home – Nokisuu

Some March musings

27.3.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

Today it’s the 6th anniversary of my Mom’s passing. Today it’s also the day Middlest one moved out of home to the NDA dormitory first and next week he’ll be getting a flat in Central Finland. So it’s not always the sad memories to go by.

Middlest son is going to move to a ’right of occupancy’-apartment. Since we haven’t been able to travel these past two years we’ll loan the needed money to him and then he’ll pay it back in some years. The apartment is about 49 square meters, has sauna and balcony and is located next to a lake on second floor. He’ll have about 1 km to the city centre via the bridge. I’m glad he got the place (since I found it) but we’ll need to buy everything starting from bed sheets. We’re planning to go see the place around April, before Easter weekend.

DH is getting better, he’s in not so much pain anymore but he still naps some hours per day which is good. I had to go to talk with a nurse at my work health care since I begun to feel so overwhelmed and it was good I did. I feel much lighter.

Youngest one had the enrollment to high school and he applied first on the Middlest one’s school. I hope he gets in as it would be a short biking or bus route to take and also Hubby works next door so he’d get a ride every now and then too. It’s one of the hardest ones to get in to, a sort of elite school, because it’s the University training school for teachers but it’s also top rate studying. The final results come in Mid-June.

Last week I went to movies with youngest one to see Moonfall. It was so much fun, no logic and totally unbelievable but very good for relaxing. We enjoyed it a lot.

I also went for a ride with my friend Mareetta, we drove to Tammisaari and then watched the sun down in Inkoo harbor and the moon rise at Kaivopuisto in Helsinki. We had lovely day in wonderful spring weather and great food.

Maritime museum and movies

25.7.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

This week we were expecting a bit cooler weather so we decided to take youngest son to the Maritime centre Vellamo in Kotka on Monday and it was fun.

Kotka is a city near Helsinki, about 90 minute drive from our house and I’ve never been there in all my life. My mom’s grandmother had a workmen’s dinery there in the early 20th century which is my closest connection to the said city. Kotka used to have a lot of paper and pulp mills and also an important sea port which is still one of it’s biggest employers. BTW Kotka means eagle in English.

We had first thought to visit Vellamo and then walk in the city which is now famous of the renewed parks, it’s said people drive annually to Kotka just to visit their parks but since it took us five hours to go through the Maritime centre we decided to save the parks for a later date.

The Maritime centre Vellamo was huge and very interesting. There was a nice exhibition of the great battle in Svensksund in the Russo-Swedish war in the late 18th century. We also got to visit an old ice breaker Tarmo and the Finnish maritime history including old cruise boats like Finnjet. My brother Kimmo was an ordinary seaman on a large Finncarriers carrier before he changed career due to raising a family so it was interesting from that point of view also.

In the museum there was a lot of all kinds of ships and such and of course there was also a part of Estonia shipwreck. Youngest son asked about it and I noticed it still makes me cry to remember so hubby got to explain the disaster to him. You can watch videos in YT if you want to know more, just put ’Estonia 1994 news’ on the search bar.

On Tuesday I had a meeting with my osteopath and it was awesome. Later I walked to the city centre to meet Heidi and we went to movies to see Mads in Drunk. It’s a story of four teachers who decide to do an empirical test based on a study about a human functioning best in 0.5 ‰ drunk. I think you can guess how well that goes down.

I’ll embed the last scene of the movie underneath just because Mads was a dancer before his acting career and the scene reminds me of the old fandom phrase ’You can take a man out of dance but you can’t take the dance out of a man’.

Then on Friday I took youngest son to the movies to see Black widow and it was much better than I had thought. Of course one of the highlights was to hear one of the Widows speak Finnish too. It was fun I must admit.

Middlest son got a call from his Captain and he now has place in the ND Uni and will eventually become a fighter pilot! Yay! So he’ll be living here with us next winter and then he’ll go where they tell him to. I’m glad he’ll be able to do what he always wanted to as work, it helps.

Tomorrow me and eldest and youngest are leaving for summer cottage for the next ten days. Hubby has to go back to work and middlest son maybe comes for a couple of days, I don’t know and neither does he. This time we are leaving Sirius the Cat home since I fear some fox or supikoira (European raccoon) will eat her. Also she doesn’t like car trips and we all know that (eww).

Here’s a pic of Helsinki from Tuesday when I walked from Kallio to city centre. The big red brick house on the far right side is the University’s Education theory building, for the teachers-to-be. The left side bank is called Säästöpankinranta (Savings bank shore) because in the late 19th century there used to be a very popular bar and the reason for the name was that poor students could drink there for credit. Hence the name 🙂

A musical update

21.2.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

As most Europeans I too follow the Eurovision Song Contest, at least half-heartedly. I used to watch them as a kid since there wasn’t so many music programmes in TV but then I had many years I didn’t watch the contest at all. After Lordi brought Finland our first and only win in the ESC I’ve had just a cursory glance at the songs we’ve sent to the contest. The main reason being that I don’t like most Finnish contemporary music nor musicians.

Finns love heavy metal, it’s said we have the most metal bands per capita in the world. I just recently read an article in which the studies said that metal music lowers the blood pressure and calms nerves. When I had more migraines I noticed that listening to heavy metal (especially Rammstein) helped the pain so I can believe the results.

This year I listened to the finalists (at least half of them) and I had some hopes for the winning song although I never thought it’d grab the most votes being hard metal. But it did! And now we are sending Blind Channel to the ESC. Here you can read more about the contest from last night.

Here underneath is the participating song, I quite liked it since I love Linkin Park. Under that it is a compilation of the songs Finland has sent to the contest over years which is quite funny imo.

Onto other news; I’m having next week off since it’s the school’s winter holiday and we have only so much work to do atm, we are trying to stretch even the most menial tasks for days. My gig at the packed lunch bags distribution is also finished now as the high schools and vocational schools are going back to studying in-situ with safety regards on place (just half of the students in class per day, others teleworking at home). We’ll see how that goes, our PM Sanna Marin wasn’t happy about the Helsinki Metropolitan area mayors’ decision.

So I’m going to study and have some free time too. My Communication Sciences studies are going well but there’s only so many hours in a day and during working week the weekends get really short really fast.

And to end in heavy metal here is a trailer to a Finnish comedy about a heavy metal band. It was hilarious.

Halfway through August

16.8.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

So I’m back in the city and work too, it begun last Monday and I’ve been so busy with everything. Youngest one’s school begun on Thursday too.

The cottage weeks went quickly and I enjoyed time with my eldest and youngest son and Sirius. Middlest son visited for overnight as eldest picked him from the city and then gave him a lift to the garrison which is an hours drive North from the cottage. I did some foraging in the forests and picked berries and mushrooms. We had some encounters with wildlife, i.e. bats, and one day we drove to Jyväskylä to meet my cousin and one of my local friends popped by for a coffee. Very relaxing and nice two weeks.

Here at home besides work I’ve been busy sewing masks for myself to use in public transport as it was finally recommended by the authorities. There’s still a lot of people not wearing masks.

I’ve also been washing laundry from the cottage and also from the clearing I did here at home. I’d still go through my clothes to see what to put forward and what to keep. I have less clothes to wash now as middlest son is in the army, he used to change his clothes so often that the basket was always full.

On Friday evening I had coffee date with my friend and we decided to visit two art museums in Helsinki which was nice. The other one has great cafeteria, so after the first museum we then decided to have dinner at this one and checked the exhibitions too and afterwards had coffee and cake. It was nice to catch up with her too.

On Saturday hubby went to buy us more firewood and it was a bit hot weather to put them into the shed later but I love doing outdoors things in good weather. Today we watched middlest son give his oath via live-stream so now he is finally a conscript and not a rookie. Usually they get a vacation after the oath but these days the vacation is postponed still two weeks. In his speech the general said they haven’t had any of the boys sick with Covid19 since spring which is really good.

I’ve finished knitting a scarf, I finally got more yarn on Tuesday. I visited my dentist and afterwards went to my hairdresser and as I had a spare moment I did a quick visit at the yarn shop near her place. Oh and my dentist suggested I’d get braces as now my back teeth are getting too much pressure so I’m going to have a consultation made in mid-September. There’s always some moneypit one can throw her earnings.

This is about all from me for now. Pics in instagram and read books in Goodreads on the right side sidebar.

This and that

22.7.202022.7.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

It’s been kind of busy here since the last time I posted. Last Friday I had coffee with a friend of mine at the city centre. It was fun to chat for a while and have a nice cuppa in a coffee shop I had never visited before.

On Saturday we visited the Hämeen linna, a castle which dates back to 13th century. It’s been ages since I last visited it and it’s been much improved over the years. We also visited the Military museum right next to it and it was also quite interesting. There’s some pics also on my Instagram on the right side of this page.

On Monday I had my bloodworks check and then we went to Ikea to buy some clear plastic boxes I needed. Now the things are finally getting along as I managed to clear one place, i.e. a cupboard I’ve been using as the quick storage when we’ve had guests coming and needed to stuff things. It was so full of things I didn’t have anymore space for ’quick cleaning’. Finally it didn’t take than just about an hour to clean it and now I have more space there again.

Yesterday I visited my friend M’s parent’s house. They live in the neighbourhood I used to live during my school years. We’d have met earlier with M but she went to the Steiner school (=Waldorf education) and I to the public so we only met when she came to my earlier workplace as my maternity leave substitute. So M’s parents have a huge garden full of roses since they are rose collectors. They also have a grapevine which has been growing well despite it being outdoors. Their house has been featuring in a Finnish children’s movies called Heinähattu ja Vilttitossu (Hayflower and Quiltshoe) as the siblings home. (You can see it in this video at 0:24.)

We had coffee at the garden and then me and M went for a drive and found ourselves in the city of Tammisaari about an hour’s drive away. We had nice dinner and did a little walk around the old city which was closing up at that hour and then we had coffee and cake at the restaurant on the wharf. Pics on Instagram again ->

Today I visited my friend Heidi and then came home. We had some leftover candy and as I was eating it the last crown on my upper jaw broke.. Of course the time was just past 16pm as I tried to call my dentist. I have his private number too and as it’s the first number on my contact list I accidentally chose it but disconnected right away since I thought he had gone home already. After a while he called me and asked what happened and after I had explained he said that he’d have a small window of time between patients in half an hour if I could make it and I said yes (since we are going to the summer cottage I wanted to have the tooth fixed asap) so hubby drove me there and I waited a bit and then Kaj took a look at the tooth and said he’d just file it because it was a crown and it’d be fixed with better time. I got a date with him in August when I’m back at work but I’m so relieved now. (Have I mentioned I f*love my dentist?)

I should be doing things to get ready for cottage life but since it’s been a chaos this week and middlest son is coming for his first free period off army I think we’re leaving to country side with youngest and eldest on Friday. I don’t yet know if we’ll have the car for the whole time there or what but we’ll see that too.

Now I’m going to watch some tv. Yesterday I watched the Old Guard from Netflix and it was all right. And a trick question; is that Karl or is that my dentist? 😉

KarlCl

Cleaning, books, baking and movie

15.7.202015.7.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

I’ve been mostly offline, mainly because I begun to clean my bookshelves last Friday and it spread a bit. It took me three days to clear the books and organize the shelves and then I had to clear my writing desk and the chests underneath in order to get everything out and re-organized. It took two days..

Today I’ve been cleaning the ”boys room” which used to be first eldest and middlest son’s room and then middlest and youngest one’s room and now it just middlest’s. But since there were so many layers of history to go through it takes time to clean.

But now it’s all done! Now I only need to take the overflow books to the second hand center (for a big 2nd hand shop retailer) and get some clear plastic boxes for all the myriad of playing cards we have obtained from our travels… There’s some jigsaw puzzles too which some I’m keeping and some I’ll give to my cousin’s little boy. I used to do a lot of puzzles before we had kids but now the cat likes to sleep on them so it’s a bit of a hindrance.

I managed to listen to all of the Alexander Gregory stories by LJ Ross. The first two were read by Hugh Dancy and they were good but I must say that RA’s reading is on a different level all together. (Or maybe I’m just biased.) I also listened to a podcast about opera made by a Finnish actor Antti Holma. He is very funny and he lives now in NYC because his husband is one of the harpists in Met so he made a podcast of how to opera.

I also started the Sandman audioplay (that’s probably the best word for a comic turned into an audiobook) and it’s very good. I love Neil Gaiman’s voice as the narrator, he was so good in reading ’The Ocean at the end of the lane” too which is one of his best novels imo.

On Monday when it was a bit less windy and more sunny I managed to finish ”Milkman”, a novel by Anna Burns sitting outside. It was a hard read. Actually in the middle I just leafed it through so I know what happened. I seldom leave a book unfinished because I think you can always get something out of a novel but boy this one was hard.

As middlest son left to the army I inherited his root. First he said he’d dry it but I said I’d try to bake some bread with it and so I did. We went to movies on Friday to see ”Parasite” and I bought a book about how to bake with a root. On Sunday I took a bit of the root and on Monday evening I finally started the dough and yesterday baked a lovely sourdough bread. It’s so good I’d eat it all alone.

About ”Parasite”: I really liked it. It’s one of those that sink in later. A great movie, very Oscar-worthy and a globally touching story. In the movie theater we had our own row, there were some people on other rows but you’d only buy tickets for two people and then there’d be two empty chairs between other people but since we were just three and there were not many people we sat together. (Sorry for the confusing text.)

Now I’m going to watch some tv. I started to watch ”Stateless”, an Aussie serie in Netflix and it’s very good about paperless immigrants and a woman who’s escaping a cult ends up in the same detention centre. It’s very interesting and it’s also got Cate Blanchett in it who I think is the most beautiful woman on Earth and my fave actress. Some of the New Zealand-made Netflix series have also been very good, I especially liked ”Wanted” and not only because of Deano (*blushing*). He was also very good in ”The Bad seed” but I don’t know if that’s on Netflix since I watched it via our public broadcast company YLE.

But now Sirius needs some scratches and I need coffee and knitting and tv 🙂 CU.

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Immersed

6.7.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

I was spending about all of my waking hours in the Rain Wilds last week. I was rereading the Rain Wilds Chronicles by Robin Hobb and during the night I dreamed of them. I love Hobb’s novels and I’ve been slowly rereading all of them and it’s been a real pleasure. It’s always been like this for me when I read her books, I get so immersed it’s hard to do anything else. I don’t get just as deep with Tolkien or other fantasy realms but the Six Duchies touches my soul differently than others. Maybe it’s the dragons; I’ve always loved Hobb’s dragons, they are like cats, very independent and selfish but in need of servants.

We’ve had horrible weather ever since last Tuesday. The wind blows like it was Autumn and the rain sloshes down at every hour (except right now). In June I was worried the plants would die from drought and now I fear they’ll need a lifesaver so they don’t drown. I can’t even go to the forest to walk because the ground is so wet and since it’s so blustery cycling is hard. On Thursday when it didn’t rain until evening I visited a friend by bike and my knees have been aching ever since.

I came home via the graveyard where my father’s grave was, we gave the lease up since none of us (me and my siblings) didn’t much care about the grave site. Me and my sister agreed that we can just as well light a candle for our father in the remembrance site in the graveyard. In Easter me and hubby visited the grave and then the stone was still there but now they had already taken it off.

Middlest son left early this morning to the Air Forces base in Central Finland. He’ll be there 11 months and due to the Covid19 we don’t yet know when he’ll going to come home. I guess we’ll hear about the off-weekends later this week. Yesterday we had eldest son for dinner and since tomorrow would be middlest son’s 19th birthday I baked a cake and it was all very good but now it’s very quiet here. Just me and hubby and youngest son. Luckily Sirius meows every now and then.

I started to knit a shawl but had to change the yarn. The first yarn was a very nice yarn and I loved the color but since it was handpainted it kind of lost the brilliance in lace knitting and vice versa.

Winter pelt

22.6.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

Here in Finland we call the first swim in nature waters after winter ’throwing one’s winter pelt’ and since it’s been quite warm weather these past days I got rid of mine. The sea was wonderfully warm, I was expecting the water to be colder and was surprised when it wasn’t. I could have stayed in the water for all afternoon yesterday but.. Hubby doesn’t like to swim in ’cold water’ as he says and youngest one wanted to skim the stones off the water surface.

We’ve celebrated the Midsummer just being at home and enjoying it, I’ve read outdoors and already have nice tan. Middlest son has been mostly with his friends since he is going to the army in the early June. His friends cut his hair, it was to his shoulders but now it’s shaven 1mm long. He looks so much older it makes me a bit weepy.

Tomorrow is my first official day of summer vacay but I took Thursday off already and it feels like I had already been several weeks away from the office. Our new work desks came but they can’t be put on place yet since the acoustic wall-to-wall rug must be washed during summer. Well, it’s nothing we can do so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Due to the Covid19-situation the public swimming halls have been closed among other things and I thought that since hubby is working on Tuesdays and Thursdays now I’d go for a swim in the mornings since we can’t do any short trips until he gets off. I missed swimming during the closing, it’s my fave sport (pilates is another of my faves).

Since we are not traveling outside Finland this summer I have time to go through the cupboards I’ve used to fill with things when we get guests. I should also go through my book shelves and re-arrange them. Whoo boy.

Normal people

7.6.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

I’m watching the tv-serie Normal people which is based on a novel by Sally Rooney. I haven’t read the book and I doubt I will even thou the tv-serie is good.

It tells about a young couple, Marianne and Connell, who start dating in the high school and then their on-off relationship through college years. It’s been a bit of a task to watch because

it’s kind of too artsy. I mean the high art when you try to pretend to understand all the nuances and it gets a bit boring to reflect everything through the Deep Meanings (you know what I mean here).
there is too many sex scenes. I don’t know why but we are back to the 80’s now with all the official sex scenes in movies and tv-series. Sometimes less is more you know, it gets boring pretty quickly.
it hits too close to the young girl I once was, just as unsure and doing what I was told by my boyfriend. And I don’t want to remember the time nor the boy nor the girl I was back then. Of course I’ve changed and people do, they grow up but it’s hard to watch. I guess we’ve all been there.

So yeah.. just two eps to go. And a button strip to knit.

On to other things. We’re having middlest son’s graduation party next Saturday and I’ve counted that all together we’ll make about 30 adults including us.I’ve been cleaning the house and baking all weekend. I washed the kitchen windows today and I don’t think I’ll wash any others during this week. I still need to wash the floors before Saturday.

Yesterday I baked a bundt cake which my sister loves, it’s called Sandcake since it’s very dry and today I did some ’gentry cookies’, they are a traditional small cookie in weddings and other kin parties. Here you can see a pic of them, I cut them heart-shaped because I like it more.

Hubby has been cleaning our garden furniture and finished painting them today. One of our neighbours came to inquire where we bought them 🙂

At my work we’re waiting for our work desks to arrive. If we’re lucky we’ll get them this week which would be great since we’re off to our summer holidays on June 18th and come back on early August just as the clients arrive too. On Friday I got rid of all the music class books the teachers had decided they didn’t need anymore and it took me all day to shred the books off the covers. I was quite done afterwards.

Here are some pics. The music class pics show the state of Friday morning before and after lunch. Then there’s some Rhododendrons from my yard and the last pic is of a Finnish actor Jasper Pääkkönen, whom you might know from the Vikings and the BlacKkKlansMan. This pic was in an article and I was just thinking how here in Helsinki our (famous) actors can just casually bike around the city, nobody bothers you (much).

Now I need to get my beauty sleep 🙂

School’s out

31.5.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

Yesterday was quite different than I expected in January. We were supposed to have a big graduation party for middlest son but now we only had nice dinner with all of us here and it was okay too. Some of our relatives and friends are coming here on June 13th to celebrate him so it’s all right.

I did a test-cake of rhubarb and strawberry filled cake with meringue-cream icing and it turned out pretty good. I’ve never made meringue icing so it was interesting to learn that too.

Youngest son begun his summer holiday yesterday and he got good grades too. Both of them went to school to get the paper and later in the evening middlest son went to his friends house and came home in the afternoon.

As I said to Rachel we have my MIL’s old recipe booklet for pizza from the early 80’s. It’s got recipes for all kinds of pizza’s, i.e. one with liver and another with kidneys or anchovies and European cisco (fish). Eww. Here is a pic of Pizza with Sardines, the lack of other pics is due the fact the booklets didn’t have nice pics. They looked more just mushy and were not clear enough for photographing.

There’s a bonus pic of Sirius. I was reading on our balcony and she came to sleep on me. I love when she does that because our old kitty Sysi was much more reserved after being in a shelter as a small kitten and hardly ever slept on or with anyone. Sirius was born on an pony farm which had puppies born at the same time and she is a bit like a dog, i.e. she comes when you pat your knee and some other small things too. I really loved Sysi too, don’t get me wrong, she was an awesome kitty and was very protective of our boys when they were babies but she was shy. Only when she was old (18-y-o and forward) she slept on my lap in the evenings. But as a cat-person I love being a cat-mattress.

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