Gratitude List (December 22, 2024) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining Ten Things of Thankful today. Let’s see what I’ve been grateful for over the past week.

1. Pizza. Technically, this is one from last week. Last Sunday, there was no meal delivery service meal I liked, so I chose to get takeout pizza. I chose one with onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, sausages and fresh garlic.

2. Another food one: my Christmas hamper. This year, we had the choice between a food hamper either regular or low-cal, a beauty hamper or a crafty one. Figuring that budgets are tight, I decided to go for the regular food hamper, as I doubted what was in the others would be of interest to me. I got marshmallows, chocolate, chips, whipped cream and waffles, cocoa and maybe I forgot something. Oh yes, I did: pretzel sticks, but I gave those away. I probably gained several pounds from enjoying the food and I have the marshmallows and chocolate still unopened.

3. Oh wait, another food one and a more likely cause of weight gain: a new staff had gotten chocolate with salted caramel as a welcome present to the care agency, but she didn’t like salted caramel, so gave the bar to me. That one is gone by now.

4. The fact that I was able to take a bath on Wednesday. I used a bath bomb that changed colors and had a nice scent (although for the life of me I can’t remember which).

5. My decreased antipsychotic dosage that I started on last Friday. I’m now on 15mg of Abilify a day. So far, I haven’t been significantly more irritable.

6. The fact that the days are officially getting longer now. Man, do I hate winter and especially the darkness.

7. A good visit from my spouse today. We hadn’t seen each other last week, so the visit felt extra special. We went shopping at Hema, my spouse’s favorite store, and ate lunch there too.

8. The fact that I was able to go for a walk today despite the weather being rather gloomy in the afternoon. Thankfully though, no rain in the evening.

9. The fact that I’m still creatively inspired. And generally more motivated to do things than I used to be.

10. Peace. I mean both inner peace and outer peace. That is, I’m still experiencing anxiety, but it isn’t nearly as severe as it was several months ago. I’m also so grateful that, at least for now, I live in peace.

The Wednesday Hodgepodge (January 10, 2024)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Sorry for not having touched the blog in a few days. I really mean to blog more this year, but have been struggling a bit lately again so no inspiration. Today it’s time for the Wednesday Hodgepodge though, so this post should come relatively easily. Here goes.

1. What’s a change you’d like or need to make this year?
I’d like to taper at least one of my medications.

2. Break the ice, on thin ice, ice skating, tip of the iceberg, ice cold…which icy idiom applies to your life right now? Explain.
Ice cold. It’s been freezing for a couple of days now. It’s a dry frost though, so no need for people to remove ice from their cars. In the early mornings, the temperature dropped to -7°C with a real feel of -15°C.

3. What’s a project you’ve been putting off? Will you get to it this month? This year?
Decorate my room. I’m not sure I’ll get to it this month, but definitely this year.

4. Of the fruits that grow well in winter which ones have you tried? Which is your favorite?

pomegranates, clementines, persimmons, passion fruit, pears, grapefruit, lemons, pomelos, kumquats
I have tried about half of this list: pomegranates, pears, grapefruits, clementines, lemons and that’s it I think. I don’t really care for any of them, but if I have to choose one, I’ll go for clementines.

5. What do you think it means to be courageous?
I don’t really know. I think it includes standing up for oneself and others in the face of persecution. Then again, it could also include standing up for what’s right, but what’s “right” depends on your viewpoint. Like, I’m pretty sure half the Hodgepodge’ers wouldn’t feel included in my “all-inclusive” society because their values do not align with my purpose of inclusion. In this sense, courage is really not unrelated to one’s political or religious affiliation and whether someone is a hero or an idiot depends on whether you agree with them or not.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
On Saturday, my spouse will be visiting me after picking up the new car we’re getting. I can’t wait to sit in our “freezer Fiat”, as we’ve been jokingly calling it. We call our current car the “heat-up Micra”, as it has no air conditioning and is black and our previous car had broken heating so was ice cold in winter. The “freezer Fiat” will, thankfully, come with air conditioning.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (December 14, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s Wednesday again, so I’m participating in the Wednesday HodgePodge. Not that I do so each Wednesday or that Joyce even hosts them every single week. For example, next week there won’t be one. This week’s HodgePodge is mostly Christmas-themed. Here goes.

1. What does Christmas mean to you?
The birth of Jesus Christ, of course. I am a progressive Jesus follower. That being said, I don’t follow the faith nearly as deeply as I should. Each year around Christmas time, I usually experience a deepened connection with God, but I’m not feeling it this year yet, for which I’m sad.

2. What’s your favorite cozy holiday activity?
Eating cinnamon stars near the Christmas tree. Cinnamon stars, a type of cookies, are my absolute favorite Christmas treats. Last year, I got four packets of them from my day activities staff and used up the last of them in early March.

3. Is all your shopping-wrapping-baking done? Tell us about your holiday plans.
Yes or no, depending on your perspective. After all, we don’t really do Christmas presents in my husband’s family and I don’t see my own family for the holidays at all. I don’t usually send out Christmas cards either, although my husband does on my behalf too.

For Christmas, my husband is going to pick me up at the institution and take me to my in-laws’ house near dinnertime. That way, I hopefully won’t have to endure too much of the Christmassy buzz but my husband’s family will be able to enjoy my company. My sisters-in-law will likely be joining us for dinner too. Then, I’ll spend the night at my husband’s.

4. If you were Santa what treat would you like to have left for you (it doesn’t have to be milk and cookies!) What sweet or savory treat do you most look forward to indulging in around the holidays?
Leave me with some hot wings please, yum! As for my most looked forward to holiday treat, other than the aforementioned cinnamon stars, I love oliebollen at New Year’s. Do those count? By the way, for my American/English-speaking readers, oliebollen may look like what’s left over when making holes in donuts, but they taste very differently.

5. Next Wednesday is the first official day of winter (in the northern hemisphere). How does that make you feel? Tell us what you love most about winter?
I don’t like winter, the cold, shorter days or snow for that matter, so the official start of winter to me signifies the shortest day of the year and hence the fact that days are getting longer from then on. The one thing I do love about winter are its associated holidays, such as St. Nicholas, Christmas and New Year’s and the opportunity to indulge in special holiday treats these occasions provide.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I got a lovely Christmas hamper full of sweets, cookies and chips from the care agency this evening. There was no room in my bin in the locked storage room for it, so I have everything with me now. Let’s hope this doesn’t end in a massive binge.

The Wednesday HodgePodge (August 17, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining the Wednesday HodgePodge again. Here are Joyce’s questions.

1. August is National Back To School Month…how does that make you feel? Share a back-to-school memory.
I don’t really feel much regarding back-to-school time, as I’m not in school anymore (it’s been 17 years since I graduated high school) and my nieces are too young to be in school. I’m so glad to be out of school though.

A back-to-school memory? My first day at the school for the blind I spent fourth till sixth grade at. We went to church to mark the beginning of the school year, as it was a Christian school. I found it all very strange, having never been to a church before, since my parents are atheists. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep during the service though.

2. Something you’ve learned in “the school of life”?
People who get paid to have any sort of relationship with you, won’t stick around for you, so you have no reason to stay for them either. Yes, I’m referring to my wish to transfer to another care facility here.

3. Three words to describe your current mood.
Unquiet, determined, sad.

4. A summer food you’ve eaten too much of/are tired of? A summer food you haven’t had enough of?
There isn’t any summer food I’m really tired of, though today I turned down another ice cream cone because I’d had three in the past week already. A summer food I haven’t had enough of? Summer fruit!

5. What small stuff do you sweat that you know you shouldn’t?
I tend to get very easily frustrated, so quite a lot, but lately I’ve also tried to solve small problems more rather than just not caring. An example are air bubbles in my clay. The reason that I do try to solve the problem now, is that I know how to (to an extent) rather than just having to wait for my pieces to be cured and then deciding whether they go in the trash or are just about good enough to be displayed. It’s a tricky balancing act of trying not to sweat the small stuff but also trying not to be careless.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Yesterday, we had daytime temperatures of 30°C. It isn’t expected to get this hot again anytime this year. My husband, not surprisingly, started the Christmas prep WhatsApp group with his family. He always does in mid-August. I, too, before we got to discuss this, started reading a winter-themed chapter book.

Gratitude List (December 26, 2020) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hello everyone and a belated merry Christmas to you all! As usual on Saturdays nowadays, I’m writing a gratitude list. I’m joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Enjoy!

1. I am grateful for Jesus! I’m so grateful I became a Christian this year and this time hopefully for real. I say this because I’ve been a progressive believer for many years but hardly took my faith seriously at all. I still could take it more seriously and I’m praying God will open my heart and mind to him even more.

2. I am grateful for my family. My parents sent me a Braille-typed Christmas card and my sister sent me a card too. This reminds me that, even though we don’t have the closest relationship, I still matter to them.

3. I am grateful for my husband and in-laws.

4. I am grateful for great Christmas meals. Yesterday, my husband and I made use of the fact that people can legally have two (actually three on Christmas and boxing day) visitors and celebrated Christmas with my in-laws. We had a delicious dinner.

Also, the bakery in a nearby village sent the entire care facility a Christmas lunch of freshly-baked buns. Normally they give it to the day center in that village, where the clients help package their goods. However, that day center is closed due to COVID. Most clients from my care facility don’t work at the day center there, but some do and the bakery was so generous as to give us all the lunch.

5. I am grateful for my psychiatrist. As we wrote on Tuesday, she completely validated us. I haven’t yet needed my new PRN medication.

6. I am grateful the days are getting longer again. Ugh, how I hate the dark days!

7. I am grateful for the motivation and focus to be able to read again. I’m reading a middle grade novel, but that’s okay.

8. I am grateful for uplifting, Christian music. My husband has some on in the car and I discovered some on Spotify.

9. I am grateful for sausage rolls this morning. My husband joked that he was going to eat them all if I didn’t make it downstairs soon enough. I guess I did though.

10. I am grateful for a lie-in this morning. My husband didn’t get up at 7:30AM like usual on Sundays (maybe because it’s Saturday today), so I slept in longer than usual too.

I hope you all had a very happy Christmas. What have you been grateful for lately?

A Winter Memory

Posted on by Astrid

One of Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop prompts for this week is to share a favorite winter memory. Now I don’t personally like winter. I however have this weird kind of love/hate relationship with it and especially with snow. It looks beautiful, but my already almost nonexistent orientation and mobility skills go out the window entirely when it snows. Still, I am going to share a memory involving snow. It’s not really a cherished memory, but I’d really like to share it.

On Friday, November 25, 2005, the eastern half of the Netherlands was suddenly hit with a big snowstorm. I lived in Apeldoorn in the central-eastern part of the country. During the week, I attended a rehabilitation center for the blind also in Apeldoorn at the time. It was a residential center, because blind people from all over the country went to it. That being said, the center closed on Friday afternoon for the week-end.

The snowstorm started at around noon. I left the center to go to the bus stop for the bus home at around 1PM. I hardly made it to the bus stop, only to find out public transportation had been canceled because of the weather.

I walked back to the center to call a ParaTransit taxi home. They first informed me it might take several hours for the taxi to arrive, then called me to inform me all transportation had been canceled.

By 4PM, my sister offered to come to the center by tandem bike to take me home. This sounded crazy even to me, but she persisted.

I need to add here that, like I said, clients of the center came from all over the country. The day staff were calling the manager by this time to request clients who lived out of city could stay at the center for another day. This would’ve been doable, as the center did have beds for during the rest of the week and the staff offered to get them some takeout food and stay for the night. The manager though refused.

By 4:30, a staff had decided to drive me home. My sister did end up cycling through the snowstorm to the center, but thankfully she didn’t have to make the way back with me on the tandem as well. That would’ve been nearly impossible, as I struggle to put in enough strength to do my part of the biking even in normal weather.

Some clients ended up staying with staff for the night, including blind staff who didn’t really feel comfortable with it. Of course, the manager didn’t take in any clients. Some other clients ended up being taken home by taxis in the evening. One of them made it home to southern Limburg, which is normally about a 2 1/2 hour’s drive, at five o’clock in the morning. The taxi driver ended up hitting the crash barrier on the way back north.

Needless to say the resident council, which I was a member of, filed an official complaint about the manager’s way of handling the situation. The man from southern Limburg was the resident council representative for the broader organization’s client council. He and the clients who’d had to stay with staff, were offered a sheepish apology and some flowers. The staff involved didn’t even get those.

Now that I’ve written this post, I realize November isn’t technically winter. Let’s call this a snowy memory then.

Mama’s Losin’ It