Lovin’ Lately (February 11, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this cold Friday evening. It’s near freezing point here, but it’s also been sunny out today. Today, I’m going to share some things I’ve loved lately. Here goes.

1. Chalk pastels. I really wanted to buy these at Action (the budget store) last week when going there with my staff, but they didn’t have them. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have been good quality either, so I eventually decided to buy a set of 36 chalk pastels off Bol.com. The below heart, I did with polymer clay and colored with red and purple chalk pastels.

2. Paint brushes. I did get those at Action and they’re pretty good. I can use them for applying acrylic paint (which I also bought), Fimo liquid, varnish, etc. to my polymer clay.

3. New colors of polymer clay. I ordered five packets of polymer clay at my favorite Fimo shop, three of which I already had a little of. The new-to-me colors were Chocolate and Jade. I particularly think I love the color Jade. Of course, being that I am totally blind now, I may remember the color all wrong from the days I owned a piece of jade and the color of polymer clay may not look like the gemstone at all. However, I like to let my imagination run wild.

4. Tuna. Last week, my husband couldn’t visit me due to the storm. This meant we wouldn’t be going to Subway to get lunch either. To give me something to make up for it, my assigned staff ordered canned tuna from the supermarket to be delivered on Tuesday. I ate half the can on my bread on Wednesday and the other half on Thursday. At first, I thought I was going way overboard with my food plan, but the dietitian today reassured me that I wasn’t especially since it was tuna in water, not olive oil or the like.

5. Quick and hassle-free delivery of all my recent orders. I ordered the chalk pastels on Saturday and, thanks to being a Select member to Bol.com, got free next-day delivery, including on Sundays. I ordered the polymer clays on Monday late afternoon and received them Tuesday. I also ordered a varnish for my polymer clay with a new-to-me store, which also delivered the next day.

One thing I’m still waiting for, is a CD I ordered for my father’s birthday back last month. It had to come out of the UK and I just got confirmation yesterday that it’d arrived in the Netherlands, but I had to pay a customs clearance fee. Thankfully, the process of paying this fee was very doable via the postal service website.

What are some things you’ve loved lately?

I’m linking up with Link-Up on the Edge #282.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (February 6, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this rainy, windy Sunday afternoon. I’m really regretting having started the landing page for #Write28Days rather than just having linked up some archive of the tag or something, as today I’m already a day behind and it looks weird to add posts to my landing page again now. Okay, maybe that’s just my autistic brain acting up. Anyway, this afternoon I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. If I feel so inclined, I’m going to add another post on my #Write28Days topic tonight, but again I won’t promise I will.

I’ve just had my afternoon coffee. I’m supposed to have a serving of fruit with that. Since the supermarket delivered 5kg of pears yesterday, the staff badly wanted me to eat a pear. Thing is, I’m not a fan. Besides, it’s not my problem either the supermarket got the order wrong or my staff mistyped it in the system. They should have been five pears, not 5kg. Anyway, I chose a banana, but if you all would like a pear (or two) with your coffee, tea or soft drink, we’ve got loads! Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d share some more details than I did yesterday about my psychiatrist’s appointment on Tuesday. First, we decided to decrease my topiramate (Topamax) dose again to 25mg morning and 25mg evening, because the other 25mg I was taking in the evening was only giving me side effects and no positive effects. We also discussed my fear of letting go of my sense of control particularly in the evening and at night when getting ready for sleep. This means that traditional anti-anxiety medications or sleeping pills are pretty much out of the question for me, since they’d cause me to get drowsy and hence by definition lose a bit of control. Then, I’d fight the effect of those pills and get even more anxious. The psychiatrist instead prescribed me pregabalin (Lyrica). This, like topiramate, is originally an anticonvulsant, but it also works for anxiety. I would be starting with one 75mg tablet on Saturday early evening (around 5PM, when we have dinner here).

The psychiatrist also recommended that my nurse practitioner talk to the mental health agency’s psychologist to see if she can offer me ideas for coping with the anxiety. My nurse practitioner is also going to discuss this with my care facility’s behavior specialist.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, indeed, I started on my decreased topiramate dosage on Tuesday right away. I slept great my first night and originally thought maybe this was the solution after all. It wasn’t to be though, as the next day I was right back to being sleepless and anxious.

Then yesterday I was anxiously awaiting starting my pregabalin at 5PM only to find out first that the staff thought it was put in the med system for 8PM. Then, once they took a closer look, they found out the pharmacy had put it in there for 8AM and the morning staff had indeed given it to me. I’d apparently taken it without noticing. No side effects so far, but this really is quite stupid, as there’s a reason I should be taking it early in the evening. I E-mailed my nurse practitioner, who will hopefully get back to me tomorrow. By the way, I also noticed I got a capsule rather than a tablet. The dosage is right, thankfully.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, yesterday, I decided to order soft pastels to use with my polymer clay. They should be getting here any moment, as thanks to my Select membership with Bol.com, I can have stuff delivered for free any day of the week.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that I asked about sealing my polymer clay creations if I’d used acrylic paint or soft pastels on them. I particularly commented that I don’t want to use resin for this, as it’s rather risky with the UV or fumes of the two-component epoxy. Thankfully, I was reassured that sealing isn’t really necessary and, if it is, I can use other products than resin, such as floorboard protector or liquid clay.

If we were having coffee, lastly I’d share that, due to the high winds, my husband didn’t visit today. He didn’t want to risk driving on the highway in his small Daihatsu Cuore, particularly near Lobith, where they’d issued a weather warning. Better luck next week!

How have you been?

Gratitude List (February 5, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this Saturday evening. I’m doing a gratitude list again. I don’t promise I’ll have time for another post for #Write28Days, but I’ll try. As usual, with this post, I am joining in with Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). Here goes.

1. I am grateful for a good psychiatrist’s appt on Tuesday. I went to the mental health outpatient clinic to meet my nurse practitioner face-to-face and we talked to the psychiatrist via the eHealth system, as she was working from home. I got a new medication, which should hopefully help reduce my anxiety.

2. I am grateful I got a license code for the latest JAWS, my screen reader. I don’t know how the screen reader company managed to arrange for it so quickly, as I haven’t seen the bill in my health insurance app yet, but oh well.

3. I am grateful WordPress still provides the classic editor as an option. The latest JAWS does work with the block editor, so I tried that for a few days, but I kept accidentally deleting random paragraph blocks and overall, I consider it still quite a cumbersome editor.

4. I am grateful I have been able to be crafty again. My flower fairy or whatever it was, didn’t turn out as good as I’d liked. Besides, in the tutorial, they did the body in light flesh color, same as the head, so it looks like the thingy is naked. For this reason, I’m not going to show it on my blog in case I offend anyone.

I did create a Disney princess figurine out of polymer clay on Thursday. Most staff immediately guessed correctly who it was when looking at her: Elsa from Frozen. Since it’s quite small (only about 3cm high), I wasn’t able to refine her facial features or whatever. That’s okay though.

Polymer Clay Elsa from Frozen

5. I am grateful for a trip to Action, a budget store, in a town about a 20-minute drive away on Friday. We do have an Action here in Raalte too, but the one in that town was larger or so my staff said. I bought acrylic paint to paint details like eyes on my polymer clay creations, thin paintbrushes to use with the acrylic paint or with glitters or Fimo liquid, a utility knife and some other things. I was looking for soft pastels too, since the site said they sell them, but apparently this particular store didn’t have them in stock.

6. I am grateful for decent sleep most nights this week. I slept really poorly on Wednesday, but the other nights, I slept okay.

7. I am grateful to have been accepted into some lovely Christian E-mail groups. I am grateful for the kind people on there and for the fact that they don’t judge me for not living with my husband, which I know isn’t a traditional Christian marriage setup.

8. I am grateful I have been able to blog consistently for a few days now. I am not sure how long I’ll be able to keep it up, but we’ll just have to see.

9. I am grateful I am able to make relatively healthy food choices on days even when I did have a “bad” food for lunch for example. I mean, I don’t do “cheat days” where I ditch the food plan altogether and that’s good. Every healthy food choice I make contributes to my ultimate goal of a healthier lifestyle.

10. I am grateful for no side effects from the new medication so far. I was supposed to get it at 5PM this evening, but due to some mistake the pharmacy made, it got in the system for 8AM. The staff gave it to me this morning and I took it without concern. I am so glad we found out before the evening staff gave me an extra dose.

What are you grateful for?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 30, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I’m extremely late joining in with #WeekendCoffeeShare this week. I already had all my coffee for the weekend, in fact, so the title of my blog post is rather off, but oh well. The linky’s still open for another nine hours, so I’m going to take advantage of it and participate. Let’s have a drink and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start by sharing that the weather is slightly better than it was last week. It’s warmed up a bit, at least. That being said, we’re supposed to get rain all of next week, so I’m probably still not going out much.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that today is my father-in-law’s 65th birthday. Retirement age is now 67 here I believe, so it’s not significant in that sense. At least, my father-in-law is keeping his dentistry practice until he’s 67. My husband did buy him a beer and I sent him a text, but that’s as far as birthday celebrations go, I think.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been creating some quite interesting polymer clay things lately. One is a flower fairy, another a kawaii pig pendant and another a daisy. That daisy didn’t turn out as good as I’d like, but my husband did say he liked the fairy. I haven’t baked any of the things yet.

If we were having coffee, I’d use the rest of my post to whine about how my anxiety is still through the roof. I hardly slept at all Friday night. Then yesterday, I had an okay day until in the evening a fellow client started screeching. I tried to get the staff’s attention but they wouldn’t react until I grabbed the other client by the arm, then only told me that said client, who is non-speaking, couldn’t help her behavior. I’ve been feeling extremely unsettled and unsafe in my current care home ever since. I am all the more triggered because staff keep repeating that I’ll likely feel unsafe in any other place. They probably say it to mean every other place has its drawbacks too, but I take it to mean that my anxiety is my problem and I’m the one who needs to change so I just need to suck it up and stop complaining.

I’ve also been thinking about how I had fewer crises when living with my husband than now that I live in the care facility. Isn’t this telling? I mean, doesn’t this mean that I should get a kick in the butt and go back to living semi-independently? Granted, I had far fewer moments of joy too, but I’m not sure that matters if I was less dependent back then. Isn’t the goal independence, after all? Eek, that scares me, and that in turn should be quite telling, right? I’m probably just one giant mess of a dependent, manipulative, attention-seeking monster.

Okay, if we were having coffee, I’d end on a positive note and say I had a delicious tuna wrap today when going to the Subway drive-through for lunch with my husband. I also had one half of a Bueno candy bar, as my husband had bought it at the supermarket. I originally wanted to refuse as it isn’t on my food plan, but the dietitian had said exceptions are okay.

How have you been?

Gratitude List (January 28, 2022) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I have been doing my gratitude posts on Saturday lately, but today I feel in the mood for one and I don’t care that it’s Friday. Since the Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT) linky is live already, I’m joining in with it. Here goes.

1. I am grateful for Chinese takeout on Sunday. It was delicious! Originally, the staff had been planning on cooking noodles herself, but then due to another staff contracting COVID, shifts got moved around. The staff who would be cooking the noodles, had ordered shoarma to go with the noodles, which was a combination neihter me nor the staff who was now going to cook liked. In the end, we decided to put the shoarma in the freezer and get Chinese takeout.

2. I am grateful my husband, who got ill with the flu last week, is better again. He tested negative for COVID, thankfully, and was able to return to work on Tuesday.

3. I am grateful a fellow client, who went into hospital earlier in the week, was able to come home again.

4. I am grateful for fried fish for lunch on Tuesday. Originally, I felt bad about doing something that wasn’t on my food plan twice in one week, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway. In addition, thankfully, the dietitian reassured me that this is completely within reason.

5. I am grateful I lost 1kg over the past week and have only 0.2kg to lose to cross the border from obese to overweight. I am also grateful that the dietitian isn’t expecting me to lose weight quickly. Furthermore, once I am in the overweight category, the main goal is to prevent weight gain really.

6. I am grateful for the support of my assigned staff. Last Wednesday night, I hardly slept at all and I sent her an E-mail in the middle of the night. The next morning, even though she hadn’t read my E-mail yet, she woke me up despite actually not being my staff for that morning. We had a very good talk.

7. I am grateful for the support of my nurse practitioner. He doesn’t really know what will help me in the way of medication or whatever yet, now that we’ve more or less concluded that the topiramate isn’t as effective as we’d hoped. However, he’s enlisting the help of the psychiatrist.

8. I am grateful I finished my first handmade polymer clay necklace in time to give it to a fellow client in the care home downstairs from mine for her birthday today. It took me over a month of hard work, but I am so proud of myself for finishing it! I am also grateful she was very happy with it.

9. I am grateful for an extra weighted blanket when I feel very anxious. I always use a blanket filled with sand-like granules when sleeping, but when I feel very anxious, I can add a ball-filled blanket on top of it for extra deep pressure.

10. I am grateful I was able to solve at least one of the problems the most recent iOS update was causing with VoiceOver on my iPhone. Since updating, VoiceOver’s speech prefaced every character I typed by “Underscore”. This turned out to be due to a setting that had been switched by the update or something. Unfortunately, some problems, like Braille display sluggishness, persist.

What have you been grateful for?

Crafting Unicorns!

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I came up with today’s prompt for #JusJoJan and it’s “Unicorn”.

I love love love unicorns! I have two unicorn soft toys. One, I got when I left the first day center with my current care agency back in early August of 2018. The other, I got in my Christmas hamper at the next day center that year.

Other than soft toys, I also have a number of unicorns I crafted out of polymer clay. Today, I am going to show you a few of my recent creations.

First up is a white unicorn charm. It is mostly two-dimensional, which I don’t really like, because it means its horn sticks out up rather than forward. It has a rose on top of its head. That one took me about half an hour to craft, because my Fimo Soft polymer clay was just a little too soft for my liking. For the rose, I used the color Cherry Red and I used Tropical Green for the leaves. The horn is done using Metallic Gold Fimo Effect.

The next unicorn I’m going to show you is my favorite so far. It was done using Pastel Lilac Fimo Effect. I did the mane and tail in Metallic Gold and Metallic Silver and used Metallic Gold for its horn. I added some purple glitters to its legs and ears for some extra sparkle.

Then last Thursday, I tried to create the perfect unicorn. I originally wanted to create the same unicorn as above but put it onto a green, flower-shaped slab. Eventually, I ended up choosing a different color, Fimo Soft Lavender, for this unicorn’s body. I did create the mane and tail using Metallic Silver and Metallic Gold again. Again, I added glitters, gold this time, though just to its legs.

Unfortunately, I forgot to blend the unicorn’s horn into the head and/or secure it with liquid clay. Rather, I secured it using wire only. This means the horn is a bit loose, which I’m told isn’t really visible but it does bother me. This is the reason I don’t think this is my best unicorn so far.

What do you think of these? Do you like unicorns?

#WeekendCoffeeShare (January 7, 2022)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Friday of January, 2022. Today, I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare. I’m right between my dinner and my evening coffee, but if you’d like a drink, I’m sure my staff can make you a Senseo or a cup of tea, pour you a glass of juice or offer you a soft drink. Let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee, I’d start off by saying that the weather is all over the place right now. Sometimes, it’s raining or even snowing, while at other times, the sun is shining. It’s too cold for a walk though, so I’ve stayed indoors all day and most of the week. Last night, despite the heating being on and all windows being closed, I was feeling quite cold. Okay, I can feel cold in the middle of summer sometimes. That’s just me, I guess.

If we were having coffee, I’d also share about my new food plan. Like I shared before, my hope is to get to a healthier, less stress-inducing diet this year. The dietitian got back to my staff on Tuesday with a healthy food plan. It’s a standard basic food plan I’m sure, as for instance it allowed for an artificial sweetener in my coffee even though I’ve been drinking my coffee black for years.

I have been trying to stick to the food plan ever since. On Wednesday, I did have my crunchy muesli for breakfast, because my staff had already prepared it. Oh, I said this was something I wasn’t willing to give up, but I’m trying after all. Yesterday and today, I had two slices of bread with jam on them.

So far, it’s going okay, but I do find that I’m struggling to eat a variety of foods, as out of the healthy food choices, I only like a few things. Today, as an alternative to the bread with jam for lunch, I tried a toasted cheese and bell pepper sandwich. After all, the dietitian said that toasted sandwiches are a healthy choice as long as you don’t load them with more than one slice of cheese, ham or the like. You can, however, add veggies to taste.

If we were having coffee, I would share that, speaking of the food plan, I do look forward to getting chips this evening. I am so happy I am still allowed these on weekends.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I haven’t been too inspired on the crafty front lately. On Wednesday though, I did create a polymer clay dolphin charm. I used the Fimo soft color blue ice quartz for the body of the dolphin, white for its belly and black for its eyes.

Polymer Clay Dolphin Charm

If we were having coffee, lastly I would share that I did do a fair bit of reading lately. I started the latest Maggie Hartley foster care memoir, which came out as an eBook yesterday, right then. I’m now at 54% already. It doesn’t look like I’m going to finish any of the other books still on my currently-reading shelf on Goodreads though, but that’s okay.

How have you been?

My Hopes for 2022

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone and a very happy 2022 to you all. Today, like each year, I am sharing some things I hope to achieve in the coming year. I don’t usually call them goals, let alone resolutions. I mean, I used to have a ton of New Year’s resolutions when I was a teen, but these went out the window come Blue Monday. Not that I’d ever heard of that date at the time, but it was still what happened. So, hopes. Here are my hopes for 2022.

1. Get to a less stress-filled (I originally typed “less stress-free”), relatively healthy diet. I already eat relatively healthily at least if I look at my hopes for last year, in that I consistently eat two to three servings of fruit each day. I have also ditched the cookie with my morning coffee. My idea of experimenting with eating bread rather than crunchy muesli for breakfast, went out the window pretty soon and I’m not likely going to give it another try.

That being said, I could still improve on my lunches and make healthier snack choices. Besides, I would really like to stress less about food. For this reason, my staff got in touch with the dietitian, who is going to E-mail her a list of tips and recommendations based on my current food list this coming Tuesday.

2. Remain stable mentally. I am pretty stable mental health-wise already. I hope I will remain relatively sane as I adjust to my increased topiramate and later my decreased aripiprazole in particular. Of course, my aripiprazole taper might not be over with by the end of this year.

3. Keep writing consistently. I started a morning writing ritual today. Officially, I decided on Morning Pages, which dictates you have to write three pages. Then again, this is done by hand and I cannot do this anyway. I’ll be content if I can keep up the writing habit each morning even if I don’t make it to 750 words.

I did pretty great on my blogging over 2021, having written 303 posts over the year. I’d really like to write at least as many posts this year.

I would also like to broaden my horizons where it comes to my writing styles, writing more creatively.

4. Expand my creativity. Particularly, keep up with my creative hobbies. I did quite well on those over the past year too, having rediscovered polymer clay. I’d really like to improve my skill, but, like last year, don’t intend on doing the work all by myself.

I would especially like to discover some things to make myself rather than just copying from YouTube. Of course, I already select my own colors and do some things differently than in the tutorials, but I’d really like to expand on my creativity.

I will continue to do my own version of The Artist’s Way. I mean, I can’t take myself on artist’s dates completely solo because I can’t leave the house independently, but so what? My inner artist wants to be released just as much.

In line with the above, I’ll also experiment more with making my own essential oil blends and such rather than just copying recipes I find online.

5. Get back into the reading groove. This was a massive fail in 2021. One of my bookish resolutions for 2021 was to read 20 books. Well, I didn’t even reach half of that. See, I should’ve called them hopes rather than resolutions. Anyway, I’m not setting a number for myself right now, but I do hope to read some more than I did last year this year.

6. Socialize more, be it online or offline. COVID permitting, I’d like to go to the rescheduled Cerebral Palsy Day in April and to a regional Eye Cafe. This is a meeting of the Eye Association, which I joined in late November. I may also want to join the regional CP Cafe, which is held online on January 8. In addition, I’d really like to join online and hopefully at some point offline meetings related to my hobbies.

7. Deepen my faith. My faith really went in deep ebbs and flows over the past year and that’s not good. Thankfully, I didn’t lose my faith altogether. In fact, I signed up for an introductory course on Christian doctrine at BiblicalTraining.org last Thursday to get myself back in tune with what I believe. I really hope to be working on my relationship with God through Jesus Christ more this year.

What are your hopes for 2022?

Mama’s Losin’ It

Also linking up with #LifeThisWeek.

2021: The Year in Review

Posted on by Astrid

Each year at the end of the year, I look back at the past year and do a review. Today, I’m doing one for 2021.

At the beginning of the year, we were all cautiously optimistic about the vaccine being the ticket out of the coronavirus pandemic. It wasn’t. I got my first shot in early February and my second shot a month later. In early December, I had my (first) booster shot. I’m pretty sure more are still to come.

At the end of 2020, I first had my one-on-one support approved. It took some time to figure out how the staff should best fill in the allocated hours. Initially, the manager wanted my husband to be clear on when he was going to have me home with him, so that my one-on-one hours could be canceled then. This wasn’t doable for my husband or me, so finally it was agreed that my hours would be filled in regardless.

For most of 2021, we had day activities at the home due to the pandemic. Thankfully, by September, the day center opened and the clients were mostly back to their pre-pandemic groups. I, however, was not. Thanks to my one-on-one, I was provided day activities in the home and this continues to be the case so far. There has been talk of me starting in a small group, but this isn’t doable for me right now or within the foreseeable future.

For the first half of the year, I struggled a lot with the battle inside my head between wanting to live more independently and wanting even more support. This led to a climax in mid-June, when the manager told me that more support is really not possible. I was in a crisis for about two weeks. Then I started my new medication, topiramate, which calmed some of the inner conflict. It, of course, helped that I was reassured that, regardless of my attempts to push staff away, I was going to keep my allocated one-on-one support hours at least until the end of December. And of course now they have been approved until December 2023.

Over the summer, when my topiramate started to kick in, I was able to be more creative than I’d been in a long while. I started polymer clay once again and have been able to enjoy this hobby ever since. Like I mentioned when I wrote down my hopes for 2021, I didn’t intend on doing it all independently and that’s still not one of my hopes.

Looking back at my hopes, I did pretty well on them for this year. See, I think it helps that I don’t call them resolutions or goals, ha.

Overall, this year was a pretty good one for me personally. Even in terms of COVID, it’s been as good as possible, in that I haven’t contracted the virus and neither has anyone else in my home. One of my staff tested positive recently and originally we were supposed to all get tested today. After conferring with the care agency’s pandemic team, this got canceled though. I may still get a lateral flow test later today just to be sure. Let’s hope I won’t end the year with COVID.

How has your 2021 been?

Artistic As Always #WotW

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone this Christmas Eve. How are you all doing? I’m doing pretty well. I’m joining Word of the Week again with a phrase (as almost always) and (again as almost always) my phrase of the week is related to my creative endeavors. I’m trying to come up with original phrases to say I’ve been crafting and creating a lot again. Today my phrase of the week is: Artistic As Always.

Truly, I don’t think a single day went by that I didn’t do any creative activity. I mean, I haven’t been blogging as often as I’d like to, but I did a lot of polymer clay work. I created several charms, including a planet, a flower and a rainbow, which is currently in the oven.

I also created my first polymer clay cane. A cane is a log of clay with a design on the inside, which you can then cut into slices to use as beads or to decorate a vase or whatever. I decided to do a flower cane and to make the slices into beads.

I will combine them, some yellow beads I made today that are also in the oven and a flower charm I made last week into a necklace for a woman who lives in the care home downstairs from mine, who is obsessed with necklaces. I still need to create lots of yellow beads, but the woman won’t have her birthday till the end of January.

I also got some crafty supplies in my Christmas hamper from the day center. They are two silicone molds. When I saw them, I did worry they’re a bit too shallow and detailed to use with polymer clay, as they’re officially for chocolate I think. I created a butterfly with one of the molds, which is now in the oven too.

I do worry that the butterfly will be some kind of omen though. You see, a fellow client went into hospital with recurring seizures yesterday and I’m worried sick that he’ll die. Please all pray that he’ll recover.

In addition to creating art itself, I’ve also been busy exploring the artistic community online. I joined several Facebook groups for neurodivergent creators and artists. For those not aware, the term “neurodivergent” refers to people with a neurological or mental health condition, such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, etc. I initially worried the term “artist” or even “creative” was meant to include those creating visual artworks such as paintings or drawings only. Thankfully, I quickly found out the groups I am part of are inclusive of all creative outlets.

Lastly, inspired by a conversation in one of the FB groups, I decided to buy the books The Artist’s Way and The Artist’s Way Workbook. I haven’t yet been able to do anything in them, because I read books on my iPhone and using my Braille display only and, since the latest iOS update, these don’t work well together. That is, several times a day, seemingly at random, my Braille display will get stuck and the only way to get it unstuck is to reboot my iPhone. Not ideal when in the middle of a sentence in a book.

Overall, I’ve been really artistic over the past week. It’s been an intense week on other fronts too, but I may share more about that in a separate post.

Word of the Week linky