Arts and Crafts

Over the last year I’ve had this urge to DO stuff. Like arts and crafts, or sewing or something sort of creative. Trouble is I’ve got very low self-esteem and don’t really see myself as a creative person, but perhaps that’s just lack of trying.

There used to be a time when I’d write a lot. You know, in my teens, but perhaps that was just what every teenager does to try to deal with all the angst and horribilities (yes, I know that’s not a word) of life. And writing definitely helped me get over that heartbreaking event of getting dumped out of the blue and out in the open. Over time I just sort of stopped writing, perhaps it was partly due to more school work and writing essays and things that killed any aspirations to write in my spare time. There is a certain lack of imagination as well though, I’d always draw inspiration from my own life or dreams and there are only so many stories about teenage drama one can write. I’ve never been one to keep a diary either. There have been livejournals and different blogs and many actual diaries, but for some reason I’ve never been one to deal with my daily emotions in a way that would’ve kept me writing in diaries.

Around the same time as I wrote a lot, I also very much enjoyed sewing and knitting things. Sewing especially would mostly happen at school where there was proper equipment and good advice on offer. I never got along with my mum’s old Singer (that’s a sewing machine for those of you in the dark) and buying fabric always seemed so expensive that I’d rather spend my money on other things. I’ve knitted quite a few pairs of socks and gloves in my time though. I find knitting to be a nice thing you can do whilst doing other things, mainly watching TV or movies. That’s something I ventured in last year. I decided to knit a scarf for the boy. It turned out alright, but I completely miscalculated how much work it actually was, probably because of the lack of practice. It had easily been five years since I had last held the knitting needles. After finishing it (it didn’t turn out to be as long as I wanted it to but I ran out of time) I was so tired of knitting that I didn’t want to take up another project. And I still haven’t.

Regardless, here’s a photo of the finished scarf modeled by the boy himself.

Also, look at that featured on the Sartorialist blog a few months after I’d done the scarf. Uncanny, isn’t it?
Since this post is going all over the place anyway, here’s a little quote from the boy too, in relation to the above linked Sartorialist post. Just because I find it funny.

‘i have no idea how these people are sartorialist worthy

this is just like

me

but with a silly knot for the scarf’

During my IB times I sort of re-invented myself and was pretty active in school plays and happenings. I suppose after going through middle school in the shadow of my wildly more popular and beautiful BFF I felt the need to be out there, loud, noticed and liked. I pretty much managed to do that too. Kitchen psychology aside, I managed to channel my need to create into different school projects, some that I enjoyed far more than others. There was also a short lived covers band, that was in all honestly totally rubbish. Still, things were done and creative needs were pretty much satisfied.

Enter university, where everything ends. The start of university was a weird time. I moved away from everyone I knew to another country and had to learn to rely on myself and myself alone in life. Suddenly there was no time for anything other than studying, drinking or msn. Although, the first year or two at university I did write a heck of a lot, but most of it would be on msn and the rest would be split between livejournal and essays. Hardly anything was made up. I watched a lot more films than I’d ever watched before, though. Suddenly I knew people with amazing DVD libraries and interest in film. I’d always been interested in film but with the excuse of lack of money (such as with most things in life) never got into cinema in the way I would’ve liked to. So I caught up on loads of films, went to the cinema nearly weekly and I suppose watching other people’s art sort of made up for not creating anything myself.

I still thought about doing things myself and one Christmas brought back my knitting needles from Finland but it never led to actual knitting. I also bought a badge making machine with a friend but that never led to anything on my part. I did make a couple of cards and presents to people, but nothing much. However, I suppose I sort of channeled that creative energy to cooking. One of the good things that come from living on your own, or even with other people is that you get to choose what you eat. And unless you’re cooking with someone, you don’t need to restrict yourself with other people’s tastes. I was pretty content whilst at uni anyway, perhaps because free time was sort of limited and when there was any spare time, something would always be on.

As a little taster of what I did do whilst at university, here’s a birthday video me and the boy made for our friend John. (I do take about third of the credit for this, even though the boy did all the filming and editing etc.) It’s a million times better with sound, but you know how youtube is with copyrights. It also shows yours truly making a photo album for another friend who actually happens to share a birthday with John. Look at me doing things!



The whole point of this post originally was that I wanted to share with you that I feel the need to create things. I suppose it’s a combination of being unemployed at the moment and also being in England. I’m most comfortable with myself when in England and I suppose that sort of frees up emotional space for wanting to do things. Or something. And now I’ll go off on a tangent.

Once I got over the first shock of moving to another country I’ve pretty much always felt happiest and most happy with myself in England. There was a conversation with some friends once about re-inventing oneself and how that often happens when you go to university and how it’s important that it happens and so on. During that conversation I maintained that because I changed schools between middle school and the IB I didn’t have to re-invent myself anymore when I came to university. But I did, or at least I grew to be me. And still, there’s a difference between me in Finnish and me in English. I tie it to the language I speak, not necessarily to the physical surroundings.

This post feels like one big side-track. ANYWAY, after I made the Lego ring featured in a post some time ago I got very excited and realised I could actually do things. I have also recently started reading Philippa Rice’s magnificient webcomic My Cardboard Life and it’s made me wonder why couldn’t I do something like that. And there is no reason. I won’t do my own comic, but it has made me realise that there are a lot of possibilities in the world of arts and crafts and I really should start doing things. Step one will be getting over that money excuse. Step two will be creating things. I’ll keep updating the blog with things if I do end up making something. Perhaps I’ll need to change the header of the blog to ‘Whining and Dining and Making’. Maybe not just yet though.

Puzzles!

First things first. I am now in London, don’t know for how long, but the main thing is that I am now in London. I’m relying on nice people to let me stay at their houses and am looking for work like crazy. I don’t think I’m lying if I say that in the last couple of days I’ve made more applications than in the last six months altogether (which is still not that much...). There have been all sorts of personal issues going on and I haven’t been doing the things I should have been doing, but obviously this situation at least works for my job hunting will. It's all a bit puzzling. Harhar.

In other news, I do have a job for myself in Finland starting in January, but if I’m able to find something better here I will stay.

Right, the reason I’m writing this is that earlier this autumn, or I suppose it was more like late summer, my mum bought a jigsaw puzzle. Actually, it was bought as a present to my uncle, who has his birthday in November. Mum figured it’d be best to buy it early since she found it and loved it and just in case they’d sell out before the actual birthday it’d be good to get it early. And of course, to be honest, we really wanted to have a go at it too.

So a couple of days after the puzzle had arrived in our house, we decided it wouldn’t be at all wrong to do it before giving it to my uncle. Really, we’d be doing him a favour checking that all the pieces are there etc. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and it’s black and white. Yeah, black and white. It sounded like a really good idea until we started doing it. This is what it looked like after two weeks and about 20 hours of puzzle making time after.

These are most of the pieces left at this stage. They’re all just black. Or white.

Doesn’t that look like fun. Anyway, it doesn’t look as grim anymore. The sky is all done, finally. Now it’s just a matter of fitting all the black pieces in. And I’m not there doing it anymore. As I am in London. The puzzle is in Finland. However, my dad retired last week so he can step up now and help mum with it. It’s a pretty damn cool puzzle regardless.

The One With the Lego Ring

Hola comrades!

Now, I was invited to a birthday party. And I really wanted to get the birthday girl something, but didn’t really know what and didn’t really have much money to spend either. I’d been eyeing different lego jewelry etc. at boutiques and on people and I figured, that’s a good idea! But I didn’t have the funds to go looking for that kind of stuff anywhere so I figured I’d do it myself.

And so I did.

In hindsight, considering the person I was giving it to a necklace would’ve been a better choise, but I opted for a ring. Partly because I figured it’d be easier to make and partly because when I set out to do it I wasn’t sure if I’d do it with a block or with a person.

Now, the end product would’ve been a bit better had I had the funds to invest in a hot glue gun, but I didn’t so had to find an alternate way of doing it, so I used a base meant for pearl rings. The base has lots of little holes so that you can tie things on it and so I choked the Lego man (GIRL) with fishing line and tied another string around it’s pelvis and behold, I made a Lego dude ring!

Here are some photees. First, the awesome box I made myself with the helpful advice found on the internets.

I was really happy to find this Lego person, although it's supposedly a guy, I changed it's hair to a more girly style I found at home and now the colour at least matches with the girl's I got this for. The camera is also very like her, I thought, and the shoulder bag completes the package.

The photos aren't of the best quality, but I didn't have much time to take them and I'm not the best photographer ever. I'm also way too lazy to try to do any paint.net magic on them. I'll add one more that sort of shows what it looks like on a finger. This is me holding it though and it's on my little finger because I didn't want to stretch the size before giving it. It may also give you an idea of how I tied it to the base. In case that's something you're interested in.

... and we're back! Again.

This whole blogging thing is getting more and more sporadic. It doesn't help that my laptop is pretty much dead and I need to rely on other computers to do my stuff on. It's never the same when it's not yours, is it.

I have done a lot of cooking and baking and things over the past year, as I've lived with my parents I've had access to their better than average kitchen and my budget for food has also been a bit better. Although, I'd say one of the highlights of my food year was a Sunday roast cooked at the boy's flat. My first ever roast (beef) and my first ever roast potatoes (homemade, that is). I think it came out pretty well, and it tasted nice and all, even though I believe me and the boy did have some differences of opinion on how pink the meat can be. Still, I think we both agreed it was a nice meal.

I also found a new love in risotto. I have enjoyed risotto cooked for me in the past but have always been way too intimidated (for reasons that now completely escape me) to try making one myself. My first attempt was a variation of a lemon risotto with crab meat, prawns and peas. Whilst it didn't taste amazing (the crab meat was tinned and didn't really taste of anything but salty water) it was a good start and since I've pretty regularly treated myself and some other to the niceness that is risotto.

Here's a photo for you of the first ever risotto. Not a good one, but I assure you it did taste nicer than it looks.

There have been some disasters too, like the time I decided to make rasberry and white chocolate muffins, and whilst they tasted nice, they didn't resemble anything close to muffins in appearance. You know, I say disasters, but I can't really think of any others than those muffins.

There was a time earlier this summer, I can't remember why, but I was home alone and decided to treat myself to something supernice to nibble on whilst watching tv. I went to the supermarket with not much of an idea of what I'd like and as I strolled around I found they had barbecued chicken on offer so I bought that and nachos. Behold, the ultimate nachos!

It was a rather perfect mix of nachos, cheese (I think it was Edam, which was not the best choice), salsa, cheese salsa, chicken and sour cream. The only thing missing were jalapenos, which would've completed the amazingness of it all.

In other news, there aren't many. I'm trying to sort out my life and I think for the first time ever, I'm completely unsure where I'll be in the next month let alone next few months. One thing's for sure though, I have got to move out. I'd like it to be London where I'll move to, but at the moment it seems like it might just be the city here. Hmm. Town.

I'll try to get back on track with this blog. I'd love to do more food postings and I've done a lot of food I've thought about making a post here on, but then have lacked the photos and time or something. Excuses they all are. But thanks for reading anyway. Don't get rid of me on your feed reader just yet, this place isn't completely dead.

The one with not much awhine.

[Foreword: If you're into drinking games, I suggest you have a drink whenever I say 'Christmas' in this post. I do it a lot. And I don't feel like editing now.]

Yo yo yo!

There are like SO MANY blog posts that need to be written but I'm a LAZY ASS blogger so you can wait for them forever. Well, maybe not forever but for a long time. I've been making loads of nice foods now that I'm living at my parents house and have unlimited access to their kitchen, which while may not be perfect, is pretty damn much closer to perfect than any of the kitchens I've been cooking at for the past 4 years. (Such a LONG time!!)

Anyway, this post might as well be called 'Why I DO kind of like Finland' because it's not about whining at all. For the past week it's been cold. Like down to -15C cold, and it has been awesome. It would only be more awesome if the boy was here to cuddle up to, but I'm not going to whine. I can wrap up in flannel and lambswool (courtesy of Uni Qlo from my recent trip to see the boy, which was awesome btw) and I've got woolly socks too! Whilst these things obviously can't substitute the boy, they make life a wee bit better and the cold weather awesome.


Perhaps because of the actual wintry weather, I'm also sort of looking forward to Christmas (and I'm not going to mention here how much I'd like to spend Christmas with the boy because I'm sure it's self-evident). This hasn't really happened in the last few years and I'm sure as the days go by and it gets closer to the 24th I'll start feeling suitably annoyed and moody about yet another one of these parties which stopped being fun the moment I got younger cousins and stopped getting the biggest load of presents and made further worse with the realisation that most of the presents really don't matter as the person receiving them won't show any gratitude unless it's something they had specifically wished for. Nevermind if you spend a lot of time and effort in coming up with a really great personal gift for someone. (There's the whine!)

To get back to business I am actually looking forward to Christmas this year and in my futile attempt to make Christmas eve and the present giving (and opening) situation slightly better and enjoyable I've decided to help myself. In a flash of shopping mania I bought myself a Christmas present and as opposed to the usual (ie. saying it's a Christmas present for me, taking it home and instantly consuming whatever it is) I wrapped it up as soon as I got home and put it in the Santa's bag to wait to be handed to me by Mr. Claus himself.

This Christmas I also got the best present from the boy, which was handed to me on the 1st of December as I was there at his place then. It was originally sort of unwrapped and we both opened our presents there and then and have been reading our things (I got him a comic and he got me a comic) but I decided to wrap my present (as in his present to me) up too so that I can be mega happy unwrapping my presents on Christmas eve. Here's a picture of the wrapped present too. If you're interested after Christmas I can tell you what it was. I can tell you it's awesome though.

Merry Christmas to you all! Hope you'll be having a lot of fun in good company and that it isn't stressful or anything like that.

Why I don't like Finland, pt. II

Part deux is here for you already! Can you imagine.

The other thing I don't like here is people. I mean I like being close to my family and friends here, they're nice and friendly and all that. But other people I don't like. You know, just randomers you come accross on the street. I will obviously generalise here but I hope you'll forgive me (if there's anybody out there reading anyway).

What I found odd when moving to London was how lots of people seemed to think that Londoners somehow lacked good manners. I mostly found people in London just as polite as people in Birmingham or Manchester and always more polite than in Finland.

To start off with, people are shit at small talk. That's fair enough and I can't really complain because I don't do small talk either. But if someone leads me I can small talk too. People are also pretty clique-y - breaking into groups of people can be pretty damn hard even if you already know someone in there. Obviously this is the case elsewhere too, but I find that when you're a "stranger" to a group I find them less accomodating here. However, I had a chat with a friend who lives in Helsinki about this, and she said she thinks this might just be a regional defect, not a nationwide thing.

Also, only a handful of people hold the door open for you. Even fewer will say thanks if you do so for them. It's little things like that - a sort of general lack of politeness that makes me miss London. And here's the story that sparked me to start up this series of posts. Are you sitting comfortably? Here goes:

I did a big food shop the other day and obviously forgot one important thing (burger buns, if you must know) because it wasn't on the shopping list. As I'd already left the supermarket I figured I'd just go to a smaller one on my way home, and I did. I found my buns pretty effortlessly in the store (a KKK Supermarket FYI, although I believe they're now just called K Supermarkets). The shop was a bit bigger than your average Aldi or Lidl. I got to the tills and there was only one till open at the time so I joined to queue like a good citizen would. The queue grew bigger though and a lady came to open the next till too. As I made a move towards the newly opened till an older man (I'd say in his fifties) rushed his trolley over from behind me and got into position to start off loading his trolley.

I was slightly baffled and asked him if I could go first since I only had that one bag of buns to pay for (I didn't mention that I was also in the queue before him, because I'm not petty like that) and his response completely blindsighted me. 'No way!' was his answer to me. It completely threw me off, at first I though maybe he was joking but after a short silence he continued saying how he'd waited for so long he wouldn't wait any longer now. (Again, I was in the queue before him so I had actually been waiting for longer than he had.) I was so surprised at his reply that I just didn't know how to react. So I didn't really say anything. And then I felt sorry for the lady (presumably his wife) who was with him. She apologised to me saying how he's such an impatient one etc. etc. And I said to her it's fine, I'm not actually in a hurry, I was just wondering. And she said they're not in a hurry either. Oh well.

I paid for my buns eventually and ended up leaving the parking area before they did anyway, not that it matters. I'm just baffled, because I can't imagine myself ever responding like that if someone asked me if they could go first in a case like that. Even if I was in a hurry and therefore had a good reason of saying no to someone, I'd feel inclined to explain that I'm in a hurry and all that. I've been going through the incident in my head over and over and I just don't understand how someone could be so rude like that. It's not that I couldn't take no for an answer, and like I said I wasn't in a hurry and to be honest I'm not completely sure why I even asked to go first (I think it was probably because he rushed up there from behind me the way he did that made me do it), but I just can't get my head around the way he said no. There.

Now while that was a single incident and obviously could've happened anywhere in the world, it didn't, it happened here and put together with the general lack of politeness around here it is thus added to reasons why I don't like Finland.

Why I don't like Finland, pt. I

So here begins a new series of posts (again, I hope I get to at least pt. II or even III this time around). In case you don't know, I moved back to Finland about a month ago and let me tell you, it has not been easy. First of all the boy is still in London, secondly, I (still) need to look for a job to get me some moneys to allow me to move away from my parents care and, thirdly, it's just not like London here. Or anywhere in the UK for that matter. At least not like the places I've been to.

Right, reasons why I don't like Finland. The first shocker came a week or two into my stay here when I spent Sunday night at my sisters house and got a lift from her to town on Monday morning. She had to be at her work for half seven so we had to leave a bit before 7am and I figured since I don't really need to be at work (I occasionally work at my dad's office) before 8am I could sleep a bit longer, skip breakfast and just get something from a coffee shop before going to the office. We got to town around 7.20 and I began my wander around the centre of the town in search of a place that would serve a sandwich, or croisant to accompany a cup of a hot beverage but it was quickly obvious that no place was open. In the end I found two places that opened at 7.30 but as I walked around I ended up moving closer to the office than those two places and just went into a corner shop that opened at 7.00 and got a juice carton and a croisant. I realise it's a small-ish city I live in (well close to) and there probably isn't a market for early morning breakfasts, but I'm not sure I want to live in a place where I can't get a bloody sandwich in the morning if I want one! If you get me. Anyway, this isn't the thing that sparked me to start this series of posts, but you'll get the other story in the next edition. Stay tuned.

(Sorry this one's a bit rubbish, but I guarantee the next one will be better.)