Music Moves Me (December 9, 2024): Dancing Queen!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I joined in with Music Moves Me many years ago and rediscovered it a few weeks back.

Guess what? On Saturday, one of the student staff had brought a Bluetooth speaker and he was blasting music in the other side of the home’s living room. One of the clients there knew the lyrics to every song. They were Dutch-language songs, none of which I knew, because that’s not my taste in music.

However, I at one point decided to move over there and request the staff put on a song I knew. The first band that came to mind was ABBA.

I and a few other clients were singing and dancing along and it was so much fun! The client who knew all the lyrics to the Dutch songs, sang along too.

We danced to a few more ABBA songs and then the staff asked us to name another artist or band. I came up with P!nk and mentioned her song Cover Me in Sunshine.

I honestly had no idea this song was a duet between P!nk and her daughter until I saw the music video list Willow Sage Hart and looked it up. I guess this makes me the most musically stupid person in the linky, but oh well. I just wanted to share that dancing made my evening. For this reason, I’m also joining in with Trent’s #WeeklySmile.

Several staff noticed how much fun we were having and they’re trying to get a Bluetooth speaker for the home. There’s a monthly dance event at the institution townhouse too, but that isn’t nearly as much fun.

Polymer Clay Makes Me Smile #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m still struggling with attachment issues and, to make matters worse, my assigned staff went on sick leave just after I told her how intensely I was struggling. I can’t shake the thought that it’s my fault, no matter how many times the other staff say that it isn’t. I do try to focus on the positive and stay as active as I can be though. Today, I’m participating in Trent’s #WeeklySmile. I’m also joining in, a day late, with Sunny Sunday. That way, I’m spreading the word about these two positive prompts while sharing things that made me smile.

Well, most of the things that made me smile over the weekend have to do with polymer clay. First, on Saturday, I started on a bunch of earrings that I am not 100% sure with what to do with them yet. Currently, they’re mostly just green cutter earrings (or really earrings-to-be, as I haven’t added the findings yet) with no design or whatever, but it was fun working with my cutters anyway.

One thing I did discover today while trying to finish one pair of earings, is that you can actually sand the top of earrings, that is, the side that will be visible when wearing them. I actually achieved great results sanding a pair of earrings with finer sandpaper (starting at 400 grit then 600 then 800 then 1000). Until now, I always thought that the side with the design on was pretty much as is, because you’d sand off the design. Granted, my trial pair were just green with no design, but my next pair will have a design on them.

The next thing that made me smile is discovering yet another great shop for clay cutters, texture rollers, silkscreens, etc. Another thing that made me smile was reading up on some simple earring projects on one shop’s website. I honestly think I’d love to try these out. It’s my birthday in a little over three weeks, so I really hope I’ll get some new things from one of those sites.

I really should get some display materials soon, as I don’t feel comfortable showing my earrings while wearing them myself and some of them are gifts too.

This new hyperfixation really makes me so excited. It’s part of polymer clay in general, of course, which I’m into already. This means I feel less like a failure if this thing doesn’t work out. At least it means only part of a hobby isn’t suitable for me. But I hope it is.

Things That Made Me Smile (February 6, 2023) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I had a rather difficult first half of my day. Slept rather poorly because of some worries about my care situation and, while trying to talk through my thoughts with a staff, got even more frustrated. The evening isn’t going great either: lots of random staff switches and a fellow client who spiraled into crisis when I was in the living room. What better time then the present to focus on the positives? As one of my teachers once said, you can only be happy once in your entire life and that’s right now. For this reason, I’m joining Trent’s #WeeklySmile. Here goes.

This afternoon, the new student staff took me on a walk. First, we went to the cafeteria in the main office building to get a hot cocoa for me and latte macchiato for her.

Then, we walked some more, while chatting about random things. At one point, we got to talking about positive thinking and she told me to throw all my negative thinking onto the nearby highway to be run over by trucks. I told her an elaborate story about how my husband, who is a truck driver, would run over all my negative ideas on his way to Hoorn, which is his default route, and catch unicorns for me while there to fly all positivity my way. After all, the symbol for the city of Hoorn is the unicorn.

Then we started singing children’s songs. I sang (well, in my out-of-key way) the English version of “The Wheels on the Bus” to her, while she taught me some modern Dutch children’s songs. We also remembered an older one that I happen to have sung at a Kindergarten contest.

The rest of the day was stressful once again, but I cherish this moment.

Things That Made Me Smile (December 12, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining the Weekly Smile today. Even though I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much about the new day schedule, this also means I enjoy every moment of it.

For those not aware, on Saturday, I started with a new day schedule that is mostly time-organized and allows for me to choose my activities rather than it being activity-based. It is of course still in its test phase and it may actually be torn apart (figureatively speaking) by my support coordinator once she returns from her time off after Christmas. That’s why I’m not getting my hopes up, but also why I enjoy every moment.

The thing that made me smile most about the new day schedule is that it allows for time for me to work with polymer clay with my one-on-one again.

The most smile-worthy event of the weekend is, of course, the creation of my very first unicorn in the new care home! It isn’t my best unicorn ever, but I completely loved crafting it. The staff I created it with, suggested we place it near the Christmas tree, as its mane and tail are in red and green. My fellow clients and staff love it.

In addition to the unicorn, I crafted a koala and an apple out of polymer clay. I also attempted to create a macaron, but decided not to bake that one, as it wasn’t a success.

One of my staff – a staff who can be a bit direct – did ask me how long it took me to craft the unicorn. I struggled not to see this as criticism, as it took me about ninety minutes total, over two sessions, including gathering my supplies and all. He did ask me whether I could craft a panda, as those are his favorite animals. I told him I’d make one for him and did so this evening. This was harder than I thought it’d be, mostly because the black Fimo I used for the panda’s black body parts kept leaving streaks on the white Premo I used for its white body parts. My staff tried to remove them with alcohol, but it remains to be seen how successful this was. Regardless, I enjoyed the process.

What made you smile recently?

Things That Made Me Smile (July 11, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t been blogging all weekend, because I didn’t feel inspired. I’m still struggling with the fact that my assigned staff is leaving. However, today I wanted to put a positive spin onto it and end our contact with good memories. You see, today she had her last one-on-one shift with me. Despite it of course being bittersweet, the day itself was so good I actually think it deserves a mention on Trent’s #WeeklySmile.

We started the day at 10:15 with two strong cups of coffee. This staff is one of the coffee drinkers among my staff and so she usually brings the full coffee pot to me rather than just pouring me a single cup. My morning cup had been rather weak, so I’m so grateful I was able to have two cups of strong, black coffee. (My soon-to-be former assigned staff drinks her coffee with milk, something I kept forgetting.)

After this, we went for a walk. I initially decided not to put on my jacket, but it was just a bit too chilly for my liking, so my staff ran back up the stairs to grab it for me.

After that, I had lunch. I didn’t indulge in anything special this time, as yesterday for her leave-taking party for the entire home the staff had already treated us all to French fries and snacks.

After she’d had her afternoon break, my staff and I drove to a playground in the village she lives in that we’ve been to before to jump on the trampoline. A few little kids were playing on the trampoline when I arrived, but they were thankfully happy to go play on the other playground equipment and let me jump on the trampoline for a while. I jumped for about ten minutes, but by then my feet hurt like crazy. My inner child parts had the greatest fun!

Then we drove by the supermarket, because I had to get dinner for this evening, as I’d skipped my meal delivery service meal for today. Apparently, they’d had nothing on the menu that I liked. I also got blueberries, stroopwafel cookies and licorice.

Then it was time for two more cups of strong coffee. I chatted some with my staff until it was time for her to go to write up her notes and be there for any other clients who might come home from the day center early at 3PM. She returned briefly at 3:30, as usual, to say goodbye. She said that even though this was her last one-on-one shift with me and Thursday will be her final shift working at my care facility, she’s sure to see me again. I hope she’s right. In any case, she’s after some thought decided to give me her E-mail address. This makes me feel much better about our goodbye than I’d been feeling last Friday, because it means I can still stay in touch with her when I feel like it.

Overall, the day was positive and I didn’t even cry when she left. I might on Thursday, but we’ll see.

Things That Made Me Smile (June 13, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I haven’t done a gratitude list in a while and, to be honest, have been struggling to find enough things to be grateful for to make a list out of them. Today was another mixed day. However, I did find a major reason to smile in the morning, which I am sharing with The Weekly Smile.

You see, my assigned home staff has a new family pet and a rather unusual one at that. This morning, she invited me over to her house to see it and I actually got to hold the animal. Can you guess what it is?

Yes, indeed, it’s a hedgehog! Specifically, this one’s a four-toed hedgehog. They can legally be held as pets as of 2015 here in the Netherlands, but there are only a few breeders. My staff said she had to go through a whole screening process to see if she and her family would be fit to take care of a hedgehog. The hedgehog, a female named Willow, can only leave its cage for an hour at a time, because otherwise it’ll lose too much body heat.

When I held it, at first it didn’t feel prickly at all. I compared its prickliness to my sister-in-law’s late rough-haired dachshund. Only when Willow got a little overstimulated at the end did it put up its spines.

Hedgehogs like this one aren’t used to living in groups or even pairs, so they can easily be left alone for a few weeks (provided they have enough food and water) to fend for themselves. Even so, the atmosphere did feel cozy because of Willow.

After my visit with Willow, my staff let me jump on her kids’ trampoline in her garden for a bit too. Her husband has an aviary with Gouldian finches in it. They were too quick for us to even attempt to take pictures of them or so my staff said, but their birdsong was quite beautiful.

Things That Made Me Smile (March 14, 2022) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’m joining the Weekly Smile today. I don’t promise this will be a weekly feature, of course, but the hashtag is #WeeklySmile. I could really use a bit of cheer today, so I’m going to share some little things that gave me joy lately. Hopefully writing about them will make me smile now too.

First up are flowers once again. Last Thursday as well as yesterday, I went for a walk and took some pictures of flowers I came across on my way. The below picture is of an anemone we came across yesterday. We initially called it a giant crocus, but I found out it’s an anemone by running the picture through some plant identification apps.

That’s my second little joy: I just love learning about all sorts of different plants and running my pictures through identification apps. I haven’t yet found the perfect plant identification app after having tried out several, but that’s okay.

Finally, a thing that’s been making me smile for days: discovering an app that will allow me (with some help) to make collages and mosaics with my photos. The app is called PhotoGrid and, though some parts of the app are free, I decided to try out the premium membership right away and didn’t cancel when my trial period (which admittedly is only three days) was over. The below collage, my staff and I made with most of the photos we’d taken while going for a walk on Thursday. I’m linking this post to Mosaic Monday. Hope I did it right.

One of my staff later suggested I use this collage as my cover photo on Facebook, so I did. I had never had a cover photo before.

It may seem weird that I, being blind, like photography. However, with the image description tools, including now the plant identification apps, on my phone, I think it’s a great way of getting acquainted with my surroundings.

Things That Made Me Smile (August 30, 2021) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this beautiful Monday evening. I was feeling a bit down in the dumps earlier today. The reason is the fact that I had a vision screening by the blindness agency this morning. The result was more or less as I expected: I only have a tiny bit of light perception in the central visual field of my left eye. It however was a bit of a bummer too, in that I’d hoped to perform slightly better.

To cheer myself up, I thought I’d join The Weekly Smile and share how amazingly far assistive technology has come. It may not replace actual vision, but, combined with my imagination, it can go a long way.

What I mean by assistive tech specifically is VoiceOver Recognition, the iPhone’s built-in image description functionality that was released first in iOS 14 not even a year ago. Last month, I already mentioned that it can recognize some basic shapes and colors (such as my pink, heart-shaped polymer clay ornament.

on Wednesday though, my father-in-law posted a picture of a statue to the family’s WhatsApp group and asked us to guess who it was. Without VoiceOver Recognition or similar third-party apps, I would have lost out on the fun. VoiceOver Recognition though immediately described the image as a statue of a bear on a water fountain. I replied with this answer in the group and was asked to name the bear. A little Googling revealed that it was “Berend Botje” from the nursery rhyme by that name.

My husband told me that, from the picture, he hadn’t made out that the statue was of a bear. I ran the image through VoiceOver Recognition and Seeing AI, one of the more commonly-used third-party apps for image description, just now and neither recognized it as a bear specifically this time. However, the fact that I “won” my family’s very visual riddle despite being totally blind, definitely makes me smile.

I’m also joining in with #LifeThisWeek and #SeniSal.

Things That Made Me Smile (July 26, 2021) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this summerly Monday. We had a thunderstorm yesterday early evening and are expected to get more later this evening. However, right now it’s still pretty sunny and warm outside.

Today, I am joining in with The Weekly Smile. I am also joining in with Cee’s Flower of the Day, since my smiles involve flowers.

First, over the past week or two, whenever I returned from a walk with my day activities staff, I always smelled lavender close by my care home. I don’t care for the smell of lavender in perfumery, although in essential oil blends it’s great. The actual flower smells awesome too! Today, I finally took my phone with me on my walk so that we could take a picture of the plant.

Lavender

Then, a few days ago, a staff pointed out a huge bush of geraniums near the day center. I still remember the characteristic red color from when I still had some vision and I love it. Its smell though is one of my least favorites, including in essential oils. This morning, I went out and actually touched the bush and indeed, it’s huge!

Geraniums

Generally, the presence of nature really makes me smile. It’s no wonder that, when asked what I miss most about being unable to see, I generally reply the ability to appreciate the beautiful sights of nature. However, I am still able to hear and feel and smell the beauty of nature!

What made you smile this past week?

Things That Made Me Smile (June 7, 2021) #WeeklySmile

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today is a mixed day. I am in a bit of pain and feeling a little triggered as I write this. I originally planned on writing a post for the Weekly Smile today. Then I wasn’t sure I could really write a positive post. That’s me, almost being unable to connect my emotions if they’ve shifted. As an exercise in positivity though, I’m deciding to give it a try anyway.

The main thing that made me smile over the past week, was going to the monkey zoo on Friday. I mean, I of course can’t see the monkeys and due to COVID-19, we weren’t allowed to get too close. Before the pandemic, monkeys would actually be allowed to climb onto people’s shoulders. Not so anymore, which was a bit sad. The positive about this though was the fact that at least the monkeys couldn’t steal my stuff.

At lunchtime, my one-on-one and I decided to have fries and chicken nuggets. We had to wait on our chicken nuggets for like half an hour. By that time, some of the fries were cold, but they were still good.

The best part of the day though was going to the souvenir shop and buying myself a stuffed monkey. I originally planned on getting both a gorilla and this one, but this one already cost €35. This one is a ring-tailed lemur.

I have loved sleeping with the monkey soft toy each night since Friday. I usually lie on my back with the monkey on my left side and its tail covering my stomach left to right. My husband joked that its tail is half my height. One-third is probably closer.

Another thing that made me smile this week, was going to the city of Zwolle with my husband yesterday. Zwolle is about half an hour’s drive from the care facility. Since restaurants are reopening now, we were able to eat a grilled sandwich at a place called Tosti World. I remember going there once before in Nijmegen.

On our walk back to the car, my husband took a picture of me beside a canon. That, too, made me smile.

Writing this post has me be a little more positive indeed. Thank you for reading. What made you smile lately?