Walking Home

Lots of snow was falling slowly. Slow enough for me to almost be able to distinguish the forms of the snowflakes falling from the sky. The roads and sidewalk were almost empty that Sunday evening. The rather chilly temperature didn't dampen my spirit, because I was on my way home from work and the scene was just too beautiful to describe. When the snow fell down slowly like that, it felt as though life were moving forward in a slow motion. I felt reminded to cherish each moment in time and not to rush forward. To focus on the moment.

I took out my mobile phone and plugged the earphones to my ears. Then I chose a song from my list and chuckled when I realized that a pair of snowflakes that had attached themselves to each other fell on my mobile phone's screen. Oh, how I wish I could have taken a picture of that pair of snowflakes! All around me the snow kept on falling steadily, gently, slowly.



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While listening to one of my favourite songs on the list, I sang along out loud on the sidewalk. Bliss! Where else can I do that without bothering anyone except here? The world seemed so hushed.  No need to hurry. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy the song. Sing your heart out to your delight!

I took out my mobile again after the song had finished to choose another song after that one was finished because I didn't want to listen to the next one on the list. My mobile had no capacity to do a random play of the songs on my list. Soon after my thumb hit on another song title, my ears welcomed the song with a smile (if they can smile, they were definitely smiling widely). And I couldn't resist the temptation to sing out loud again.

I felt free. I felt at peace. I felt as though the world was big enough for everyone of us. And my heart almost exploded with joy when I arrived home and I was welcomed with bear hugs and kisses. Oh, the simple joys of life!

3BT: Random Days

1. My SIL's baby's heartbeats have been confirmed to be stable. So hopefully there will be a healthy baby in August or September this year. Another grandchild for my Mom! :-D

2. After being told that he'd be a big brother, 4 y.o. Ken told his Mom, "You know, I'd love to have a big sister, too." LOL LOL!!! GOOD LUCK with that!!! :-D

3. Seeing perfectly lovely ice flakes forming around my bike saddle. Here are a few pics that I took. 

I took the first pic with an anti-shake mode and the result was blurry, so I took the second one with a regular mode and a flash. The third one is the cropped-up pic of the second one. 

4. Seeing my friend's VERY cute baby pics (after two miscarriages, finally she could get this healthy baby) and I was among the first to receive the pics via email. :-D

5. Spending time with my friend in Rovaniemi after shopping there for a bit he he he he...

6. An uninterrupted long sleep after having a rough night the other day.

Another Christmas Overview

Our Christmas went peacefully as usual. This year because I didn't have to work, we managed to do some trips before enjoying our time together at MIL's place. On Christmas eve, we picked up MIL to go visit the graves. We lit some candles (we went to two different graveyards where they had MIL's parents' graves as well as FIL's parents' graves),

This is the graveyard near the old church:

 
It was -20'C that day and the sky had some pinkish colour at around 1 pm. Here are two views:

 

Then we went to visit FIL at the old people's home. He had just had lunch and he was given some coffee and joulutorttu in the kitchen.We gave him some Christmas gifts and then after we moved him to bed, he went to sleep right away, so we left and visited MIL's elder half-sister (who's also her very close friend). We gave her some chocolate and then we went back to MIL's place because BIL and SIL had promised to come at around 4 pm.We had the traditional Christmas food in Finland and then played some cards, but BIL and SIL had to leave earlier because they were going to spend Christmas with SIL's side of the family. 

MIL had asked me to buy some red wine, so I bought a bottle of French red wine, though I wasn't really sure if it was good or not because when I went to the store, there were SO many different types with different explanations, so I just chose one of them ha ha...R2 said that it wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good, either ha ha ha...I only tasted a little 'coz I'm afraid of the rash happening again like what happened on my first Christmas in Finland.  

Anyway, after sauna we opened our gifts and R2 did get tricked!!! He thought I only gave him one gift, but I had hidden the second one in my bag. He opened the gift and thought that he only got a Donald Duck book. Only after that I gave him the second gift, which was his actual gift: a computer game he he he...He's been gaming it ever since we came back home! :-D

We stayed up late playing cards (not as late as the previous years, though! I guess we're getting older and we get tired more easily LOOOOOLLLL!!!) and then I had fun watching three squirrels chasing one another outside of MIL's apartment. They were SO cute!!!

Here's a pic of one of them. It was so dark outside already so it was hard to get a good pic. Thus I had to tamper with the pic and turned it into sepia mode:

And on Christmas day I saw a punatulkku (bullfinch) among the trees. It was SO vivid due to its red colour among the whiteness of snow. Here's a pic of it...I also had to tamper with the pic to make it brighter. Otherwise it'd look so dark.

Before Christmas I tried taking pics of natural snowflake forms on my bike, but it was SO hard. I just want to show you that when the temperature is colder and it snows, the snowflakes retain their original forms for a while when they land on non-warm spots (like this pic I took of my bike bag). It isn't the best pic (again the darkness didn't help me capture the snowflake form as well as I could), but I suppose this should do...

OK, enough for now. I'm now busy working again until New Year's eve, so not too much time to relax until then he he...

3BT: Random Days

1. Hubby had a pre-Christmas weekend party in Luosto with his online gaming buddies. When I was going to work and he was preparing to go there, I told him, "Have fun, but not too much fun that you won't remember coming home."

He said without missing a beat, "But the fun part is coming home after the party."

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW...my heart melted right away. :-D He's not often verbally romantic, but he does drop "romantic verbal bombs" like these every now and then and it always catches me by surprise. :-D

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2. Reading these words that made me laugh: "You're incapable of being destroyed. Like a cockroach." ROFL ROFL ROFL!!!!!!!!!

3. My appreciative and thoughtful direct superior who is fair in treating us all.

4. Watching snowflake patterns on my bike saddle when I had to run some errands downtown.

5. My first attempt at recreating Zuppa Soup was a success (and I found a cheap ceramics bowl that could be put in the oven). WOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!


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6. I made some oven baked pancake (actually pannukakku) and I'm going to eat it soon with some strawberry jam. The smell is spreading to the other rooms, too...mmmmhhhh...

7. Dark Belgian chocolate that just melts in the mouth. I've never had anything like that before. Today I bought a few more packages of the same chocolate for Christmas gifts (and for us as well LOL!). HEAVENLY!!!!