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.