What’s Up (June 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

Wow, can you believe it’s already the last Wednesday of the month? I truly can’t. Time flies! Today I’m joining in with What’s Up Wednesday.

What We’re Eating This Week

Well, like I said last month, I live in a care facility with food delivery, so I don’t get to meal plan. We’ve been having an insane amount of baked potatoes lately though.

What I’m Reminiscing About

Not really anything. I mean, occasionally memories pop up, but they’re usually neither pleasant nor significant to share about here.

What I’m Loving

Sunshine! The weather is truly beautiful out here. Tomorrow and Friday the temperature is supposed to rise to 30°C (86°F). That’s a bit hot for my liking, but oh well.

What We’ve Been Up To

Lots of walking! I loved taking several long’ish walks a day with my staff. Today it was a bit hot, but we managed two shorter walks anyway.

What I’m Dreading

My parents possibly being judgmental about my living situation. They will visit me for my birthday on Friday. As much as I try not to stigmatize my intellectually disabled fellow clients, I still fear they’ll feel shame.

What I’m Working On

I started working in the book DIY MFA yesterday and immediately was inspired to write a piece of short fiction. It’s not remotely good enough to go on the blog and it doesn’t have an actual ending yet, but I liked the writing process.

What I’m Excited About

My birthday! Tomorrow, the festivities will start with my mother-in-law visiting. On Friday, my parents will visit. That’s a little scary, but it’ll likely be okay. Then on Saturday, which is my actual birthday, my husband will be visiting. I invited him to get pizza delivered.

What I’m Watching/Reading

I’ve been watching Diagnosis on Netflix and reading the book by that same title, written by Lisa Sanders. I also finally started reading The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth. I’ve been excited about it ever since I first heard about it in like January. It was released earlier this month.

What I’m Listening To

I’m frequently listening to the Harp Music for Sleeping playlist on Spotify. It’s very relaxing. This afternoon, in fact, I fell into a deep sleep listening to it.

I’ve also been discovering podcasts. Early this month, I mostly listened to true crime podcasts. Now I’m occasionally listening to progressive Christian podcasts.

What I’m Wearing

A skirt and a black T-shirt. I have three skirts that are the exact same model yet a different color. As I am blind and haven’t labeled my clothes, I don’t know whether this is the blue, green or red one.

What I’m Doing This Weekend

Having pizza with my husband on Saturday, like I said. I’ll probably have a lie-in on Sunday.

What I’m Looking Forward To Next Month

Probably visiting my husband for a weekend again. Like I mentioned a few times, the visiting rules at my care facility will be relaxed come this Friday. This means I’ll be allowed to go home to my husband for a weekend again. I don’t want to right away, but I’m hopeful in July I’ll be able to go a few times.

What Else Is New

My husband has two weeks off work this week and the next. He’s getting workmen over to replace the outer doors and some other big things that need doing.

What’s up with you?

Gratitude List (June 20, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! How are you all doing? I’m a bit tired, but not ready to go to bed yet. Instead, I’m going to write a gratitude list again. As always, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. Sunshine. The weather was really good over the past week. We had some light rain some days, but most days were sunny and warm.

2. An anti-allergy medication. I have bad eczema that itched like hell for some weeks. I finally went to the doctor on Wednesday and got an antihistamine called desloratadine. It didn’t help at all the first few days, or maybe without the medication the itch would’ve been even worse. In any case, now it does seem to help.

3. An antibiotic ointment. One spot, which the doctor initially thought was the result of an insect sting, got inflamed. Thankfully, with some Fucidin applied topically, the inflammation is a lot less now.

4. The night staff. A few nights ago, the itch was so bad and the inflamed spot so painful that I got really scared. I called for the night staff to apply some oily cream to the eczema. She did this, but I remained very scared. Somehow, I had gotten it in my head that I’d get sepsis from this. I pressed the call button again at around 2:30AM. The night staff was so kind and reassuring.

5. Alternatives to bread. I don’t really care for bread for lunch, at least not when topped with the ordinary kind of things you normally put on bread, such as cheese, peanut butter, etc. Thankfully, we had some lettuce left over from making burritos last week, so I had a salad for lunch one day. Another day, I had noodles.

6. Pancakes. Today, two staff came to our home on a voluntary basis just to bake us pancakes. They were so delicious!

7. Reaching my step goal. I reached over 12K steps (my goal being 10K) on three days this week. Today, I didn’t do so well, so I will still need to get some 5K steps tomorrow to break my weekly record of just under 65K steps.

8. The visiting rules at my care facility likely being relaxed as of next week Friday. The announcement will go onto the facility’s COVID-19 page on Monday.

9. My parents offering to visit me. I called my Mom last Sunday and, as we were discussing the visiting rules, my father asked if they could come too. I initially was a bit hesitant and I’m very nervous, but also excited. They will be visiting me next Friday.

Oh, and now I can’t think of a number 10, but whatever. I’m grateful for being able to express my gratitude. Consider that my tenth thankful. Besides, the number is just a suggestion.

What are you grateful for?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 7, 2020)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Sunday and I am feeling pretty lazy. I have quite a few ideas for blog posts, but I’m just going with the #WeekendCoffeeShare. I haven’t participated in that one in a while. Grab a cup of coffee, green tea or I think there’s some soda or juice in the fridge still too and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, of course I’d talk about my new iPhone. I already shared about it on Friday, but well, I’m totally in love with it! I got the iPhone SE 2020, which the info section in Settings just calls the SE. That’s pretty confusing, since I also have the old SE still. I haven’t prepared that one for reselling or donating to charity yet. Not even sure what I’m going to do with it. Probably donate it to charity for recycling, but I’m not confident enough to remove all data yet.

My husband asked me what type of case I want for my new iPhone. He’s going to buy me one for my birthday. I currently have a jelly case, but I want a bookcase.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I got over 50K steps this past week. Last week, I got nearly 65K, so this isn’t a big accomplishment, but it still feels good.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that the weather is weird. Sometimes it rains, while other times it’s just slightly cloudy or even a bit sunny. Because of the rain, I haven’t been walking as much this week as I’d want to. Then again, I guess nature and agriculture need the rain.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that on Thursday, the staff intern and I made apple pastries. I didn’t do more than cut the apples into cubes, but it was okay. They were delicious!

If we were having coffee, I would also tell you that on Thursday I went to my GP. I have a large itchy spot on my upper leg that won’t go away. The GP thinks it’s an insect bite made worse by my scratching it. I got some hydrocortisone cream for it. It’s slightly better now.

If we were having coffee, I’d share with you how happy I am that WordPress isn’t planning on retiring the classic editor anytime soon. I don’t hate the block editor as much as some other bloggers do, but I find it somewhat annoying at the same time. I never liked the WordPress.com editor, so am actually pretty happy it’s gone.

If we were having coffee, lastly I would tell you that I’ve done a lot of reading lately. I’m truly in the mood again. I bought the YA novel Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett on Thursday and actually finished it in only three days. That’s pretty awesome for me.

How have you been lately?

Gratitude List (May 2, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s been forever since I did a gratitude post. Right now I’m feeling a little frustrated with the fact that I am blind. I want to participate to the fullest in the social media thing, but it seems images are often required and I can’t do them. Other blind people apparently can, but I can’t. Anyway, to cheer myself up, I’m taking part in Ten Things of Thankful or #TToT. Here’s what I’ve been grateful for lately.

1. The beautiful weather last week. Okay, it’s been raining a lot this week, but last week-end, it was sunny and warm. I loved it!

2. Being able to take regular walks in spite of the bad weather this week. Somehow, my staff and I managed to find time inbetween rainstorms to go for some walks. Yesterday and today, I even took some late evening walks after most of the other clients were in bed.

3. Making plans for more activities I can do with my day activity staff. On Monday, we will be trying out a basic oatmeal recipe with banana. I remember my sister ate oatmeal for breakfast when she was little and I didn’t like it. I hope I like it with the banana added. I’ve also looked into overnight oats recipes. I definitely like that.

4. The orange puff pastry we ate with our coffee for King’s day on Monday.

5. Getting crunchy muesli for breakfast. It took the staff some time before we found the right one, the one with four kinds of nuts and crunchy muesli, not granola. Yes, I’m picky like that.

6. My teddy bear getting washed. I thought it’d gotten a hole in its fur, but it turned out to be just dirty. After I finish this blog post, I’m going to cuddle up with it in my bed.

7. My computer. I’m really enjoying using it. I know, I’ve had it for ten months already, but up till this week almost always chose my phone to do most things on. I’m now actually loving writing this post in good ol’ Notepad.

8. Having finished the #AtoZChallenge. I’m definitely proud of myself for actually getting it all done.

9. Keeping my writing mojo now that the challenge is over with. I don’t know for how long I’ll be motivated to keep writing, but we’ll see.

10. Being more alert in general. Okay, I think I may be a little overalert, but then again that’s a lot better than being tired and depressed.

What have you been thankful for lately?

Gratitude List (August 16, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Yay, it’s Friday! I’ll have to get up relatively early tomorrow for an appointment at the bank in relation to the house-buying process. However, I’m still happy to have the week-end in front of me! Today, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) for this week.

1. A long walk with my mother-in-law and her dog on Sunday. We walked for nearly an hour. Then we had another 25-minute walk yesterday.

2. A tidy closet. My husband helped me tidy up my closet last Sunday and it’s a lot more manageable now.

3. Hamburgers. Sunday night, I had been awakening my husband several times by talking in my sleep. Something about buttons I really, really had to press. Don’t ask me where I got that. Anyway, it led my husband to suffer lack of rest and he didn’t like to cook the next day, so he cooked up some hamburgers.

4. Ice cream. On Tuesday as the ParaTransit bus driver drove us home from day activities, we came across an ice cream truck that was handing out ice cream to all clients at the institution for people with intellectual disabilities where several of us had to get off. The staff said the driver could get himself and us remaining people on the bus an ice cream too. It was totally yummy!

5. Singing “Happy birthday”. As of last month, I attend day activities for the whole day on Wednesday rather than just the mornings. In the afternoon, we usually get music therapy, but the therapist had been on vacation until last week. I so far love love LOVE music therapy. Because this week, one of my fellow clients had a birthday, we sang birthday songs. I sang “Happy birthday” in English by myself for him.

6. No rain when my support coordinator and I went for our walk yesterday. It was supposed to rain all day, but thankfully it didn’t then.

7. Reaching my step goal yesterday. I’ve not had a great week as far as activity goes, but at least yesterday I did make it to 10,000 steps.

8. The staff taking me on a short walk today. This particular staff member had been on the receiving end of an aggressive outburst of mine (thankfully I wasn’t physically aggressive towards her) because I had been confused about being told I had to attend some boring health and fitness course rather than going for a walk on Wednesday. She somehow remembered having promised me a walk later in the day and then forgot. She hadn’t promised it, but this makes me all the more grateful that she did take me on a walk to make up for it today.

9. WordPress still being there. I got some scares recently about people abandoning WP en masse over the Tygpress thing and going to Facebook or whatever. I tried to create an FB page for my blog today, but seem to be failing miserably. I’m so glad for this reason that most bloggers are still on WP.

10. Lovely comments on my blog. I’ve had a lot of blog visitors and engagement with my blog posts this past week. It is awesome!

What have you been grateful for lately?

Gratitude List (July 27, 2019) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I haven’t participated in #TToT in forever. Today, I’m wanting to join in once again. I recently joined their Facebook group too and I promised to be active then. So here are the things I’ve been grateful for lately.

1. A lovely walk on Monday. We got a heatwave here, so for most of the week, it’s been impossible to exercise or go outside much at all. It’s summer break, so the intern who normally takes me on the weekly walk, isn’t there. Thankfully, the staff decided they can have me join in the walk anyway.

2. My computer behaving as it’s supposed to. I got a new PC a few weeks ago and sold my Mac and overall, I’m so happy I did. It took a little getting used to trying to figure out E-mail, feed readers and such, during which time I spent $36 on a feed reader that wasn’t ideal. Then I finally decided that if I just accept that I’ll need to use both Google Chrome and Firefox regularly, I’ll do fine with my old friend (no pun intended) The Old Reader. It after all works fine in Google Chrome, but Facebook doesn’t. Now I’m just so delighted I have a Windows PC again.

3. Having been able to save more money than I expected. I will probably soon get a bill for €140 a month or more in copay for my long-term care. My husband offered to contribute more to our monthly bills so that I do not have to be responsible for cutting the full amount of money, but I’ll still need to save some. As such, I’m so delighted that I saved over €100 more than I’d expected during the month of July.

4. My husband and I probably buying a house soon. We placed an offer on it last week and, after some negotiation, reached an agreement on the price. We’ll soon sign the draft agreement and hopefully be house owners by late September or early October.

5. Having gotten through the worst of the heatwave. It was boring at day activities, because I couldn’t go outside. Then again, I made it through and did okay. I made sure to drink enough water. As a side note, my autistic perseveration side does love the weather records that were broken.

6. Peaches. I bought some with my support worker on Thursday. I love summer fruits, but blueberries are too expensive for my budget now.

7. One-on-one time with a support staff at day activities on Friday. She had to return a walker to another day center that they’d been trying out for another client. She offered to take me, so we drove to the other day center, then to a hotel to have a drink at its restaurant. She told me to have something to eat too, so I chose tiramisu. My husband’s tiramisu is better, but still it was a great treat.

8. The weather being slightly cooler now. Like I said, all heat records were broken on Wednesday and Thursday and, though it’s still pretty hot, I’m enjoying the slightly less extreme temperatures now. Mind you, it’s still supposed to have gotten to 30 degrees Celsius today, but it feels almost cold now that my husband just opened my window. (I can’t open or close my window because I can’t reach that far.) Phew!

As you can see, I didn’t get to ten things to be thankful for. I blame this on the heat and my brain melting away. I hope you’ve all been grateful lately.

Friendly Fill-Ins Week #167

Posted on by Astrid

I discovered Friendly Fill-Ins already over a year ago, but rarely joined in. Especially since I stopped using my old PC, it was hard, because I couldn’t copy the questions on my iPhone and my Mac was giving me a pain too. Now I’m trying to get used to my new PC and am learning to write blog posts on it too. It is lovely. Today, I’m joining in with Friendly Fill-Ins week #167. Here are the questions.


  1. If I had ________________, I would _________________________.

  2. ___________________ sparks my creativity.

  3. _________ keeps me up at night.

  4. I only just recently learned _________.

My Answers

1. If I had a lot of money, I would get myself my very own sensory room. My husband has said that, if he ever wins the lottery, he’ll give me my own fully furnished snoezelen® room. Not that he ever plays in the lottery and neither do I. I already have a lot of sensory equipment, but I’m discovering new stuff almost on a daily basis.

2. Discovering writing challenges and journaling prompts sparks my creativity. Not that I’m very creative at all. I always plan to soon write some poem or piece of flash fiction, but I never get to it. I love to freewrite, but somehow, I feel held back in doing so. As such, journaling prompts and writing challenges do help me.

3. The heat keeps me up at night. At least right now. Although I must say, when my husband leaves the house at 5AM and I try to go back to sleep, I often shiver if the fan is still on and the window open.

4. I only just recently learned about what’s involved when you’re buying a house. As regular readers may know, my husband and I saw a house we may want to buy last week. Well, technically my husband saw it, as he visited it right out of work, and I accepted his description at face value. I am not sure I’m allowed to disclose this on my blog, but we reached an agreement with the seller on a price and are now working out the details of the contract. I have no idea about such things as finding a solicitor, getting a mortgage and all that. As a side note, the house is too small for me to have my own room, let alone a sensory room. However, since I’ll hopefully move into a care facility sometime in the not-too-distant future, I’m just hoping I’ll be able to use the facility’s sensory room.

Happy Blogiversary to Me

Posted on by Astrid

Today is my one-year anniversary of creating this blog. I wanted to acknowledge it, since with all my previous blogs, I’ve not really had a blogiversary. After all, I either didn’t keep them for a year, or I switched sites sometime. Like, my original blog gradually emerged from an online diary. Though I remember exactly when I moved it to WordPress, I never considered that day my blogiversary. Blogging Astrid started on Blogger and moved to WordPress three months in. I then deleted my introductory post, because it had references to Blogger in it.

I’m not really one for sticking to a blogging strategy long anyway. I mean, I originally intended this blog to be a diary, but it never got to be one as much. I still seem afraid to be “caught” and to want my posts to be “blog-worthy”. As a result, my posting frequency has significantly decreased.

Today is an incredibly hot day. Temperatures have reached 40 degrees Celsius and at midnight, it’s still supposed to be 30 degrees. Being that I will have to go to bed around 10PM, I’ll most likely be soaring for the rest of the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as hot. As such, I do not feel like writing an extensive post to celebrate my blogiversary.

I’m spending the day reading and finding new books to put on my TBR list. I’m also making sure I drink water every hour. Still, the heat can’t pass soon enough if you ask me. Both of my support staff visited me today. I went to the grocery store with my support worker this morning. Thankfully, she had air conditioning in the car and the store was also air-conditioned. With my support coordinator, I just chatted a little. Normally, we go for walks, but that’s just not possible in this heat.

My room is the hottest in the entire house. Still, I like my desk best for a workspace, so I’m not moving my laptop downstairs to write.

I hope you all are keeping calm and as cool as possible.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 21, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Sunday again and, though I have lots of things I want to write about, I cannot seem to get started. I am however enjoying once again joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. It’s lovely to catch up with people who visit my blog each week for this hop.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m sweating, even though it’s supposed not to be that very hot here now. Only about 23 degrees Celsius. I guess my room keeps the heat. Next week, the temperatures are supposed to rise to 35 degrees Celsius or more.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I need your prayers, positive thoughts and crossed fingers re our house-hunting journey. We found a house we may want to buy. Yesterday, my husband took me on a tour of the town.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I had a lovely day yesterday at my in-laws’ house. My father-in-law is about to return from his vacation in about an hour, so it was just my husband, me and my mother-in-law. My husband cooked up a tasty dinner of pasta with cheese, minced meat and zucchini. When we returned home, we drove right through a thunderstorm. This was a bit scary.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m currently reading Angels in Our Hearts by Rosie Lewis and Casey Watson. I just finished the second story. It is a really good book.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that my husband helped me tidy my room today. We threw out a lot of my soaping stuff that had expired.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’m really wanting to pick up creative writing again, but somehow, I feel stuck.

How was your week and how is your week-end going?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 14, 2019)

Posted on by Astrid

Yay, it’s Sunday! I am once again joining in with the #WeekendCoffeeShare fun. It’s relatively early for me to write this post, so the most recent drink I had was actually coffee. I usually drink only one cup of coffee at breakfast )or lunch, as it was nearly afternoon), but my husband made me a second cup saying it’s good for the heart. I don’t know whether that’s true, but oh well.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my husband picked up my new Windows laptop on Monday and installed it on Tuesday. The adaptive tech guy came by on Wednesday to bring me a new Braille display and install the JAWS screen reader on my computer, so that I could actually use it. I have been playing with my computer ever since. I hope the tech company will get me training on the screen reader and Windows 10, but even without training, I like this computer much better than my Mac. Right now, my husband is resetting my Mac, so that my mother-in-law can have it. I think I just closed the tab with instructions on it from my iPhone.

My mother-in-law offered to pay more for the Mac than the Windows laptop had cost, but we refused. I don’t want to get extra money from switching computers.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that I visited the living facility in Raalte that’s with my current care agency on Wednesday. It was great. There’s tons of sensory equipment in both the house and day center. The staff are also really nice. The house they felt was the most suitable for me, has twelve clients living there. There are two staff during the day and an extra staff during times the clients get showered and such. The manager and care consultant were a bit vague about the waiting list to move in, but I hope to hear more about that soon.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that yesterday, my husband had the yearly driver’s day at his work. He is a truck driver for a large transporting company and the driver’s day is sort-of-mandatory. I spent the day at my in-laws. Well, my father-in-law had just left for vacation, so I was alone with my mother-in-law. We went for a walk with her dog. Wow, it was hot and humid! My husband came to my in-laws’ house after a few hours when he’d had enough of the event at work. My mother-in-law cooked us dinner, although she was interrupted to pick up a kitten from the animal shelter. She volunteers to bottle-feed kittns that are too young to be kept at the shelter. The kitten was lovely!

How was your week?