Avainsana: being me

The bench

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My brother Kimmo’s birthday party was yesterday. He has now turned 60 and decided to invite all of us siblings for a coffee to his home here in Helsinki. It’s been years since I last visited his house and back then it was chock full of souveniers brought from their travels and paintings and I can just say that they had multiplied, severely.

Before the party I had called him and asked what he’d like to get for his birthday gift. Last time we were on the summer cottage the bench on the pier had broken because it was old and had been outdoors the last 15 years, mainly without cover for winters too so that when I sat on it some of the rungs just snapped. So now Kimmo wanted us to replace the bench as a birthday gift for him ’because we had been jumping on it and it broke’.

I was flabbergasted. Some of my friends say I shouldn’t have bought the bench and DH and the boys are also a bit miffed.

I decided to buy the bench even as I think it was not our fault it was broken but I thought I’d be the bigger person this time. DH found a bench from a garden supplier and bought it and we’ll be going to take it to Kimmo’s summer cottage in October when we collect some old furniture there for our own (new) summer cottage.

The party itself was .. well.. okay. Kimmo’s wife Anne has cats as she breeds Singapura so youngest son was happy to play with them and I talked with my middlest brother and his wife more than I have in years. Maybe I should add that Anne and I aren’t really in friendly terms due to some old stuff but we managed to be civil.

I painted the bench on Kimmo’s birthday card. DH says it’s too much but I think Kimmo liked it. I’m of course taking the piss.

Sunday

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We are already first week in the May which means my summer holidays are nearer and nearer, just four weeks to go.

We Finns celebrated Vappu – the 1st of May eve – with a spring carneval but since it was pretty cold and we hadn’t planned any kind of party with our friends I was just happy to stay at home and watch tv. On Wednesday we actually slept until noon with hubby, that hasn’t happened in years.

On Friday I went to movies with youngest one and my friend to see Tolkien. It’s not a document so it’s bit different than how Carpenter tells Tolkien’s life in the biography.  The One Ring Net had quite a good article of the movie. Don’t forget to bring a hankie, even the very end makes one cry. Of course since the director is a Finn and a Tolkien-fan himself made the film even more touching.

We liked the movie a lot and youngest son asked what would have happened if Tolkien had died in the WWI. I said that probably the whole genre would have been born later and/or different than what it is today. Sometimes the 13-y-o makes me wonder with the questions he asks…

On Saturday we went to see Hairspray musical to middlest son’s highschool. he played the percussion and his girlfriend was one of the mean girls. Their highscool is famous for the musicals they do, last spring it was Grease and it was very good too. We got youngest son to come too, with a bit of meanness by my part (not proud) and with a little pushing by hubby. In the end he was happy to be there and middlest and his gf were happy to see him there too.

Yesterday evening I watched Brie Larson’s Unicorn store from Netflix, it was quite good too. I’ve also watched a Finnish tv-series about how the Finnish diplomats help save Chilean people during the 1973 coup. The Swedish ambassador is played by Michael Persbrandt (Beorn in the Hobbit).

Today hubby and I did a cemetery tour and went to see how his parent’s grave and my father’s have survived the winter. Our parents are on different graveyards and my mom has been buried to her family grave in Porvoo, a small city nearby, where she lived her childhood and then she moved back there when my dad died in 1994. Me and my siblings decided to give up my dad’s gravesite after this year since none of us has much time to take care of it so we didn’t plant anything there now. Maybe I’ll take some pansies there later. We didn’t drive to Porvoo today but instead as we went home middlest son asked if we’d go to garden shop and so now I have a new climbing rose and flowerbed has new plants and middlest one got cucumber and tomato.

I also baked a mudcake and hubby made a chocolate fudge covering for it, it was really good ❤

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Cherry trees near my in-law’s grave at Honkanummi cemetery

Life after Easter

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Today I went back to work after the Easter weekend which I started already on Thursday since I had the possiblity to take a day off. As my colleague was away on a Spring holiday and the house was very quiet we kept the library closed (there is only two and a half staff in our library).

On Thursday youngest son came home early and so went to the city centre to buy him new sneakers. The kid grows so fast, even faster than his big brothers at the same age. He has grown about 14 cm from the last Spring and will soon leave me behind and then I’ll be the smallest one.

We had very good weather during Easter, it only warmed more from Thursday to this day and I spent most of the weekend outdoors. On Friday I sat on our lawn chair and read, on Saturday I raked most of the yard while listening to an audiobook and a podcast, on Sunday I weeded half of the flowerbed and afterwards my hand hurt so effing much I couldn’t even knit (I couldn’t even write or use the mouse very good) and yesterday I read a book and sat in the sun.

All in all I read two novels and finished an audiobook (the not-so-good Jeff Archer) and listened two episodes of a podcast by a Finnish actor living in NYC with his husband. The only good thing in the Archer-novel was that it was read by Richard and after Easter meal I was so stuffed I think I napped a while with his voice in my ears. Lovely.

My Pilates class friend asked if I had new make up because I was so tanned already but I said I had been outdoors all weekend and we laughed.

Sirius the Cat had raw meat; she hunted a big rat and a mouse. I’ve never seen a rat here during these 23 years we’ve lived here and she had so much fun with it. We gave her first dose of anthelmintic yesterday and now I have four holes in my bicep. She didn’t like it.

Eldest son came for Easter dinner on Sunday. He is moving back here on late May/early June because their flat has pipe renovations coming up. If he gets the summer job near here it’s easier to go to work from our place than the flat because it’s on the other side of Metropolitan area. He’ll also be looking after the cat when we go to our holiday in June.

Due to hubby’s work he had to take June for his vacay and since my workplace (the actual house) is closed on July I’ll have a very long summer holiday. I think last time I had as long vacay was when kid’s were pretty small. I had a little scare since my boss had read the end date wrong from my holiday application and said we need to have a talk and then she asked why was I planning to be whole August on leave too and I was like what. Glad it was solved this easily as we already have plane tickets purchased.

Now I’m going to watch Umbrella Academy and knit. I’m about halfway through the cardi torso which is nice but it’s really hot to have the woollen cardi on my lap all evening. Soon I’ll get to the colourwork-part, yay!

Tomorrow I’ll be in the movies with youngest one and my two friends to see Avengers : Endgame! I can’t wait!

 

 

 

Almost free Friday

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Since I do 4-days-working week during wintertime due to the problems I have at work with our a/c I had my last (for now) almost free Friday today. I only took part to my labour union’s stewards meeting in the morning and then I was free.

I went for lunch with my DH, he works in the city centre and so I met him near his work place at a restaurant called Backyard Picks which has a very good lunch buffet. Afterwards hubby went back to his work and since I was free and I hadn’t yet visited the new AmosRex museum I went there.

There’s a Magritte exhibition now and also a Dutch art group Studio Drift’s exhibition and then as a permanent display they have Finnish late impressionists pieces. I really liked everything and as I’ve long since accepted that I get easily emotional I wasn’t surprised to find myself crying over Magritte’s surrealistic works.

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Faraway looks

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The Drifter

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The Teletubby land, as we call it, is actually the museums roof windows

The first one is Magritte’s ’The Curse’ and the two-faced woman is called ’Faraway looks’ (that’s the one that made me cry). The there’s the floating concrete box ’Drifter’ and Materials exhibitons ’The Fiskars scissors’.  Fragile future didn’t want to turn upright but it’s made of dandelions and led lights which makes it awesome.

And last pic is of the museums windows. On their place used to be the long-distance bus terminal when I was a kid and teen. I remember many Scouting travels and also going to my granny’s place and waiting for the bus to arrive here. The low yellow building behind them used to be an old army barrack during the Russian reign but now there’s some City exhibitions about the city plannings.

Then I came home and saw that my darling Freddie had arrived finally! I’m so happy!

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Past times

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These times I usually scroll through my memories in FB at some point of the day. Mostly I find some funny things and some sad things but today I found a true gem or gems should I say.

I doubt there’re many people who have accidentally had their eye cut with a newspaper edge but I’m one of them and the day was today six years ago. I can tell you it hurt like **** and I had to go to doctor to get a salve for it. The cut was in the eyeball’s surface so it was pretty uncomfortable.

As doctor’s orders I got the day off and was told to rest my eyes and how come that day was also the day The Hobbit AUJ EE came out on dvd and so I had the perfect sick day watching Fíli’s braidstaches and Majestic Thorin annoy the heck out of Bilbo.

On a side note I had written another entry there where I said that after the three-hour-movie youngest one got a yelling fit because there was not second part available yet 😛

On some days I’m this close to ending my relationship with FB but then again there’s good parts in it too not to mention how easy it is to contact friend living further away.

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Sunday

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Another weekend passed again. I feel like I didn’t do much but is it necessary always do so much? I’m trying to learn enjoy the moment as I’ve been trying all winter. Last spring I had a sort-of depression and burn-out and after self-diagnosing took contact to the work-health care and was sent to talk to a psychiatrist which was good. We talked about enjoying the moment and trying not to worry about stuff so much but I’ve noticed I’m trying to do that again.

I’ve been enjoying laying on the balcony couch and listening to Richard read audio books for me and it’s been nice. The weather has been very warm but it’s going to get colder again, we may even get some snow.

Yesterday me and hubby did the grocery store run. We also visited the candy factory in the neighbourhood to buy Easter eggs and it all just took all my juices and so I went to read on the balcony.

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Easter bunny made of egg shells. The most popular Easter Egg here is a real egg shell filled with almond-hazelnut nougat chocolate.

In the  evening when the balcony became a bit too cold to continue laying in I came indoors and finished Luther season 5 from Netflix. I quite liked it, season 4 was not very good and only had two episodes so. I also finished watching Hinterlands on Friday and yesterday I begun to watch The OA season 2. I find it very good, season 1 was great and I think this one will be about as good. And of course there’s Jason. I used to be a Lost girl but the fandom kind of moved over, a bit like Armitage Army is doing nowadays imo (?). On the other hand Jason is doing smaller roles than Richard I think and that’s part of the fandom slowing down.

Today I’ve washed clothes (things that never end..) and I washed kitchen windows which I really like doing. I was listening to Richard read Heads you win by Jeffrey Archer while cleaning the windows and doing my bujo. I also baked some pomegranate scones which youngest son loves.

I’m going to sauna now and then I think I’ll watch a bit of OA and unravel an old UFO knit which doesn’t seem to knit itself in the closet. I’ve found a better pattern for the yarn and I only need to buy a bit of white yarn to go with it.