Married with a son, paint scientist and BT

Bitching...

2006-10-02T10:30:00+03:00

In case someone has been wondering why I haven't written anything in a long time, I'd say there are two reasons...1) I just haven't felt like writing anyting. 2) Nobody ever reads this or comments (although...does that mean that my friends actually do have a life and don't have to hang around the net all the time. In that case I should be happy for them:)
I'm experiencing what they call a "VMTL" (vittu mä tänään lähden = "fuck, i ain't goin' nowhere") month. I don't give a rats ass about dieting, I'm not up for any exercice or anything that involves getting into shape and I'm not interested in job hunting at all. All in all...I just want to do nothing. Sad, huh? I seriously need some motivation to get my ass on gear. This fall time is so depressing.:/

/'du:di:s/

2006-08-25T14:15:00+03:00

I realize this news flash probably ain't going to count as "big news" for you guys, but the particular event made me very happy yesterday. Verneri doodied in his potty for the first time! Yay!!! I know you can't relate to my excitement, but man, it was like finding gold! We've been potty training for the entire summer. Every once in the while we get an occasional pee in there, but yesterday, -boom!. Just like that there was a chunk of a doody in the potty...(please don't imagine that for your own sakes..) Verneri couldn't understand my excitement as I was doing a rain dance around the apartment chanting "poo in da potty, poo in da potty...cha cha cha" Gee, I'm so happy!! It's as if a bird spotter saw the rare bird after months of desperate wait...Please bear with me here! This just means that another milestone has been reached and the kid is growing up!

Airplane Spotting

2006-08-20T18:02:00+03:00

Yesterday we spent a lovely evening at "my-almost-brother"''s house (Most of you should know who I'm talking about ;) dining and wining and just plain relaxing with family (My other "almost-brother" and Verneri's godparent was there also with his wife). Verneri was playing with their sons ( as well as an 18month old plays with a 1year old and a 3 year old:). They live in Vallinoja, which is rather close to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and as we were sitting on their patio, the airplanes decenting to He-Va Airport were flying quite low. Verneri got really excited when Mr. Paint pointed the planes out to him. He was aaawwwing and pointing to the planes. This morning we mentioned the word "lentokone" (airplane) to him and he started pointing up in the sky and running to the window. He did that for so long that we decided that we should do a little excursion down to the Airport area to spot planes.

So, after his naptime we drove down to the outskirts of the airport around the little roads that go around the perimeters of the runways. Apparently we hit a popular spotting location as there were several other spotters with their binoculars and cameras. Verneri got to see 2 planes take off from the runway and then he spotted 2 from the car on his own as we were driving away. As expected, the same aaaawwiiiing started again. We might have a future buss driver of aviation on our hands, people! And, for the record: plane spotting was actually pretty fun thing to do!:)

Rain, yay!

2006-08-17T09:39:00+03:00

This morning I woke up around 5 a.m and it was raining, -indeed from Esther's behind-, and thundering! Bless the rain! Thunder and lighting, very very frighting...That's more like it! Now it's a fresh morning again after a rainy night. yay!

Heat, heat, heat

2006-08-16T13:42:00+03:00

As I was putting Verneri down for a nap on our balcony today, I looked down and saw that everything looks as it is fall already. All the trees are yellow and withered, the grass is all burned to a a golden yellow color. It's because of this damn hot and dry summer! Yesterday it rained for the first time in 2 months! Can you believe that? And not even any " from-Esther's-ass" -rain, but just barely a few drops for an hour. I'm getting sick and tired of this soon. This is not what Finland is supposed to be like in the summer. Where are all the rainy days and the chilling summer breeze? Not here. To add to that, of course now that Simo's got the heart problem and should avoid heat, it has to be the hottest and driest summer in the last 100 years...Talk about irony, eh?

Of course, the situation would be much more tolerable if we had AC. But we don't. Come on here and live like bacon! It's a 24/7 sauna...You have to keep all the windows open all the time, otherwise it'll get too hot inside. After 4pm the sun turns right onto our living room and bedroom side of the building. We can't even keep the balcony door open all the time because of Verneri. We're afraid that he'll climb and fall down as soon as we turn our backs. Thank God the smoke from the Russkies forest fires seems to have gone away finally. It wasn't very pleasant waking up in the morning smelling smoke as if someone was heating up a sauna with a wood-burning kiuas (kiuas= the sauna stove)! Unless this stupid heatwave won't soon come to end, I'm really starting to think I'm a winter person...NOT. This is Finland, not Mexico! We ain't used to this kind of weather. We're supposed to be in the mild climate zone, this has clearly gone too far. Damn the stupid Golf current!

Science Boy

2006-08-09T13:06:00+03:00

I realized that I haven't been writing much about Verneri lately, so I guess I should fill you guys in on his latest developments etc. Yesterday I took him bright and early to the Neuvola (pediatric nurse and/or doctor) for his 18month check-up. He was a little rascal there, running around the Neuvola hallways and screaming of joy. Our new pediatric nurse here in Helsinki is so nice! I like her a lot more than the old fart in the Turku Neuvola. Verneri is growing according to the charts, he weights 10,7kg (sorry, I don't have the energy to convert that to lbs...you're gonna have to do that yourself!) and is 80,8cm tall. A little bit on the short side, but that's no surprise since mommy and daddy are on the short side too...;). After we had a chat with the nurse we went back to the lobby waiting for the doctor to call us in. The doc was a nice lady too. She examined Verneri and he didn't even cry or anything. Although, Verneri wanted to examine the stetoscope before he let her listen to his heart. The heartmurmur is still there, but it's diagnosed as harmless. Most likely it will go away with age as the heart grows. Otherwise he's in great health and growing and developing as expected.

As I wrote earlier, Verneri is starting to talk soon. Yesterday he tried to say "appelsiini" (an orange) after me, but it came out as "aplii". He understands almost everything that is said to him. He knows what are socks, shoes, toes, hair, hat, eyes, ears, spoon, etc... And this is really weird, but he has a real knack for numbers! I'm serious. He looooves numbers. When we were at the Sea Life aquarium, he didn't care about the fish, he had fun pointing at the numbers on the tanks. In the elevator, he screams out loud when the floor number buttons light up. We bought him a cardboard book of numbers and that's his most favorite book right now. Whenever he sees the Keno lottery on tv, he runs screaming to the front of the tv, stands there pointing at the numbers and shivering, as if he's trying to tell us that there's somekind of a pattern or formula to those numbers. He's probably going to be a scientist (yay?)...I'm afraid he's favorite book is going to be "MAOL -taulukot" ( a source book for standard mathematics, chemistry and physics formulae). The math side is definitely from daddy. Let's hope Verneri also takes after him in musical aptitude.:)

A slice of OC.

2006-07-26T13:58:00+03:00

We'll be getting back to my favorite subject: inspiring friends! Sorry Arja, this time it's not you (but it might be because I have no idea what you have been up to lately!*wink, wink*). This time it's the California girl, Maria O. ( or should I say Ms. D.? or Maria O. D.? definitely not the latter one...it sounds like she overdosed on something...hmmm. Mrs. OC.? damn this is hard! We'll let her decide, and for now just call her "Maria II").

Anyway...Maria II seems to be in the prime of her life! Making babies, writing and winning contests, man! Where does she find this energy to do all that stuff? I mean come on, she has a little rascal boy running around the house and a 4 month old baby daughter! Geez, when Verneri was 4months old, I didn't know which day of the week was or have any imagination left, let alone write something intelligent and then win contests!She must burn the midnight oil or something...:). It's really inspiring that she writes, but as I lack imagination, I don't think I could write fiction or short stories. I did when I was younger, and even got a story published in one of Finland's hottest teenmagazines (MeKaks). Then I turned 20 and became all academic and serious and completely lost my imagination. The same thing happaned in drawing and art: i have no imagination, so I'm not able create anything. My artistic creativity has experienced a serious inlfation! And I blame the university and the academic bullshit. Yeah, it's gotta be it.

If you want to read "Maria II's" winning story, The Wedding Un-dress, scroll down to her pic and click the title. You should, it's good!

Greetings from Pori!

2006-07-24T21:59:00+03:00

Time flies by so fast, my friends! Now that Pori Jazz is over, the summer is officially over...daaammmmn! I haven't had much time to write lately for no other reason than the one that I haven't actually been hanging around the computer lately...Yes, I do have a life.:)
Last week was succesfully spent in Pori. It wuz fun, but I'm bloody tired now. Guess I am an amateur when it comes to partying...Went to three big concerts in Kirjurinluoto Arena. Thursday's weather was perfect, sunny all day. Cab Calloway III and his Cotton Club show, Roberta Flack and The Neville Brothers were swingin', man! Friday's best was DJJB (Don Johnson Big Band), although the main artist of the nite was Kanye West. On friday, weather was baaaaad. It rained for most of the time. Saturday, again, sunny! Amazingly enough, 34 000 people came in for a picnic to listen Sting at Kirjurinluoto. Boy, it was pretty crowded... Now I'm all worn out from stayin' out late, drinking and partying for three days in a row!Happy to be safe and sound at home and resuming my normal daily routines with Verneri, -who by the way is starting to talk pretty soon! He understands almost everything we say to him and he tries to explain a lot of stuff. He says "äiti" (mom) and "pappa" (grandpa), "auto" (car), "ei" (no<---apparently a word that he hears a lot...),"minä" (I, me) and some other words that I don't believe are Finnish...I think this is so great! It's nice when you're able to communicate with your kid...if he is learning to talk, I must be doing something right.;)

New Angelton DC.

2006-07-05T21:51:00+03:00

Last sunday we were driving around Helsinki, and I started wondering how to describe to my lovely American friends how does it feel like to live in Helsinki and the metropolitan area. The distances are longer and everything is spread out. Living expenses here are much higher than elsewhere in Finland. If I remember correctly, there are almost 2million inhabitants in the greater Helsinki area (includes the cities Espoo, Vantaa and Kauniainen). And considering the entire population of Finland is a little less than 5million, I'd say the south coast of Finland is pretty packed :).

So, living in the biggest city of your country? That'd be like living in New York. Living in the capital of the nation where all the politics is done, where the parliament is, where the nation's headquarters are. That'd be like Washington DC. Living in the city where 98% of the celebrities and stars live too, the center for the nation's entertainment industry. That'd be like Los Angeles. Well folks, Helsinki is ALL of the above. It's like New York, Washington and Los Angeles combined. You can probably still throw in a couple other major US. cities....So, in a nutshell, Helsinki is like "New Angelton DC" for us! In a smaller scale of course. Everything in a neat, teeny tiny package. Wouldn't that be handy, huh?

The one with the inspirational friend

2006-07-02T10:14:00+03:00

Alllllriiighty...let's continue with this friendship theme. The funny friendship vow that I got from Arja is not the only thing she has inspired me on. And besides, this is a good time to talk about her because for all I know, she's sitting in a plane 10mile high, sippin' beer and flyin' off to Romania! She won't be back to comment on this in a week...or kill me for talking about her. Remains to be seen.
Last night when I was putting Verneri to bed I started thinking about all of those things that I haven't done in a loooooong time. Like drawing, reading a book, writing, etc. I seem to lack inspiration in those areas. My life just kinda flows by with the same regime on a daily basis. And lately all this dieting stuff has caught my attention from everything else. I'll say...it's damn harder to lose weight than to gain it, folks! Anyway. Then I started remembering the times in Turku when I suddenly got the hots for making puzzles or something like that. Now, I know puzzles aren't excatly what you'd call a cool way to kick back and relax, but my point is that at least I was doing something else than just sitting on a sofa. Brainstorming. I seriously think my brain function has sloooowed down in the lack of no intelligent stuff to do. It needs stimulation. And it needs Arja to inspire me. Let me explain why.

She has always these million different projects going on. She reads, writes, gardens, knits, bakes...the list goes on. She's a regular Martha Stewart, definitely (before she [Martha] was behind the bars). Everytime I visited her house, I always got an inspiration to do stuff! Last summer when they were vacationing, I watered her flowers for a week and boom, all of a sudden I was like "I need me some plants and flowers!" I completely forgot that I'm terrible with plants, I always forget to water them and they die. When I'm at her house for coffee and she's baked something, I'm like " Yummy, this is goooood. I'm gonna bake something too!". Now, she and her fiance are puzzle lovers, -and yes, they do actually finish them too- so there's often an unfinished puzzle laying around somewhere in the apartment. Of course, I then get the zest for buying a puzzle too. It's like, she knits something and I run to the store to buy knitting equipment. She started translating a book for fun, and suddenly I needed to do that too! You see where I'm going with this? I joked about this last spring with her even. I told her stop doing so many projects because I couldn't keep up...I was in an inspirational overload.

Maybe some of you know think I'm just a copycat who can't use her own brain to think of stuff to do, but I don't! I love it that I have such an inspirational friend! Now I just have to rely on her internet blog for an inspiration source because we live so far away from each other. I'm sure she's not too happy about me right now for putting her on the map like this, but I don't care! It's like I wanna take a mental picture of her face when she reads this; click! Couldn't be happier to realize I have great friends!!