Gratitude List (January 15, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m feeling a bit tired today, so to give myself a boost, I thought I’d do a gratitude post. As usual, I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful. Here goes.

1. I’m grateful it is not as cold as it used to be. Like I said yesterday, daytime temps rose to about 7°C for most of the week. I am also grateful it’s not been raining.

2. I am grateful I was able to clear the air again with a staff after an incident on Sunday. On Sunday evening, I got angry because there were no bananas, even though the groceries should’ve gotten in the day before. The staff got really cross with me for yelling at her, which triggered an alter who carries a lot of memories from the psych hospital. At one point, the staff even tried to physically move me to my room, which triggered her even more. Rationally, I do understand I shouldn’t have yelled at her, but emotionally, I really couldn’t handle the whole situation. I am grateful I was able to explain this, with the help of my assigned staff.

3. I am grateful my husband’s cold seems to be over. He was supposed to visit last Sunday, like I mentioned, but canceled because he had a cold. All going to plan, he should be here tomorrow.

4. I am grateful for fried potatoes. I had those for dinner on Tuesday. I am grateful that, even though the staff had originally forgotten to remove the plastic foil from the area where the potatoes are in my meal, the potatoes hadn’t become soggy. I almost had a meltdown over that too, but remembered to ask the staff to remove the plastic and put the meal in the oven a little longer.

5. I am grateful the dietitian gave me some good tips for variations on things I can have for breakfast or lunch rather than bread with jam on it. I am also grateful I had an overall good appt with her.

6. I am grateful there’s only 82 calories in a cinnamon star, my favorite Christmas cookie, of which I still have two full packages left. I am also grateful I am allowed mini stroopwafels during the week. The dietitian had originally said a small cookie such as a biscuit, but there’s only 36 calories in a mini stroopwafel. For on weekends, she allows me a large cookie. She mentioned as an example a cookie that has like 200 calories in it, which I consider rather outrageous. Maybe I misunderstood and she meant that I should eat those only sporadically, as we were also discussing the fact that no foods are forbidden altogether. Anyway, with that being the case, I’m so grateful there’s only 82 calories in my favorite cookie, so I allowed myself one on Friday even though I’d originally only said to myself Saturday and Sunday.

7. I am grateful I feel less stressed out about my diet already as well as able to experiment more with varied foods. On Thursday, there was no meal delivery service meal for me, so I decided to get a salad from the supermarket for dinner. It was absolutely delicious!

8. I am grateful my husband got some opportunities for a new job. He works as a truck driver right now. That is, he currently works in the truck wash, but that doesn’t earn him that much money. Come February 1, he’s going back to driving, but he also talked to the recruiter about other options. I’m not sure I’m allowed to disclose too much, so I’m not going to share which jobs he’s going to look into, but he’s hoping to find himself a job with regular working hours and decent pay at some point.

9. I am grateful I was able to do some crafting again over the past week. I created a red and silver present charm on a keychain for my father, who has his 73rd birthday today. I am also grateful my husband was able to order a real present for him. My father wanted a cd that’s really hard to come by in the Netherlands, but my husband ordered it off Amazon.co.uk. It won’t be here till mid-February, but that’s okay.

Polymer Clay Present Keychain

10. I am grateful the chickens are back. Remember a young man from the care home next to mine had chickens near the day center? Well, shortly before New Year’s, his grandpa took them home with him because they were broody. This week, they returned. Apparently the grandpa had found a way to deal with the broodiness.

I am even more grateful the man whose chickens these are allowed me to pick the eggs today. No eggs though, unfortunately, so either the client who feeds the chickens on weekends had already picked the eggs or they hadn’t laid eggs today.

This was quite doable. Sorry for all the food-related gratefuls though.

What are you grateful for?

Gratitude List (January 8, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Saturday again and I’m trying to get into the habit of writing a gratitude list then. At least today I’m doing one. As usual, I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful or #TToT. Here are some things I’m thankful for.

1. A productive appointment with my nurse practitioner on Monday. We are going to discuss my crisis signaling plan together. This is used by the staff to help guide them on how to support me depending on how I’m doing. My assigned staff should have E-mailed it to him by now.

2. Sunshine! I am so grateful that the sun’s shining at least some of the time. It’s near freezing cold, but at least from indoors I can look out the window and see the sunlight.

3. Reading. I am so grateful I feel motivated to read again. I’ve picked up several books again. I’m currently reading the latest Maggie Hartley foster care memoir, but have several other books I want to get into soon.

4. The Word of God. I am so grateful I am still going strong with my Bible reading. I am also grateful I discovered an interesting Biblical podcast yesterday. It’s called Spoken Gospel. Yesterday, I listened to the episode on Jonah 1.

5. Weekend treats. Like I mentioned yesterday, I started on a food plan/healthy diet this week. I am grateful I am allowed to have a cinnamon star cookie in my diet today.

6. Getting my money back from the broken Fitbit charging cable I’d returned. I am so grateful about that, since I was fully expecting Bol.com (which is a site similar to Amazon here) objecting. After all, when trying the thing, my staff had removed some plastic thingy that kept the cable rolled together. Thankfully, I got my money back without any fuss.

7. Phone conversations with my husband. I am grateful to have him. I am also grateful he’s coming for a visit tomorrow, since I haven’t seen him since Christmas.

8. My staff, the one who had COVID, being recovered and back on the job.

9. My still getting up at 8AM consistently to do my Morning Pages. I am grateful I still find something to write about each morning even if it isn’t something related to my creative endeavors.

10. My computer. A few days ago, I thought for some reason that it’d broken down, but it’s still working. I also managed to clean its keyboard (it was very necessary) and, since I don’t have the type of alcohol or whatever you need for that, I wasn’t sure I’d do it properly without causing it damage. I am so grateful everything still works as it should!

This week, it was harder to come up with ten things of thankful than last week. I think I might do a daily gratitude list in the diary app Day One, now that I’ve revived it for my Morning Pages anyway, so that I have something to refer back to when I’m doing this list.

What are you grateful for?

Am I Good Enough for Jesus?

Posted on by Astrid

It’s the day after Christmas. Boxing day in the UK. Second Christmas in the Netherlands. I spent Christmas with my in-laws having a good time, then went to my and my husband’s house in Lobith. On our way from my in-laws to our house, my husband and I talked about faith. I noticed while talking with him that I’m still struggling with my faith. It isn’t so much that I don’t believe in God or that I, personally, don’t believe Jesus is my savior, but how can I be sure I’m saved if we’re saved by grace alone? How can anyone be sure?

Today, I decided to look up some Christian journaling prompts to get me started on my reflections on faith. The first one I came across asked us to write about our relationship with God. Is He a friend, a coach, a father or perhaps merely an acquaintance? I’d say, He’s a Father, but I’m not sure he’s the loving, caring father most children hopefully have.

It doesn’t help that I didn’t really grow up in a nurturing earthly family. I have hardly known love. Of course, I know rationally that my husband loves me, but when it comes to faith, I still sometimes believe that if he truly knew me, he’d believe I’d go to hell.

And God truly knows me. He knows I bought The Artist’s Way, which turns out to be pretty New Age’ish. He knows I used a censored swear word this afternoon, which no-one else knows because no-one was around. He knows I worried last Friday about the holiday money I usually get from my parents each year. God knows my heart, mind and soul. And I’m pretty sure that, like my earthly father, He’s going to judge me pretty harshly for it. And, whereas my earthly father could give me a beating and send me to my room for an hour or two, God could send me to hell for all of eternity.

And of course I do believe in Jesus. I admit I need him more than I need anything. But if faith doesn’t change me – and I’ve believed in Jesus for a year now -, isn’t it completely invalid? I do see a change in myself over the past year, but it’s so small I’m not sure it’s enough. Am I good enough for Jesus yet? I pray that I will be.

God, please show me Your will and help me be obedient to it. Help me let go of those things which are undesirable in Your view and to embrace those things that are desirable. Please help me move closer to You. In Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

My Plans for This Christmas

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this rainy Thursday evening, two days before Christmas. One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts for this week is to share your plans for this holiday season. For the first time ever, I’m not just dreading the fuss. I mean, last year, I’d just become a Christian and was kind of looking forward to the spiritual aspect of Christmas, but not really either, as I knew I still had a long walk to go in my faith. I’m about the same this year. That being said, with respect to the celebrations with family, I was still dreading those last year. This year, I’m more neutral about them, even slightly positive. Let me share my plans.

Tomorrow, we’re supposed to have day activities like normal. We had our Christmas lunch today and I got half of my Christmas hamper. The other half, my staff will bring tomorrow, as it hadn’t arrived when she left to bring the first half to me yet. The half that arrived today contained mostly treats. The other half, she said, are two silicone molds for my polymer clay. I’m really looking forward to receiving those.

Tomorrow evening, I initially thought we were going to get food delivered. Thankfully, though we entered full lockdown last week, restaurants are open for takeaway or delivery. I was not yet sure which restaurant or snack corner we would be ordering from. Then this evening I found out my staff had planned to prepare a cassrole. Not something I enjoy. I contemplated ordering delivery just for myself. Then after some texting between several staff, it was decided to change the dinner plans for Friday, Saturday and Sunday around and we’re going to have fries and chicken legs.

On Saturday at around 2PM, a ParaTransit taxi is going to arrive to take me to my in-laws. There, I, my husband and my oldest sister-in-law will have dinner. My husband teased me about the food we’d have, because I’m quite a picky eater. Really though, we’re going to have chicken roulade, which I love.

My husband is likely going to read from the Bible at dinnertime. Neither his parents nor his sister are religious, but they tolerate him reading the Bible. I loved him reading Isaiah’s prophecy of Jesus’ coming, as well as the Christmas story, last year.

I may stay at my in-laws for a while after dinner and then leave for my and my husband’s house in Lobith, where we will stay for the night.

Sunday morning, which is called Second Christmas here in the Netherlands, we may watch Hour of Power together. Thinking of which, I remember now there’ll be a show on Saturday too, but I don’t know whether it’ll be in the morning or evening.

I will go back to the care facility sometime Sunday afternoon. Sunday evening, we’re going to have Chinese takeaway. This was originally planned for Saturday, but it was my favorite out of the three Christmas meals for the weekend, so I’m so happy the meal plan got shifted.

We’ll likely have more than enough treats to last us through to February, honestly. At least, I got three packages of my favorite Christmas cookies from one of my staff yesterday and another one in my Christmas hamper. That plus chocolate, winegums and Pringles. Yum, but if I’m not careful, I’m going to weigh 200 pounds by the time I’m done with them. Then again, as they say, you don’t become fat between Christmas and New Year’s but between New Year’s and Christmas. In other words, it’s snacking all year round that really leads to lasting weight gain. This being the case, I am happy this holiday season, though it is indeed part about the food, is also about faith and family.

As for my own family, both my sister and her family and my parents sent me a Christmas card. However, I haven’t been at my parents’ house in years and they didn’t invite me. If they do want to see me, I think the spring is a more appropriate time.

What are your plans for the upcoming holidays?

Mama’s Losin’ It

My Perfect Lover

Posted on by Astrid

I think my husband is perfect. He is the ever-most-beautifullest, ever-most-lovablest
person in the world. That’s why I chose him as my lover.

My husband and I can finish each other’s sentences and it doesn’t get annoying. Or sometimes it does. Then we say “banana spider” and the other knows we’ve bored them out of their mind.

We joke that, when we get old and suffer with dementia, only the two of us will still understand each other, since we have so many special phrases and words between the two of us. At least I hope we’ll have something to laugh at ourselves about then.

Honestly, it’s too bad that my blog is in English and my husband and I communicate primarily in Dutch. After all, our expressions sound even better (or should I say even weirder?) when written or spoken in our native language.

Written for Twiglet #257: “Even Better” and FOWC: “Lover”.

House Inspection

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s writing prompts for this week is to tell us about a time someone showed up at your front door. Since I no longer live in regular housing since moving into the care facility, no-one ever shows up at my front door unexpectedly and, if they do, the staff will open it for me. When I still lived with my husband though, several times, people would show up at my front door unexpectedly. Not salespeople, thankfully. However, my experiences with the housing corporation were so bad that my husband actually asked me not to open the door. I always reflexively did anyway.

One time, the housing corporation, or I’m assuming some technical company sent by them, showed up when I did expect them. They were supposed to be repairing our gutter, but asked a ton of questions about where the problem was located and what kind of gutter we had. I had no idea and the people said they couldn’t just climb onto the roof and have a look. I called my husband to inquire, but he didn’t answer the phone, so they left without having done anything. This encounter led me to get into a mental crisis.

The first time the housing corporation showed up unannounced was in early August of 2017, just two weeks after the gutter repair guys had showed up. They came to ask us to weed the path behind our backyard. I had no idea there even grew plants there, but, under pressure, agreed to ask my husband to do it within a couple of weeks. Apparently, the back neighbors had been complaining, since I don’t expect the housing corporation to come out from the town to check on our tiny village house for no reason.

The other time was in September of 2019. My husband had scheduled the final inspection of our home for the 26th, when I’d be at the care facility and he’d be home alone. However, they showed up a week early when I was home alone. I was sleeping when I heard the doorbell and felt I had no time to dress into my day clothes, so quickly ran downstairs to open the door.

I told them they were a week early, but they insisted they take a look around “now that we’re here anyway”. After their inspection, they asked me to sign a document. I initially refused, but they insisted I am a renter too (I was). Then they asked: “Can you read?” I explained that I can, but not print, since I am blind. “There’s nothing to worry about in this document,” they told me. In my overwhelm, I signed and sent them on their way. My husband did complain about the way they’d treated me this time and it was my final reminder of why I want to never live in regular housing again.

Mama’s Losin’ It

#WeekendCoffeeShare (November 21, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today is a rather mixed Sunday weather-wise. We had sunshine almost all morning and early afternoon, but now we’re having clouds and rain. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare today. I just had a late afternoon coffee (I normally have them at around 2:15PM and it’s almost 3:30 now). I am likely to skip my soft drink, which I normally have at around 3:30, and have some water again when my one-on-one comes on at four o’clock. If you’d like a drink, you’re welcome to grab a soft drink or water or get a Senseo in the kitchen. Let’s catch up.

I already shared on Friday that this week was a rather meh one. So, if we were having coffee, I’d try to focus on other things. I’d share that I’ve been trying to pick up the polymer clay craft again. Yesterday, I finished three labels with “Bedankt” (Dutch for “Thanks”) on them for the three staff who are leaving soon. I still need to cure them in the oven and add glitter glue for decoration. I’m probably going to do that this evening.

I will still need to make real presents for each of the three staff, because I don’t think just a simple label, even if it’s hand-made, is enough. One of the staff is leaving at the end of this month. The other two aren’t leaving till the end of December, so I still have time for those.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I’ve been oohing and aahing at some polymer clay supplies I want to get for Christmas or St. Nicholas (December 5). You need to actually pay for your own St. Nicholas presents, but I agreed with my assigned staff that she could spend around €15 on them and I’d send her a wishlist which she could pick something from, so that I’d still feel a sense of surprise. We do get a small Christmas hamper from the day center, so I told my day activities staff she might talk to my assigned home staff about ordering from the same company as to save on shipping. Some things on my wishlist include cutters, pushmolds and texture sheets.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I bought a new essential oil diffuser. I couldn’t seem to clean the other one properly anymore, so all scents were starting to smell the same. I made a note in my Reminders app to clean this one each month, but with how often I’m currently using it, I’ll probably make that every other week. The new one has a remote and two mist settings for normal and strong mist.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that my husband came by to take me out to lunch this afternoon. We’d talked about going to a particular snack and dine place we’d been to two years ago and I’d looked forward to it all week. It was really good back then. Now, not really. The burger we ordered was okay’ish. Not very bad, but not good either. In addition, we had to wait forever to place our order and the staffer really was quite curt. This time, we were asked for our CoronaCheck code, but not our ID, as is required. Oh well.

How have you been?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (November 6, 2021)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this gloomy fall day. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. Unlike most days when I write my coffee share post, I haven’t had my last cup of coffee yet. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d say that my GP appointment on Monday went okay. My magnesium got decreased in hopes of relieving me a little from my abdominal discomfort. It’s helping a tiny bit, but not enough for my liking.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I had an okay week otherwise. I’m struggling quite a bit with the disconnect between my intellect and my emotions. This is causing me to appear well-collected a lot of the time when in reality I feel extremely distressed. I discussed a few examples of this with my assigned staff and support coordinator today and they’re helping me improve these situations.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I finally gave in (or up) with respect to the adaptive footwear situation and had my husband order new walking shoes for me. After all, the old ones will probably have a large enough to get my socks wet hole in them within a week or two at most. I am so grateful my husband found almost the exact same shoes. They arrived in the post today. I am still hoping I will eventually get used to my orthopedic footwear, but it will need some further adjustments for that to happen first.

If we were having coffee, I would share that I am looking forward but also stressing about the national cerebral palsy day in three weeks’ time. I went to the event on my own three years ago, but this is quite hard this time. I can’t afford for a staff member to go with me to the entire event even with my one-on-one being covered by the care facility. After all, I have one-on-one only part of the day and would need to pay like €45 an hour for individual support for the rest of the day. I might go on my own after all, or I might skip the event, like I skipped the online regional meeting today. I was seriously planning on going to that one, but just couldn’t get myself to do it after all.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d proudly announce that I’m going to be an aunt again in May. I’m pretty sure my sister is fine with me sharing this on my blog now that she’s past three months and all tests so far are fine. My sister’s other child, my niece, is also doing well. I shared a few months back that she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia. She had surgery in September and is currently wearing some type of cast. We are all hopeful that once this will be removed in a month or so and once she’s relearned to walk after that, she’ll be completely fine.

How have you been?

We Are Cinderella!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all! Today, I discovered Throwback Thursday. Well, I had heard of it before, but always assumed it was an image-based blog hop, as this is what the term usually means. Not so in this case. Lauren and Maggie’s Throwback Thursday allows us to write a post taking a stroll down memory lane. I’m pretty sure photos are allowed, but the main focus seems on writing. Today’s topic is nicknames.

I have had many nicknames throughout my life. Some are derived from my name. For example, many people simply abbreviate “Astrid” to “As” and my spouse and in-laws then add the commonly-Dutch “-ie” suffix for “little”, so my nickname becomes “Assie”.

Then there are these nicknames that are based on some letters out of my name but not many. An example is the Dutch word “asbak” (which translates to “ashtray)”. I hate that nickname with a vengeance.

Another one is “Assepoester”. This is the Dutch name for Cinderella in the fairytale. I don’t like the Dutch nickname, but I for one do relate to Cinderella, particularly to the feeling of having to be transformed by a fairy (ie. put on a mask) in order to be acceptable as I am.

For this reason, I sometimes still use Cinderella as my nickname. That is, I do so when referring to myself and my multiple alter personalities (dissociative identities) as a system. Usually, I refer to the collective as Astridetal, as in my blog’s URL, but at one point we felt somehow like we needed a collective name that didn’t claim that Astrid was the “owner” of everyone else. So Cinderella System was born!

Did or do you have any interesting nicknames?

The Best Decision of My Life

Posted on by Astrid

I really want to write, but, as usual when I’m like this, so much is spinning through my mind that I cannot ultimately get anything out of my fingertips. To get myself started, I decided to look at the book Journaling with Lisa Shea and picked one of the journaling prompts on gratitude. It asks us what the best decision of our life was. Was it an easy decision or a hard one? I’m pretty sure I already covered this topic several years ago, but the answer may be different now.

After all, up till quite recently, I would have said the best decision I ever made was to consent to being admitted to the psychiatric hospital in 2007. That, after all, set in motion the wwheels that ultimately got me into the care system. However, looking back, I could just as easily have selected my choice to go to the blindness rehabilitation center in 2005 rather than to university. After all, that was what led me to the training home and to my autism diagnosis.

I honestly don’t want to give the psychiatric hospital people, particularly my last treatment team, the credit they get if I say that getting admitted was my best decision ever. After all, like I have said before, I didn’t make much progress in those 9 1/2 years in the hospital. Worse yet, the only difference between my care arrangement before the hospital and after it, was that my husband was now in my life. My husband deserves the kudos for that, not any mental health professional.

Instead, the best decision I ever made, I made rather offhandly on September 20, 2018. This was the decision to allow my support coordinator to schedule an appointment with her regional care consultant on getting me into long-term care. The appointment itself took place on October 4.

I say I made the decision rather offhandly, in that we were discussingn living options and I eventually said, sort of half-heartedly: “Okay, you can ask your care consultant to come.” In truth, the decision was a really hard one.

Even though I had planned on going into supported housing ever since my initial psych hospital admission in 2007, it felt kind of like I was betraying my husband, my parents, my former treatment team and everyone else by admitting this is what I needed. For this reason, my husband’s first words when I said my support coordinator had scheduled the appt with her care consultant, were very comforting: “You know I support you, right?”