Nostalgic Feelings

The tender hold of his hand
Every time we watch something together
The loud noises his belly makes
When I press my ear right above it
The bliss I feel when we nap together

The warm comfort of his embrace
Telling me how safe I am
That I am home sweet home

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The way he makes faces,
The crazy song lyrics he makes up,
The sound of his voice,
His laughter, his giggle, his snore...

The shape of his eyes, lips,
Face, eyebrows, legs, feet...
They make me smile
And make me long for more...

I thank God for another year together...
Wishing for many more to come
Because I can't imagine life without him.

And deep in our innermost chambers of wishes,
If we can have just one more wish:
That is at the end of our days
He'd take us both together
From here on to eternity...

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3BT: Random Days

1. Tickling hubby's bald patch and then scratching it and hearing him sigh in relief HI HI...

2. A regular customer asked, "Why do you always look happy?" ---> GLAD to know he thinks that way, he notices it, and he mentioned it to me. :-D

3. I managed to control myself during a certain occasion after having been forced to do a drastic measure.

4. I was taking out three shopping carts out of the store when a customer who was about to come in offered me some help, though I didn't ask for any help. Thankful for this person's helpful spirit!

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5. Having an opportunity to make a snowman and having fun making it.

6. Yesterday the thoughtful grandpa who had given me flowers a few times already in the past gave me a pot of pointsettia. BLESS HIM!!!

7. The store I'm working for has been getting more and more customers near Christmas (I think even more than last year's busy season), so I'm happy to know that business is going well.

8. This conversation with a coworker:

Cw: So, how are you going to spend your Christmas?
Me: Nothing much. Just spending time with my MIL.
Cw: (grimacing in sympathy) Oh...
Me: (quickly correcting her) NO NO NO NO NO...it's actually REALLY nice to spend time with her!
Cw: Oh, so you have a nice MIL.
Me: Not just nice, but she's like my own mother.
Cw: (relieved) Ahhhhh, I see...

The convo made me feel that she had heard too many bad stories about in-laws and thankful to have such a MIL.

9. Seeing reindeer tracks on the yard after it had snowed so much. I could just imagine it trailing across our yard at one point in time.

10. Accidentally opening up another Christmas gift for me which came through the mailbox (I thought it was hubby's order for himself) because it meant I still had time to find another gift for him, too (which came by mail yesterday!). Phew! That was close!

11. Trustworthy, reliable friends whom I can count on, including those I've never met in real life.

Life's But A Fleeting Shadow

In shock here. Through Facebook I just found out that an ex High School friend passed away 2 days ago. I found out through another friend's wall post about this, so I went to the deceased's Facebook profile and read that 2 days ago the wife had put the notice on his wall. What really went through my heart was seeing a pic of his baby on the profile pic. That baby's picture was uploaded in October, so you can imagine that it's still such a small child.

This ex school friend of mine is 34 years old and until now I have no idea why he died. I was never close to him at school, but I remember him clearly. While I was browsing through his pics, I saw his prewedding photos and I couldn't help thinking, "You go through life not knowing what'll happen next. You find your spouse, get married, and plan for the future, though each day may be your last."

Many times over I get a reminder of how precious life is, how we should cherish each moment we have with our loved ones. I pray that God comforts all the bereaved in the world and I hope that the bereaved let themselves feel God's comfort and not close themselves up in their pain and grief.

On an altogether different note, I've been so busy at work 'coz two people quit this month and then another coworker got sick last week and another one got sick this week, so it's been kinda crazy. I hope nobody else gets sick. Today is also a busy day for me 'coz I have to do so many things. So far I've baked 2 cakes, cooked some food, clean up some snow from the yard (R2 did most yesterday but there's still some left), and now I need to clean up the house 'coz I won't have time anymore later on.

So, if I don't blog until after Christmas, I just wanna wish you all:

Online Social Media + Snowman

Yesterday I was reading posts about online social media, particularly F-b.ook. I must say that I have a love-and-hate relationship with it. There were times when I was thinking of quitting it completely, but it's hard nowadays 'coz I've got a mixture of people in my list already and now I've joined an online Finnish group where I can ask anything to the teacher and get to know other people who are learning Finnish from around the world.

Besides that, it's a really good place to get in touch with old school friends and nowadays my closest friends use it to put their travel pictures and other pictures as well - it's easier sharing pictures that way compared to sending them via emails 'coz some of us live in a place where the internet connection isn't so reliable and fast. It's also a good place to try and sell things to your friends and to ask for opinions on something (provided that your friends are active).

But other than the good sides, sometimes I feel that browsing through F-b.ook is like being a Peeping Tom. There are some people who share too much and sometimes when you least expect it, you get to read those things and it feels as if you were suddenly transported into the person's underwear closet and you're shown all the kinds of "dirty laundry" that you don't even wish to see.

Of course you can hide that person's newsfeed once you find out that the person loves sharing too much info, but then again there are still so many other complications that can occur by spending time in online social medias, such as being unfriended by someone or unfriending someone, the urge to ask the person what you did wrong after being unfriended, the lingering question whether you should explain to the person you're going to unfriend why you want to do that, the temptation to "peek into" other people's lives, the thin line between sharing and showing off, etc. etc. etc.

Anyway, enough about this...the other day I made another snowman 'coz the temperature was 0'C and the snow was wet enough to make one. The pictures were taken at around 3.30 pm.

First pic: taken with a flash.


2nd pic: Taken without flash.


3rd pic: Taken without flash from a different angle.

On Citizenship

The other day I got talking to some friends and it gave me an idea to write about this topic. One of them has also got a Finnish citizenship, but she said that it felt weird saying to people, "I'm a Finnish citizen" because she felt that her roots were in her home country. She said she had heard other expats saying those words without any emotional attachment whatsoever to her home country. Another friend told me that her mother would be so sad if she had opted to have a Finnish citizenship.

That made me think about me. Some people may think that it's so easy for me to let go of my Indonesian citizenship (Indonesian government won't accept dual citizenship, by the way - otherwise I'd have kept it, too). For me, a citizenship is just a citizenship. It doesn't mean I'm denying who I am.

Additional note: I don't want to give the wrong idea with this post, so just wanna add here that it WAS easy for me to let go of my Indonesian citizenship due to the reasons I've written in this post. Plus another practical reason is that having Finnish passport enables me to travel more easily compared to having an Indonesian passport.

Maybe one thing that is different from me and that friend whose roots were in her home country is that even though I was born and raised in Indonesia, but I know that some people there would still tell me that I'm a non-native Indonesian. I'm Chinese by heritage, but the Chinese government and people won't accept me as one of their own because I don't speak their language, I don't even know how life is over there, and I have NEVER been there, either.

That said, it's actually helped me a lot when I moved to Finland because I'm used to being a "non-native". I may never be a full-blown Finnish or Indonesian or Chinese woman, but that doesn't matter. I'm a citizen of the world and I love living here. Period. :-D

Anyhow, here are some pictures I've taken lately:

My first snow angel ever ha ha ha...The head looks weirdly small for the body and wings HA HA HA...


Doesn't the snow look so fluffy and soft? :-D


Not a really good pic, but I just wanna show the pink sky the other day:

Dad's Past

Dad never finished education at the university. He's the second child out of six and he had to quit studying at the uni to help out feed the family. My grandpa's business collapsed and then he died and my grandma couldn't do anything much with the family's finance. Out of the six children, only the youngest one finished his education at the university.

For years Dad worked as a bookkeeper in a bread company and then he moved to a private-owned business. After years of earning his bread there, he quit (I don't remember anymore why, but I guess the situation got bad enough for him to want to quit) and the boss' wife told him, "You're not going to be a successful man. You're too honest."

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Dad got so pumped up hearing that. From that day on, he worked as best as he could and still kept his honesty and integrity intact. What is success anyway? For me, my Dad IS a successful man because he's kept his honesty and integrity intact wherever he works. He's managed to send two children off to the university without tricking anybody out to get "rich". He's always so careful with money and budgeting, so he never got us in trouble with any of his decisions.

Here I am now, thinking that it's such a shame that in this world, there're people who think that being honest in one's dealings means that one will never be successful.

3BT: Random Days

1. An old woman looking so happily surprised to see me at work. She said, "Oh, I haven't seen you in a long time. I'm GLAD you're still working!" ---> Honestly I don't even remember her, but I'm HAPPY to hear that she's SO happy to know that I'm still working in the same place. :-D

2. Free youtube exercise video clips. They really help me in doing different types of exercises when I'm bored with the exercise routines I've been doing.

3. Fast and reliable internet access that enables me to watch those said youtube video clips.

4. Receiving this lovely homemade Christmas decoration present from a friend.



5. More snowwwww!!! And the weekly temperature forecast showing below 0'C even during the day! :-D

6. Watching two squirrels playing in and around the branches of a tree.

7. Cleaning up the snow from the yard. There's something so serene about doing that in the middle of Winter Wonderland.



8. Lovely lovemaking - plus the fact that hubby just knows what to do TENDERLY! :-D

9. Watching "While You Were Sleeping" again that made me feel mushy mushy inside. :-D

10. Hubby buying pizza so that I didn't have to cook he he he he...It's nice not having to cook sometimes. :-D

11. Putting up Christmas lights. (Yep, the picture below #7 is the close-up look of the Christmas lights below)

What A Luxury!

Spent the night at MIL's house 'coz R2 had to go to Rovaniemi for 2 days, so after work on Saturday I went straight there. We played cards, had sauna, and we had some serious talk as well about different topics.

All of a sudden she started talking about the past and FIL then started crying. And she made my eyes wet as well. After spending so much time taking care of the kids, farm, cows, her own mother and then her own in-laws, she had wanted to enjoy the rest of her life with her hubby.

Now that my FIL has been taken to an old people's house, she can't even enjoy that luxury anymore. Not that she doesn't want to. She said that she was still thinking if she could still take him back home, but she can't do it on her own and she can't afford having someone to live with them to help her take care of him. You see, the other week she visited FIL and then FIL said that he felt like he was nothing, a nobody. I almost wished that he would lose more consciousness so that he wouldn't think about anything like this anymore, you know? But then I wonder if that's such a great wish...sigh...

Anyway, the other week MIL sprained her arm and then last week she sprained her leg and she realized that she had to accept reality. Due to the arm and leg sprains, she hadn't been out for a few days and when we visited FIL yesterday (together with R2), the nurse said that he had eaten very little that day. Both the nurse and MIL were wondering if he didn't want to eat properly 'coz of longing. MIL brought some bread and homemade salted salmon filet, bananas, and also yoghurt and so we waited for FIL to eat them all (he could still hold bread and bananas himself, but MIL fed him the yoghurt). And he did eat them all with gusto, I must say.

Then MIL told FIL that she had to go for almost a week to Rovaniemi 'coz they have this program for the elderly that offers exercise program and it's good for her to be able to join this kind of activity. And after FIL heard that, his eyes became wet and I almost wanted to cry...I left the room to give MIL and FIL some time for themselves and R2 also left the room, as well. It was just heartbreaking...Wish I could do more for MIL and FIL, but there's only so much one person can do...

Sniff, sniff...anyway, last night when we went back home, it hit me with a different force than before how luxurious it is for me and R2 to be able to live together under the same roof, to be able to give and take, to be able to enjoy life together. How much we take for granted the life that we have together, every single day...each breath we take, each step we take...day in, day out...how precious those moments are...how much more I should cherish these moments while they last...

This is the promise I hold dear...


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