Volunteer work

This Neckless has been made for me by a 4 year old girl in the class I work with.

In the last two months of therapy I have started doing volunteer work at a local school. This was/is too

Get out my home and under the people, but also as a place where I can work on my anxiety and to make another step out of my comfort zone. I will do this volunteer work until the summer holidays which will start on the 5^th of July.

Even though I have done this for two months I still feel very anxious when I need to go and am not completely comfortable, but it does get better. And I notice I already do things that six months ago I thought of as unthinkable. Another thing I got to know about is, that I like children and that is what I work with. Especially the little ones because they have a way of thinking we all have lost when we grew up. Which is sad, it’s such a fun way of thinking.

Another thing that I like is when they proudly tell or show what they have made or done. They give each other compliments and help each other, I like to see that.

But even though I like doing this I don’t actually want to become a teacher, but I do want to have a child of my own one day in the very future.

Blueberry muffins

Last Wednesday I made these delicious muffins for my goodbye, to share with everyone out there. This is the first muffin I made and I stuck to this. These muffins will only last for 5 min in my home, because everyone loves them. Now is my goodbye not the only reason I am making them, I make them because I really crave a muffin and in my Day Zero Project I said I wanted to make 5 different muffins and this one will be the first of the 5.

Of course, it’s not my own recipe, I found this recipe when I was watching Jess D’Arcy, so if you would like to check her video here. So here is how you make them.

Preparation time: 30 min

Cooking time: 15-25 min

Serves: 12-13 muffins

Oven at 200° C/400 F

Ingredients:
-200g plain flour (1 & 2/3 cups)
-150g caster sugar (1 & 1/2 cups)
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 teaspoons baking powder
-75ml vegetable oil or just sunflower oil (1/3 cup)
-1 egg
-75ml milk (1/3 cup)
-Zest of 1 lemon
-150g (ish) blueberries (1 cup+) (I used frozen blueberries and raspberries because those were all I had, but fresh blueberries are the best.)

Topping:
- 100g caster sugar (1 cup)
- 50g plain flour (just less than 1/2 cup)
- 50g butter, cubed (just less than 1/4 cup)
- 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Put the flower, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl, then you mix this with a metal spoon. Now you can add the vegetable/sunflower oil, egg and the milk and mix until you get a smooth consistency. Now you may at the zest of 1 lemon for taste, I prefer it with because it ad’s just that slight kick. Mix the lemon zest to the mixture.

Of course we need blueberries for these blueberry muffins. Wash the blueberries and add this to the mixture, but be careful that you don’t squash them. Divide the mixture between the muffin tins

(half full).

Topping:

At the flower, sugar, butter and the cinnamon in a bowl. And mix this with either your own fingers or a fork until it’s rough and crummy (don’t be too perfect). You can sprinkle this over the mixture in the muffin tins.

Before

After

Now that everything is done, it’s time to put them in the oven and wait until they are ready. It will take about 15-25 min (depends on your oven). You can check if they're ready by sticking a toothpick in one of the muffins and when nothing sticks to it they are done.

A chapter closed

Thanks to my therapy I have learned a lot, I got more open and that is not just me who noticed it’s everyone around me that does. I have changed a lot and feel a lot better in my own skin now.
Not that it all have been oh so much fun, it wasn’t (except for the breaks with the others). I had to get over my own boundaries every single day to expand my comfort zone and that is the most scary and exhausting thing you can do I think. The last month I took a huge sprint so I could get everything out of therapy that I needed. Doing as such was very intensive, because you are constantly confronted with yourself, your fears and your problems. And those things I have been hiding from for many years.


And for six months I had no breaks, no rest moments. You might understand that everything about me is exhausted, my brain, my body and it really have begun to show. My skin is full of red spots, break outs. My body has lost weight (not that I could afford that, I have always been skinny) and is always hungry, I don’t believe I have ever eaten so much and so many times. The first moment I really realized I lost weight was when I was looking through some old pictures from a year ago, in my face it was very much showing. Another thing that I noticed was that I have never been so many times sick in six months, it was almost every other month, and with sick, I mean really sick, more sick than I have been in years.


Now I don’t want to complain, because it brought me very far and was worth every little bit. It helped me to live with my anxiety, how to deal with it and have helped me to be less anxious in general. It has made me stronger.


And now it is time to say goodbye and close this chapter.

(This card is what everybody gets when he or she says goodbye at therapy at the UCP, and so did I. It's filled with lovely messages and pictures that fits me. I loved me and made me realize I will going to miss all of them. Together with missing them, I find it terrifying I will have to do this on my own now.)

I saw a carrot

Meet Tally (the black & white) and Bilbo (the one with the crazy hair), the two adorable bunnies we have welcomed in our home. The first two days they were scared, obviously when a huge dog is in front of your home, but after a while there is now sine of a scary bunny. Nose to nose they stand with our dog, both of them extremely curious of each other. They have become best friends, Luna (our dog) has found a new place to lay, close to the bunnies.

As for us, we love to have them, it’s nice to cuddle with them while watching TV, working behind the computer or just doing nothing. Although they are very messy, they just love to kick all the straw out of their cage. Which leaves the house messy.

Walking backwards

Sick to my stomach I felt, the colour of my face disappeared, my body trembled, when I was walking towards the street where my shaming would happen. The Herenstraat in Groningen, it was crowded with people. I took a deep breath and turned myself around. I started to walk backwards. I felt the eyes of people burning in my back, out of the corners of my eyes, I saw some people pointing and giggling at me. I felt awkward. I started to walk faster, so it would end sooner. I crossed my imaginary finish line and turned again. Walking as fast as I could away from the shame and the people.

You might wonder where I was talking about, or why I would walk backwards down a busy shopping street. Well, this is what happened. In therapy they told me it would be could if I would do a shaming. A shaming? A shaming is something weird, out of the ordinary, something where you feel ashamed or awkward doing and that is normal, because everyone would feel weird when doing a shaming, simply because it is something not many people would even consider doing. A shaming is not your goal, it is something to help you to get to your goal. When you do a shaming, you’re terrified, but when you have done it, most things you first think are terrifying seem to be a lot easier and less scary or terrifying to do.

Now we know what a shaming and why you would do that, does it work? I can say yes, it does work. But walking backwards down a busy street with people looking, pointing and laughing at you was horrible. Not that I blame the people, because when I’m honest, I think I would do the same. It is a bit weird. But the feeling of shame and awkwardness is worth it, it made doing all the things I had in front of me to do and that terrified me a lot easier and nothing compared walking backwards.

It is something that I didn't really like doing, but what really helped me and something I will remember whenever I look up against doing something.

April favourites

This month I have only two favourites. What basically happened was that this month was a bit of a blur and these two were the only ones who stuck to my mind.
Because of what has been happening and changing for these past 5 ½ months (when I started therapy) my skin has these terrible breakouts. It’s driving me mad. Luckily my mom brought me this tea tree oil and it’s been my savior, off course it doesn’t take it all away but at least it calms down my skin. Since I use this, which is since just a week and a half, my skin improved a lot and is just a lot calmer and less red and itchy.
 

These pairs of jeans have already appeared in another post here, a haul. And it’s safe to say it was a good buy and definitely not a waste. I love to wear them, especially when I got out of ideas about what to wear. With that they are very comfortable.