1. Hubby lighting up the porch light for me whenever I have an evening shift so that it's easy for me to see in the dark when I get back home ('coz we get less and less daylight here).
2. SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!! It arrived very late this year, but I'm SO happy to see it anyhow.
3. Snowy trees looking so hush hush when the temperature gets colder than -10'C. They look so beautiful. :-D
4. Saying something to two ladies that made them laugh - and in turn their laughter made me laugh, too!
5. Watching a funny JibJab video clip and then creating a similar one with our photos in it and laughing so much 'coz of it.
6. Plenty of belly laughs for no really funny reasons - the kind of laugh that makes your belly muscles ache and your belly fat jiggles up and down ---> Note: Sometimes when I'm really tired, I don't get cranky - but any little thing can make me laugh hysterically like that. :-D
7. Riding my bike in Winter Wonderland is quite a feeling.
8. Getting a little exercise by shoveling the snow in the yard. There's not too much yet, but I just need to clear up some snow to make it safer for me to ride my bike home at nights.
9. Waving to a customer who was in his car when I went past him by bike and he waved back at me with such a huge smile on his face. It's kinda weirdly nice to be friendly to people whose names I don't even know!!! But it doesn't really matter 'coz what matters most is that they're smiling back at me! :-D
This post below was written as a draft ages ago, but for some reason I never got to complete it and I didn't publish it, either he he...Here goes, with some additional notes...
Moving to a village in Finland has enabled me to - in a way - reinvent myself. What I mean by reinventing myself is that nobody knows my background. Nobody knows anything much about Indonesia nor what it's like to live there. Nobody knows my family. Nobody knows my family's "social strata". Nobody knows what kind of job I had beforehand and nobody has expectations for me.
It's kinda liberating, you know? I feel like so much weight is off my back. :-D Back in Indo, other people have given me different labels, but when I moved to Finland, I started my life with a blank sheet of canvas again.
And because of the social system differences, I can be whatever I want to be without feeling that some jobs are "less than" others. Back in Indo, certain jobs are considered "less inviting" due to many different factors (mostly financial factor), whereas here in Finland no matter what kind of job you do, it doesn't matter 'coz the standard of income (among other things) is already set.
It's also liberating to know that even when you change a job here, you don't have to "suffer miserably financially" the way it'd happen in Indo. I mean, in Indo if you start all over again in a different field, you're bound to get "yucky income" and it's a no-no especially if you have kids. After all, in Indo good education that'd allow them to go to good universities that would enable them to get good jobs with good income levels is very pricy these days.
Another thing that makes me feel liberated by living here is the lack of many pressures that exist in Indo (click the link to read further info). Even though sometimes a few Finnish people (whom I don't know well) ask me whether I have kids or not, upon hearing the answer they won't continue probing about my menstrual period the way my Indo neighbour did nor ask any questions whether or not we intend to adopt nor would they give me advice about trying this and that or going to that and this gyno.
One particular "freedom" I've enjoyed thoroughly is the lack of expectation from other people from me. I can start my life from scratch and try out new jobs or training places with very little knowledge of those jobs and in doing so I've learnt so many new things.Moving to Finland has beenthe greatest adventure I've ever done in my life, especially for someone who "always plays it safe" like me. :-D
I haven't been blogging not due to the lack of inspiration. In fact, I've had so many different thoughts rumbling in my brain for the past few weeks, but I haven't really got any "Eureka" moments yet, so if I write them down, they're gonna sound like a rambling babble...but anyhow, let me just share one part of them anyhow.
Last Sunday was Father's Day in Finland, so all the stores were closed here in this small village (in some big cities some stores were open). Hubby and I went to MIL's place and together we brought cake for FIL at the old people's house. Unfortunately they had recently moved FIL to a different location 'coz they are renovating the building where he lived before and the renovation will take 2 years to complete. I said "unfortunately" because this new place wasn't build to be an old people's house, so it's lacking many essential things.
The day they moved some of the patients there (yeah, not all the patients were moved there, just some), my MIL went to the new place and she was shocked to see that there weren't even beds yet, so the patients were strapped into their wheelchairs (they were wheelchair-bound patients) and they were just sitting there for a long time. I have no idea what happened, but MIL said that the move seemed to be done in such a hurry that they didn't have time to do anything else in terms of preparation in the new facilities.
This new facility is a 2-bedroom house filled with 4 patients with a small kitchen and a dining area. In the previous facility, FIL had his own room - now he shares a room with another patient (during this renovation, they've reduced the fee to 50% of the monthly fee). Two of the patients had brought their TV there, but they didn't work. This new area requires a different kind of TV, so MIL is thinking of buying one for FIL, 'coz otherwise it's going to be boring there. In the old facility, there was a big common room area where patients could sit and talk and watch TV together, but now at least for someone like FIL, he only has the nurses and 3 other patients to talk to.
Anyhow, when we arrived, FIL was still asleep after lunch (we went there when it was time for coffee break) and the other 3 patients were sitting in the dining area. Turned out that they served Father's Day cake there in the new facility, so we didn't even cut the cake that MIL had bought. It took a few minutes to wake FIL up because he was so tired - the nurse said he had been really active in the morning, so it may be the reason why he was sleeping so soundly.
MIL then adjusted the bed to sitting position and fed him cake, helped him drink coffee, and then gave him a banana to make sure he was full enough before dinner. Then MIL got to chat a little with the 3 other patients and asked if anybody had come to visit them (they were all male). One of them answered no. I felt sad. How tough it must've been to know that your fellow housemates got visitors on Father's Day, but nobody came to visit you?
FIL looked fine, by the way - as fine as you can be when your Alzheimer's has robbed you of a good part of your memory bank. Before we visited FIL, my BIL who lived down south called and asked how FIL was doing. MIL said that she felt that the new place wasn't good at all for the patients' well-being and that she wouldn't be surprised if someone died of a broken heart. And she was also wondering if FIL was crying inside...She'd love to have him back in the apartment if she could afford paying for a daily nurse to help her take care of him, but she can't afford it. And she can't possibly take care of him on her own anymore.
It made me think that it's harder on the patients who are still "on earth" so much than those who don't really remember or realize anything anymore. I mean, their brains are still working pretty well even though their bodies have failed them. If I am ever in that kind of position, I don't know if I will be able to surrender peacefully to what I can no longer do. Yesterday it just hit me when I saw FIL there...what should I pray for him about? The only thing I could think of was "May God's grace, mercy, and peace be with him always." On the other hand, seeing him and the other patients makes me think of how unimportant so many things on earth that we deem "important" are. How trivial they are in stark contrast to what the patients need.
And this makes me long for heaven...There are other things that's made me long for heaven these days, but that'll require another long, winding post. I long for a place where we're stripped bare of our possessions, titles, labels, achievements...I long for a place where we're no longer caught up with this thing called "life".
Me: Did you ever feel like leaving me during our marriage? R2: No, but I did feel like leaving the house sometimes. Me: What do you mean? R2: Sometimes when you get cranky I feel like I want to leave the house until you calm down. Me: Then why didn't you ever leave the house when I got cranky? R2: Because I'm gonna miss you.
MELT MELT MELT MELT MELTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT...:-D
Me: Did you ever get REALLY angry at me? R2: Nope. Me: Not even a little angry, ever? R2: Nope. Me: But I must've made you annoyed sometimes, right? R2: Yeah, sometimes. Me: HA HA HA HA HA...Okay, I can live with that. :-D
It's true that when I get cranky, I can get REALLY cranky, especially when I get too tired and I lack sleep and then PMS strikes and there are some things in life that go wrong for me he he he he...but because of his calm nature, because he never snaps at me when I get cranky, it's easier for me to want to control myself as best as I can when I do get cranky. And for that I'm SO THANKFUL.
Anyhow, yesterday just as the sun was about to set, I looked outside and saw a full moon and pinkish sky, so I quickly changed my clothes and rode my bike to the riverside to take some pics. Enjoy the pics!!! The temperature was about -1'C and yeah, there's no snow yet but there's some frost on the ground.
Unfortunately the pic with the full moon and pink sky didn't come out too well and by the time I took more pics, it was already getting darker, but anyhow enjoy the good pics he he...You can click on each pic to see a bigger view.
1st pic: As you can see, in this pic the sky was still pinkish ha ha ha...More often than not, the river's water isn't that calm, so only on some occasion when it's very still then you can enjoy this mirror-like feature of the river. It definitely has a calming effect on me. :-D
2nd pic: The other side of the river...yep, getting darker already...
3rd pic: A shot of the full moon from a different angle.
Last pic: I cropped out the previous pic to show the moon more clearly.
I've been watching X-Factor USA and I have some fave singers...Josh Krajcik is one of them. I REALLY REALLY love his voice and his soul when he sings...enjoy these songs:
The cabin trip was done earlier than this weekend 'coz R2 could take some time off from work due to the accumulated overtime he'd done. So he picked me up after work on Thursday already and we left to the cabin. It was such a foggy day that day. I had hoped for snow, but there was none yet. It did snow very very lightly during the eve, but not enough to cover the ground near the cabin area.
Last year we had an early anniversary cabin trip on the last weekend in October and look at how much snow there was already at that time.
So this time due to the foggy cloudy weather, I didn't even take pictures of the surrounding cabin area except for two pics, which I'll show later.
Anyhow, it was still a very lovely cabin trip no matter what. We had sauna, we had great food, we enjoyed being together...and this time I took an accidental "ghost" photo of myself hi hi hi...take a look! I REALLY love this pic 'coz in my eye, it looks romantic, though some people have stated in FB that it looks scary HA HA HA HA HA HA...
I was playing with the aperture setting on my camera and accidentally "removed" myself too fast from that position, so I appeared that way hi hi...After that, we had fun trying to take other "ghost" pictures ha ha ha...for example, here's one where R2 became a ghost:
I also took one photo where it seemed I was going to strangle R2, but I dare not upload it here in case my blog readers get too shocked. Let it just rest as a fun experimental photo in my HD HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA...
After that, the next morning I tried lighting up the fire in the fireplace on my own (R2 was still too sleepy to do so). Mind you that when we arrived at the cabin, the outside temperature was -1'C and the temperature inside the cabin was 3'C. We managed to get the temperature up to 20'C during the night, but after we got to bed the temperature went down, so in the morning I had to make fire again so that I could make coffee for us.
Here's a pic of the fireplace and I took a pic when R2 was preparing some burgers for us (while the fire is burning, we can put a kettle on top of the stove to boil some water to make instant coffee 'coz there's no electricity there so we can only make instant coffee):
Before leaving the cabin, I took these two pics below: the car windshield and a view of outside from inside the car (with the frosty windshield). Very bleak, eh? But my mood was at least so romantic and relaxed ha ha...
After the cabin trip, we bought a cake from a supermarket and visited my MIL. And now we're enjoying a LOOOONNNGGG weekend together. YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!! Wish you all a blessed, fun-filled weekend as well! :-D
Last year I was skeptical with the whole idea of peace on earth. This year I'm not thinking about global peace, but more about inner peace and touching the lives of those near us. If I try to think of the possibility of global peace, I feel daunted and discouraged, but if I focus on inner peace and trying to uphold peace at work, in my household, in my daily life, I feel that it's something achievable.
Lately I've been reading Jean Vanier's books and they've struck many chords within me. Thus it's no surprise that my peace globe is inspired by one of his quotes. :-D
Vanier talked and wrote a lot about pain, brokenness, suffering and recognizing them within ourselves. Here let me quote something else that he wrote:
As we approach people in pain, they reveal to us our pain and brokenness. We are not an elite. We need help. We need the help of Jesus and of sister and brothers in community; we need to talk to wise, listening, and compassionate hearts who can help us to assume all that is broken within us and to find wholeness. We become free when we accept ourselves as we are, cry out for help, and use wisely all that we are to build peace. (A Rebel for Peace, page 134-5)
So let's join hands together for peace...one ripple at a time...one step at a time...in this vast ocean of life...:-D
1. Cutting nails right after shower, when the nails are still moist and soft. :-D
2.Good nail cutters.
3. A customer says she misses me whenever I'm not around. That's SO sweet of her to say that! :-D
4. Hubby gave me an early wedding anniversary gift: Wii Zumba complete with the belt. I tried it twice already hi hi hi...FUN! :-D
5. Bought these cheap, warm boots (15 Euros) for myself ---> self-pampering very early birthday gift (if I had waited until my bday, they'd have all been gone) ha ha ha ha ha...
6. This Thursday we'll be having our 5th wedding anniversary. Can't believe it's been 5 years already since we said our vows!!! THANKFUL for all the years we've been together and hoping for many more years to come he he...
7. This weekend we'll celebrate our wedding anniversary by going to the cabin again. WOOOHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! :-D Can't wait!!!
8. Mimicking hubby's silly expressions and words and poses and making him laugh. :-D
9. A friend asked for my opinion and I feel happy that she trusted me enough to ask for my opinion.
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).
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?
