Blogging. I usually write my blog posts at the end of the day, because I need enough alone time to be able to compose a blog post and I don’t have long chunks of alone time during the day. That being said, the issue probably isn’t that I don’t have enough time, but that I don’t allow myself enough time to start on a blog post if I don’t have time to finish it within that chunk of alone time. Right now, I changed that by starting my blog post in the staff’s lunch break and now I’m finishing it between day activities and my evening one-on-one coming on.

2. If you could turn back time and relive just one day in your life, which day would you choose and why?
This is such an interesting question. Like Joyce, I believe there already is a perfect timekeeper of the universe, ie. God, and to interrupt His timekeeping would not just be impossible, but if it were possible, would lead to disastrous results. That being said, in the hypothetical event that turning back time and reliving one day of my life would not alter the rest of it, I would choose the day of my wedding in 2011.

3. Something you enjoy making that takes a long time to prepare/cook?
I’m assuming we’re talking just food here, since there’s a reference to cooking. For me, cooking even relatively “simple” meals takes up a lot of time. When I still cooked independently, it used to take me at least 90 minutes to prepare and cook a standard macaroni, for example. After all, I needed to do a lot of organizing before I could even get started and I’m a slow cook too. For this reason, I don’t think there’s anything I really enjoy making that would take other people a lot of time to prepare or cook. In fact, now that I get help on the rare occasion that I do cook, I still prefer to make relatively simple meals. The pilaf I cooked last week was really the most time-consuming dish I’ve cooked so far since moving into the care facility.

4. A time recently where you needed/gave yourself a ‘time out’? How do you do that?
I don’t like resting during the day, even though I need to at times. When I had COVID last month, I really had to force myself to lie in bed. Taking time-outs usually involves resting in bed with my weighted blanket over me and my stuffed animals near me, listening to soothing instrumental music through my music pillow and with an essential oil blend in my diffuser.

5. Something you’ve done recently that you’d describe as a ‘good time’?
Yesterday, my mother-in-law came by for a visit. We went for a walk and a coffee and pie in a nearby town. The pies were too sweet for our liking, but the coffee was okay and at least we had a good time enjoying each other’s company.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
This coming Saturday, if I don’t get a cold from one of the several staff who have been working here with cold symptoms (they tested negative for COVID, of course), I’ll be taking a ParaTransit taxi to my and my husband’s house in Lobith. If I do get a cold, I will most likely stay at the care facility and will certainly not take the taxi. Though all mandatory COVID-related restrictions and requirements were lifted today, I still don’t want to infect anyone. Let’s just hope I won’t get a cold, as I’m really looking forward to spending time in Lobith again.

More Time

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s Five Minute Friday (#FMF) prompt is “Time”. There are so many things I wish I would make more time for. Today, in five minutes (and I’m trying to do this in five minutes seriously), I am going to share about the things I want to make more time for in 2021.

First up, of course, is faith. I want to spend time each day praying and reading my Bible. I already read my Bible everyday so far in 2021, but sometimes it’s just five minutes before bed.

I have also created a faith-based journal in Day One, my diary app. In it, I want to write down my prayers as well as interesting Bible passages. I think consciously writing them down helps me devote more time to God.

Second is walking. I did a great job of this this past week, getting in over six hours of active zone minutes so far.

I also want to write more. I really aim to blog almost everyday. I would like to say everyday, but I can no longer make that work for 2021. But I can start now.

Then comes reading. I definitely want to read more. I am doing okay in this respect so far.

Lastly, self-care. I didn’t make a resolution about me time or essential oils this year, like in 2020, because I did well enough on it already. However, self-care also means taking good care of my body, and I could certainly improve on that.

By this I mean healthy eating, exercise other than walking, yoga, etc. I could definitely work on a healthier body.

That’s it. I did pretty well freewriting for five minutes flat and I was in fact already sort of done when the timer went off.

What do you hope to spend more time on in 2021?