Like a Rolling Stone… #SoCS

Posted on by Astrid

Today’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “favorite place”. I am not a fan of traveling, so I have absolutely no idea what my favorite place to go on vacation would be. I did go on a postponed honeymoon in 2012 to the Swiss town of Zug and it was beautiful. That is, walking through the mountains was quite an experience. The town itself was full of top-notch expensive cars.

We haven’t been on vacation since 2014 and, though my best friend and I (my best friend currently still being my spouse, for those who don’t know) have discussed vacation plans, neither of us is keen on going anywhere, honestly.

I would probably be considered a homebody. Except, what is my home? My staff often refer to the care home as “home” when talking to me, but it still feels off. And though I have no plans of traveling to any exotic locations anytime soon (or ever, considering most truly exotic locations are not easy to get to for someone who hates flying), I wouldn’t consider my room in the care home to be anything close to a favorite place. Or maybe it’s my least hated place out of all. After all, I’ve never truly felt home anywhere. Not with my parents, not in independent living or with my spouse nor in any of the places in the care system I’ve resided in.

I guess I’m like a rolling stone. After all, I’ve never truly connected to any particular place. This feels sad.

10 on the 10th (September 2024): This or That?

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today I’m participating in 10 on the 10th. This month, it’s a fun this or that. Let’s get into it.

This or that: A long term meaningful relationship with someone you see only once a year (platonic or otherwise) or lots of short term relatively meaningless relationships with people you see regularly.
This is a toughie, as I’m not sure what “relationship” means. Do professional relationships count too? In other words, would I be completely on my own aside from the one time a year I’d see my significant other? That’s impossible for me. However, if it means not having any real connection with anyone else but they could still help me (yet how would we define “connection”?), I’d definitely choose the one meaningful relationship. I, after all, would choose my spouse even for a once-a-year visit over all the meaningless interactions with my staff. I however do need to receive care.

This or that: A bouquet of fresh flowers every week or a flowering bush every year.
A flowering bush every year! I don’t really care for bouquets of flowers and I’d love a flowering bush in my yard-space-thingy at the care home.

This or that: A luxury, all expenses paid cruise to the Antarctic or a week in a beach shack off the beaten path.
A cruise to the Antarctic. I’m not a fan of the cold, but no-one said we had to leave the ship. And I don’t care for beaches.

This or that: Pumpkin spice everything or pumpkin spice nothing.
Pumpkin spice nothing. The only thing with pumpkin spice in it I like a little is coffee, but it isn’t like I don’t enjoy coffee without it.

This or that: Warm, sunny days with high humidity or cold, sunny days with little humidity.
You’ll probably be surprised here, but I’d choose the cold but sunny days with low humidity. Having recently experienced warmer, high-humidity weather, I feel that as much as I loved the heat, I hated the humidity. Last night, in fact, was my first night of not sweating profusely and I am so glad for it.

This or that: A vintage real fur coat or a new faux fur coat.
New faux fur coat. Until I read Marsha’s answer, I didn’t even realize faux fur is bad for the environment, so I thought choosing the new faux fur coat would be a win-win: new coat plus less animal cruelty.

This or that: The car of your dreams wrapped with a logo of some kind or the car you currently drive.
I don’t drive a car, since I’m blind, so I’m going to choose for my spouse and we’re both happy with the “Freezer Fiat”, my nickname for the car my spouse currently drives. My spouse, in fact, only started the lease on it last January and this one is pretty much our ideal car. In this sense, I get it both ways. Although I personally wouldn’t mind a logo, I know my spouse wouldn’t tolerate it.

This or that: Beautiful stilettos crafted specifically for your feet or sneakers you’ve worn and molded to your feet.
I guess the point of this one is to choose between beauty and comfort and, if you’ve read about my shoe saga, you know I’d choose comfort. My orthopedic shoes are quite ugly but they’re comfortable. Same for my walking shoes, which I actually think are sneakers. Besides, I absolutely cannot walk on heels so stilettos would basically mean a life without walking.

This or that: The house of your dreams painted in colors you despise or a small cottage you can paint in colors you love.
I would personally choose the house of my dreams, but since that basically is a small cottage because I’d get lost in anything larger, I get it both ways again. I am blind, but still would love to have my little living space painted in all pastel lilacs and pinks.

This or that: Your favorite food every day for a year or foods you’ve never tried every day for a year.
My favorite food everyday for a year. I don’t like to try out new foods and would hate to have to try new foods each day for a year. Of course, it would get a little boring eating the exact same food everyday, but I’d take that over having to try out something I probably won’t like.

My First Airplane Trip

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. A lot is still on my mind, but today, I’d like to write a lighthearted post. Thanks to John Holton, who provides the Writer’s Workshop prompts, I now have several ideas. One is to write about my first airplane trip. Let me share.

My first airplane trip was also my first trip abroad and my first vacation without my parents. It was a trip from Schiphol (Amsterdam) airport to Moscow on August 4, 2000. I was flying Aeroflot, a relatively okay Russian airline. Still, everyone clapped when the airplane landed successfully, something I recently found out stopped in the 1970s with Western airlines.

One thing I remember quite distinctly is the horrible pain in my ears and head in general during takeoff and landing. I haven’t flown in years, but the memories came back when my spouse reminded me about it, having had a similar experience on a recent airplane trip. Honestly, I can’t imagine people actually taking pictures while the plane is taking off or coming down.

I still did have a tiny amount of vision back in 2000, so remember looking at the clouds once the aircraft had fully risen.

I also to this day remember the film playing in the airplane. Not that I could understand any part of it, as it was in Russian, but my fellow travelers explained to me that it was called something like “I want to go to prison”. The plot revolved around a Russian character who had heard that, in Dutch prisons, inmates get their own TV etc. (something that isn’t exactly true, by the way), so he wanted to flee to the Netherlands even if it meant going to prison. I bet nowadays this film wouldn’t be considered appropriate.

The Wednesday Hodgepodge (January 3, 2024)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Wednesday, so I’m back joining the Wednesday Hodgepodge. I love this week’s questions, even though I’m pretty sure most came along during the first Hodgepodge of 2023 too. Here goes.

1. Every January 1st since 1976 Lake Superior University has published a list of words they’d like to see banished from the Queen’s English. Words may be banished due to misuse, overuse or just general uselessness. Here are the words/phrases they’d like to see banished in 2024-
hack, impact, at the end of the day, rizz, slay, iconic, cringe worthy, obsessed, side hustle, wait for it
Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Are any of these a regular part of your speech? Is there a word not on the list that you’d like to add?
I don’t care for the term “side hustle”. Other than that, I don’t really think any of these words/phrases are particularly cringe worthy (pun intended). I do use “at the end of the day”, but not any others out of this list. That doesn’t mean I don’t misuse or overuse words a lot. Think “particularly” above.

2. What do you wish you’d done more of last year? Less of?
More of: writing, both on my blog and in my journal.
Less of: worrying.

3. A place you’d like to visit in this new year? Do you think you will?
I really don’t know. I have no travel plans and actually don’t care for vacations.

4. What are three words to sum up or describe your 2023?
Emotional, stressful, hopeful.

5. What advice would you like to give yourself as we begin a new year?
Be open to the possibilities that come your way.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I have been trying out the WordPress block editor, because I wanted to participate in #Bloganuary. So far, it’s still quite the learning curve and I’m happy the classic editor is still available. In fact, I doubt I’ll move over to the block editor full-time anytime unless I’m forced to. However, I’m glad the two posts I wrote using the block editor haven’t been ruined (yet) or disappeared altogether, like happened to some I did several years ago.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (July 12, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s time for the Wednesday HodgePodge once again. Here goes.

1. Is your life simple? Elaborate.
My life is both boringly simple and insanely chaotic at the same time and like you might’ve guessed, neither is in a good way. It is simple in part because it’s so chaotic. I mean, if I get a new-to-me staff member each day, I don’t get to try exciting activities with them that require me to explain a lot, such as crafting, because I cannot be sure I’ll ever see them again.

2. What simple pleasure are you currently enjoying?
I’ve been enjoying listening to calming music on my music pillow a lot.

3. Travel by plane or go on a cruise? walk or ride a bike? swim or ski? ocean or mountains?
I’ve never been on a cruise and don’t think it appeals to me, so I’ll choose traveling by plane. Walk for sure. Swim! Not that I’ve ever been skiing but I hate snow and the cold. Oh, that last one is hard, but I’ll pick the mountains.

4. What’s the last thing you bought online that you really loved?
I haven’t done a ton of online shopping lately, honestly, because package delivery to the institution is quite complicated and staff at my home have a policy of opening packages before they get to me to check for stuff they deem inappropriate. I solve the problem by getting my online orders delivered to my in-laws, but this means I can get my stuff here at most once a week when my spouse visits me.

Anyway, to answer the question, I think my AirPods Pro 2. I’ve had them for about six weeks now and they replaced the original AirPods Pro that I’d had for two years but that had started to develop an annoying high-pitched beep.

5. What’s your “back in my day we__________” story?
Even though I’m only 37, I am an oldie compared to most of my staff, who are in their early to mid twenties. As a result, most of my “back in my day” stories probably revolve around relatively small changes to technology. For example, my spouse and I met on a message board and most staff never used those.

Compared to the other residents though, I’m young, as all others are in their mid fifties to early sixties. I find I’m often confused when other residents talk about what life was like “back then”.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I am still struggling. In fact, last Monday, I hit another low point. My mother-in-law E-mailed the behavior specialist once again, but she’s on vacation until the 31st. I’m pretty hopeless right now.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (June 28, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t touched the blog in a few days once again. It’s for partly different reasons than last week this time though. The different reasons include the hustle and bustle of my birthday. It’s over though so today I’m back joining the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. What’s one thing you’re excited about in the coming month?
The last bit of my birthday celebrations when my mother-in-law visits me next week. We couldn’t visit my in-laws on Sunday. That is, technically we could, but since my mother-in-law was on call for the animal rescue service she volunteers for, it would have been quite boring for me.

2. What was your life like when you were ten years old?
It was a very difficult year. I turned ten on June 27, 1996. The day before my tenth birthday, I had my first out of what turned out to be only four sessions with a play therapist/educational psychologist. Given what I remember of those sessions, I wonder whether the therapist saw signs of autism back then. Either way, I’m pretty sure my parents decided after those four sessions that it was useless to continue. Fast forward to the end of my year of being ten, June of 1997, I had a psychological evaluation supervised by the same ed psych. This, and the recommendations that came out of it, led to my parents finally falling out with the school. Oh, how I wish I hadn’t been loyal to my parents back then…

3. What’s something from your childhood you still enjoy today?
Being creative, although not in the same ways. That is, I did love playing with play-doh (which one might say is somewhat related to polymer clay, even though real polymer clay artists will punch me in the stomach for saying it) as a young child. I loved drawing more though, something I obviously am no longer capable of. One thing I want to say though is that, even though I’m now totally blind, I still appreciate colors.

4. What state (that you haven’t been to) do you most want to visit? Tell us why.
I haven’t been to any U.S. states and honestly have no interest in visiting them anymore either. As for a country I’d like to visit that I haven’t been to: Sweden.

5. Do you like to drive? Tell us how you learned to drive.
Uhm, N/A. I don’t drive, as I’m blind. That being said, I doubt I could’ve learned had I not been blind, because my processing is about as screwed as can be.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Today, I created a polymer clay flower pendant in just half an hour. I loved the entire process and it turned out quite good. In fact, the only thing I dislike about it is the fact that the eyepin’s direction is off.

I really need to be showing more of my creations on here, I think, as social media hardly work for me. I mean, I do try to use Instagram, although I wish it were more of a microblogging service with the pictures being optional. Then again, that’s what Twitter is supposed to be, but then again I despise Elon Musk. Oh well, the perfect social media platform doesn’t exist.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (February 15, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again joining the Wednesday HodgePodge today. Here goes.

1. Pantone’s color of the year for 2023 is Viva Magenta. Etsy’s color(s) of the year are indigo and honeycomb. Your thoughts? Would we find any of these three shades in your home or wardrobe? Is there a room in your house that needs painting this year? Will you do it yourself or hire out?
I don’t care for magenta and have no idea what color honeycomb is. I do love indigo. I do have magenta as a polymer clay color, but use it for mixing my own colors. For instance, I’m pretty sure magenta was in the color recipe for creating indigo I once read (although I’ve never tried it yet).

I have no idea whether any room in my and my husband’s house in Lobith needs painting. If it does, I guess my husband will do it.

2. Something you had to do recently that could be described “as exciting as watching paint dry”?
Try to condition my blue agate polymer clay. Though it was Fimo Soft, it was quite hard and crumbly. Doing the conditioning is a very repetitive process, which can be exciting if it yields results, but this time, it hardly did. I eventually gave up and chose another color.

3. Who would you most like to sit beside on a 10-hour flight? Tell us why? Have you ever taken a 10-hour flight?
My husband, of course. If I get bored of him talking about his latest special interest, I can just tell him I’m minding my own business and he won’t be disappointed. Oh wait, you can’t use mobile devices on flights. However, I can sleep on flights. Also, my husband would be the one I’d least easily get bored of sitting next to for ten hours anyway. I’ve never been on that long a flight. My longest (and first) one was 3 1/2 hours from Amsterdam to Moscow in 2000.

4. What’s something you did growing up that would get you into trouble?
Argue with my younger sister, throw temper tantrums, have meltdowns that were perceived as temper tantrums, engage in self-injurious behavior, but also general autistic weirdness. I’d get in trouble almost on a daily basis.

5. According to Google the top searches in 2022 were- Wordle, election results, Betty White, Queen Elizabeth, Bob Saget, Ukraine, Mega Millions, Powerball numbers, Anne Heche, and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Hmmm…what does this say about us? How many of these words did you search last year? What would you guess was your most “googled” word/phrase/question?
I think it just says that we search for what’s in the news currently (mostly). I mean, Ukraine and Queen Elizabeth were and I guess the election results refer to some election somewhere (no idea where). I saw the Jeffrey Dahmer thing too and think it relates to a movie about him which came out last year. Never heard of any of the other things.

I didn’t Google any of these things myself but did click through to the Jeffrey Dahmer Wikipedia article when it was trending on there.

My most searched for phrase on Google, no idea. On YouTube, probably something like “polymer clay unicorn”.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
My husband and I went to Apeldoorn on Sunday. At Hema, which my husband claims is his favorite store, we saw alien-style cookie cutters. My husband suggested they may be useful for polymer clay, if a bit large. I said that if they’d come in a unicorn shape, I’d get them.

Then yesterday when we were on the phone, he told me my Valentine’s present hadn’t yet arrived. I didn’t even really expect one, but I told him his Valentine’s present would soon go into the oven, as I had indeed finally managed to craft something. He then went on to guess (jokingly) that I’d baked him unicorn cookies, a particular brand of cookies that aren’t unicorn-shaped at all but that we keep talking about since I got them in my Christmas hamper. He then told me that, if I’d make cookies with my Valentine’s present, they’d automatically turn into unicorn cookies. So my guess is he found me some unicorn-shaped cutters. How cool!

The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 28, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last Wednesday of 2022, so I’m joining Joyce for the Wednesday HodgePodge. Here goes.

1. Did you set any goals for the new year this time last year? Did you meet them or miss the mark? Tell us more if you’re comfortable sharing.
I don’t set goals. Instead, I call them hopes. That removes the pressure, but they’re pretty much the same. I shared my hopes for 2022 on January 1. For the most part, I sort of reached them early on but completely started falling off course after the move to my current care home. I’m slowly getting back on track.

2. What are three words that might describe the kind of person you were this past year or describe in some way how your life looked?
Transition, stress, creativity.

3. What’s something new you ate, saw, heard, or experienced in 2022? What did you think?
This year was a massively transitional year, since I experienced the move to what I thought would be my dream care home but initially turned into a nightmare. It’s slowly starting to get better though. As a result, I experienced many new things. A tiny one is the fact that I ate mash for the first time in a looong while.

4. Oxford Dictionary has announced it’s word of the year for 2022, and it’s this-goblin mode. Huh? Have you ever heard this phrase? Used this phrase?
No, never heard of it until now. Consequently, I have no idea what it means and honestly don’t know whether I want to know. Oh wait, no, I don’t want to find out, as I just saw that Joyce had the definition written out and I skipped over it. Or maybe now I do want to find out.

If you were in charge, what word would you declare word of the year for 2022?
Russification, if that’s a word in English too (it is in Dutch). We need to be aware of what’s happening in Ukraine and especially the parts of it completely under Russian control, like Mariupol.

5. Any special plans for an end of year celebration in your house or town? The travel channel says the world’s best New Year’s Eve celebrations will happen in Copacabana Beach-Rio de Janeiro, the Orlando theme parks in Florida, London, Sydney, New York’s Time Square, Edinburgh Scotland, and Paris. If you could attend any one of these which would you choose? Tell us why?
I will be going to Lobith for New Year’s . My husband just ordered a waffle maker online so that we can make waffles then. He also said he bought Airfryer snacks.

If I had to choose any of these destinations to visit during New Year’s, it’d be Sydney because it’s summer there right now. Then again, I don’t have any desire to visit there otherwise. I would like to go to Edinburgh someday, but not in winter.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I’m probably going to end the year on a positive note, as my support coordinator returned from her vacation yesterday and did part of my one-on-one this evening. That’s not the positive news. The positive news is the fact that she said my day schedule is good as it is.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 20, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. Even though I was late having my last cup of coffee this evening, I’m even later writing this post, so sorry, no coffee left for you. We do have soft drinks though or you can have water or maybe I can make you a cup of tea. That being said, I’d advise against black tea, since it’s at least almost my bedtime by the time I finish this post. Oh wait, this is a worldwide gathering over virtual coffee or tea or whatever we like. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start out by asking how your weather is. Ours has been good all week, with temperatures rising to 30°C on Tuesday and in the mid to upper twenties (Celsius) during the rest of the week. Some days, it was too hot and especially humid for walking, but other days, it was just the right temperature.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I’ve been busy thinking of what to create for the fellow resident who has his birthday next Thursday. After all, originally I intended on creating a canvas with polymer clay cookie cutter shapes of a car and the letters of his name on it, but the cutters for the letters won’t work with polymer clay, because the inside parts of some letters are much shallower than the outline. I thought about buying different cutters, but my husband came up with the idea of glitter stickers. They had them at Hema, a department store here, or so he thought. Not at the one we were at today, so I ended up buying regular letter stickers. Thing is, these are much smaller than I’d intended. Besides, I’m not sure stickers will stick onto painted canvas. I’m probably just making a card with those stickers and then doing the polymer clay car in some other way.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m quite discouraged where it comes to my possibly moving to another care home. I had a meeting with some people from the main institution for my care agency three weeks ago, but haven’t heard from them. Other than that, I found out yesterday that the only place the care consultant applied for me at is a senior citizens’ assisted living facility that happens to cater to the blind. In a way, I can see his point, in that my funding is based on blindness and, in this sense, an intellectual disability facility like my current one has to tweak stuff in order to accept me. That assisted living facility is probably the only place within an hour’s driving distance from Lobith that accepts blindness-based funding. Then again, other than them catering to the blind, I can see absolutely no reason why the place would be suitable. And honestly, them catering to the blind may in fact be a drawback, as it means I can’t use my blindness as an “excuse” to explain complicated difficulties of mine by, hence my needing to explain myself in detail. That really has caused me extreme problems of being overloaded in the past. I mean, it would be okay if the staff knew blindness and cerebral palsy and autism and emotional developmental dysfunction and all the issues that cause me to struggle greatly in real life, but as far as I’m concerned most of these don’t affect the elderly in particular.

If we were having coffee, I’d try to end on a positive note though by telling you I had a good time with my husband today. He was originally supposed to be here by 1PM, but got stuck in traffic and couldn’t be here till 2PM. He almost turned around, because we had a misunderstanding about it, but he eventually got here and then we drove to Enkhuizen. Enkhuizen is a town about 100km from Raalte, so halfway across the country. My husband wanted to have fish, but not here in the east, which was his excuse for driving there. Then we walked around the town center, going to Hema for those stickers I mentioned above. Then we drove back to Raalte, grabbing a McDonald’s on the way in Kampen. I had a Mexican style crispy chicken, which was huge and delicious but not overly spicy. We really want to be taking more day trips together.

How have you been?

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.