Sick!

There was lovely sunshine in the morning and it's just beautiful how the light makes shadows on the walls. I could take photos of different shades all day long :)

But that doesn't change the fact that I'm sick. My head wants to explode, cough makes my stomach muscles ache and I'm walking around with handkerchiefs dropping from my pockets. I couldn't go to quiz today and that annoys me too.

I used this day usefully though. Food was the theme today. I boiled white beans and put them to the freezer.







I made spicy vegetable soup and ate blueberries with milk as a dessert. I took the recipe from a nice vegan blog called Chocochili, those food photos make me want to try all the recipes!






The weather outside was chilly when I took the garbage out. It's going to be really cold at night and that's why the moon and Venus were so bright already in the evening. Of course I had to take a photo of them too...


I was thinking of writing about music again, I took photos for it too, but my head hurts and I just want to lay down. More later :)

Brainmonster part II and coughing

I finished another brainmonster yesterday evening while coughing and eating candies. This looks a bit more friendly than the green one, but I'm sure the happy glance in this photo is just deceiving...

My hands hurt. Why on earth did I take those big weights on Sunday's aerobic! Well, stupid head means hurting limbs.

Besides, I feel that I'm getting more sick. Cold inside, cough in my dry throat, numb fingers. I just want to lay on my sofa and drink hot chocolate. And wear wool socks.

(I noticed a flaw! Now you can comment here even though you don't have any Google ID. If you have anything to say, just say!)

Taina 28!

10.30 I woke up.


11.00 Time for breakfast.














I wanted to make a cake for some guests that had promised to come for a visit. My favourite recipe is Pätkiskakku and it didn't take a long time until the cake was ready to serve and it looked like this at 14.00



I had to feed 2 hungry guests, Merja and Samuli, who attacked the cake at 14.30.









I had time to admire the beautiful flower Samuli gave me at 18.00. My plan is to try to keep it alive until my next birthday...


My last guest arrived at 18.30. Yuki had made special ricecakes for this evening and they were the best ones I've ever tried! Sticky and salty and sweet at the same time :) We played computer games, especially Peggle, and ate a lot.







22.00. Yuki left, I went with her to the bus stop. Lots of snow, cold wind, one aeroplane.


This was my birthday. I loved every second of it.

Challenge

I got this challenge from Noora:

1. go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.
2. pick the 4th picture in that folder.
3. explain the picture.
4. tag 4 people to do the same!

And this is what I found ->


This computer is my boyfriend's old, so this is full of the pictures he has taken and this is one of them. In the picture you can see the altar of Ilomantsi lutheran church. I was working for 5 summers in Ilomantsi and this church became quite familiar to me...I like the colours in that church, lots of bluegreen :)

More about my birthday later, cake is almost ready!

The dreadful ending of the strawberry-lime cake

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday with Teemu, who had his 30th birthday on Monday. Local Indian restaurant Jecika was the place to be and there were 11 of us eating good foods. I loved especially the just baked naan garlic bread, which was once again very tasty.

After eating we came to my place for two cakes, cheese and strawberry-lime. I failed with agar-agar (GRRRRR I never learn how to use it!) and I had to put the cake in the freezer and it was more like an icecream cake, but delicious anyway. Monika succeeded better with agar-agar and the cake she made was yummy :)

Then sauna and some drawings and guessings and actings. At midnight when I went to kitchen, I found my cake looking like this ->


Then the guests left (maybe they were too horrified when they saw this cake) and I spent some time playing zombie-games, then I went to sleep. Thanks for Monika, Teemu, Yuki, Merja, Minhye, Satomi, Hyejin, Kitak, Juha and Jinchul for making my birthday so nice! And thank you also for the great gifts like Marimekko apron, Iittala glass, yogamat, knitting needles, yarns and teapot :)

Tomorrow is the day of my "real" birthday. I'm going to stay in my bed until I get cake carried in there, I'm quite sure I'll get flowers and I'm happy I'm this young/old. Depends on your view.

I'll also start using these:

Brainmonster attacks you, hahahahahahahahahhahahahahhah!

I just finished this hideous brainmonster and glued its eyes on their places. ROOOAARRRR!!! This was a project I wanted to make already before christmas, but I was too busy with all "normal-looking" hats and mittens. I'm going to give this hat as a gift and I really need one for myself too to celebrate my birthday next week. 28 years, the age hits me!

I'd like to write about music, maybe next time. Now food, step and quiz.

Calm down

I have several experiences about yoga. Couple of years ago I decided to try it and paid for a yoga course which lasted for half a year. I attended maybe 3 classes that spring, because I just hated it! It was too slow, the teacher was too strict and so I skipped that torture and went for a cafe instead.

Last autumn I gave yoga another chance. In summertime I practiced pilates and found it very good for the balance, strength and control of my body, although sometimes it felt just like doing normal muscle work (which is boring in my opinion). The first yoga class was surprisingly interesting and gave me truly needed alternative for every day aerobic. I also like the teacher, who isn't so uncompromising and doesn't force us to be vegetarians (I am, but not because someone forced me to be) or skip classes if we have periods (because then blood starts to circulate to the wrong direction...ummm....). Of course yoga purists don't think the yoga we do on these classes is "real" yoga, but I couldn't care less. It's good for me and that's enough.

I'm happy that my asian friends like to come to yoga as well. In Korea and Japan women shouldn't look muscular or strong, so almost all the aerobics are just dance lessons and they don't include any muscle work. I heard that if those girls need to do something with hand weights, they always choose 0,5 or 1 kg weights so they don't get too big legs or arms. In Finland it's quite the opposite, women want to look trained, so they take as big weights as they can lift. Yoga doesn't feel like exercising and musclebuilding, so my friends are not afraid of doing it ;)


Yesterday I read one book called Kallis köyhyys (expensive poverty) and I found it very sad and truthful. After reading that book I can really say that poor and rich people really live in different worlds and for most people it's impossible to understand that someone doesn't have enough money to buy food or pay rent. Nowadays it's easy to see that in public conversations poor people are called lazy losers who are poor because of their own fault (maybe I shouldn't read the Helsingin Sanomat internet pages and conversations...). I hope we had a president like Barack Obama who would freeze all the salaries of politicians and government officials and use that money on more important issues like health care.

My list of nice free things to do!
1) Go for a walk
2) Hang laundry
3) Listen to the music
4) Sleep
5) Go to a local pub quiz
6) Borrow books from the library
7) Meet friends
8) Find magazines from waste paper basket
9) Touch
10) Sing

I'm singing.

B

Today I've been playing a bit Batmud. Why? 1) I love computer games 2) it's totally free and you can log in from every computer 3) I have friends there 4) it has lots of things to do 5) I don't have to listen to women speaking about women things (but I don't know if it's any better that I need to listen to men speaking about men things...). Batmud was created in 1990 and it's kind of predecessor of World of Warcraft. It's text-based, so there are no pictures in it contrary to WoW. The language used is English although the game itself is Finnish and most of the players are Finns, but there are many players from the US and other foreign countries as well.

I've been playing Batmud for 2 ½ years now and during that time I've got lots of friends. I've met several and for example one year ago my friend Ivan came from Canada and spent one week at my place. These days Batmud is more like a chatting place for me, but occasionally I still play a bit. At the moment I'm playing 90-level nuntemplar and my main things are to turn undeads, dispel evils and as a member of Synod (council of the 5 nun leaders) I keep prayers couple of times a week. I don't like "real" roleplaying and I'm not acting like I'm a real nun in the game. There are not many roleplayers in Batmud and that is very good.

Batmud is going to celebrate it's 20th "birthday" next year and I'm sure there's going to be a big party where lots of people from all around the world will gather. I'd like to go there myself too :)


Today I also received a copy of my favourite magazine of Bitch. It's an American feminist magazine, which I ordered one year ago and I haven't been disappointed. It's published 4 times a year and every magazine has about 100 pages of interesting articles to read. Most of the time I agree with the topics these articles write about and I'm just happy that someone else thinks the way I do too :)

I also order Finnish feminist magazine called Tulva, but it's just not as good as Bitch. Sometimes the opinions in Tulva just go a bit too far in my opinion. For example I just don't think that voting for a women candidate in election because of her sex isn't a sign of proper feminism...If that would be feminism, I wonder if feminist women in USA should have voted for Sarah Palin instead of Barack Obama just because Sarah is a woman. That is a scary thought.



It's cold outside and I finished my fingerless mittens. I love the colour and also the Icelandic yarn called Létt-Lopi, which is very warm outside although it's minus 10 celsius. I tried them yesterday when I went to the centre and I didn't need other gloves :) I found the yarn from discount basket in a local yarn shop and when I saw it, I just had to have it. I can't resist anything bluegreen or icelandic. I've been to Iceland once when my uncle got married with an icelandic woman and I loved the nature, people and animals in there. I wish one day it would be possible for me to visit that country again :)

Hole

It's impossible to throw away something dear although it's ripping apart. It looks funny how the fabric first gets so thin you can see through it and suddenly there's a hole.

Food overload!

It has been cold. Flashlight makes the trees look like white skeletons. I'm so happy that we have winter in Finland, I'd be lost without coldness and darkness and whiteness.


I've been eating lots of good food this weekend. Yesterday it was time for cakes and today for korean food. I just loved both. Hyejin and Kitak invited me to try korean food at their place and how I've missed kimbap and korean pancakes! Also the dessert rice cakes were excellent, sticky dough for the win!

The sesame oil in Finland doesn't taste like the real stuff and it's always very special when you get to taste the "real" korean sesame oil (basically all korean food has sesame oil in it). The company was great too, mixture of korean, japanese, finnish, polish and russian people. Too bad I was feeling really tired, so I guess I wasn't the best company...I cleaned the whole day (it took more than 3 hours to clean this apartment) so I'm sure it had something to do with my tiredness.

Next week I need to concentrate on eating and feeling well. It's an annoying feeling, when you stress about something (you don't know what) kind of unconsciously and your body is all stiff and you can't help it. Does it only happen to me?


At the moment I'm reading Carl Honore's book called In Praise of Slow and it sounds good so far. I'm one of those people who thinks that people should slow down a bit and just concentrate on the things they already have. Slow life is getting more and more popular, but still some people are trying to get as much as they can as fast as they can. I sometimes dream about the situation, when I could get rid of my clock and I could just live for one day without looking at a clock. Then I couldn't 1) look at my phone 2) open the television, because they have news every hour 3) walk around my apartment because there are too many clocks. So I must spend the whole day in my bed!

Now more praise and then sleep. I love winter.

Small

I've been thinking about the small things in life, how they can make you happy. Yesterday I was waiting for the bus and I was watching at the birds and how they flew. I wondered if they ever feel cold and how they can fly in so many different ways. I also saw an aeroplane, it was flying very high and it left 2 smoke lines on the clear blue sky. Somehow it was very beautiful. It was very cold at to wait at the bus stop but I felt warm when one woman, who goes to the same aerobic class, said hello to me when she was biking past me. I've never talked with her, but she said hello and smiled anyway :)



I don't have lots of money and that's why I can't travel and do the things most of the people do. Sometimes I feel a bit sad because of that and start to worry about future, life and money itself.

But it's impossible to be worried, if you have your fridge full of food. I love the local shop, since it has many products for half price. Today I found many vegan products at smaller price. I'm not a vegan, but some of my friends are and now I can bake something special for them :) Baking for friends is also one thing that makes you happy no matter what.

I love to go to shop. I don't mean clothing stores, but food shops. I love to compare prices, try to find organic products (I always buy eco-milk and yoghurt as well as organic eggs and carrots) and -50% tags. It's kind of adventure every time! I could spend one hour on the shop just looking at products and prices...And I'm so happy if I find tofu or cheese at half price :)


Yesterday was a quiz day again (it's another completely free thing that makes me happy!). This time we ended up 4th, so better than last week! I took my sticks and yarn with me too and finished one fingerless mitten while competing with the other teams. This time the most difficult question was about italian operas -> we had to identify 5 different operas and composers from 5 music samples sung by Pavarotti. We got 2 points from the maximum 10 :D I've studied music science, but I'm familiar only with finnish operas. Hopefully next time there will be questions about trance music, then I'd know something :D











I knew couple of answers again, but constantly I'm amazed by the knowledge my team members have. Wow!

Today

I finished my top which looked awful and now I use it as a neckwarmer...



Minhye and Hyejin came with me to yoga, we'll all hurt a lot tomorrow.



A bit sun. I also saw the rainbow, how amazing is that!


I took the first Korean lesson today, next week I'll have the next one. Annyeong haseyo!


I saw a black cat running over the street and after that I saw it in the bushes. My great ability of taking photos can be truly seen in this photo ;)

Findings and old stuff

Yesterday I read The Ecologist on the bus when I was coming home from aerobic. I love reading in the bus and the one magazine in question is one of my favourites to take with me when I'm "travelling". The stories are both interesting and important and the balance between scientific and informal texts is very good.


There was a story about Karen Lubbock, who publishes a magazine simply called Karen. The magazine is the opposite of glossy celebtrity and lifestyle magazines, it mainly tells about everyday life. The newest number has photos about goose-pimpled bum, greasy fry-up and a story about local butcher. Doesn't sound like Cosmopolitan or Elle to me :) I don't like to read those basic women magazines, because I just don't find those stories about celebrities and makeup tips interesting, but if Karen would be a bit cheaper, I'd order it right away. In my opinion everyday life is a lot more charming than photoshopped pictures about models. Too bad there isn't such magazines like Karen in Finland or at least I haven't heard of any.


Yesterday I also received post from Interpedia with a photo of my godchild in Thailand called Saiyai. She has grown so much! She needs support, because her dad is dead and her mom is poor and tries to take care of the whole family. The situation for women especially is not very good in Thailand, but if girls get more educated and are aware of their rights, that will surely improve the situation.

I decided to take a godchild couple of years ago and although I'm short of money at the moment, I want to pay the monthly fee to ensure that Saiyai can go to school. There are also other international programs like Plan or World Vision which make life better for children living in development countries. I decided to choose Interpedia, because it's smaller and doesn't have christianity as its base value. I've received 3 letters from Saiyai already and it's nice to get a new photo every year and see how she gets that kind of adult look in her eyes.



I was reading one blog where was a nice photo of a borzoi. I found 2 old photos, where my grandparents old borzoi called Ville is first suffering from me and then feeling happy with me. If I'll ever take a dog, it will be borzoi :)

What you can't find from this blog...

...are reviews about makeup or clothes. I'm not interested in those things, because I use makeup maybe 4 times a year and my clothes are not so special. I only buy clothes when they're on sale and I've also got free clothes from my friends and relatives. And these days I'm trying to knit some clothes for myself too :) The book in the photo below is Sanna Vatanen's Hyvän olon neuleet and yesterday I started to make one top according to Angoratoppi pattern.



Something else than knitting then! Last week I found out that I have rosacea on my face. It's a skin condition that causes redness, visible blood vessels, bumps or pimples and irritated eyes. It's not known what causes rosacea and it probably will never go away. It's possible to treat rosacea with special creams or antibiotics, but they work because of their antiflammation function and they can't cure the disease.

So my face is red on the other cheek. It doesn't bother me at the moment, but if I get big and sore pimples, I most certainly get worried. It's said that the triggers that cause worse skin condition are for example sun exposure, emotional stress, hot or cold weather, wind, alcohol, sauna or exercising. It's too bad that I love sauna, exercising and cold weather! I guess I need to observe what are the causes that make my skin look worse.

I don't like to use makeup, because I'm too lazy and I should avoid all kinds of chemicals when it comes to my skin. At home I have mostly organic skin care products and they seem to suit my problematic skin quite well.


I can recommend especially Weleda products, for example Almond cleansing lotion and moisture cream seem to protect my skin against redness and drying. I also use some Dr. Hauschka products, but they're quite expensive to buy. I've ordered this stuff + shampoos and other skin care products from Germany (Beauty Center Europe), because they're at least half the price cheaper there.

Today is the day for bean soup, season's first step aerobic and tea. I'm really waiting especially for the step, since it's my favourite "type" of aerobic. The choreography is difficult today and I'm always thinking I can't make it and I'll be the worst in the class...I know it has never been TOO difficult and I shouldn't compare myself to others. Usually I don't, but these difficult choreographies make me hesitate a bit.

Yet when I go there, I love every second of the class.