#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”.