The Wednesday Hodgepodge (September 23, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m joining in with the Wednesday Hodgepodge once again. Here goes.

1. Fall arrives this week in the northern hemisphere. Does it look/feel like fall where you live?What’s something you love to do this time of year that makes you feel its officially fall?
It doesn’t look or feel like fall here yet. The temps are still in the lower 20s Celsius and a temperature of 25°C (which is called summerlike here) is in the forecast for next week. I do think I heard some staff say that some leaves are starting to color, but not much.

I don’t really have any fall traditions, honestly. To me, it doesn’t officially feel like fall/winter until the clock falls back at the end of October.

2. What’s a small daily task or chore that always seems to fall through the cracks when your schedule gets busy?
Truthfully? Showering. I don’t like the feel of it one bit and it costs me a lot of energy. It’s the first thing that I avoid when I’m too overloaded. I must of course explain here that I don’t do any daily household chores myself, so that leaves only the bare necessities. As such, maybe I should’ve said every daily chore falls through the cracks.

3. What’s something you’re falling for lately?
Cooking supplies and unnecessary food items. I am almost proud of myself for not immediately having ordered the food processor add-on I’ve been wanting ever since I found out it doesn’t come with the main package right when my benefits came in today.

4.  Pumpkin is a popular flavor this time of year.  Are you a fan?
Not a fan per se, but I don’t hate it either. I actually did love the pasta bake I made last week. Since there’s no actual pumpkin in pumpkin spice, I’m not sure whether that’s included in this question but I do think I’d love that. Still wanting to try a pumpkin spice latte.

5. What’s something you wish would never change? Explain.
My friendship with my best friend. We celebrated nineteen years since first meeting last Saturday. I’m scared it will change though. That is, I know it will with both of us moving and expanding our circles etc. as well as both of us learning to be more authentic, but at least I hope it’ll never fully end.

6. Insert your own random thought here.
Today, I was talking culinary activities with my support coordinator and mentioned wanting to bake my own bread at least once. She saw how excited talking about it made me! I’m for sure hoping I can give it a try sometime soon. At least she agreed to order flour and yeast.

Food Prep Gives Me Joy #WeeklyWonders

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Today in Day One, Automattic’s personal diary app, the daily prompt was to talk about the simple pleasures you’ve enjoyed lately. I’ve always wondered why Day One’s prompts don’t align with the ones on WordPress, but oh well. I don’t like WP’s daily prompt today anyway, as it brings too many sad thoughts. As such, I’m going to share some things that brought me joy lately. And many of those things involve food, of course.

First up are vegan pancakes. I sort of impulsively decided to make those yesterday and they were absolutely delish!

Granted, I did add caramel sauce as a topping, which isn’t vegan, but I don’t care.

Then, in the evening, I decided to try to make a smoothie bowl. I may’ve shared a few weeks ago that I accidentally made one when I had too little coconut milk left to make a drinkable smoothie. This smoothie bowl had the opposite problem, in my opinion, but it was a fun experiment.

I decided to randomly add flaxseed and pecans to the topping. My staff said it didn’t appeal to her, but then again she doesn’t like blueberries anyway. I know this isn’t the most visually appealing smoothie bowl, but it was my first attempt. That is, except for the time many years ago when I thought a smoothie bowl was just a smoothie poured into a bowl.

I’m joining in with #WeeklyWonders today.

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.

Crafty In the Kitchen

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Esther’s writing prompt for this week is “crafty”. I could of course moan about the fact that I haven’t been crafting anything with polymer clay in at least a month. However, the reason that polymer clay is taking a back seat, is the fact that I’ve been crafty in many other ways. I mean, is cooking a craft? And if so, am I good enough at it to consider myself crafty in this respect? This is a question of skill and of self-esteem that I won’t go into right now. The main thing is that I’ve truly been enjoying being crafty in the kitchen.

Yesterday, a staff who’s almost as easily stressed as I am, was assigned to me for my two-hour activity time slot and I’d planned to cook. What’s more, I’d planned to create a crispy rice salad with tofu, lots of vegetables, a homemade dressing and of course fried rice. Oh my, was I scared! Thankfully, the staff admitted that so was she and this opened the door for both of us to remain calmer than we’d be if we hadn’t been open about our vulnerabilities. And guess what? The process went well and the salad was absolutely delish! The original recipe was for four servings and I didn’t have the guts to change anything, so I had quite a bit left when I’d consumed my meal. Thankfully, I knew this in advance so had asked a fellow resident who loves the cooking experience whether he’d like a serving too. He did and he liked it too. So did the staff I’d cooked it with. So now the three of us all had some extra, but that’s totally okay. By the way, MyFitnessPal was finally content with my protein intake and like I said I hadn’t even eaten meat.

I also love whipping up random food from things I still have left over from previous culinary endeavors. For example, on Tuesday, I made an avocado-chocolate mousse. I looked for coconut milk and cacao powder to go into it when at the supermarket with my best friend on Sunday. We didn’t find the cacao powder, but thankfully I still had enough in my cupboard. However, the recipe only called for 125ml of coconut milk for six servings and the smallest container was 200ml.

Until recently, I’d have thrown away the leftover coconut milk. I’m not saying I won’t do this anymore, as sometimes I totally forget that I have something left in the fridge. However, today I did remember and I whipped up what I’d planned to be a smoothie. I couldn’t find any recipe that I had all the ingredients for, but I experimented by adding frozen mango and the leftover coconut milk to my kitchen machine’s blender. What do you English-speaking people even call a multipurpose food processor/stand mixer/whatever? That’s the thing I have. Anyway, the mixture was way too thick to be a smoothie, but it was delicious as a mousse.

Experimenting does sometimes lead to less desirable results. This evening, for example, I tried to make a homemade chai latte, but my homemade chai mix probably has way too much black pepper in it. I still hope that’s not the problem, as I also added it to my overnight oats for tomorrow. However, I must say culinary craftiness does help me develop my sense of what I like and dislike and why. There I’m talking self-image after all.

Logging My Food

Posted on by Astrid

Hi all. I’ve been tracking my food intake over the past week. I did this sporadically over the years when I was dieting (or trying to, that is). Now that I’ve been keeping a food log for a week, I’m getting an inkling of why I never kept my food log for any length of time: I’m not sure whether it’ll actually help me make healthier food choices.

That is, I’m pretty sure it won’t. Almost each day over the past week, the app I’m tracking my food intake in has been telling me that I consume more calories than I burn. It’s also telling me that I consume more fat and carbohydrates than I should and not enough protein. Yes, even on days when I eat meat and dairy. And I tend to choose low-fat dairy and the meal delivery service offers lean meats.

I’m not sure whether I want to continue logging my food intake, because on the one hand, yes, I want to be more conscious of what I shove into my mouth. On the other hand, I don’t want this to become an obsession, especially because it tends to lead to a pendulum effect. What I mean is I might like to know what I’m eating, but if the app keeps telling me it’s too much, I am probably going to decide to screw the entire thing after all and just start eating whatever the heck I want., I don’t want this to turn into another diet.

One thing that the app does help me with, is predict my weight gain or loss. Or at least, that’s what I hope it’ll do. For years, after all, I’ve been worrying that I experience unexplained weight loss. The reason is the fact that I quite easily maintain these days and even lost over 20kg over the years. I’m hoping that, if I do decide to follow through with MyFitnessPal, I’ll be able to see why I’m maintaining, losing or gaining. One worry that I never even thought of until I learned about protein though, is that I’m losing muscle mass.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 4, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this late Friday evening. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare again. It’s nearly 10:30PM as I start typing this post, so no more coffee for me. If you’d like something to drink though, 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, like I usually do. It’s been cloudy and rainy most of the week with daytime temps around 20°C. It’s also still pretty warm indoors.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m still meeting my movement goal on my Apple Watch so far each day. Did I share that I finally got a perfect month again in August?

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you that I’m still going strong with the culinary activities. On Wednesday, I cooked a creamy pasta dish. The recipe was supposed to be vegan with a plant-based Parmesan cheese alternative and coconut milk in it instead of cream and actual cheese. I got quite stressed early in the week, feeling guilty that I’d de-veganized the meal by choosing to get regular Parm. I’m not a vegan myself, but I once again twisted my best friend’s yapping about veganism to be a personal attack. It wasn’t, for clarity’s sake! In fact, when she found out I had cooked the dish for my fellow residents as well, she said she’d have discouraged me from using vegan Parm since it can be quite disappointing taste-wise to those who are used to consuming real cheese. She also made it clear that I don’t need to justify my lifestyle choices to her. I apologized for having misinterpreted her activism as a personal attack. By the way, the meal was good.

Pasta

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that I’ve been keeping a food log for the past few days in the MyFitnessPal app. I’m doing pretty well except that I’m finding it’s a struggle to get in enough protein on days that I’m not eating meat. I definitely need to research plant-based protein sources, since I’ve read on the Dutch Voedingscentrum (Food Center) site that it’s recommended to get 60% of your protein from plant-based sources. I’m also not getting in enough fiber or so the app says.

If we were having coffee, then I’d share that, today, we had French fries and a snack in honor of a fellow resident’s birthday. I’d also eaten an apfelstrüdel in the afternoon, so I exceeded my daily calorie goal by over 300.

I had originally planned to create crispy rice salad this weekend, but the shredded cabbage I got from the supermarket yesterday would’ve needed to be used by Sunday. I ate it today as a side with my fries and snack, because I wasn’t sure it’d retain its full freshness until I could create the rice salad. Now my best friend wants to come by on Sunday anyway, so I’m now not sure whether I’ll be making the crispy rice salad tomorrow or will be postponing it until next week.

Initially, we’d agree to see each other tomorrow, since I needed to get my hair cut. However, this morning I thought I had a cold so canceled the hairdresser appt. My best friend then asked to meet on Sunday because that’s what we usually do. It turned out I don’t really have a cold (though it might be on its way) after all. I do have pretty nasty bowel cramps from the fat in the fries plus the cabbage though. Still not getting enough fiber according to the fitness app.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been feeling rather upset about the lack of apparent progress on the moving front. It’s not necessarily that I wish I could move sooner, but that I’m afraid the higher-ups are doing things behind my back that I have no say in and that this means they won’t care about where I’ll be moving.

If we were having coffee, I’d end with a photo of this evening’s sky at sunset. It’s now past 11:30PM and I’m going off to bed, I think.

Sunset

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 28, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone! I’m joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare once again. It’s nearly 11PM, so I’m hoping I can finish this post before midnight. I don’t think I even want water anymore before going to bed, but if you’d like a cup of something to drink, feel free to and let’s chat.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. It’s been all over the place. Early in the week, we had cool nights during which the temperature dropped to 7°C. Yesterday was hot again with a daytime temp of 29°C. We got thunderstorms last night and it’s been raining all day today.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I met my movement goal on my Apple Watch each day except for today so far. Now I’m in doubt as to which option is the lesser of two evils: not meeting my movement goal or not finishing this post before midnight. Neither is truly disastrous, of course, but both cause me some autistic error.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, yesterday, I rode the side-by-side bike to Deventer with a staff. We visited the market, where I bought olives mostly because the vendor was trying to be friendly. I know it’s a selling tactic but I don’t care. Heck, he even suggested he’d see me tomorrow (today) at the other market I frequent. I told him not to get his hopes up.

We also ate lunch and then rode the bike to the town center for Ekoplaza, a health food store. I was looking for silken tofu, but it was in the fridge and I had to cycle nearly half an hour back to the institution, so I decided that wouldn’t be a good idea. Then I bought several other things that I later realized I should’ve bought at the regular supermarket because they were horribly expensive at Ekoplaza. Oh well.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you I finally bought myself a food processor. I’m not entirely sure I like the particular model I got, mostly because it has a lot of gadgets I thought I could use but may not be able to after all and it lacks attachments I wish it had. For example, I full on thought it had a grinder attachment but it didn’t. That either means chopping my onions myself or investing in another part (thankfully, the grinder is available as an attachment for this model).

Tomorrow, I’ll find out whether the thing actually does the job it was originally intended for, because I’m going to make a vegan and gluten-free cake that the mixture for needs to be processed. I’m a little saddened that my best friend doesn’t feel well so isn’t going to come by on Sunday. If it turns out good though, I will make it another time for her.

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you I did enjoy a dinner prep activity again on Wednesday. I cooked something that was called a curry on the Good Food website but it was more like a bean stew. It had kidney beans, tomato, onions, garlic and ginger in it, in addition to coriander stalks. The coriander leaves were supposed to be used on top of the curry, but the staff forgot those. The weather outside was really nice that evening, so I ate my meal at my outside table.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d share that it’s probably supposed to be this way but I just found out that another person I recently became friends with is a vegan. We met through a peer support group and for a while used to talk mostly about our issues, but today I shared about my Ekoplaza adventure and this got us chatting plant-based food. If there’s a higher power, it’s probably telling me I should go vegan too. Then again, my best friend already told me jokingly that I’m a changeling (referring to a former online nickname) for not fancying pizza tonight.

I Don’t Do Diets

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. Recently I’ve been thinking about the dietary choices I’ve been making over the years. The reason was the recent argument with my best friend over the tuna salad and the fact that I’d said I’d try to cook just vegan when preparing meals for myself. The thing is, I should’ve known it wasn’t going to work out. In that sense, she was right that I’d lied.

This signifies a common theme with my life choices: I full-on intend to follow a particular lifestyle, try it for a short while than abandon the entire thing and do whatever the heck I like. I try to avoid this pitfall this time. I’m already happy that I’m still making an effort to be aware of what I shove into my mouth and its impact on my health, animals and the environment. In that sense, it’s progress, not perfection and that’s totally okay with me. I will probably never be a vegan, after all.

The same happened when I was dieting to lose weight. I hated the strict food plan the dietitian gave me, tried it for a short time (even shorter than my vegan experiment) only to give up on it. Thankfully, I was able to negotiate a middle path with the dietitian and I’m doing the same with myself about eating plant-based. )For clarity’s sake: it wasn’t like my best friend was trying to convert me to veganism, so in this sense it’s only myself I have to be accountable to.) In other words, I’m not eating whatever the heck I fancy at any given moment, but I’m not pushing myself to stick to any diet or eating preference. That’s just going to backfire, after all.

Tomorrow, by the way, I’m cooking a vegan curry yet again. Not with chickpeas this time. I love trying out many different foods and learning about their impact. For this reason, I also actually like my best friend’s yapping about veganism.

This post was written for #FOWC with the prompt of “Dieting” and for #RDP with the prompt word of “Whatever”.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 21, 2026)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m once again joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare. I just had my last cup of coffee for the day. I drank it out of my 40th birthday mug. That is, one of my two 40th birthday mugs, the one with the unicorn. I also had a slice of homemade cake with it. There’s still some cake left. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, first I’d talk about the weather. Was it seriously blazing hot last week? Now the daytime temperature barely gets above 20°C and it’s been raining most of the week. I tell myself it’s good for nature and at least it’s better than the tropical temps we used to have.

If we were having coffee, next I’d share that I’m still going strong with my movement goal on my Apple Watch. Yesterday I just about met it because it had been raining all day. I did try to do some stretching and other non-cardio exercise yesterday and today. Boy, does one of the probably rather weak muscles in my upper arm hurt now!

If we were having coffee, then I’d tell you that I did several culinary activities again over the week. On Wednesday, I made another vegan curry. I forgot to take a picture, but it was very tasty.

Yesterday, a staff wanted to make overnight oats because it’s in my day schedule. That day schedule is one thing that needs to be looked at before I move, but that’s a topic for another post. Let’s just say activity-based planning doesn’t work the way I’d envisioned it. Anyway, I said I wanted to make homemade granola. I pulled out a recipe, but didn’t know that there were annoying ads in the way that made it hard for the staff to read the recipe. Plus, this staff rarely cooks or bakes. Thankfully, another staff was able to step in, though it took me having a meltdown and the first staff restraining me before this happened. I finally did make the granola.

The staff apparently got interested, because today when he was assigned to me again and it was too rainy to go outside, he proposed to do a baking activity. We went into the storage room to look for ingredients and asked a more culinary savvy staff for advice. That’s how we got to baking the aforementioned cake. The original recipe called for vanilla, but we didn’t have that on hand, so I improvised and added cinnamon instead. The cake was good, though it was a little too dry for my liking.

If we were having coffee, I’d also tell you that I’ve been hyperfocusing on more fancy things to cook and bake too. For example, earlier in the week or maybe it was last week when making the vegan mango mousse, I found a recipe for a vegan and gluten-free cake. Yesterday, a staff tried to order the ingredients so that I could bake it tomorrow, but the online grocery store the care home orders from didn’t have most of what we needed. That led to a drive to the next town (like I said, it was raining all day, so no bike ride) for the needed ingredients.

Then of course I already baked a cake today. Besides, the one I originally wanted to make tomorrow could best be prepared in a food processor and I still don’t have one. I thought of ordering one yesterday, because Bol delivers the next day, but the day center which serves as the institution’s package collection point was closed today. For this reason, I decided to postpone baking the fancy cake. Thankfully, all ingredients have a long shelf life.

If we were having coffee, finally I’d share that there’s no progress on the moving front yet. I met with the behavior specialist again on Monday to discuss some concerns. This was a good meeting. Mainly, she reassured me that I’m not required to accept whatever new place the bureaucrats decide will be suitable. Like, obviously I can’t turn down a place because of a minor detail (I always jokingly use the color of the carpet as an example), but so far all the criteria I’ve specified sound reasonable to her.