Dry Weather, Dry Scalp

I've had majorrrrrr problem with my dry scalp for the past few years. In Indo, I had to use anti-dandruff shampoo after I started my teenage years, but the shampoo worked well (the only thing I needed to do was just switch the brand of anti-dandruff shampoo). The first year of living in Finland, I don't recall any dry scalp problem, but the second year it started bothering me and the past two years it's really bugging me so much. I guess the more I age, the drier my body is, including my scalp.

I've tried different kinds of shampoo (we have maybe 10 different bottles of shampoo in the bathroom), different kinds of conditioner. I've tried combining different kind of conditioner with different kinds of shampoo in different order. I've even tried olive oil on my scalp. It did work, but it was so hard to get all the oil out of the hair, so it's not practical at all. I've even bought a special kind of oil from the supermarket, but it didn't work too well.

I hate the fact that my scalp is flaky and 'coz my hair is black, you can easily see the white flakes on my head and that's just a HUGE no-no 'coz I work in a place where I meet lots of customers. Plus it gets SO itchy every now and then and I don't want to look like someone who has lice problems.

I've browsed online to find homemade recipes to battle dry scalp and the other week I tried "white vinegar + water" combination. Well, the online page told me to shampoo the hair and use conditioner first, then pour out the vinegar + water combo, leave it for 5 minutes, and then rinse well with water.

OK, so I tried that and it did work well to get rid of the itch and the white flakes, but it made my hair so oily (the bottom of the roots especially) and it made my hair look so flat, so the next time I decided to reduce the amount of vinegar...but still it looked so oily and it made my hair lose volume (even though I was using Pantene volume conditioner).

So the next time I tried the other way around. I poured out the vinegar + water combo, leave it for 1-2 minutes only, and then use a little shampoo and conditioner. And it worked!!! :-D I know I've only been trying this tactic three times, but so far it's given me the result that I've wanted.

Note: The first time I tried this liquid combo, I think it was 1:6 (vinegar:water), but I've reduced it to 1:12 (vinegar: water).

Frost Pics Again

The other day I was so happy to find that there was frost outside, so I went out to take some more experimental pics. Here they are...hope you enjoy God's lovely works of art...

First pic: It's not too clear on the green leaves, eh? I personally think the frost looks lovelier on the red leaves.





4th pic: The zoomed-in version of the previous one. LOVE those huge ice crystals! :-D


Last but not least...this frog has been in our yard for weeks. At first I thought R2 had found it in the shed and put it there and he thought I was the one who bought it, but yesterday I finally asked him and he said he had no idea where it came from. So we're feeling confused here. Where does the frog come from?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! It is cute, though, don't you think?

Oops I Did It Again!

The surprise gift was a success!!!! :-D Yesterday when the computer game arrived, I was torn between wrapping it as it was (so he'd know that it was a computer game DVD) or wrapping it in a bigger box so he wouldn't know what it was. The thing is, I did this kind of trick once already a few years back, so I wasn't sure if he'd suspect that what was inside the package wasn't what it looked like.

But I decided to wrap it up in a bigger box. I jammed in some paper as well so that when he shook the box, he wouldn't hear a thing HA HA HA HA HA HA...*EVIL GRIN*

And true to form, he did shake the box to find out what it was. At first he wanted to wait until November 3rd, but I was afraid that he'd ordered the game without my knowledge, so I pushed him to open it yesterday already HI HI HI HI HI HI...And after that he said he had no clue what was inside it and he didn't expect it to be a computer game. So mission ACCOMPLISHED, people! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYY!!!

And right now he's enjoying the new game he he he he he he he he...Side note: I had to ask a friend who loves gaming to find out which game R2 would enjoy playing among all the latest games available. He then asked me what kind of games R2 had been playing and I gave him a list of game names and from the list, he found out which would suit R2 best. And he was right, so it's also thanks to him that I managed to find the right gift for R2 he he he he he...

Anyhow, yesterday had fun at my friend's place and she gave me her own homemade gift: a happy-looking tonttu (elf) that she made herself. It makes me feel SO HAPPY just by looking at it, don't you feel the same way too?

So, THANK YOU for the gift, my friend! :-D The tonttu's enjoying its new home he he he...

3BT: Random Days

1. Enlightenment. The other day I felt something that bothered me and I found the answer(s) soon enough. Felt totally relieved!

2. Hubby didn't have to go to another town in the middle of the night (cancelled job task).

3. Finding some books that resonate so much with what I've been thinking/feeling for the past year or so. I feel like nodding and nodding and nodding when reading them. And they give me more reflective passages, too! It's AWESOME to feel understood by someone you've never even met! :-D

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4. Genuine smiles from customers.

5. A little girl who's barely able to talk calling me, "Täti" (Auntie) a few times when the mother had finished paying and the mother laughed in glee.

6. My Mom's health, which was problematic a while back, is now improving slowly but surely.

7. Listening to a certain addictive song over and over and over again. *GRIN*

8. Soon it'll be our 5th wedding anniversary and the surprise gift that I've ordered arrived today. I've packed it and put it right on his computer desk and I can't wait for him to come home. I LOVE teasing him like this!!!! :-D I'll let him choose between opening it today or later on November 3rd hi hi hi...



9. Craving for the same food at the exact same moment as R2. :-D

10. The light therapy lamp has really helped me in dealing with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) 'coz for the past few days, I've felt that SAD has struck me full-force again.

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11. Going to visit a friend whom I haven't met in a few months. YAAAAYYYY!!! Girl talk!!! :-D

Some Nice Quotes

Taken from Jean Vanier's book entitled "Befriending the Stranger":

When I was living in the Forestiere, I was given a text by Carl Jung...It was a letter he had written to a young Christian woman...

I admire Christians,
because when you see someone who is hungry or thirsty,
you see Jesus.

When you welcome a stranger, someone who is "strange",
you welcome Jesus.

When you clothe someone who is naked, you clothe Jesus.

What I don't understand, however,
is that Christians never seem to recognize Jesus in their own poverty.

You always want to do good to the poor outside you
and at the same time you deny the poor person living inside you.

Why can't you see Jesus in your own poverty,
in your own hunger and thirst?

In all that is "strange" inside you:
in the violence and the anguish that are beyond your control!

You are called to welcome all this, not to deny its existence,
but to accept that it is there and to meet Jesus there.

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Frost Pictures

Today when I woke up, I saw frost all over the yard. SO BEAUTIFUL 'coz the sun is shining on it, so it looks like tiny glitters of diamonds...It was -1'C when I went outside to take the pics (though I bet it was more like -4'C or so during the night).







I can't wait for snow to arrive!!!! Even though it'll make riding a bike harder, but it's gonna light up the whole of Sodankylä. YEAAAAHHHH!!! :-D

Babies?

One of the things I dreaded when I went to Indo the other month was who was going to come up with the "baby talk". I dreaded that 'coz I would never know how to deal with them: do I tell them the truth or do I just smile and say nothing? The truth would be too complicated to tell, but I did tell "the truth" to one person who finally mentioned "baby talk".

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One neighbour, upon seeing us walk outside the house, said, "Going out? Hurry and make some babies!"

I stopped, smiled and said, "It's OK even if we'll never have babies."

You should've seen her face!!! She didn't see that coming! With a shocked look on her face, she quickly said, "DON'T SAY THAT!!!!! I'm gonna pray for you so that you'll have kids."

Deep inside I was sighing and rolling my eyes, but to her I just smiled and said, "Why, THANK YOU for your prayers."

Why is it so hard for people to understand that we're OK even though we have no babies? It seems that THEY are the ones who want US to have babies more than we do. Don't get me wrong, though, I DO appreciate them and I DO understand their wish for us, but why can't they understand that it may not be what we want anymore? It almost makes us feel that we're not "complete human beings" without kids in our life.

FYI, two relatives hugged me upon saying goodbye, rubbed my belly, and whispered, "I'm praying for you to have babies."

OK, that's all good...but my cynical mind thinks, "If God says no, no matter how many times you pray, you won't see the result that you're wishing for." That's why I asked my closest friends for God's peace beyond understanding instead of asking them to pray for us to have kids.

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One close friend told me, "You shouldn't have said that to the neighbour. You should've just smiled and said nothing."

Maybe she's right. I begin to feel that there's no use trying to make them understand our situation anyway. Oh well...

Book Fun

Back when we were 19 y.o. (probably second grade at the uni - year 1997), one close friend came up with the idea of writing a book together. There were 7 of us in the group, though one is never that close to us, but still we included her. The idea was that each of us would write a few pages and then we handed it over to another friend - sort of a relay race, but it's in writing a story ha ha ha...

Last time I went back to Indo, I retrieved the book (actually two small notebooks) from one friend and I've just started rereading it. The story was never finished for some reason, but it's fun to read again what each of us has written and I actually got genuinely shocked at some of the things we came up with.

Oh, maybe you're curious about the title? Well, according to the book, I was the one who came up with the title, which is...Romiette and Julio (yeah, the twisted version of Romeo and Juliet) HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...

Anyhow, last night I wrote down some short paragraphs from the book written by different authors and then asked my friends to guess who wrote which part. The email made them laugh out loud - some even had tears in their eyes hi hi hi...

I've gotta tell you that all of us probably don't even remember anymore the details of what we've been writing. I myself felt weird when I reread the part that I read (I had only managed to read through one part) due to the choice of words and many other things. It's really obvious that the book is written a long time ago 'coz there are just some words that people these days don't really use anymore in Indo (or they're written slightly differently) HI HI HI HI...

Memories, oh memoriesssss...I'm SO glad we decided to write the silly book, though. It's nice to go back in time every once in a while. :-D

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Winter Is Coming Soon!

Last Friday we had a chance to finally go to the cabin again. The weather that day was awful (it rained during half the day and it was so windy), but we had a nice, relaxing time there anyway. I bought some fruit-scented candles to make the cabin smell nice. R2 had a tough time lighting the fireplace in the cabin, though he didn't have any trouble making fire to warm up the sauna. When we got there, the weather outside was probably around 3'C and the cabin was 7'C, but after a few hours, the cabin was as warm as 21-22'C.

We ate before heading to sauna and we were in sauna for a LONG time. We got outside a few times to cool down (it didn't take long to cool down 'coz the wind was strong and chilly) and then we got back inside the sauna.

We listened to the radio and I realized something. Years back when I first moved to Finland, we went to the cabin and when the radio show hosts were talking about something or even joking with each other, the only person who laughed would be R2, but now I am able to laugh at the jokes as well. It's a nice feeling - looking backward and realizing that I've made it this far. The road ahead is still long and winding, but it's encouraging to see progress. :-D Any kind of progress - no matter how little it is - should be celebrated, don't you think? :-D

Before we went to bed at around midnight, R2 burned some more firewood in the fireplace, but when we got up at around 9 am, the cabin's temperature had dropped down to 14-15'C. No wonder when it's really cold outside, whenever we stay at the cabin, R2 has to get up during the night to burn more firewood to make sure that we won't be freezing in the morning he he...

Anyhow, let me just share some pictures...for some reason I'm in no mood to talk about our Indo/Bangkok holiday yet, so you just have to wait ha ha ha...




Below is a pic of the fruit-scented candle:


Yesterday it snowed a little. I was working when I saw the snow. First snow in Sodankylä this year on October 9th, 2011. SO VERY BEAUTIFUL! Just like the scene of my dream years and years ago - I was inside this room filled with huge windows, looking outside a snowy village. I can't wait to have everything white again (of course the snow didn't last yet 'coz the temperature is still a little above 0'C during the day) 'coz it'll make everything brighter.

Anyhow, take care, people! I think I should start my light therapy again before SAD attacks with full force 'coz I'm starting to get lethargic again (sleepy, not in the mood to do anything).

Btw, I finally got a chance to test my three-legged tripod (the first pic in this post was taken using this tripod below). It's a very light tripod and the three legs can be bent as you please. For the first pic, I wrapped the legs of the tripod to a tree branch. :-D Very handy, eh? :-D And it wasn't expensive at all, either. :-D

3BT: Random Days

1. Hubby helping me set something that I failed to do on my own and he never made me feel like an idiot for not being able to do it.

2. A customer said one of the nicest things I'd ever heard in my entire life. He made my day (and made my eyes wet)!!! :-D Bless him!

3. Rainy day at work the other day helped me and my supervisor. It especially helped my supervisor 'coz she has a lot more things to do than I do.

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4. A sunny day after the rainy day. :-D

5. Missing hubby. After spending a whole month holiday and then going back to work, I missed spending more time with him.

6. Sturdy raincoat. Big, protective, and comfy enough for me to wear while riding my bike under the downpour.

7. Another customer (an old lady) said that I had been missed at work during my holiday. Bless her!

8. Finally getting some free days from work - due to some sick coworkers I've had my plate full at work.

9. Wonderful memories - and reminiscing them.

10. Clean air, abundance of clean water, and the lack of noise and traffic.

Cute Cat Video Clip

Haven't had time to blog 'coz I had to work to cover my sick friends and I have work shifts this weekend as well, so I'm gonna blog more later on after I have free days again.

Anyhow, let me share a cute cat video clip. Found a young girl playing with this cat at Bumi Joglo restaurant, Bandung. Don't you think the cat's so cute???