24. December

Christmas eve with 9 people at the table! I think it is new record. We had a very nice evening!

23. Dcember

We are in Trondheim! My home town!

21. and 22. December

These days were used to travelling. When looking back, so much happened in these two days it felt like four. Work, home, traffic in Helsinki centrum, drive on board a ship, watch a show, drive off in Sweden and do my first ever alcohol-test from the police in the harbor, drive from Stockholm to Trondheim in 14.5 hours....

Some pictures to tell the tale:

20. December

PHEW!
We are leaving for holiday tomorrow!!!!!!
And I did some gift-shopping, packing, driving in queue, packing, cleaning. All this typical "last-minute-before-leaving" kind of things.

Although I did actually have time for getting amused and a bit annoyed at this product.... A complete package for all your needs of five-day fasting. HÖ? you need a bunch of stuff to eat while not eating? And its supposed to "freshen you up"??? I have probably a million things to say about a crap product like this, but then again. kinda in a hurry to do other things more fun/important....

19. December

It is 2 days till we are on our way to Norway. I can't really believe it, since this means that it is also christmas soon. Here it is rain, dark, and no christmas feeling at all. And to top it off, I have become stressed about the journey, which makes me mis-calulate everything. I seem to believe that time either moves very fast, or very slow.
So, today's picture is then to show the randomness that can come from stress. Item found in a discount-type-store. Scythe approved by vikings. Must be worth the 1€ it cost!

15. 16. 17. and 18. December

It seems to be so that with exams two Fridays in a row, the Christmas calendar have to wait on the sideline.

Well, here is my four days in a bunch.
Thursday 15. december.
Salary! Gift shopping! Gift planning! Haircut! Alas, there has to be limits of the time spent to this, as there is an exam the next day. But I got to go to Toys r'us and the hairdresser, where I got the longest head massage in ages. Everyone should have one of these around christmas time. No picture of the hairdo yet.

Friday 16. December.
Exam! Plenty of writing, a zumba lesson and plenty of writing more. I hope I get a good grade, because this I felt good about delivering. A whole lot of good came out from taking that 15 credits course in anatomy and physiology last spring. This exam today was mainly about the human digestive and endocrine system, with the angle towards nutrients.


Saturday 17. December.
We go celebrate Mattis birthday. I learn again that I suck at pool, and that Janne is expert. A fun evening where we actually danced to mid- ninety's hits in a bar. OMG.

Sunday 18. December.
Gift wrapping, gift delivering and receiving. The cat helped again this year of course. I have pondered about next weeks travel, and mused about how the weather will be.... I really hope the wind is quiet when we are on the boat....

14. December

One day before salary, two days till the next take-at-home exam. So, quite busy still with the reading. I guess it's just as well that its now, so I have the money and time to go shopping afterwards! Can't wait till its over for now. How is it that deadlines from more courses than one end up on the same week always.... Ant that its those deadlines you cant avoid this "last minute feeling" by planning your reading/writing in advance....hmh!

We got christmas cards in the mail! Here's one! Thank you Laura!

13. December

In Scandinavia this is the day of st.Lucia. I am unsure, however, why this patroness saint of Eyesight or Blindness (of all things..) has become so traditional and popular a festival here where its basically strictly protestant church through the history of christianity in this region. There are no saints in protestantism?

Besides, the whole saint-things are quite disturbing. This girl was brutally tortured by boiling oil and other popular torture-tech with no result, so they cut out her eyes and killed her. The saint is portrayed with holding her eyes on a plate in front of her.
Nice Swedish/Scandinavian christmas tradition ... The modern version is that she brings light, (the name is derived from Lux =modern measure of light strength...) yellow and weird shaped buns and has a white dress with a wide red belt. She traditionally even has blond hair and is supposed to help people. In other words, not so much to do with a sicilian girl tortured in the 300 AD. Other than maybe the red symbolizes blood, the weird shaped buns are... the eyes on display??
I've never understood these saints things. And very much less so, when I have learned more about what they actually got to their status of sainthood for....

However, today I got some lemons from a coworker that had bought them in Egypt! They look more like paled limes, but the locals had said and reassured that "this was lemons!" Long traveled food! Which smells extremely good, almost like citrus candies. They are going in my tea tonight. I love this kind of culinary treats! Thank you Anne =)

12. December

As this day (and several more of them to come...) revolves around nutrition, food and energy intake, I figured a picture of my cats eating habits would be fitting. We have wondered at times if she is supposed to be a pig.

Study, study, study! Four days till next exam!  Nutrition physiology FTW! yeee..

11. December

When I wrote " 'nuff said" under the ring photo of 10th Christmas calendar day, I lied. I do want to say something else about our engagement.
Janne had really put effort into this day. It was luxury and lovely and total win. First we went to a packed movie theater, where we watched "Tower heist". Quite funny movie I think and fitting little hint for what was to happen later. After we had dinner in a very classy seafood restaurant (and believe me, these are hard to find in Finland. The ones that can really do the fish and from fresh ingredients!). Rivoli. If ever in Helsinki, try it! It's like walking into another dimension or timeline. The world of rain and modern stuff is left at the door, where you will be served as a VIP from the first moment.

Janne had snails for apertizer, where I had green salad with parmesan slices. I tried one of the snails, despite my moment of almost freaking, I mean... it IS snails we are talking about! Slugs! But it was quite good, texture almost like mushrooms, with good marinade.
I had eaten almost a bag of licorice in the movie before and felt a bit sticky and full... so the salads vinaigrette was a good help for what were to come for the rest of the meal. It woke up the appetite, exactly as starters are supposed to do, haha.
I had Alaskan king crab! It was extremely good, and also very hard not to start playing with the food, because of the big claw and the amount of tools that I had in front of me. I have never eaten this before yesterday, and found it well worth the try! Texture more like meat than fish or other crustaceans, and a rich but mild taste. I didn't even use the provided dill butter much (and I usually eat much sauce and dressings and the like).
For dessert a fantastic masterpiece of raspberry creme bruleè with hand made raspberry ice cream, which really gave this übersweet dessert the acidity and freshness that lifted it to the maximum.
The staff in this place was supreme professionals. I have rarely seen waitresses that are 50-60 years old, PLUS being a complete pro and following all the rules and laws of serving others. Much appreciation from us!

Well out in the real world again, where the rain and wind had ceased, Janne asked if we should go for a glass of wine together, before we left town. Sure, sounds great, I agreed. After some hundred meters of walking, Janne pointing out all of the other restaurants he was thinking about or actually having a table reservation at, just in case, he told me he had a surprise. And if I wanted to know it now or later. The surprise was huge. The glass of wine that we were going to take was waiting for us in a hotel suite that was reserved for us in Hotelli Torni (= hoel tower. Big attraction hotel in the centre of Helsinki, the one that always blinks like glitter in the top spire).... I couldn't really believe it at first. But there we were. Mini suite and the wine tested, me giggling because of the surprise and because Janne had fixed with essential needs of over night stuff, there was one surprise more, he said. Kneeling with velvet box in hand, although I had my suspicions already, I'm happy it was true!

I have been proposed to in the classic romantic fashion, and I loved it! Nobody has ever done such an effort and romantics for me. *love*
It became a little novel, but so be it. 10.12.11 is going to be remembered as the day where cheeks got cramps for all the smiling and laughing, and because of my beautiful fiance.

Oh and my phone died of battery-loss in a very timely fashion, but got some poor-quality restaurant pictures to share!

10. December

'nuff said :D

7. 8. and 9. December

I just had to bulk-post these, as the last part of this week got a bit filled up with technical problems(new motherboard, ram and no functioning card-reader + internets fancy to turn on and off at will), preparations for exam, and the actual exam. So now we have it here!

7. December:
Day filled with reading, reading, reading.
This is not my actual study-table, but wouldn't it be fun if it were? Instead I have several 1000+ pages books and online lectures.

8. December:
Arne Alligator visited my workplace and held a concert for the kids! Thank you to the helpful and kind people that helped finance it! It was majorly popular for both kids and us bigger kids (="adults"). Oh and my phones camera sucks, hence the poor quality.

9. December:
I have a take-at-home-exam, straight after work. It was about immunology and food intolerance and allergies, so the fitting image of a evil looking snake from this summers visit to the zoo seems appropriate? (as no pictures of a write-frenzied Lisa was taken).

6. December

Today Finns celebrate their independence day. Most of them nursing a colorful hangover...

Me, however, have used my day off work to study prions and antimocribial peptides, been to a lecture online and gotten restless feet. And apparently, its fully acceptable to wait 1.5 hrs for two lukewarm pizzas to be delivered to your home (even if the kitchen making them are situated not 500 m from here), without any cut in price. Food hygene and quality customer service on its best.

And in the spirit of the day, I picked a picture with fitting theme in the colours. This prettyness was on my car roof the other day, natures wonders of beauty in crystalised water.

5: December

Read any blogs lately where you sit back with envy and astonishment at their cleverness, creativity, imaginative creations and a whole lot of "aaargh if only I had the time to do all this!! Do they even do a honest days work, that takes up most of their days!??" ??

This is to show how I believe "normal" people do all of their fancy design work. Or, it's to tell about what took place before the showing off the supreme results that makes everyone want to envy those before mentioned bloggers.

September 2009; there is a sale in Bauhaus, I get a clever idea about a very pretty wall-sticker I found.
October 2009; the idea takes form, and has most of what is needed to create it. The search for a frame-less, large-enough wall clock starts.
End of October 2009: the perfect clockwork was found and bought.

Suddenly, Christmas gifts has to be shopped and shipped. New year come and go, and the clock has been put to a cabinet, we study and life goes on.

July 2010: I start renovating and painting another room, and gain interest for a whole lot of other projects (result 1, result 2)
August 2010: "Why don't we also put that clock on the wall, now when we have so much action on the interior front" my boyfriend asks. "good idea" is my answer.
...

About a year later, the clock is finally on the wall.

And let me just teach you something from this experience: Don't let wall-stickers with this amount of detail sit in a closet too long. The HÄSSÄKKÄ to put it up is enormous. The glue is old, sticky and leaves chunks of paper where it shouldn't be. And all this time the whole project has been consisting of TWO parts: sticker+clock (*embarrassment*)

Result is pretty, and without this whole story, most people would have the reaction that I get sometimes when I read about other peoples nice looking creations on their blog.

4. December

...got delayed!

Because of this:

3. December

The smell of Christmas has come to the house. We have made piparkakkuja, gingerbread cookies, pepperkaker, brunekager, and all of the dear names that a loved cookie carry. I sneaked at least ten in the process of them being cooled enough. They are best when hot, and made together with small friends that are excited about the Christmas which is getting ever closer.

This weekend we have our once-a-month boys present, and for the first time in soon to be a year with this sometimes weekend parenting I crashed (and slept for who knows how long?) on the sofa while reading, the boys were playing games.
Could have been all the noise and people that we endured while we were in Barona arena, checking out zillions of free stuff, toys, pizzas and child-friendly activities. Fun, free, play and nicely arranged everything made this a good one to go to (although the youngest one got a bit shy and nervous at first with all the hundreds of peeps). 

2. December

Christmas calendar is a little delayed, but better than never. This picture was taken some weeks ago, when we drove back from Kotka on father's day. We made a pit-stop in the little town Loviisa, to see if we could get a look at the nuclear power plant that is there. Since Janne hasn't seen one of those before (and has been living with nuclear power all of his life...), we figured since it was on the way home.....

We never found it. But we found these lovely little bath-houses in stead. Looks like a Tardis-meeting (if they were a little darker blue....)

And yes, it is supposed to be winter here, but the grass is green and no snow is in sight.

1. December

Today there were many children waking up early for the big event: the Christmas calendar. I don't have one, so I figured that I'd make one instead. A picture a day.

Can I succeed? Well, if one does not shoot the goals up high, one can only achieve modest results..
Behind door number one sits a confused season....

 We have had frost, warmth, frost, warmth. on and on.
This morning the temperature showed -4C. When I walked home at 14, the temperature was warm enough to make trees believe it was the time to shoot some leaves.