relatives – Nokisuu

The bench

19.9.202219.9.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

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.

Daytrippin’ yeah. Again.

15.4.202215.4.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

I feel like I mainly post about my day trips and I don’t even do them so much. So funny!

Last Saturday we (me, DH and youngest one) drove to Jyväskylä to inspect middlest one’s new flat which was very nice. It had many cupboards and the rooms were spacious and the balcony was lovely. While the men assembled some Ikea furniture I unpacked the kitchen things and uploaded the dish washer with the new dishes. We made a list what middlest one should still buy, i.e. dish washer tablets and so on and then we had dinner in the city centre. I called my cousin and we decided to go to her place for coffee and bring something to go with it.

My cousin’s little boy (5) got a bit scared when we showed up as they have been low contact with people since he’s a ’heart child’ with HLHS. Luckily he got over his scare in a short while and later played card game with youngest one while we chatted with my cousin. It was nice to see them too 🙂 Afterwards we drove middlest son to pick up his car from the garrison and left for home via the local chocolate factory shop.

This is the lake from the summer cottage city centre.

At work the week (three days) was hectic as we have a strike looming ahead. It was supposed to begin on the Tuesday after Easter but it was postponed two weeks. I’ve never been on a strike, they’ve always been cancelled for different reasons so I find this very interesting. I’ve promised to go to my old work place as a picketer for a day with our head shop steward.

On top of these strike news I got news that I was selected with my colleague and our Media teacher for a Erasmus+ for a week in Limerick in May. I’m flabbergasted to say the least, I never expected to get chosen but my lovely boss said I should apply and I did and here we are! I’m so excited!

DH had one of his summer holidays still left and as they are lost if not used at the end of April we took a one-day cruise trip to Stockholm. I got a day off and youngest one too and on Wednesday evening we went to the ship, ate well and did some shopping and in the morning we woke up in Sweden. After breakfast we walked to the Viking museum in Djurgården which was very interesting. Afterwards we took a ferry to the Gamla stan where I did some book shopping and then we had coffee and cake (”fika”) and then we slogged back to the cruise ship. The weather was smutty, drizzling but okay. Back at the ship we had dinner and this morning we were back home.

Both eldest and middlest son were home so we had dinner together and I baked a Key Lime pie which was very good.

I’m trying to find us a summer cottage where we could be as we want to. I don’t get along with my SIL and it’s getting harder summer by summer to stay civil, not that we ever see but my brother is the in-between-man and I don’t think it’s fair, besides the boys are getting frustrated too as they’d like to go to cottage more than they now can. I found one place which would be in my price range and contacted the seller about going to visit the place next week but he hasn’t answered yet. It’s a three-hour-drive but it looks promising. I’ll be going there with eldest one to inspect.

A summer cottage right outside Helsinki, behind one of the most famous Helsinki summer restaurants called Klippan

Small island Lonna and behind it Suomenlinna (Sveaborg), the church tower is light house too

Nice Easter flower arrangements outside Nordiska Museet

I don’t seem to get pics to gallery mode anymore and now I’m too tired to look into it. Maybe it’s all right as it is. Here’s a song for you, I really like Ben Folds but then I kind of forgot him for a while.

I’m alive

25.10.201925.10.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

I just haven’t been very active (anywhere).

Last week I took youngest one to Jyväskylä which is a city in Central Finland, about 60 km north from our summer cottage. My cousin lives there and some of my friends too so it was nice to go and see them.

Jyväskylä is quite an active city due to a long history as a University town and it also has a very lively artistic side, i.e. the Finnish Handicrafts Society’s Museum is located there (they have awesome things in their shop). There’s also a blacksmith and yarn shop in an old house near my cousins place.

The neighbouring city of Vaajakoski hosts one of Finland’s candy factories called Panda. (Yes, like the black and white bear from China.) My cousin drove us there and we shopped chocolate and liqorice and chocolate liqorice. In fact we have now a lot of candy since bought quite a lot from the trip to Stockholm too.

We also did an empiric study of the local cafés with youngest son. We didn’t even get into all of them since there are so many! Our favourite was a place called Miriam’s, it’s a family owned small place where the owner and her brother do the cakes them selves and they are so good!

One night we went to movies with youngest one, we watched The Joker which was pretty awesome. I had my suspicions about it but it was good.

On Sunday we took a train back home. It was so nice to see my cousin and her little son but it’s also very nice to be at home. My cousin’s son has a genetic disorder which is very rare, he is one of three boys to suffer of it. The pain made him a bit cranky in the evenings which is understandable but my cousin said it was like a holiday for her too to see us and I said to youngest son that he’ll get an inkling now what it is to be a big brother.

On Monday morning I went for a swim before getting to work and it was nice. I bought hand paddles some weeks ago and they are wonderful except my left shoulder was pretty painful the whole week. I couldn’t even laugh because of the pain. Tuesday I went for my Pilates lesson which I absolutely adore and it did good for the shoulder too.

In the evenings I’ve been watching Netflix and knitting. I’m soon finishing a scarf I had to unravel during summer, now it’s much better. I still need to do the buttonhole strip for the Scull and Roses-cardi, it’s been much too warm to knit it.

I also visited the workplace-doctor one day since I think my thyroid has grown and it needs to be checked with ultrasound. This is the third year it’ll be checked. Last year there was a very grumpy doctor doing the ultrasound, he told me that I can’t possibly feel the thyroid grown 0.2mm and that it’d be left alone. Well, I think it’s grown again and so I’m going to the ultrasound again. I hope it’s not him again doing the check-up, the doctor writing the cover letter was a very nice lady who took my concern for real. I also gave blood samples since I’m sweating like a pig on and off and if it’s not thyroid it’s the menopausal heatwaves. Yeah, nice being a woman.

Oh well, I’m trying to get some sewing done during weekend and I’ll try to visit a friend who got her toes operated last week. Now I’m going to knit and watch telly with the cat.

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Overwhelmed

4.10.20194.10.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

Then youngest one had some trouble at school, it seems one of his teachers complains a lot about him so tpday I wrote an e-mail to the headmistress and that teacher and his own class teacher. I just need to know the teacher’s side of the story too but because we’ve had trouble before caused by a teacher I want to be in the clear.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rare bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.

Overwhelmed

4.10.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rsre bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.

Back in town

3.8.20193.8.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

And city life. Schools begin next Thursday and I’m having my final holiday week beginning Monday, it’s early fall. And I wonder where the summer did go.

Two weeks ago hubby drove me and youngest son with the cat to the summer cottage. The drive itself went pretty well except of the cat pooping in her box ten minutes after we left home so we did a service-drive back and started anew. Everything went well until the last leg before arriving to the cottage when the car (Volvo hybrid) told us that it can’t load the battery and the a/c went off.. Hubby had a deep think and said that he can’t stay at the cottage and he’ll keep the car running in case it doesn’t start again. So we took all our things from the boot and he got on his way back to town.

About 90 minutes later he calls me that he had got to Heinola which is about at the middle of the route and that the car had finally given up and he had just got it to a truck resting park when the brakes went off. Luckily we have Volvo service so he called them and the car was taken to a car repair shop in a nearby city called Lahti and he got a rental car so he’d drive home.

Well, to make a long story short we are still waiting for our car but since the guys at Lahti couldn’t do anything it was taken nearer to us to Volvo’s own car repair shop on Thursday and there the (hybrid specialist) guy said that he’ll look at it on Friday so with any luck we’ll get it at the beginning of the week. He told hubby that the a/c fuse burning had caused and all-around short circuit in all of the hybrids electrical components. Yay.

At the cottage we enjoyed the warm weather until last Sunday, we had +34C degrees on Sunday and then it dropped to +14C on Tuesday and stayed there. My brother came on Wednesday and on Thursday we all drove home. The cat pooped again after ten-minute-drive but my brother has five cats so he just said we’d stop at the nearest gas station and there me and youngest one took the cat box to the handicapped toilet and cleaned her and the box which luckily wasn’t as bad as before since I hadn’t given her any food on the morning.

At the cottage we swam in the lake and the water was really warm, it was lovely. We did small tasks my brother had made a list of: we cleared all the small trees off the platform side which helps the wind blow to the shore so there’s not so many mosquitoes, I cut the black currant bushes and picked the berries so he’ll be able to build new supports for the bushes and then I uprooted all the fireweeds off my mom’s old veggie garden which only grows weeds now. Meanwhile Jimi played with the cat outdoors and learned how to throw darts. We also had some visitors; my blog-friend from a bit further with her son who is Jimi’s age and then my old message board friend who lives nearby. My brother also paid us a visit on the previous week on Thursday to Friday since he can adjust his work schedules as he likes to. It was nice since he loves to bbq (he is sort-of like a CEO in a German bbq manufacturer’s Finnish office) and also took us shopping with him.

Yesterday I was browsing the Net and happened upon this article in BoredPanda. As I scrolled through the pics I was stopped short with this one. It kind of reminds me of a certain someone, maybe it is his forefather. And now I wonder how Richard would look with a man bun..

Buzzfeed

I guess this is all from me for now. The washing machine is announcing again that it’s done and I need to get the load out. Sometimes I wonder why the men who tried to invent perpetual motion machine never asked their wives.

Goodbye

30.3.201931.3.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

Today we said goodbye to my father’s brother. We were not close but of course it makes me melancholy since now both my parents and all of their siblings have passed away as have my grand parents too.

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Four years ago around this time of spring we had my Father-In-Law’s funeral and the next year it was my Mom’s turn. Then it was our very old and dear kitty’s time. Last spring we didn’t have anyone to mourn.

One part of ageing is probably the point where you meet most of your relatives in funerals and yet I don’t feel middle-aged yet. I’m turning 50 next year so I’m still young imo, at least I’m young at heart.

My eldest brother lives in the Central Finland 500 km’s from the rest of us who stayed in the capital city or metropolitan area so it was nice to see him too. My sister couldn’t come as she had just traveled to Lapland for her spring leave with her friends.

This kind of became a bit more sad post for a first blog here but sometimes life is.

ukki6v

Here are my paternal grand mother Augusta with my auntie Liisa, little Sakari baby and my dad Olavi with his teddy and a gleam in his eyes, I think his character is very visible in this pic 🙂