The Wednesday Hodgepodge (September 16, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s been forever since I last participated in the Wednesday Hodgepodge. This is my third attempt at writing this post. If I believed in fate, it should’ve been a sign that I shouldn’t be taking part anymore, I guess. Either that or WordPress just doesn’t like me, since neither the block editor nor the classic editor work nicely right now. Anyway, here are Joyce’s questions.

1. How do you define beauty?
Like Joyce, I think beauty comes mostly from within. I’m going to tease her a little by giving an example tied in with the reason I originally left the Hodgepodge: back in I believe 2023, a trans woman won the Miss Netehrlands contest. She wasn’t the most physically attractive contestant. However, even a Miss contest isn’t about physical looks alone and her confidence for sure shone through. I won’t go into a rant on the entire Miss thing as inherently wrong and, as regular readers of this blog know, I feel strongly about the fact that trans women are women. If you disagree, please don’t start an argument here unless you’re genuinely willing to be educated. My point by choosing this example is, showing up in the world as you are, especially in spite of persecution, is, in my opinion, a surefire sign of beauty.

2. Have you ever taken a trip by train? If so where did you go and what did you think of the experience? If not do you have any desire to do so? Where would you like to go?
I have traveled by train many times. I don’t know what defines a “train trip” vs. just traveling on a train, but the most adventurous train ride I took was a day-long trip from a town near the Germany/Netherlands border to Berlin, just using regional railroads. I used to love train travel back when I still (thought I) was more independent than I am now, but haven’t been on a train in many years.

3. Shell shocked, bombshell, bandshell, shellacking, in a nutshell, walking on eggshells…choose one and tell us why you chose it, or how it relates to your life in some way currently.
I’m choosing “walking on eggshells”, although I could also choose “bombshell”. Both relate to the fact that I’m going to move to another care facility at some point. I didn’t share this with the Hodgepodge community, although some of the participants follow my blog outside of it too so may know. Being told I’ll be moving again was quite the bombshell. I’m walking on eggshells sometimes now fearing I’ll be transferred to a crisis unit if the home-finding process doesn’t go quickly enough.

4. Tacos, pistachios, oysters, clams, eggs…your favorite food on the list that comes in/with a shell?
Tacos I think, although they’re hard for me to eat. I also love eggs. Need to open my bag of pistachios that I bought at Ekoplaza several weeks ago, intending to use them on my vegan and gluten-free cake experiment. I never ate oysters and have no idea what clems are.

5. Are birthdays a big deal in your house? Is your own birthday a big deal in some way? Elaborate.
I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday. Since going no contact with my parents days before my birthday this year, I believe the hate part is stronger. Most of my fellow residents do like their birthdays. This is one reason I usually do try to do a special activity for mine, like cooking a meal for the entire home (20 residents plus staff).

6. Insert your own random thought here.
I already started this post with a random thought I think. Now that I’ve finished the post (in the classic editor) I’m not sure whether to even publish it. At least I did finally write something again and that’s a win.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 11, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s already past 10PM, but I want to write a #WeekendCoffeeShare post today. I’ve had all my drinks for the day. The staff struggled a bit to understand the type of tea I want, ie. green tea “without the hassle”. I’ve also had all my food for the day. Can you believe pecans are seriously 173 calories for 25 grams? Anyway, no more coffee, tea or snacks for me, but feel free to grab a cup of your favorite beverage and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. On Monday, the daytime temperature reached 29°C, but for the rest of the week, it’s been less warm. Some people are complaining about the rain, but I’m not.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you I’m still meeting my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day. Yes, even on Wednesday, when it was rainy all day and I was busy cooking my crispy rice salad that I mentioned yesterday. Yesterday, I had fun riding the side-by-side bike for a bit.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that the overnight oats I mentioned yesterday turned out okay, but I maintain that there’s too much black pepper in my chai mix. Oh, and now I’m kicking myself for not having taken a photo.

If we were having coffee, I’d admit that I’ve been spending quite a bit of money on food lately. I don’t mind though, as I can afford it and I now consider cooking and other food preparation a hobby. I also think that if I spend my own money on the food, I might be more conscious not to waste it. Mind you, I still get the institution to buy most of my dinner food, because well if I cook for myself, it means one less meal they need to pay for at the meal delivery service.

Speaking of cooking (and spending!), I am considering buying myself a talking kitchen scale. There are truly expensive ones that directly talk to you (and by expensive I mean like €200) and there are cheaper ones that connect to an iPhone app. Some of the app-based ones are like €50, which I know is still more expensive than a regular scale. Besides, if I buy one of those and the app turns out not to be accessible, that’d be worse than spending €200 on a working scale. However, today I received an ad in my E-mail inbox for an app-based scale for which the app is fully designed with VoiceOver accessibility in mind. It’s still €85, so I’m not yet buying the thing.

If we were having coffee, next I’d share that, as you can probably tell, I did spend some money on something else today, ie. my blog. I decided on a whim to see whether the domain name astridblogs.com is still free and it is. Or was. I must say it wasn’t entirely an impulsive decision, since I’ve been considering getting a more “typical” domain name for a while. I’m retaining my original domain name, of course.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d tell you that the client supporter contacted me today. I’d E-mailed her nearly two weeks ago, but apparently she had been quite busy. She has been giving me recommendations of places I might want to apply to, which I’ve been passing on to my care team. I did finally feel comfortable enough to share the doubts I’d had about one of the places she’d suggested. It’s on the Dutch Bible Belt. Even though the institution itself is no longer Christian, the town is and I don’t want to feel like I need to go back into the closet in order to feel safe there. Thankfully, I’ve already told my care team about this and that this place is definitely not high up on my list of places I want to be transferred to. Thankfully, there are still other options.

I do still feel sad at the reality of my needing to move. This feeling is even worse now that I’ve had a number of pretty good days. I’m for sure having everything crossed that the move won’t be yet another horrible choice.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (May 23, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. I originally started typing this post yesterday evening but got distracted and distressed and then never finished my post. It’s now nearly 9PM on Saturday. I just had my evening soft drink but since it’s blazing hot out here, I’ll have to make sure to drink plenty of water. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d expand on my comment about it being blazing hot and talk about the weather. Early in the week, the daytime temp barely got above 12°C and we had rain. On Wednesday, the daytime temperature started to rise and today it’s 30°C. I honestly don’t mind as much, although of course it still being May this makes me worried for the real summer.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that I am still in the game for a perfect month with respect to my movement ring on my Apple Watch. April was a hard month and I didn’t meet my goal several days. This month, I’m probably not going to meet my monthly challenge goal, but at least I still have a chance at closing my movement ring each day.

Yesterday, the staff and I originally planned on riding the side-by-side bike to the nearby lake for a cup of coffee (and my favorite caramel pie). Unfortunately, the bike wouldn’t work properly so we went for a walk instead and stopped by the institution townhouse for a coffee. They sometimes offer cake too, but apparently not this time.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I made use of both my culinary activity time slots this week. Today, I baked a banana cake. The bananas should’ve been riper, but it was okay nonetheless.

On Wednesday, I cooked a one-pot pasta dish with broccoli, chicken and pesto sauce. I’ve given up my idea of cooking vegan dinners only, because all the prep is just too hard.

Besides, the behavior specialist noticed how happy cooking for my fellow residents made me and talked to my support coordinator about it. Soon, I’ll likely have a weekly opportunity to cook for my side of the home. Whether this will be full-on dinner prep each week, will have to be decided on.

If we were having coffee, next I’d share that the behavior specialist came by on Thursday for a talk. It’s a shame she’s a substitute, because it looks like she’s much more understanding of my situation than the regular one. I do hope that she’ll be able to talk some sense into the regular one when she comes back in a month or so though.

It isn’t like she wasn’t critical of me, of course. For example, she asked me whether there’s any risk in my writing about my life in the institution openly online for this care agency. I was up front with her that I can be quite harsh in my criticism of my staff and, if they read it, they may recognize themselves. However, I never name my institution or any individual workers. Not that, being that I’m not an employee, there’s any law prohibiting me from naming and shaming the institution if I so wished, but I can see it wouldn’t help my relationship with my staff. That’s why I don’t usually give out my blog address to staff.

One of the positive outcomes of our meeting is the fact that the behavior specialist and I got talking about my IQ. As regular readers of this blog know, the IQ that’s in my care plan was pulled out of mid-air, in that no-one except for me knows where it came from and until now, no-one seemed to care. It turns out she’d been looking for the report and couldn’t find it. Phew, finally! I explained that the report is nowhere to be found except on my personal computer. The report literally dates back to 1999 and isn’t the best childhood psych eval report I have at that. But it’s the one with the catchiest punchline, ie. the three-digit IQ score. I never realized myself until very recently that most staff, being practically educated, go right for catchy bullet points and, as a result, won’t remember the pages and pages of information about my emotional development when they’ve been wowed about my “super high” IQ. In any case, here’s hoping the behavior specialist will finally get this nonsensical number removed from my care plan.

If we were having coffee, I’d then ramble on non-stop about the other issues this meeting brought up. Do you have a couple hours? I just deleted an incredibly long paragraph because I saw my post was fast approaching 1000 words. Instead, I’ll wrap this up and go to bed, as it’s nearly 11:30PM by now.

I’m Participating in the #AtoZChallenge Again After All

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. A few weeks ago, I wrote my intended theme reveal for the #AtoZChallenge. I had been unsure of my theme for a while and also unsure of whether I even wanted a theme. I finally decided on doing the challenge on gender and sexual diversity, published my theme reveal and then remembered to ask one of the hosts whether it meant my blog should be marked as having adult content. I got the response to do so just to be safe. That somehow put me off and I decided to delete my theme reveal post (thankfully I hadn’t put it into the Google document yet). I hope the fact that I’ve disclosed being queer on here a few times, doesn’t automatically mean my blog has adult content.

Fast forward to last Friday and I had the phone call with my mother I mentioned in my post that day. That got me thinking I want to write to process my feelings. So here I am thinking of doing my challenge on healing past hurts. I have not prepared any posts yet, so I’m not sure where this is headed, but I think it will be part journal/personal musing, part mental health awareness. Wish me luck!

Three Wishes, Revisited

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Last Tuesday, I saw the Writer’s Workshop prompts for this week. Several of them spoke to me but I somehow didn’t give myself the time to actually write on them. Today, I’m finally back on the blog and I’m choosing the prompt in which you’re granted three wishes. I did a post on this topic already in 2020. Let’s see how things have changed over the years. What would I wish for now?

1. Unlimited door-to-door transportation. I listed ParaTransit access as a wish in 2020, but now that I’m actually using it for things other than getting to my wife, I realize that it’s not that having unlimited kilometers would solve my problems getting to places. I’d also need the driver to actually drop me off at the place I want to go to. Transportation, after all, is one of the reasons I don’t go to cerebral palsy meetings as often as I’d like, because they’re often organized at restaurants, which taxis can’t reach.

2. My ideal room/apartment within a care facility. In 2020, I wanted to be closer to my wife, but if I have my transportation desires covered anyway, that’s no longer a necessity. My ideal place wouldn’t be much larger than my current room, but it would have a private bathroom and its own kitchen, in which I could prepare my own food with assistance. It would also not be as close to communal areas as my current room is, because well one of my main problems right now is overload from all the sounds coming from the living room.

Looking back, I can’t believe I didn’t list more care hours as a wish in 2020, being that I didn’t have my one-on-one at the time. I do now and of course I wish for it to stay the same.

3. Improved physical and mental health. Don’t we all wish for optimal health? I listed it in 2020 too, as my first wish in fact. Since then, my physical health has improved in some ways and declined in others. For example, I’ve lost significant amounts of weight that I indeed needed to lose and as a result, no longer have high blood pressure. I can also walk for longer. On the other hand, my tremors have gotten significantly worse and I believe my cognitive functioning has declined a bit too.

My mental health, I think, is better than it was in early 2020. I hope it improves more though.

Now that I compare my wishes to the ones I listed in 2020, I see an interesting trend, in that despite better quality of life, my wishes are still largely the same. No, that’s not entirely true: they’re bolder, in fact. I wonder what this means.

January 2026 in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this last day of the month. I’m joining Natalie for her monthly wrap-up. I started the month with optimism, but as I write this post at nearly 10PM on the 31st, I’m struggling to remain hopeful that anything will ever get better. And is it is, life is a battle.

I fully intended to experience more in the creative and culinary departments in 2026. This was not a total failure in January, but I didn’t start off the year with the bang I’d secretly hoped for.

I did create a few things out of polymer clay this past month. I also crafted a few new bracelets and a necklace. My last crafty project, however, was over a week ago. I created a crocodile out of polymer clay. No picture, as I haven’t even baked it yet. I did make plans with one of my staff to finally create the standing unicorn sculpture I have been meaning to create forever. Let’s hope it doesn’t just remain a plan.

I also didn’t cook a main dish even once. That’s sad, but on the other hand, I did manage to bake a few things. Most recently, yesterday, I baked granola. I ate it this morning with my quark and it was delicious!

In the blogging and general writing departments, the beginning of the month was also a lot more successful than the last couple of weeks. I once again gave up on #JusJoJan pretty early on and only managed to do my Morning Pages for a few days. I do however still have a streak going on in Day One, my preferred journaling app. Granted, I only write some snippets in response to a daily template, but oh well. I still like the Gratitude app, but don’t use it as faithfully as I’d intended. Then again, I realize that pressuring myself to write everyday, isn’t helping my joy.

In other news, none of my staff nor me have heard from the Center for Consultation and Expertise (CCE) yet. On top of that, the behavior specialist went on maternity leave a few weeks ago. She has someone subbing for her, but I doubt this has been communicated clearly to the CCE. Even if it has been, I sort of believe the consultant gave up on me when she got the impression my quality of life is okay.

I realize my support coordinator and assigned staff are well-meaning and really want to help me improve, but I get the impression part of the team doesn’t believe that I deserve or need anything to change. I’m still haunted by the words of my intensive support home assigned staff. She believed that, because of my attitude, there was no way I would ever be happy anywhere. This might be partly true, though it’s not because of my attitude but because living in a neurotypical world as an autistic person is hard. However, just because I’ll never be perfectly happy, doesn’t mean no-one should try to improve my situation. Then again, maybe I’m just one giant nagger of a person.

My Life Is Virtually Virtual

Posted on by Astrid
Daily writing prompt
In what ways do you communicate online?
View all responses

I get almost all of my social interaction from the Internet. I mean, yes, I do interact with my staff offline, but I mean interaction for fun and connections. Heck, without the Internet, I wouldn’t have met my wife. I have probably told the story of how we met a few times before, but it all boils down to one message I put on a forum back in 2007 and my now wife’s desire to expand her social circle. Had I not moaned about being bored and feeling lonely living on my own, she might never have reached out.

As for the types of online communication I use, these have evolved a lot over the years. Forums are no longer a thing. Neither is Facebook or so I’m told, but I still use it almost daily. I rarely post anything to my personal wall, but I do participate in groups and gather information off Facebook (though obviously one might wonder how much of that information is actually misinformation).

I’ve been told blogging is no longer a thing either. It’s probably partly true, in that for a blogger I’m young at 39 and eventually the generations above me will die out. I have been blogging on WordPress for 19 years next month, though I’ve only had my current blog for 7 1/2. Oh wait, I briefly had this blog back in 2011 too and till this day remember an embarrassing post about my wife from just after we got married.

So what types of online communication are actually still a thing today? I doubt I use many of them. I never used Snapchat and only watched a couple TikTok videos several years ago. I did try Instagram several times, but didn’t like it. I do watch YouTube videos, but will never create video content myself and that does make it less fun.

I do try to use Discord for expanding my social circle but experience that I’m a dinosaur compared to most of the users even on adult-oriented servers. Oh wait, someone half my age is already an adult. I remember explaining that Discord is like IRC and mentioning this in a Discord server and no-one knew what IRC was. I got a comment asking how it felt to be older than Google and responded that I’m even older than the World Wide Web.

As I get older, I find it harder to adjust to the new developments in online communication. I mean, I’m typing this post using the Block Editor and that’s a major struggle for me already. I learned WhatsApp with relative ease in 2017, but Discord is very hard for me to adapt to. However, I do want to keep up with the changing world of Internet-based interactions. If I don’t, I’ll lose the most important vessel of connection to the outside world. After all, my life might’ve become less exclusively virtual since living in a care home, but like I mentioned at the start of this post, the Internet is still where I gather most opportunities for leisurely interaction.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 10, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all on this freezing cold January Saturday! I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s past 10:30PM, so no more coffee or any other beverage for me. This evening, I thankfully did have my favorite soft drink, an apple and peach-flavored, slightly carbonated soda called Dubbelfrisss, again. Yesterday the staff offered me the raspberry and cranberry-flavored one, which I don’t like, and I thought the apple and peach one was out of stock at the online grocery store we use. Thankfully not. Oh my, I’ve already started to ramble.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s freakin’ cold! The entire week except for yesterday, it was snowy. Yesterday, we had rain. The daytime high was 4°C yesterday and that was the least cold it’s gotten. Tonight, we’re supposed to get temps as low as -9°C. Next week though is supposed to be rainy with daytime highs of 8°C.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share a few photos I took in my yard on Tuesday. I don’t care for making snowmen, though now I wish I’d taken pictures of the ones my fellow clients had been making. After all, I do like photographing.


If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you that my assigned staff finally plans to discuss a new day schedule with my support coordinator (the one who’s now my support coordinator anyway, as my assigned staff will be taking over from her eventually) next week. I’ll discuss my ideas with her tomorrow.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that, like i mentioned yesterday, I’ve been quite crafty again. This week, I made a necklace, a bracelet and several polymer clay things. I also photographed the unicorn I’d made last week. Did I mention that? I can’t remember. Anyway, I used seed beads for its eyes.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share that the idea of a possible new day schedule has me looking into cooking more again. I really hope that will be part of the schedule too. I’ve been obsessing over buying some new gadgets, such as a food processor.

Today, I planned on making flatbread again. I badly want to make it for all my fellow residents, not just the ones who stay at the home during day activities. Unfortunately, I was too tired and the living room was too overwhelming.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that I’m sort of frustrated with my blog. I mean, the AI training robots seem to have left the building, but now I’m getting tons of E-mails through the contact form that look to be spam. I’m also struggling to comprehend the numbers of likes and comments on my posts. On some, I get tons of likes and a decent number of comments, but on others, hardly any. I tell myself this is a thing each January as people adjust to the new year and new ways of doing link-ups such as this one.

The Good and the Bad: How I’d Rate My Days

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today’s Sunday Poser is rather relevant for me. In it, Sadje asks us how we’d rate our day. I’m not going to pick a specific day, but use this as an opportunity to write about the quality of my days and as such my quality of life.

When the Center for Consultation and Expertise consultant met with me last September, at one point she asked me how I’d rate my quality of life on a scale from 1 to 10. I find this difficult to say, as some days just about completely suck while others are okay or even somewhat joy-filled. I said that, on my absolutely awesomest days, I’d still rate them 7 out of 10 due to the fact that I experience pain and other forms of discomfort daily. Honestly though, I’m being optimistic when I do this. Even on my greatest days, after all, I hardly experience any noteworthy things. Like, I consider cooking or crafting to be enjoyable, but is my day really more than just about okay when I have done one of these?

This also signifies that my life could still very much be improved with just a few in my opinion relatively minor changes to my care. However, my staff see it differently, because they believe I can’t do a cooking or crafting activity when I’m in distress and, I believe, they also think I should be happy with just a walk and a dice game each day. Which, honestly, I’m not.

This makes me feel bad. In the words of my assigned staff at the intensive support home, when the staff follow my day schedule perfectly and I get all familiar staff, my day should be perfect. I replied, in my opinion truthfully, that no-one ever has a perfect day.

Now, to answer Sadje’s question about how I’d rate today: I’d probably rate it a 4 out of 10. I was rather distressed due to another incident yesterday. I also didn’t get to do anything other than go for two walks and play a game of Yatzy. I did, however, manage to do some reading and, as you can see, am writing this blog post. This signifies that, despite my distress, I’m still relatively able to function. My days could still be a lot worse. Besides, I had a cup of green tea in the evening. Oh wait, there I was being cynical, because green tea has become my symbol for how I actually feel about my life: when a cup of green tea is the highlight of my day or even week, that’s rather odd.

Today’s Small Joys (June 1, 2025)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. Today is a mixed day emotionally. In the morning, I was quite tired and this frustrated me. At night, I also experienced frustration at the fact that, tomorrow morning, there’ll only be temp workers on this side of the home. We’ll see how it goes though and right now, I want to write and not just moan. So I’m joining Sunny Sunday and sharing this day’s small joys.

1. Doing my hair. I rarely do anything with my hair except for brushing it, but today I decided I wanted it in a ponytail. I have a dozen scrunchies and selected one that has a really velvety texture.

2. Perfume. I also decided to spray on some perfume. I rarely do this and wasn’t sure anyone other than me would notice, but my best friend did.

3. A white Kinder Bueno. Usually my best friend and I buy one to share when we’re at Hema, my best friend’s favorite store. We were there this afternoon, but only to have lunch. I said I wanted to pop into Aldi for some quark and my best friend apparently needed groceries too. It still surprised me that, when dropping me off at the institution, my best friend gave me the Kinder Bueno.

4. A pun on the word “quark”. For those not from Europe, quark is like thick yogurt (sometimes wrongly called cottage cheese). My friend though found another meaning, some type of physics term, and kept asking me whether I wanted “hadron-yogurt”. This is something I truly love about our friendship: the tons of inside jokes that no-one else understands.

5. A large stroopwafel (cookie) with my evening coffee. According to my foo plan, I only get those on Fridays and Saturdays, so it was great having a treat.

6. Lovely comments from my readers. I am so glad I don’t rely on search engines like Google (thank you not, AI) to drive traffic to my blog. I do really hope blogging will withstand the influx of AI.

7. Speaking of AI, having some more creative ideas thanks to a ChatGPT convo I had several months ago and was reminded of today. Specifically, I had ChatGPT create a Premo polymer clay color recipe for the color of my best friend’s car and was reminded of this when a person in a Facebook group asked for Premo color recipes. There are plenty on Etsy, but in that group, we aren’t allowed to mention vendors. Another commenter said a lot of it is experimenting. I am now wanting to start experimenting with colors. I know the result will likely be poor because of my blindness, but I love the creative flow this idea gets me into.