Words that are spinning in my head

It is starting to become very clear to me that I simply can't blog when I'm in the middle of some inner turmoil. Usually it's because I'm not sure how I should address those deep, unfinished thoughts here on my blog, but as I can't ignore them either and blog about the superficial things in my life, I am left with no other choice than to neglect my blog. Or at least that's how it feels, and of course, it's not entirely true. I could just blog about how I feel. Some of you might wonder why I am going to blog about all of this. Wouldn't it be much easier to blog about how I had a lovely Sunday making and eating sushi with my friends? For some other people, perhaps, for me, not at all. Yes, it's very personal and some people won't like it but hey, it's my blog and I blog for my own pleasure. Not writing makes the words just spin around in my head and not blogging makes me miss my lovely readers. So, I'm going to make myself a cup of tea and try to blog about everything that's going on with me. (you should probably get yourself a cup of your preferred beverage as well, this might get lengthy)

It's almost September, my blog is almost two years old, and I am once again in a position where I have to figure out my next steps. I did not get into university, which, while not surprising with only 25 getting into the program of my choice, was a big disappointment for me. People around me have all been very supportive but I am disappointed. Disappointed in myself, disappointed in the system and disappointed in the world. Still, I don't feel like I failed, even though I threw away the letter bearing the bad news, and not without tearing it into tiny pieces. I did what I could and it didn't work out. This time, at least.

After all the minor and major setbacks in my life I have learnt to move forward. I have come a long way from last year, as this year I have a place of my own and a job to help me support myself. No more living in other people's homes for me. My job also keeps my mind occupied so that when I'm working, I am not thinking about anything else. I also have my friends and family around me and I get to spend time with them regularly. D still isn't here in Finland with me, and it's tough but I'm doing my best to cope.

Coping, however, seems to be a lot harder this time around. One night I can't sleep and I end up mopping the floors at 2 am, the next I could sleep 24/7. Some days I barely eat and my kitchen fills up with dirty tea cups and empty pineapple juice cartons. Then I try to get a hold of myself and I clean up, bake bread, cook and try to eat. Or I wind up seeking solace from the two men I know I can trust: Ben and Jerry. I watch TV for hours, get tired of it and then I clean up the entire apartment, make a dozen lists of how I'm going to be more active and then I get tired of it too and nothing happens.

I don't want my life to be like this. I want my life to be like my Pinterest boards or like life seems to be for those people who have it all. Yet I know that things will never be perfect. Something will always go wrong and things could always be worse. I have a home, I have a job, I have a wonderful man worth waiting for, I have family and friends to keep me going when things seem to go wrong and I know I am lucky or blessed or both to have the difficulties with trying to decide where I'm going to go with my life. Many people don't have the choice and I do. It's just very difficult to see it.

The other night I was watching a documentary film about Grace Kelly and they were showing footage of her being asked about happiness. She replied that she has had many moments of happiness but she doesn't believe that happiness is a permanent state of mind.

If things worked out the way I want, I would win the lottery tonight. 10 million euros (minus the taxes) would make it possible and easy to help myself, my family, and even people I don't even know but need the help. It would all be so easy and while money doesn't make you happy, it enables you to do things that make you happy in a way that you normally can't. In real world, when you are not a millionaire, you have to make sure there is still money left when the month is over and you have to wait and work for things. Yet somehow I think that having all the money wouldn't make me permanently happy either.

Patience. I want to win the lottery and have things handed to me but learning to be patient would probably be more useful. Taking each day as it comes and working towards achieving the things you want. I thought I was getting better at it but it's a struggle not to lose hope. Even though I'd like to keep the three unfit topics (as taught by a certain study counsellor years ago) of sex, politics and religion, out of my blog, I have to say that sometimes I wish I had more faith in God, or the church, or any higher power that might be out there caring for us. As Marx put it, religion is the opium of the people, and while people often view it as a negative thing, there is a lot of comfort in religion and faith. Especially in times like this when the future seems so unsettlingly insecure. (and there I venture into politics... must get a hold of myself!)

I don't know what I want to become when I grow up. I'm going to try and hope that I will get accepted into an university of applied sciences here in Helsinki so that I can start studying journalism this coming January. I do know that I want to be happy. I would like to find out if there is a way to be permanently happy, and if there is no way, I will try to bring more happy moments into my life. Having D around every day would help but I am going to seize this opportunity to find seeds of happiness (as we say in Finland) in other places too. That way I won't have to rely on one person to make me happy. I also won't have to wait for anything to be happy. I can be happy today, if I try. I believe that happiness stems from your own attitude rather than from certain events and things. The challenge lies in being able to stop for a moment and breath in those small things like slow mornings, a nice cup of tea and a rapid flow of words streaming through my fingers. Life can be so hectic and often I forget to stop and remind myself of the little things that are going perfectly well.

To wrap up this rambling post (yay if you made it here!) I'm going to wish you all a very nice Friday. I hope that everything is going well with you all, and now I am going to head to town for a lunch date with Trang. Then I'll be off to work and tomorrow it's time for Erica's '80s themed birthday party. Lots of fun times ahead for me and I'm going to do my very best to let them sink in and work their magic.

Hello there July!

This post is dedicated to my friend Erica who informed me that it was time to get blogging again...

I can not believe it is July already! Only one week to go until D is here again and less than two weeks to go until I get the much awaited letter from the University of Helsinki. Whether it will be a letter of acceptance or rejection is still unknown, all I know that on the 16th of July I will be getting mail. (of course, I will check the results online the very minute it is the 16th but still, I will be getting mail)

Waiting is driving me somewhat crazy. Yesterday I got the letter of rejection from the History department, which was not a big deal. My heart beats for the communications department anyways and considering that the application system for universities and universities of applied sciences is changing next year in favour of those who have yet to get accepted into a school, I was not entirely certain whether or not I should put much effort into a study I don't really want to do. If I had been accepted there, I would've had no other choice but to take the offered position and my dreams of studying communications would have become pretty much unattainable. At least here in Finland.

Good thing there are things like work and friends to keep me on the sane side. These pictures were taken two weeks ago when I was strolling the town with my friend. There are yet no other outfit pictures because last week was spent at work from Monday to Friday and during the weekend I could not be bothered to do any posing. Not to mention that the latest expansion pack to the Sims 3 came out last week so it was perhaps not entirely unexpected that I disappeared from the face of the Earth.

No matter how much I try to avoid thinking about it, July is here, and July will bring me either great things or great disappointments, or more realistically speaking, both. D will be here, we are planning on going to Lapland together, there will be parties with friends and visiting family. Summer-time in Helsinki is amazing, and I will do my very best to enjoy it while it lasts. 

Actually, tomorrow I will go to Suomenlinna with Erica. I haven't been there in over a year, and last year I didn't even visit it during the summer so it's going to be very nice to go there to lie in the sun *knocks on wood* and to hopefully forget all about letters and other grown-up stuff. 

Coincidentally it happens to be the 4th of July tomorrow so I hope all my American readers will make it a great day.

Fit to be fit

I never really liked sports or exercising. Lying in bed with a bowl of ice cream is more my thing. Dancing I do like, walking is okay, cycling goes too, but everything else, meh. The fact that I did not own any sports clothes until today says a lot.

Still, I know I should exercise more, for my own good. Lately I have started taking long brisk walks and exercising a little at home. Squats, lunges, stretching, bedtime yoga and the like. My apartment building also has a free gym for the tenants so I have gone cycling a little more or less every other day. Baby steps. I even have a secret health and fitness board on Pinterest!

Now my friend Trang and her sisters are on a vacation so my friend Erica and I rented their aerobics studio cards. Today we went to our first class and it was not even as bad as I thought it would be. If the studio memberships were not so expensive I think I could turn it into a habit.

It is so much better to have an exercise buddy. Erica lives close to me so we take walks together and now we have each other for motivation. It is so much harder to cancel the plans when there is another person involved.

After the class this morning we went to do a little shopping with Erica. I have given up shopping for the most part but I decided that proper training clothes would be good motivation. I am much less inclined to give up now that I have invested money on this, and now that I can look somewhat cute while exercising. (or at least that's what I keep on telling myself)

Who knows, maybe I will end up buying myself a membership after all, but for now I am going to learn to like exercising.

Even if I only exercise to look good despite of all the ice cream.

Rhubarb

Hey everyone, I hope you weekend went well! I spent mine with my friends, going out on Friday, watching movies on Saturday and just hanging out on Sunday.

Last week I got some rhubarb from my grandmother and on Saturday I made a rhubarb pie. As I did not want to eat rhubarb pie every day, I had to come up with something else to do with the left-over rhubarb. Freezing it would have been an option had it not been for my tiny freezer. Since I also had plenty of limes left over from Friday, I decided to make a small batch of rhubarb jam. I did not quite master the recipe though, a little too much sugar I think, as the end result is somewhat caramel-like. It tastes good but I am still not entirely pleased. Better luck next time.

The rhubarb pie was made using a new recipe, which I did not quite like. I suppose I should have stuck to the recipes used in my family for decades, even if this pie was okay. Okay, but most certainly not spectacular. The recipe asked for too much flour in my opinion and as a result the pie was somewhat dry despite of the rhubarb.

I will definitely have to get some more rhubarb from my grandparents' place, summer is not summer without a proper rhubarb pie. If you have a chance to bake one, you can try my grandmother's recipe:

An old picture from last year

Rhubarb pie

Ingredients:

250 grams of butter

3 dl of sugar

3 eggs

1 dl of rye flour/whole grain wheat flour

5 dl of wheat flour

3 tea spoonfuls of baking powder

1 tea spoonful of ground cardamom

1 tea spoonful of ground ginger

rhubarb finely sliced

jelly sugar

coconut flakes/rolled oats

OR

5 dl of sour cream/Turkish yoghurt

1 dl of sugar

2 eggs

vanilla sugar

OR

butter

sugar

wheat flour

rolled oats

1. Peel and slice the rhubarb

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius

3. Mix the dry ingredients with each other

4. Cream the butter and sugar

5. Add the eggs one by one while continuously mixing

6. Add the dry ingredients into the mix

7. Pour the mix into an oven plate coated with baking paper

8. Add the rhubarb slices and sprinkle some jelly sugar on the top

9. Add the topping of your choice:

a) sprinkle coconut flakes or rolled oats on the top

b) mix all the ingredients and pour over the rhubarbs

c) turn the butter, sugar, wheat flour and rolled oats into a crumble and sprinkle over the rhubarbs

10. 30-40 minutes in the oven

11. Serve with vanilla sauce or ice cream

A touch of green

I am not the biggest fan of nature, as anyone who knows me a little better can tell you. I do enjoy the seaside and flowers are pretty but plants and bugs and all that just creeps me out.

Yet, I do like my little herb garden. Coriander/cilantro, rucola, basil and spinach. I had a slightly smaller herb garden earlier but unfortunately they got infested by fruit flies so I decided to get rid of them. Poor things.

The plants I mean. Fruit flies can stay out of my apartment if you ask me.

Today I decided to give gardening another go after my grandmother bought me these charming little pots while we were shopping for a rug for my apartment.

Can't wait to see the first signs of green. I will definitely post pictures of my little plant babies as they grow.

Do you have your own little garden too?