#WeekendCoffeeShare (December 23, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the #WeekendCoffeeShare once again. As usual, I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day. We didn’t have chips to go with my soft drink, as for some reason the person ordering our care home groceries had ordered far too little. We are also almost out of desserts and the next delivery of groceries won’t be till this coming Wednesday. It’s going to be a not so luxurious Christmas after all. Speak of first world problems. Let’s have a drink (thankfully I have lots of green tea, including coconut-flavored green tea) and a biscuit (I have cinnamon stars and stroopwafels in my cupboard) and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s usually uneventful here in the eastern Netherlands, but not so this week. Storm Pia actually hit us hard. In fact, on Thursday, the storm caused a tree to fall over on top of a side-by-side bike here on the cycling path that’s along institution grounds. The staff member steering the bike was hit so hard that she didn’t survive. The client had relatively minor injuries, but I’m pretty sure they’re traumatized for life. I don’t know the staff member myself, thankfully, but it was a warning sign not to go outside in the storm.

We’ve been experiencing heavy rain and wind all week except for Monday. Monday was actually a beautiful day. I went for a 5K walk with a staff member that day.

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you about the stroopwafel cheesecake I made yesterday. I made it because my one-on-one got renewed, something I really hadn’t expected. The cake was extremely sweet and a calorie bomb as they say here but who cares? It was also delicious, after all.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve really been feeling creatively motivated lately but have been struggling to put this motivation into action. As a result, I haven’t been doing much with my polymer clay lately. I’d really like to change that soon. I did order new clay, because I want to experiment with Cernit and also because some of my Fimo is too crumbly to condition without exerting enormous effort.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I did come up with the idea of using my two-hour activity time slot for cooking a simple meal for myself and my fellow clients. We could then reheat it in the oven or microwave when it’s dinnertime.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you my assigned staff asked me to think of goals for my upcoming care plan. He did say that these goals do not need to be all that drastic or anything and that simply having a meaningful life could be a goal in itself. I mean, my staff at the intensive support home have been pushing me to create independence-focused goals but I really don’t care for those given the discrepancy between the fact that technically my body still functions okay but due to overload tasks still cost me tons of energy. I mean what if staff and I set a goal for me to achieve a certain task and I physically achieve it in three months’ time, then staff will always expect me to do it independently because purely physically speaking I can. Then because it costs me tons of energy I’ll end up neglecting it if I don’t have supervision (ie. someone pushing me to do it) and we end up back at square one. And to be honest, I don’t want to have someone supervise my every task that I can do myself just so they can tell me to do it myself and push me far beyond my capacity limits in terms of energy.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you all that I’m looking to finally turn my room into an actual living space. I’m looking to buy some more furniture and also to possibly decorate it more. Currently, there’s a box full of junk in my room that I could really empty out. I mean, after I’ve finished my crisis signaling plan, because the folder from Raalte is in there. In its place, I’d like to put a second nightstand or small cabinet, so that I can put my claying supplies in there rather than in a box under my bed. I am also looking to put some poster on my wall, probably something not too weird. I mean, I originally wanted to go for a unicorn theme but that’d be all very flashy, which isn’t exactly my style.

Speaking of unicorns, I will be wearing a unicorn-themed Christmas hoodie this year, like last year. It’s a little on the big side now, but not too much so.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (December 16, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since I last joined in with Natalie’s #WeekendCoffeeShare, so here goes. I already had my last coffee for the day and had my weekend soft drink (yay, we still got Dubbelfrisss!) too. I bet you could still get a cup of tea though. That is, I’ve had some later in the evening here. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I bought a new iPhone last week. I bought the SE 3rd gen. I had originally intended on buying the 15, but that costs like €1000 and I would probably get annoyed with the lack of touchID and a home button. Besides, it’d be a greater risk of being stolen. Still, to be honest, I am slightly disappointed with the battery life of the one I got and had wanted the 15 for its great camera features. Of course, I myself can’t take good pictures at all, but I would’ve loved to have a device that can make them. All that being said, I’m pretty sure the pros of the one I got outweigh the cons.

My spouse bought me a lilac case for it. It’s a little on the thick and rigid side, honestly, so I might want to replace it eventually. I still have my old phone’s case, which the new one fits into too, but I don’t feel like I could in my right mind switch them up. That would be unfair to my spouse.

If we were having coffee, I’d ttell you that I joined the Christmas lights tour in my town yesterday. Originally, the staff hadn’t thought of inviting me and, since it wouldn’t end till 8PM and my one-on-one leaves at 7:30, they were saying I could walk an alternative route with my one-on-one. I was disappointed and tried to say I could walk independently alongside the others just fine and didn’t need my one-on-one. The way I had imagined it the staff would be pushing a wheelchair that I’d hold onto too. As it turned out, the wheelchair users were pushed by volunteers and one staff would need to watch the entire group of ambulatory clients, including me, if I didn’t get my one-on-one. Thankfully though, my assigned staff, who did my one-on-one till 7:30, offered to stay half an hour longer to be able to allow me to participate too. Normally, I’d have to pay like €30 for those 30 minutes of extra one-on-one – not that staff actually earn €60/hour, so don’t ask me why -, but he said he’d find another way.

Along the tour, there were various points where people had decorated their houses or front yards with Christmas lights and some had left Christmas lights along the pavement. We also came by my former support coordinator’s house. You know, the one from the intensive support home, the woman one who was my original support coordinator there. She no longer works for my care agency. Anyway, we were actually instructed to come into her garden, where she was toasting marshmallows and handing out hot cocoa. I initially didn’t recognize her even though I knew she lives in this town and the instructions mentioned her first name. She said, “think [intensive support home],” and then I realized who she was. She asked me how I was doing at my current home (she knew where I’d moved). I said very cheerily that I was doing well and liked it here. I also told her that I found out about the move through my current assigned staff E-mailing my mother-in-law wanting to know my preference for the paint on my wall. “Oh, that wasn’t fun,” she said. “In fact, that was fun,” I replied.

At the end of the tour, we got fries. That was so cool!

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d report that I finally disclosed about my possible dissociative symptoms to one of my staff yesterday. She said she’d seen some of my alters, contrary to what my assigned staff says. Maybe what he’s looking for is me calling myself by different names, which I don’t do unless I really trust someone. I’m trying to maintain the status quo as to whether I/we actually have DID or not, in the sense that it’d be much easier for treatment purposes if we didn’t but then again the parts, whatever you’d call them, are there whether I want it or not.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (November 18, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have barely touched the blog lately, but it’s not because I’ve been uninspired. Rather, I’ve mostly been doing other things online. Before I abandon it altogether, I thought I’d write a post though. I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’ve had my last cup of coffee for the day, but thankfully my assigned staff ordered my favorite soft drink, apple and peach-flavored Dubbelfrisss, so I’ll have that in a bit. If you’d like one too, join me. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s been raining all day today and, though we were supposed to have a daytime high of 12°C, I don’t know when that was supposed to have been the case as it’s been around 7°C each time I looked at the weather on my Apple Watch. I haven’t been outside at all. I mean, I can bear the cold, but rain, yuck! I can tolerate it when it starts raining midway through a walk, but when it rains as I leave the house, I usually turn right around. Consequently, I didn’t meet my movement goal on my Apple Watch today at all. In fact, I’m pretty sure I hit an all-time low, but frankly, I don’t care.

The rest of the week, though we had some rain, it wasn’t constantly pouring. Though some days I needed to get out my winter coat, most days the daytime temperature wasn’t too cold either.

If we were having coffee, I’d cheat a little and tell you all about the meeting I had last week with my assigned staff, support coordinator, behavior specialist and my mother-in-law. Okay, who said you can only talk about the past week during a weekend coffee share? Maybe I did. Anyway, the meeting started out with my assigned staff complimenting me on how I do accept men and unfamiliar staff now. This rubbed me the wrong way, as the day prior he’d pretty much given me no choice, so what was I to do? I’ll see tomorrow whether they’ll go the full length and assign me a male staff for my ADLs (which is a big no for me), as then the female staff who normally always assigns me temp workers is working the morning shift with a male temp worker. Said temp worker is familiar with everyone here, but I am honestly quite sure she’s going to assign him to me for my morning routine anyway. Let me just say I’m going to throw a big hissy fit if this happens.

Other than that, the meeting went okay. We talked about my day schedule, which is okay in terms of how many hours of support I get but far from ideal in terms of how it’s cut up into small blocks. Since my ExtraCare (one-on-one) funding hasn’t been approved yet for next year, we’re waiting to see what happens to that to change anything. I’m pretty fearful the Care Office doesn’t consider every single moment the staff spend with me as ExtraCare, as, well, it isn’t, but the manager does. Oh well, we’ll see.

We also talked about my wish to start therapy again for my trauma-related symptoms. Upon further thought, I realized I need to work on stabilizing first before I start EMDR or whatnot. The behavior specialist is going to write an application. I am also going to work with my assigned staff on my signaling plan, which details how I can best be supported during each phase of emotional (dys)regulation.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share about my dietitian’s appt on Wednesday. It went pretty well. I am currently at a healthy weight and within the weight range I agreed upon with her. She did finally admit she doesn’t know why I’m not gaining weight when I’m having quite a lot of food in excess of my food plan. I honestly currently have far too many other things on my mind to care about this too. I mean, yes, I’m scared, but I’m scared for a lot of other reasons too.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 23, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’ve long had my last cup of coffee for the day, as it’s 9PM. In fact, most people here at my new care home are in bed already. I guess I’ll have just water to offer you now, sorry. Let’s catch up anyway.

If we were having coffee, I’d start out by moaning about the weather. Fall has well and truly set in here. The temperature hardly got above 20°C at all this week and most days it didn’t get above like 17°C. Moreover, unlike the heating in my old care home apartment, which was set to an uncomfortably warm setting all year round, this room’s heating seems to be stuck on the cold side.

If we were having coffee, then I’d post another petting zoo picture. This one is of the birds once again. Did I mention that my new care home is like a two-minute walk from the petting zoo?

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that I’m adjusting better to living in this care home than I was to living in my previous one. Like I mentioned on Thursday, I started working with polymer clay, in fact. I haven’t put anything into the oven yet, as I first need to test the oven temperature before subjecting my precious projects to it. However, I’m happy to report I already finished two simple pieces: the planet charm I mentioned on Thursday and a flower.

In addition to working with polymer clay, I have created a shower gel (from just a base and essential oils) and made a bracelet. I did play card and dice games too. I didn’t walk as much as I used to at my old care home, but that’s okay.

I am still struggling with mornings and early afternoons, but I’m giving it a chance to work out. For example, yesterday I came up with the idea of watching children’s stories on YouTube when I have my group activity time. I normally watch those in English, which of course the other clients can’t make sense of, but I could definitely find Dutch children’s stories on YouTube too.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I bought another collection of journaling prompts that I’d really been looking forward to on Tuesday, only to find out that the actual prompts are probably handwritten or something inside the Kindle book and I can’t access them using my screen reader. This is a relatively common occurrence with Kindle books and I honestly feel that Amazon shouldn’t claim screen readers are supported in that case. Oh well, I have tons of other prompts to choose from.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 16, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I just had my afternoon coffee, but will probably not finish this post in one go, as I have an activity moment again in half an hour. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. We’ve had pretty nice late summer weather here with temps rising to between 20°C and 25°C during the day. Next week, we’re supposed to get rain and then I’m pretty sure it’s over with the warm weather, although October can occasionally bring days when the temperature reaches 20°C too. I love telling tales of the day, about five or six years ago, when we had a daytime high of 27°C here in mid-October.

If we were having coffee, then I’d talk about my walking and other exercise. I went swimming on Wednesday. It’ll probably have been the last time for now, as I’m moving to the new care home on Monday, although the swimming instructor did say my new home’s clients go swimming too.

I went on the stationary bike yesterday. Other than that, my physical activity has been hit and miss. Some days, I got in over 10K steps, while on other days, I hardly walked at all.

If we were having coffee, I would however share that, on one of my walks, last Tuesday, I visited the institution petting zoo and took some lovely pictures. The first picture shows the petting zoo’s cat, Macho, on a stack of hay.

There also is a large aviary with parakeets in it. Here are two photos of the birds in their cage.


If we were having coffee, finally I’d tell you all about my visit to my new care home. I went there with a staff and my mother-in-law. Since this staff has been pushing me towards independence more than I can handle lately and since she’ll be doing handover too, I was disappointed that she’d be attending the visit too. After all, that’d mean I wouldn’t be able to talk to my new staff about my needs without her overhearing.

When we got to the home, we were greeted by the man who will be my new assigned staff, same one who’d been talking to my mother-in-law about the color paint on my wall. I had thought he’d be my support coordinator but apparently not. I don’t know who my support coordinator will be yet. Not a problem, since in general you have more day-to-day contact with your assigned staff than your support coordinator. When still outside, I heard a loud singing of “Happy Birthday!”. This turned out to come from the neighboring home though, as no-one had a birthday this day.

We were led into the living room, where a number of residents and another staff were having coffee. I initially thought there were two staff, since one of the residents talked in an almost identical voice and said almost the same things as the staff. This turned out to be echolalia though.

The residents in this home are more significantly intellectually disabled than those at my current home. Most can speak a little though. Like, one told me I had a pretty golden ring. When I told my spouse about this, I was reminded of my preference last year for a home with people with mild intellectual disability. Yeah, I replied, but I didn’t know back then what I had to give up to live with people with whom I can have a conversation.

Overall, the staff seemed much nicer than those at my current care home. For one thing, both staff introduced themselves, while back when I went to look around here last year only the staff who would be giving me the tour told me their name.

I was led to my room, which is the closest to the living room. This has disadvantages, in that I may be able to hear living room sounds more, but it has a huge advantage in that I will be able to find it much more easily than my current room. The wall is a nice baby pink according to my mother-in-law. I wasn’t able to get a real impression of my room without my furniture in it yet, but that’s not a problem.

When shown around, I did make it clear what my needs are re help with my activities of daily living and that I’m not ready to grow yet, since that will take me being stable first. The staff who was with me didn’t comment, thankfully. Overall, I feel less stressed about moving to the new home now that I’ve met my new fellow residents and staff.

I have yet to pack my clothes. Other than that, everything is in boxes now and ready to be moved. I’m ready for a new chapter in my life!

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 2, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Saturday of September. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare, even though it’s waaay too late for me to have coffee. That is, I don’t usually feel the energizing effects that strongly, but I am sure the staff won’t let me have a cup of coffee anymore. Or anything to drink except for water, truthfully. So let’s have a glass of water and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee (or a glass of water, but I always start my paragraphs like this and even my saying that is a cliché), first I’d share about the weather. We’ve had rain, clouds, some sunshine and daytime temperatures usually around 20°C. Today, the daytime high was 23°C and next week, we might even get temperatures as high as 28°C.

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you about my movement. I haven’t been exercising as much this past week as I did last week and today I saw in my trends in the fitness app that my exercise has decreased. Of course it has, you’d say, if I haven’t been exercising as much this week as last week, but the trends compare the past 90 days to the past 365 days. I try not to care, even though I did sign up for a month-long challenge in the Challenges app for September.

Yesterday, when on a walk with my assigned staff, we compared data, since she also has an Apple Watch. I’m glad my cardio fitness level wasn’t much lower than hers. I mean, I would’ve felt bad for her if both of ours were low, but mine is in the below-average range.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, on Thursday, my assigned staff and I went out to have lunch together. She’s off on vacation for the rest of September and I’ll (most likely) move this month, so we won’t see each other again. We both had a large salad, mine one with chicken, of course. We both also had a heavenly caramel coffee.

Today, I decided to gift my assigned staff the blue polymer clay unicorn with Hotfix rhinestones on it. I remember creating my very first unicorn here at the institution with her. I originally hadn’t intended on giving my polymer clay creations away, like I had done when moving out of the care home in Raalte, but then again if I take them with me to the new care home they will probably break during transport. I’ve seen a little too many staff come and go here to have a piece for everyone, but I have something for the ones I see most often.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been collecting books of journaling prompts once again. Amazon.nl now allows customers to pay for Kindle books with their bank account, for which I’m extremely grateful. Until last Monday, you could only pay for digital products with a credit card, which I don’t have, so I only downloaded free Kindle books. Now you still need a credit card for other digital products, but eBooks are an exception. And, of course, the first book I bought was a collection of journaling prompts. I also bought a collection of essential oil diffuser recipes. Each book cost under €3. I do need to make sure I won’t spend my money compulsively, as a search for “journaling prompts” in the Kindle store returns over 3,000 books. Then again, a lot are free at one point. For this reason, I acquired three new books of journaling prompts over the past few days, only one of which I paid for.

Lastly, if we were having coffee, I’d ask you all to cheer on my oldest niece as she starts school on Monday. She will be four on the 10th. I need to pop into the toy store tomorrow to buy her a present, as ordering something online won’t get it here on time for me to send it on to her.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (July 29, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since I last joined in with #WeekendCoffeeShare, so I thought I’d write a post for it. I just had my evening coffee, as is usual when I sit down to write these posts. I may still grab a cup of green tea later though, since, like I mentioned yesterday, I started using the Water Reminder app again. If you’d like a drink, cold or hot, join me and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, I’d first share about the weather. It hasn’t been summerlike, honestly. Rather rainy and the daytime temperatures barely got above 20°C. It isn’t supposed to get any better soon.

If we were having coffee, then I’d repeat myself by shouting off the rooftops for all of the Coffee Share crowd to hear that YAY, I AM MOVING!!! Of course, as those who read my post from Monday will know, I hardly know any details about my new care home and a moving date hasn’t been set. However, the bits of information I do gather, make me feel like this could be quite positive. I mean, it’s not likely my dream home or anything, but then again that was supposed to be this one, only that dream turned into a nightmare.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I’ve been spending more time among my fellow residents lately. It’s not really my choice, truthfully. In part, it’s because I look for familiar faces in the communal room when I get assigned the umpteenth new temp worker. Then when I do get a familiar staff, they often ask me to join the group too. This morning, my one-on-one for the moment sincerely claimed another resident had asked me to come play a game of dice, but I’m not 100% sure it’s true with all the times the staff are initiating it. For those who don’t know, me being in the communal room, unless I’m indeed playing a game with the aforementioned fellow resident, usually means me sitting around doing nothing while the staff chat among themselves or scroll on their phones, thereby my not doing any meaningful activity. Besides, I usually get overwhelmed very easily, but the staff expect me to be able to tell them rather than them picking up on my signs. Today, I was extremely overloaded for over an hour after spending not even twenty minutes in the living room. With the fact that I’m moving, I’m not sure whether the staff want me to practice functioning in the group more so that they can lessen my one-on-one, as that wouldn’t benefit them at all. However, I don’t see any other reason for them to initiate me being in the group so often.

If we were having coffee, then I would tell you I closed all my rings on my Apple Watch every single day this week so far. That’s quite an accomplishment lately, as in late June, I broke my 300-odd day streak of meeting my movement goal and I once again didn’t meet it last week. I honestly have been rather unmotivated in the exercise department recently. This week though, I logged more workouts – mostly walking – than last week.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’ve generally been really uninspired over the past couple of weeks. I did make some simple smoothies with my new blender earlier this week, but other than that, I hardly did anything creative. I can only hope I can change this sooner rather than later.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 23, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’ve once again been feeling really unmotivated to blog. I didn’t even bother with the Wednesday HodgePodge this week. Today though, I want to write. I’m joining the #WeekendCoffeeShare linky. It’s been a while. I already had my last cup of coffee for the day, but we all need to stay hydrated, so if join me for a glass of water, that’ll be fab.

If we were having coffee (or water, but I always start my paragraphs this way), I’d start out by sharing about the weather. Ours has been mostly sunny and warm with daytime temperatures of about 27°C. On Tuesday we had a thunderstorm here and on Thursday it rained continuously all evening. My spouse loves thunderstorms, but Lobith didn’t get any.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I have been struggling quite badly lately. The staff here seem to have decided to consistently send the least familiar to me staff member they have on board to do my one-on-one, even when that staff isn’t the least familiar with the other clients. I am of course the one labeled manipulative when I get irritable at the unfamiliar staff. I originally wrote a long rant about this situation, but deleted it because really it doesn’t help anyone.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, due to these difficult circumstances, I’ve been feeling rather depressed and not as motivated to do much of anything. I keep playing dice games on my phone in an app called Dice World. I also play dice with most staff.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that my sister and her family are coming to Lobith tomorrow for an early birthday celebration for me. I will be in Lobith by about 11AM, though my sister won’t be there till 3PM or so. Unfortunately, on Sunday, my mother-in-law has to be on call for the animal rescue service she does volunteer work for, so we won’t be going there.

On Tuesday, which is my actual birthday, we invited my parents to come to Apeldoorn. We’ll hang out in a park close by where I grew up and then in the evening we’ll have dinner at a Thai restaurant.

I finally decided today that I do want to celebrate my birthday at the institution after all. I’m going to make cheesecake on Monday and we’re going to have French fries and a snack for dinner then.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you that I finally used my alcohol inks on a polymer clay project. I made earrings, of course. They’re a bit thick and I later found out my particular brand of alcohol inks isn’t very light-resistant, so the color will probably fade rather easily over time. At least now I know I can use my alcohol inks.

Also, I may get my ears pierced someday. I had my ears pierced in 2001, but wore large silver earrings right after the thingies they shoot into your ears when they pierce them. Thing is, I’m allergic to nickel and silver often contains that, so I got bad inflammation and eventually decided to let the holes close up. Now though I really want to be able to wear earrings again. My assigned staff offered to take me, so that’d be really cool.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (June 3, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Saturday evening of June. I’m really motivated to write another blog post, so am joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’ve had all my coffee for the day. In fact, the other residents didn’t even want their evening coffee, so the staff made a cup of Senseo for me. I still probably need to drink some water, so if you’d like a glass of water too, that’s totally cool. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d share about the weather. It’s mostly been quite good, though not summerlike yet. The mornings in fact have been quite cold, but in the afternoons, it’s often warmed up to about 20°C.

If we were having coffee, I’d post pictures of the polymer clay unicorn with wings I created a few weeks ago. Although the glitter on its wings drooped a bit (or a lot), I think it turned out quite lovely overall.



If we were having coffee, lastly I’d tell you all about the meeting with the two behavior specialists – my own and one responsible for a potential new care home (or maybe several, they were deliberately vague) here on institution grounds – I had on Tuesday. Like I might’ve said last week, my assigned staff did mention a few care homes she’d heard about, but she wasn’t sure either and probably didn’t realize I wasn’t supposed to know. I obviously googled these care homes and also ran them by someone I know online who offered to help me prepare for the meeting. She also read the info the website provides on my current care home and concluded that it’s probably all “window dressing”, ie. the care agency trying to make a good impression on their site without giving much info away. She recommended I focus my points in the meeting on what’s important to me in staff attitude.

So that’s what I did. I told the behavior specialists that, regardless of what type of home I’ll move into, it’ll never be a perfect fit because there just aren’t enough people with similar needs to mine in the Netherlands. Therefore, what’s important to me is staff being willing and able to get to know me and accommodate to my needs without constantly shoving “how this home works” in my face. Of course, I did say I’ll need to adapt in some ways, but constantly needing to adapt to “how this home works” in every single way isn’t working for me. I explained that I’m significantly overestimated here at my current care home. I also explained that, while the staff have made some moves in my direction eventually, them majorly shoving “how this home works”in my face during the first few months significantly diminished my trust in them.

They asked a few specific questions, but mostly just listened to me. I hope something will come out of this.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (May 27, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today, I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. It’s been forever since I last joined in with this linky, but I thought I’d share some highlights of the past week with you all. I just had my morning coffee, but am probably going to finish this post after lunch or in my 30 minutes unsupported time before my afternoon coffee. For lunch, I’m just going to drink water, but since this is a virtual get-together, I won’t keep you from grabbing a coffee. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that the weather has been a mixed bag lately. Early in the week, temperatures didn’t rise above 15°C and we had some rain, but today’s daytime high is supposed to be 22°C and the sky is clear. Next week, we’re even supposed to get daytime highs above 25°C.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I didn’t really get in as many steps as I’d have liked this week. On Wednesday, I had a bad fall while walking. I hurt my knee and elbow and was dizzy for a bit. Thankfully, I only feel my knee a little now. On Thursday, I only managed a few slow and short walks due to the pain though. I did meet my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day.

For the month of June, I’ve signed up for two challenges on the Challenges app. One is a month-long challenge where points are accummulated based on closing each of your three activity rings, while the other allows participants to choose between basing points on steps or closing of the movement ring (I chose steps).

If we were having coffee, next I’d share that I’ve been pretty paranoid about my support lately. I am finding that I look at everything as a sign that the staff are trying to cut back on my one-on-one support hours. Now they say I get two hours more a day than I formally qualify for anyway, so this makes me feel rather, well, off. I can’t see how I can cut back on my one-on-one support hours as is, but I am pretty sure the staff think I can cope with even less than the hours they claim I qualify for.

I mean, I can cope with about half an hour in the communal room playing a game with a fellow resident most days. Today though, I got overloaded by several different sounds (a staff loading the dishwasher, another resident coming into the room and talking loudly to the staff, etc.). While all of these sounds are to be expected in a communal room (though the staff loading the dishwasher could’ve closed the kitchen door), they did overwhelm me. I managed to keep it together relatively well, but did feel upset that my one-on-one staff of the moment didn’t pick up on the signs that I was becoming overloaded. He claimed I could’ve told him myself and that I was making a big deal out of nothing. This further contributed to my thinking that the staff’s aim is to get me to function in the group without one-on-one. Which, of course, I should really aspire for too, but with how overwhelming even half an hour is in that communal room, I can see this just means being confined to my room alone.

If we were having coffee, lastly, I’d tell you that, on Tuesday, I’m going to meet with a behavior specialist for another care home. Like I mentioned before, I really badly want to move out of this home and my current behavior specialist finally approved this last March. They are currently investigating two possible homes here on institution grounds, but aren’t sure yet whether either will be suitable. Wish me luck with the meeting.