No time to waste

I have lately been quite busy with getting my book ready to present for publishers, and now it finally is ready in three languages.

Just to slip in the post and mail to hopefully well chosen recipients, or to THE one that will publish it. And preferably by Christmas time as it is a book about Xmas.

The tedious bit about it has been printing all the copies, sorting them out with the illustrations and accompanying letters and presentations. I would have gotten it ready by end of the week but run out of envelopes and problems to sort out jammed into the same time and I had to prioritize the more acute things. But I am glad this is no professional envelope licking, like a political campaign I have volunteered to stuff envelopes and fortunately now I can get some pre-taped envelopes as I ran out of the old fashioned lickable ones. Colour cartridges for the printer and paper to print on it with were the other things I run out of, so I have some acute and serious shopping to do.

Time flies by and now we are already into end of May, soon to begin June. And I have forgotten about three dozen of good subjects to blog about have. Some made it to getting written down on a piece of paper, others I just thought about and forgot. All the same, you can never get time back and the time I have been spending off line has not been wasted.

School will soon be out with all the traditional festivities that come along with it and the beginning of the summer season with the occasional weddings and a few confirmations compulsory to attend to together with one “big” anniversary during the Midsummer weekend that might not be celebrated at all, as the person in question has been hospitalized for some time now and is more or less presumed not to return home anymore.

A girlfriend that just had to attend to a funeral on Friday has been so stressed with overtime at work that she was happy to have it to attend to get at least one day off in order to get rest some.

Kissed and told

The Finnish prime minister is today appearing in a court case as a private citizen where charges are pressed in the Helsinki District Court against his former girl friend that kissed- and told with her book about their time of courting.

The prime minister only filed a complaint against the publisher of the book and not his former girlfriend, but the prosecutor is apparently seeking damages from both the publisher and the former girl friend. The prime minister has said that he wants to openly discuss the principle at stake, that there must a limit on to how much invasion of the privacy of public figures the media actually can make, as there so far has been no precedent case of this kind in Finland.

This case is expected to could set guidelines on how privacy laws apply to public figures and it will significantly have an impact on what can be made public in the media from now on here in Finland.

Anyway, I better get going as I have my book illustrator coming to work for the weekend and need to get stocked up with some groceries in order to cope with the weekend provisions. More time for work and less time needed for shopping and cooking. Sad that our book is about our cat, maybe an illustrated book about the Finnish prime minister would have been easier and more worth the money to sell to some publisher.

10% lefties

Did you know that about 10% of the population of the world is left handed and whether you are destined to be right- or left-handed is destined by our genes? They say that left-handed people are no more accident prone than right handed, well if I were left handed I night change that statistics. The scientists further say that the same inherited gene most certainly causes left-handedness but it also determines whether you might become schizophrenic or not.

Anyway, I have lately been very busy writing, well obviously not this Blog of mine, that you might have guessed already, but this children’s book of mine that has been planned now for years is now finally well on its’ way into becoming reality.

We are both working hard at the moment with the book, both I and my illustrator, and we hope to be able to have the book ready and available for sale by this Christmas. And as it is a Christmas story, about a little cat and the Christmas-tree, it would be quite appropriate too to have it released just in time before Christmas.

Right now I just feel I am running out of time so I will get back to my re-writing after a nice cup of tea.

Problems washing

Washing your own mats and carpets is one thing people still tend to do and it is usually done by scrubbing your mats by hand with a brush using liquid soap and when warm and sunny weather hits most of the municipal washing places tend to be very crowded and people waiting in line for their turn to wash. The reason for washing when the sun is out is that your washables dry quicker than they would otherwise do. Instead of transporting them wet to your home to dry you can spend some more time gossiping and socializing, meet old friends and perhaps even make new ones.

The washing sites are also places to share all gossip so if you want to be well informed this is the place to keep updated on the local gossip as nobody wants to sit at the hairdresser’s anyway when it is hot.

This is all nice but recently the washing basins have been stolen in many sites around the country as the aluminium the basins are made of is an attractive and costly scrap metal and washing has had to be postponed to later date when new basins have arrived.

School is to begin next week so some school books had to be purchased as usual and are they expensive! And every year the teachers tend to choose new books so you always end up with having to buy new ones every year instead of inheriting them from your siblings. Guess it is good as the teachers then do not get as easily bored with having the same old routine every year but they have to keep up with their teachings constantly updating their knowledge.

The bad thing though is to get the books “out of their baby shoes” getting rid of all the faults and mistakes in the first edition and of course these books we had to buy were of the first not yet tried edition.

So another hot day was spent in town instead of just relaxing which I would have preferred.

Doing my homework

Reading Harry Potter has now for the past few days been my main occupation.

I have been reading the last book in the series after the offspring finished reading it, the deadly Hallows just so that I know what is talked about and got told almost half the story in advance by the previous reader spoiling some of the surprise turns for me. I have had to read all Harry Potters to keep up with what is talked about at home, they are not really my favourite fiction but not the worst I have read either, and as the interest in Harry Potter a couple of years back grew into an obsession and nothing else than Harry Potter was ever talked about I happened to know quite a lot about the subject. The strangest things you do for the love of your children.

Back then there had to be all the movies first ones as videos and now as DVDs, all the books in three languages, and various Harry Potter paraphernalia. Scarves and magic wands were bought, scarves and wands were made as well, playing cards, chocolate frogs you could buy in stores. Then there were the feathers to get for the writing with real quills and ink on parchment paper and even the acquisition of cloaks. I guess the only thing forgotten about was the brooms!

Fortunately nowadays the former obsession has subdued into a more normal interest in reading the books as fiction and entertainment instead of wanting to live in the fictionary Harry Potter World and Hogwarts.

The new books’ release was actually all missed until mummy told about it as dating had become more interesting than keeping up on Harry Potter news on the Net. And had I not watched the news that day I would have been as ignorant about it as the offspring was.

Nice change

From now on you have to declare your money if you are taking more than 10.000 Euros outside the EU. This is done to prevent the laundering of money and you are to declare sums over the allowed amount at the customs and taking a sum bigger than the allowed one may result in fines.

Well I guess that will not be my case, point me to the nearest book shop with a sale on and I will happily spend all money left, and stay home all summer reading a book and having a nice glass of wine and maybe some cheese. And it is a nice change from yesterday’s turmoil, nice and quiet and no off-spring or spouse in sight. Just me, home alone with the cats and my new books in a stack waiting to be read.

Social benefits

I was surprised to hear that kindergarten has been free to people with low income here in Finland and parents have been able to leave their children in the municipal child-care full time even when being unemployed and at home. Well, this will come to an end from next year which I think is good. Children do of course need to be with other children in order to develop into normal human beings, to learn social skills to be able to cope when at school every day.

But having the kids at the kindergarten for the whole day I consider as just simply being lazy. Why not spend some time with your children when they are small, as you night get a job when they are older, and many parents hardly see their children as they are busy with their job and careers.

I began planning writing children’s stories “some hundred years” ago it now seems when pregnant, and life with small children sometimes consumes all your time and leaves little for your own ambitions. And for quite some time now I have planned to write a children’s book about our pet cat, the cat with the Vappu balloon and other funny ways and now with off-spring growing, becoming adolescents I have more time to do what I want. So now I am well on my way to developing this idea into reality and by writing it transforming it into a story and have today also found an artist, an illustrator with a nice visual view and I hope we will be able in cooperation to bring these stories into realization.

I was already very impressed when I first saw the samples I received by e-mail and the picture I got today was very much to my liking and looked like the original.

I am very glad and this has been a very good day, even though blogging took its’ time to get done. And this meeting was the most important thing on my agenda today.

Unfortunately I have no longer have any small children to read the stories to but friends and relatives have small children that can enjoy them, as I do not quite yet plan to become a grandmother. But then I guess it is not for me to plan anyway when I am to become a grandmother, but in about ten years time would be nice if anyone asks me.

First things first as they say.

Herring and red wine

On rare occasions we have the opportunity to be home alone just the two of us, my husband and me, and today being one of them my husband taking some time off from work to spend some quality time with me. The sun was shining nicely so out for a walk down to the market and get some shopping done for the weekend, and of course being on the water side you come to think of fish so we got some smoked herring.

Imagine, smoked herring on Finnish rye bread and some red wine, yummy! I just love it, it is one of the best inventions in this country. The smoked herring and the rye bread the red wine is my own culinary combination, it might sound odd but it really is worth to try!

I know they say white wine with the fish but I can not help myself, smoked fish is delicious with red wine, especially one with a bouquet to match the heavy smoke-taste.

My husband also bought me a brand new knife, a Laplander one, a very sharp one that I have already had the opportunity to cut myself on. And knives a woman can never have too many of, especially if she is fond of cooking like me.

Anyway, having time without any off-spring to mind I suggested to my husband that we should go to a bar pretending not knowing each other and either him or me hitting on the other one and book a room in a hotel to spend the night in.

Well, the bar thing with hitting on me was interesting, but he was not at all keen on going anywhere else than home. And as the night is still young we will see what comes out of it. So in the end I guess I will have to be pleased with the smoked herring and red wine, and as I have a good book to read I have no need for any other entertainment.

Just like any ordinary day with the kids home.

Flag Day

Today the 450^th anniversary of the death of Mikael Agricola is the celebrated with a national flag day.

Agricola was the boy of a farmer, as you can detect from this name and became the inventor of literary Finnish. Before Agricola thought about putting Finnish, and how to put it, on paper there was nothing written in it, thus becoming the inventor or creator of the Finnish written language. He translated the holy bible into Finnish and also created the first

“Aapinen” , the very first spelling-book where you could learn to read Finnish and still today 60% of the words Agricola invented are used in their original form in Finnish of today and he is the man we are to thank for Finnish being such a complex language for all us foreigners to learn.

Agricola was also a great reformer of Christian faith as he was there to reform the Roman Catholic Church and beliefs into the protestant Lutheran church. Wonder what he would have thought about what is going on in the church of today?

So today we are flagging off Easter as well and going back to normal routines tomorrow. Enjoy last day of the holidays! To tell you the truth, I am glad it has come to an end; too much is too much and being without my own, home-alone-quiet time is making me crazy! So I am celebrating going back to normal tomorrow.

Music on a pike’s jaw

The Finns have an epic of their own, The Kalevala that is quite unique in the world as there is no creation story similar to it, as all the other original creation stories told around the world resemble each other in some ways.

Anyway, in the Kalevala there are all the tales as poems about how earth was created is and so on. In it the head character, Väinämöinen creates an instrument called the Kantele out of the jaw of a pike fish, stringing it up and playing music on it and singing.

The Kantele is still used and played at here in Finland but today it is not anymore made out of the pikes jaws, they are more like flat wooden boxes lying on tables with lots of strings and played traditional Finnish music on. The songs have normally been traditional poems and tales that have been sung for centuries, but I just recently found out that it is not quite as uncommon as I had thought.

There are actually classes at the conservatory to take, they do give lessons in playing the Kantele, and you can even get a degree in playing it. Last week I accidentally met a person that plays the Kantele, a lady that studies the art of playing it as well as gives lessons at the conservatory. She writes her own new contemporary songs to play on the Kantele and restores antique Kantele instruments ones as a hobby. Wow!

So Kantele is not only history, it still is going strong in contemporary life here in Finland.

Bullshit

Bullshit would in Finnish be translated to “horseshit” and a book named “Bullshit” was just released here in Finland.

The book hit the market just in time now before the parliamentary elections. The book goes quite in detail on about the art of talking bullshit and according to the author you can practise it getting better at it and become fluent in talking bullshit.

According to the interview with the author of this book especially many “good looking men” dressed in smart in suits, white collars and neckties do make good use of talking bullshit right now just before the balloting for the parliament.

And of course it would be good for any politician in any country to practice to keep talking without saying anything in as many words as possible. One part of what they are saying is probably the truth but among it are whitewashed things, some pulling wool over people’s eyes and the rest of their talk is itself, that is, pure bullshit.

Fire-freezes

It is right now it is colder than normal after a warmer than usual summer and autumn. This might be the winter with the coldest weather so far as long as I have been living here in Finland!

In the old days when the most of the houses were wooden most homes were lost in raging fires in very cold below zero in February, normally the coldest time of the year hence the term “tulipalopakkaset” which would mean fire-freezes in English. The reason for the bigger incidence of fires when it is very cold is that the cold dries up all material and fire was easier caught if not handled careful.

As it happens I quite recently read a book by one of Finland’s most famous writers, Aleksis Kivi, “Seven brothers”. (A must if you want to get to know more about what makes Finns Finns, by the way.)

Anyway, in the book the boys had trouble getting back to the village from the way back woods barefeet in the cold and deep snow when their house was caught on fire during the fire-freezes. They were quite a bundle of boys, these seven brothers in many ways.

Today with the temperatures creeping well below zero, I am free of doing any washing just to save some electricity, at last one good reason for not doing any housework!