Updating family history

Well, I am finally trying to get back to normal routines after my father's memorial.

After an intense meeting with long no seen relatives and an update on who's who in your family at the memorial seems kind of surreal and getting back to normal seems almost impossible. So many things were stirred at the bottom of the profound seas of long ago lived lives of dead relatives as well as just recently lost father. The compulsory polite chatting with coffee and cake can sometimes be quite ennerving.

To tell you the truth his death has not as yet affected me in any way, just a minor out burst of tears all of a sudden, as somehow I feel I already lost him three decades ago when he left to work far from home and the father I knew as a small child never returned home again. Of course he was still there for me, but never in the same way as before.

I wonder if his death ever dawns upon me ...he just kind of left on a vacation that will last until the end of my own days.

Grieving father's death

Life has its' own strange ways, my father just died early Sunday morning, and being abroad he will be buried there so there will be no burial service back home.

Kind of sad, realizing that you can die any time.

At least he died, even though all of a sudden and without any warning in a heart seizure, lots stock and barrel, he went when he was ready as he mentioned to me in our last phone conversation...

Absolutely knackered

I, the absolute opposite to computer nerd have solved the problem with the broad band connections that were supposed to be in every room of the new apartment we have relocated to, got them working as supposed to.

The moving apartments came quite all of a sudden as a surprise and I am not sure how I am to get things in order to celebrate Xmas this year. There are cardboard boxes stacked all over the place with all our belongings, and as usual, no one is interested in getting things into habitable order, we just try to avoid seeing the boxes without treading on them.

And of course on top of all that the washing machine gave up and has to get repaired, now with all the washing that has to be done. So I better get off to the look up the laundry room in order to survive with all the dirty linen, towels, clothes and curtains to wash. Fortunately I had the good sense of sending the rugs and mats off the to dry-cleaners in order to have them out of my hair, or rather feet in this case, right this moment.

Actually, I'd rather just put my feet high and have a nice cup of tea, but duty seems to be calling more than the tea cup.

Ready at hand

The weekend has been filled with snow relentlessly falling off the sky in all directions, and fortunately we have not had any power cuts that have occurred around the country.

Winter cold and snow storm has not out any restrain on exiting for the offspring, and very surprising news reached me by accident when having dinner yesterday.

I am aware of the drinking habits of the youth, and I do know the offspring also drinks alcohol. I do not like teenagers getting drunk but I see no way of prohibiting it either, I do not buy it, nor do I allow them to store it at home and they’ll do it anyway with or without our consent, just like we used to in our time. All we can do as a parent is to be there when needed and sometimes it takes nerves to listen to what you are told.

I know I am not told everything but it seems I get to know a far bit more than other parents and lately the stories have not all been very nice. This weekend a friend of the offspring, a first time drinker I am told, had had too much alcohol and passed out.

Fortunately the rest of the company was alert enough to call an ambulance, and with it saving the life of the adolescent.

With a blood alcohol content of 0, 40 % it was touch and go, just and barely, saving his life. And knowing that a blood alcohol content rating of 0, 20% means serious intoxication, and that 0, 35-0, 40% means potentially fatal alcohol poisoning; it scares the hell out of me thinking this was a first time out, drinking alcohol.

This incident seems a bit sad, maybe it is the exception of the rule that every rule needs to have to be confirmed, as a recently done research done by the University of Kuopio suggests that Finnish alcohol consumption appears is levelling off.

The research is based on 40 years of statistics and the consumption is compared to other countries, and as alcohol consumption in Finland has doubled in a decade, with the average consumption over ten litres per year and person, the Finns tendency for over consumption has been lowered by the more moderate use of alcohol use among adolescents. Adolescents are considered to either totally abstain from alcohol or to be more be moderate drinkers, much like their European peers in comparison to elder people who more tend to turn to drink as comfort when dealing with the turns of life.

So, there is nothing we can do about our offspring drinking alcohol but to talk about it at home, instead of trying to ignore the whole thing as I have discovered most parents tend to do. Adolescents do drink, and most of the times they are okay, but in case of an emergency, even if you hate thinking about it, we have to give them the confidence and make them feel secure enough, to take the needed action, call for help.

At least one thing is good about mobile phones and teenagers using them all the time, which I always earlier used to find most annoying.

They are always ready at hand in case of an emergency!

Unwanted houseguests

After last week’s food poisoning by the Cryptosporidium infection in Helsinki, I came to think about other pests that occur more often than they used to earlier.

Head lice, cockroaches and other insects are more common now in Finland, than they were earlier. Their decline has been said to have been because of better personal hygiene as well as to the more frequent house cleaning chemicals and better routines, until a couple of decades ago. Since then, with the busier lifestyle people tend to clean their homes less often and the more frequent travelling to far away countries has most certainly had a negative effect on the occurrence of head lice and cockroaches. Or should I here be saying "a positive" effect?

Here I am finally trying to get to my point of today, why then is it most often people who lead an alternative way of life, such as more "back to nature" with saving the environment, leading a "greener" life and alternative views opposed to the consumption society more often get the pests?

Like for instance, an acquaintance of ours called me to happily and told me she had head lice. Well, I guess that would not have been my reason to call anybody, only the ones that could have been infected if I had had any, but she just told me her news like it was something everybody was yearning to have!

To the story I must add that she then worked in a Steiner school, a philosophy that is more in tune with Mother Nature, and maybe they either are less prone keeping up a good hygiene or their soaps, shampoos and washing detergents are too environmentally friendly to kill such house guests.

Houseguests I would hate to get, and even when just thinking about it, it makes my scalp itch! Even now, years later.

And to tell you the truth, it was no joyride, as about at the same time this acquaintance of ours rang me, we had had a friend of the offspring’s on a sleep-over with her own accompanying guests in hair. She was decent enough to ring me about it when she afterwards discovered she had lice. So off to the pharmacists I went. No fun there, just serious business with the lady pharmacist sneering at me when I asked for and bought waste amounts of lice shampoo, enough for two rounds, as a prophylactic. Just in case, for the whole family to kill even the tiniest hint of chance of getting an infection.

All bed linen, covers and pillows hats, scarves and winter coats had to be washed and detoxified as a precaution and I was absolutely knackered after all the cleaning and washing. And thought never again!

And here we go again, it really bugs about this incident, the same girl with lice infection in her hair visited us a couple of weeks later, and as it was winter time and all use hats, scarves and winter coats, well I had to go over all our winter clothes that had been hanging in the hallway, once again. Very nice she rang me again and told, but why could she not have told us beforehand, as she apparently knew before, so I could have made the proper precautions?

At least my detergents and shampoos were up to the job, no head lice turned up in any inspections combing any hair in this household, so far.

So, keeping fingers crossed.

And pepper, pepper touch wood.

No sleep nights

Even thought the World Championships in Ice Hockey are played in Halifax Canada, this meaning the matches are broadcasted in the middle of the night for us here in Finland, they still rule the TV evenings in many ways.

Weekly programmes get scheduled off their ordinary broadcasting time in order to show the re runs of the matches and even the nightly chat hosted by this one drag queen has a touch of ice-hockey with the host or maybe more appropriately “hostess” wearing the Finnish hockey team’s blue and white lion shirt. Fortunately the offspring is not that interested in watching ice hockey so there are no late nights due to the games being on so late, it is more a matter of surfing the Net. Or actually hanging around with friends all night on messenger, in stead of getting the needed amount of sleep for being able to cope with school and studies.

Today was another morning of close call, and yesterday went with the wake up time way past ten o’clock.

And my postings get later and fewer all the time because of these nocturnal activities.

The warm weather went and here we are again with temperatures way below the average and normal for this time of year. Fortunately it is not as cold that we have to switch back to winter coats but seeds sown in gardens might get frostbites if not covered properly.

Even I have sown a few seeds and will eventually plant them in the garden of a friend as I got interested in natural dyeing plants and wanted to try some out. I would have wanted to have them close by to study their development but they would probably not succeed on a balcony as well as in proper soil. One of the plants is said to produce a blue colour and the second will turn red so I am really looking forward to seeing how it all turns out in reality. The red is not to be harvested in a couple of years but the blue should be made to use as soon as there are leaves big enough, and there is a fair amount of the leaves to make use of them.

A bus to catch

To tell you the truth, the most annoying thing about these long holidays is not always the amount of people being at home at the same time, nor the time they occupy the Internet access, it is more the demands of kitchen chores to be performed. Or space to have in the kitchen for that matter.

How hard is it not to make teenagers empty the dishwasher in their turn instead of lying dead flat on the sofa watching MTV turned on high, or making chocolate mousse for the first time and needing some hints and tips whereas in which order to combine the fluffy beaten ingredients instead of looking it up in the recipe they are at the same time reading as shouting for mums help?

Or the use of pots and pans which at the precise same moment should be available to mum in order to get the Easter lamb ready in time for dinner, which of course has be eaten exactly in time on order for the offspring to be able to keep up with their precious timetables and the numerous parties they have to have time to attend to the same night.

On holidays when there is a lot of cooking I am discounted of the emptying of the dishwasher as I have so much I am cooking anyway, and the pots and pans I wash up by hand anyway so I am more than doing my fair share of it, but then cooking is one of my favourite pastimes, which I enjoy immensely.

Apparently, or maybe at times very much unfortunately, I seem to have passed on these genes of mine to the offspring and that tends to make life, or in this context, cooking difficult for me. There just is not enough room for more than one cook in my kitchen, and it is mine as long as I am standing. Still I have to fight for my space at times with this so devious culinary genius child of mine. This is of course the chocolate mousse I am talking about that was promised to be made for dessert after the traditional Easter lamb. Well, fitting cooking of desserts into busy teenagers’ timetables is not as easy as it should be. And, what use is there to help mum out making the dessert, saving mum for going for some extra trouble of making the dessert when her help still is required to read what is written on the recipe, as it would have been much easier for mum to do the dessert herself?

Okay, then we would not have had pudding made by so devious culinary genius child of mine.

The taste was absolutely fabulous, actually finger licking good if you know what I mean, and the mousse looked exactly as it should have, but it would have needed a couple of more hours in the fridge in order to have had enough time to cool and set properly.

But there was this bus to catch, and another party “must” to be at and once again the nest was empty for the night.

7th most expensive

Helsinki has once again been estimated to be one of the most expensive cities in the world.

This in a global comparison survey of purchasing power called "Prices and Earnings" performed by financial firm UBS and updated every three years. What I wonder about here is that the previous study was published in early 2006 and this ha already been published so are their numbers as flexible as their three years?

Anyway, the most expensive prices in the world in terms of prices and earnings you will find Oslo, Copenhagen and London with Helsinki to follow suite on seventh place.

The study considers prices of numerous products and services, but does not take into account renting expenses for flats in its rankings which probably would have skyrocketed Helsinki into first place as the most expensive city!
Apparently there also has been a considerable shake-up in the ranking order on the list much due to the drop of the US dollar since the previous survey.

Another thing the Finns are not best at, only 7th best in the world.

At last things will get back to normal, tomorrow finally Easter will be over and done with for this year as well. It is nice to have the family at home, but some holidays tend to be a bit too long for my taste as they interrupt so much of my daily routines, such as blogging to mention just one. Staying in bed reading a good book for a second to mention as there always is someone who desperately is seeking something and needs the assistance of dear mother.

Nouveau traditions

Since moving to Finland our family has acquired some new traditions, some are quite nice and others come out of the necessity to stay sane.

One more annoying one is the ringing early in the morning on Palmsunday, at lest according to the offspring. Some of our neighbourhood's kids are quite early risers and that annoys the most our offspring who would like to stay in bed late. Currently the new tradition is to remember to remove the doorbells cover in order to avoid it from making the ringing noise it produces with the cover on before entering bed early in the morning, or late in the night, depending on how you look at it.

I guess this would normally mean no harm, we would just have less kids ringing on the door, but it does not erase the knocks on the door which I find more annoying. Palmsunday, which is the Sunday before Easter and was last Sunday, is the day for kids to go out and collect sweets going from door to door the neighbourhood all day long and doing a few re-rounds if only possible to the good places they got the best treats.

This particular Sunday it causes us a bit of discomfort with the doorbell out of function as we had some friends coming over for dinner, and them having left home without a mobile phone in order to stay out of touch in order to be off duty we did not know they were behind the door ringing the dysfunctional doorbell. Took a while for them to come to think of the old fashioned but for so many centuries functional way of knocking on the door instead of the ringing wonders of the modern world. Or maybe they were just hungry?

Anyway, today is long Friday, actually not the longest day of the year, that is midsummer’s night this year, right on the dot in the almanac where it should be. Today is the other day of the year when the day and night are equally long. So up from this day there should be a difference to the days really getting longer and longer.

And that not just in the biblical sense.

Boy killed by family dog

Dogs have recently been well discussed in this country, especially Rotweilers.

Last Saturday a ten year old boy was killed in southern Finland when attacked by at least by one of the family’s two dogs, Rotweilers, in their own home yard. There were no eyewitnesses to the incident and the boy died on the spot due to the inflicted injuries and the two dogs were later on put down by the vet. Neither one of the two dogs had previously shown any behaviour out of the ordinary nor do the police have any suspicions of the incident having been set up.

Rotweilers are prohibited in many countries as they are considered as hard to cope with and being “one man’s dogs”. More commonly Rotweilers are bread as guarding dogs and sometimes even brought up as fighting dogs. Here in Finland the breeder's association has taken care to breed a more social type of dog, and a Rotweiler expert at the Veterinarian institute of the Helsinki University considers this attack as quite unusual for Finnish Rotweilers.

Who is to say why this sad incident took place, whether the boy made something that caused the dogs to attack him or the dogs just flipped. One thing is for sure, no matter how friendly a dog normally is, it still is an animal that is unpredictable. Guess that is how life is, things happen and not always nice things, unfortunately.

An acquaintance had a friendly, very sociable little dog when the offspring was small; unfortunately I have no idea of the breed but one of these nowadays so popular lap-dog breeds it was. He was always prancing around, playing with the kids and wagging his tail until one day out of the blue he just snapped and bit one of the toddlers in the face. Must have been the size that was convenient, and unfortunately it was my offspring he attacked and was scarred for life. Anyway, as I was standing right next to the dog and child when it happened I can vouch there was nothing preceding that could have caused the attack. Still it happened. Our family dog instead, a sturdy Basset-hound girl now long ago dead, she only used to growl low, stand up and leave the scene when the offspring got too friendly with her as she was napping the day away.

Still, she did not bite, she never used to, and I always said she hasn’t bitten anyone until this day but you never can be sure. And puppies and kittens are always on the go with grinding their teeth on everything and anything, no matter how much you try to make them stop. The itch must be terrifying.

A cake is always a cake

Finland is no more covered entirely in snow as the thin layer disappeared a couple of weeks ago, down here in the south the snow has now melted and we only have sweet memories of the cold winter to cling to.

Luckily I did get some photos of the snow, rare as it seems to be this year, just to remember how it should be at this time, the darkest and coldest time of the winter. It all looks like autumn to me. Must be the longest autumn I have so far seen living in Finland.

Today is the 100^th anniversary of my grandfather, deceased already over twenty years ago, but I still in good memory as my grandmother died only a couple of years ago. I used to take good care that I was able to either visit my grandmother on her husband’s birthday, or have her come and visit us at this time of the year knowing it to be the hardest day for her to be alone. Even their wedding anniversary was nothing compared to this it, neither was her own birthday.

My grandparents shared more than fifty years together and believe me, the times were not only sweet back then, even though as the years went by even my grandmother’s memory only remembered the sunnier side of their life.
In half a century there is lots of room for better and worse but strangely enough only the better sticks to your memory in the end.

In today’s modern society it is sometimes hard to imagine that people used to get married and stay married for the rest of their lives like my grandparents did. Splitting up and getting a divorce was out of the question back then, not like today when pressing the toothpaste wrong or leaving the toilet-seat up might end up in divorce.

Decades of sharing a life together, having children, watch them growing up, go to school, begin their professional lives and careers, leaving the nest moving away from home and seeing them getting married and having children. And if you’re lucky enough see your own grandchildren have children.

So I better get going with the cake baking, no need to disrupt any annual traditions that have upheld and approved of for so many years now.

A cake is always a cake, no matter the original reason it’s baked for.

Leaving them home alone

It seems to be gathering up to one of the traditional traffic chaos’s here in Finland as the snow is pouring down.

I am lucky to be done with the acquirements of provisions and necessities, if you know what I mean, for the weekend, as just the two of us, dear spouse and me, will be leaving the city for the deep neck of woods. A good time for us to be just the two of us, instead of always being mummy and daddy as when the offspring is present.

We also will be leaving the offspring home alone with a deal of no modern gadgets with us. If anything happens there is no mummy or daddy to turn to, the offspring will have to deal with the situation.

There is to be no PC for me to blog on, both our mobiles are to be switched off the whole weekend until Sunday afternoon when we are to return back home. No clocks and no time to bother about just a cosy cabin with an open fire, a sauna which of course is one of the Finnish necessities, no electricity but still running water indoors. Thank god there is no need to lift the water from the well in the yard by hand or by a pump outdoors. Being without electricity also meant some planning food wise for me as there is no fridge to stuff with the produce, but is still is clod as a fridge outdoors which makes it a bit easier with the food. Even the more private facilities are ecological and the two types to be separated in order to get out the most benefit of the product. I still am in doubt about taking a dip in the lake or a roll naked in the snow that is said to be very invigorating, even with a steaming hot sauna to return back to afterwards.

My main concern us adults being away for the weekend is our little baby girl, the one more like a naughty gremlin at times, if she still will be with us or if she fallen off the balcony from the 5^th floor. Actually this is a bit misleading, us living on the 5^th floor. Here in Finland you count the ground floor as the 1st floor, so it really means that we are just 4 floors up in the building according to common sense in other countries. This does of course not mean that the Finns are wrong; it is just another way of counting the floors in a multi-storey building.

Anyway, as our baby girl is as fast as she so far has been with everything, running around the place when she is switched on that she need some looking after, our older gentleman will be okay as he is old enough to know what the balcony is about. And the offspring is old enough to cope with cooking and everything else, that I have no doubts about what so ever, but will they cope with little, tiny but ever so stubborn and fast miss little gremlin?

This also means that I won’t be able to blog about anything, even if I wanted to, until Sunday late afternoon, possibly not until Monday.

More animals discovered

1500 new animal species were discovered in Finland between the years 2003 and 2007.

Most of the animals that have been discovered have been here forever and have not migrated into the Finnish fauna from elsewhere but have just not been noticed earlier. This now means that there current number of animal species is up to 44.000.

Fridays always seems to be the most stressful day of the week as the family is in such a rush to come home and begin their two days off. Everybody rushes to get home early and to get ready for the weekend, the shower is occupied and clothes are sought to suit the occasion of they day, Friday night out in town.

Saturdays, and then especially the mornings are a bit on the slow side, getting up late at noon, if not sometimes even in the afternoon for the days hobbies and activities and the rush of to get out on Saturdays does not begin as early as the night before first has to be slept off. I am so happy I do not have to be in the dating game anymore, having to try and impress men. It is easier to stick with what you have got; it is familiar and sometimes even a bit too well known without too much excitement.

But I am not complaining, there is two persons in every relationship and both have to do some work with it.

Paternal leave

After a legislative change by the beginning of 2007 more fathers here in Finland are encouraged to stay home when children are born into families.

In Finland there apparently is a four month maternal leave followed by parental leave that can be used either by the mother of the child or the father, or it can even be shared by both. Still not many men take advantage of this great opportunity with this paternal leave to spend time with their new born children, many claiming it being a matter of money and missed career opportunities and only one in ten fathers make use of this unique opportunity, which I think is really sad.

Well, outcome in hand, I can now say that my father was very keen on his career when we were young, my sister and I, at least we had the opportunity of out mother staying home with us so we had at least one parent at home when small. When we grew older and both in out time began school our mother returned to the working life first as part time, to still be able to be there for us when needed. But we never saw our father, he was busy making a career, and my, so he did!

My sister and I grew up, got married and had children of our won and our parents divorced our father getting remarried not too long after having new children with his new, much younger wife. This means I have sisters and brothers who actually are younger than my offspring. My offspring has aunts and uncles that are younger than they are. This also means I am older than my father’s new wife as well.

My father now has told me regrets the time he lost when we were children my sister and I, that he was never there for us then and that he will try to better this time, but as they say, it is hard to teach old dogs any tricks. They have already got their own peculiar ways and one thing you can sadly enough never get back is time, nor lost chances.

They are gone for ever, and never to come back!

So if anyone listens to me, take the paternity leave if given the chance and spend it with your offspring, it is way too late when they get their driver’s licenses and ask to borrow your new car!

It’s a secret

I was having lunch with one of my girl friends the other day and all of a sudden her mobile phone rang, which is not that unusual in itself but her answering it while we were having a nice lunch and an even better discussion of our respective spouses not to mention all about our offspring’s’ latest explorations into real life and relationships.

As the sounds on her mobile had been turned up loud enough for me to hear the caller’s voice and as I thought I recognized the voice on the phone I made a joke about it being Brad Pitt as she put her phone down on the table. And my funny remark fell limply on the table to continue straight for the floor as my friend me that it really was him and I was totally flabbergasted. I could not believe my ears; she had been on the phone with one of the most recognized men in the whole world!

My friend told me that she had known Brad Pitt since their early childhood and as such had forgotten to mention about it to me, as he is just Brad for her and always has been. Well, I am no big fan of Brad Pitt anyway, I would much have preferred it to have been Sean Connery for whom I have had a soft spot since my early teenage, and anyway, to tell you the truth it was not really Brad Pitt, but it was someone just as famous as Brad Pitt, and he is not a film star but a world famous rock star instead and as I am not at liberty to tell you who it really was it will have to stay a secret.

At least until the day I run into him which was the reason for the call in the first place, that this childhood friend of my friend’s is coming here to Finland, and of course incognito to everyone’s great disappointment so no one will know except the few chosen ones to meet him in real life.

Anyway, Cow & chicken, my favourite cartoon is back for me to enjoy and I am very lucky to be the only one in the household to like the show so I am always left alone at 2 PM to watch it which is a nice change now with the Xmas vacations on and full house with offspring to my daily nuisance. I have for a long time been wondering about the minds of these people who come up with these ideas for various cartoons such as Cow & chicken or even South Park which I am not that great a fan for. Making the cartoons for years and years and always coming up with fresh, new ideas for the shows, the crazier the merrier.

And talking about TV, I always thought MTV was a music channel but to my big surprise there was a movie on one of the Xmas holidays, My Sweet sixteen. I have never understood why there are the reality shows on MTV either, but then I do not understand reality TV anyway. At least in my youth there was music, even though they tended to be the same songs over and over again, the times played determined by how much the artist in question apparently had paid to get on air, it all resulting in the same unequal distribution of good music and great artists or bad performers and hideous songs.

Even the personal choice lists of songs on MTV made by viewers themselves must have been chosen in the same manner, keeping in mind that is paying the big bucks, the record companies of course. And to let you in on a big secret, you have certainly been seeing this rock star; that I am about to meet some day in the near future, many, many times lately, both on MTV and the Finnish channels as his band has just released a new album.

End of festivities

Finally the hollidays come to an end, even though Christmas really still keep on going on until Epiphany, the thirteenth day of Xmas when it really ends.

Not having posted anything for almost a week does not necessarily mean that I have not had anything to write about, I have just neither had the opportunity nor the time to post, all the Xmas preparations and activities to cope with, you know, and so many people hanging around doing nothing, just surfing the Net in order to avoid death of total boredom totally ignorant of my great displeasure about my disrupted morning routines, not being able to blog.

A great many ideas passed through my mind and many of them were even written down on paper at the time, some even got as far as getting typed into the PC but none got posted in the hurry.

Just the other day I was thinking about what Xmas really is, what does Xmas consist of?

And I guess there is no right answer there, just as many answers as there are people. At least for me much of the joy comes from the preparation of the festivities, the cooking and planning ahead of time on order to get the show on the road when it is time. A lot of my Xmas consists of food, not always the eating but the cooking of it, the smells of the cooking, and the scent of hyacinths, gingerbread and mulled wine and the Xmas music.

Xmas can actually be faked like we had to some years ago out of practical reasons. We had to postpone our Xmas until December 28^th and it all went well, even the offspring did not notice we swapped dates and we were even successfully able to conveniently swap daddies as Santa’s with our neighbours without disturbing either families Xmas activities as it normally would have done.

By the way, I am very pleased with our family doctor, the care and treatment he is providing- the very first in Finland to really have been bothered to care even in his spare time, interested enough to occasionally drop in to read my Blog. During my visits at his surgery it has become apparent for me that we do share many ideas as well as have differing opinions on many issues so I would be thrilled having a discussion with him in private, and as he lives nearby, just down the road (of course I have googled him!) it is not such an impossible thought that we might bump into each other, in private so to speak. But I guess it would not be really ethical; being a social acquaintance of your family doctors’ would it?

Okay, I better get going to the supermarket in order to get something else but Xmas food for dinner tonight.

Wrapping it up

It is always sad having to attend to the birthday any child just the days before, or right after Christmas for that matter.

I am not here suggesting you should make more efforts in family planning as that is impossible, or at least so it has been for me, children are born right when they think they are ready and not when you want them or have tried to have them born. My parents tired to make my younger sister so she would have had the same birthday as I had. Such a stupid idea anyway and I am glad my sister was stubborn enough to be born a fortnight later than our parents had planned. I guess this means my parents know the exact date I was made…

Anyway, there never seems to be the right time for a beginning family, your just either get pregnant or you don’t. Sometimes it takes time and sometimes it catches you by surprise not quite at the planned time in your professional life, but that is life to you. Takes you by surprise it does, life.

AO back to this birthday issue, I am thinking of the amount of present to the birthday child as there are all the present for Xmas to get to every one, and the present you tend to get on your birthday are all wrapped up in Xmas paper anyway as it is much easier to do it so having the seasons wrapping papers ready at hand. Well, having been aware of this I have always been strict about having the presents wrapped into something else and it causes problems when wanting your presents to be ready wrapped in the store.

One of the bigger department store chains went last year through great trouble in finding any paper that was either not a Xmas one by colour or design and in the end the dolly I had got was nicely wrapped up in pink roses with pink ribbon tied around it. Just the right thing for the little girl it was destined to.

It was trickier to get the CD that was wished for as present this year wrapped up in the store, as they would have charged a whole Euro for the procedure, which I think is outrageous as they do it for free all year around except now at Xmas. The offspring that is not as accustomed customer as mum when it comes to shopping Xmas presents or any other presents for that matter that had taken charge of the mission impossible to acquire the present then continued to the next department store to get it wrapped up and was baffled by them wanting to see the receipt for the CD ringing me on the mobile complaining about it.

It seems that the thought about how and when presents are wrapped up it had never earlier occurred to the offspring, and in this particular department store the wrapping of the present would have been free of charge, if it had been bought on the premises. As it happens it was the same one where I got the dolly the previous year. So offspring rushing off home, the desperate rushing through cupboards in search wrapping paper, cellar tape and ribbon even though they are just in their designed spot as they have always been, but certainly not were found by me the raid in my kitchen cupboards.

The present was wrapped up and ready just in time for us to leave for the birthday girls’ party with the best looking home made birthday cake I have seen in decades with handmade snowmen, snowballs and fir trees on top of it made out of marzipan.

Even though the cake was gorgeous I did not have any cake this time either, as I never do no matter how rude it may seem, even though this time I am not sure whether I regret it.

Nightwish blazing

It now seems like a good time changing subjects from water to fire.

Nightwish is one of the brighter stars on the Finnish musical sky, and yesterday they made a sparkling if not blazing performance having had time to perform only three of their songs in Jyväskylä Paviljonki before the concert place was on fire.

The place had caught a smaller fire in the roof constructions and the whole audience of 6000 people had to be evacuated to take precautions against anyone getting hurt in the incident. The evacuation took place all quietly with no panic struck among the audience, and after the fire brigade had secured and put out the fire the concert continued.

Anyway, the whole family now has been bit to small little tincy wincy tooth bites be our newest family member, our little precious baby girl with still no proper name. Getting a bit weary at being a biting toy for a kitten I went to the pet shop for some advice, as it is over a decade ago our older gentleman was in the same age being all over the place and I have forgotten about how to go on about it all.

The advice for our tooth marks was to get some reindeer bones for our little baby to chew on and advice fell in good earth, that is the biting has not ceased all completely, odd bites on your toes when hurrying past you jumping over the furniture in order to get into the book shelf still occur, but they happen more seldom as earlier yesterday. Jumping up and down the bookshelf was taken care of also by tucking the lower shelves full with books leaving no room for her to push herself through behind the books.

I at least do recall some of the tricks our mister did when young running wild, but the offspring and dear spouse of mine has more difficulties into realizing that this little cute kitten has sharp teeth and they are tired on you just given the chance. Thank God for the cats to grow up a bit faster than the offspring otherwise I would also be going bonkers soon. She’ll be in her teens by spring and after that it will be easing down, at it least it should do it.

As it is now, our potty training has been a bit difficult, that is to get her to sit still in the potty long enough for me to take a photo of her.

Xmas preparations

If you have been reading my Blog for some time you know I am a sucker for this Christmas calendar lottery ticket that you scratch every day and on Xmas Eve see if you have won. This year there is also an additional 100.000 Euros to be won on TV and with one ticket you might have three different wins between 10 and 25.000 Euros.

I have been used to having a Christmas Calendar show running from December 1^st to Christmas Eve for the children and the ones broadcasted here in Finland each year has not been quite up to the standards I was used to when growing up. Nothing bad, just different cultures, but this year I was surprised to find out that there actually is one for grown ups. It is a Xmas calendar show on TV every single day from December 1^st to December 24^th with tips and hints on making Xmas.

The program includes food recipes which wchihc are perfomed in front of the camera so you can see how it is to be done, tips and hints for making your own Xmas decorations and on decorating your home for the Holliday season. And the best of all, you can find the tpis on Internet, so you don’t have to sit there with open ready in hand in order to get it all right the first time. They even give you some tips on presents to give away.

Which is nice if you run out of ideas, and making decorations with your kids is nice as you can keep the decorations and hang them in the tree when your offspring have their own children.

90th Independence Day

Today is the 90^th anniversary of the Independence in Finland, and it is traditionally celebrated already yesterday.

Okay, here is what I am saying; you begin celebrations the festivities on the day before the Independence day and sleep off the aftermath of the celebrations on the day itself. So here is one mum waiting for the offspring to come home from the celebrations that begun yesterday and will shortly end as the home coming time is nearing...

And finally I can go to bed as well.